The Martlet

Political engagement among youth, or lack thereof, was a key theme at the Democracy and Participation Symposium hosted by UVic’s Department of Political Science on April 28 and 29.

The Symposium began with an event that brought together high school students and academics to discuss how to get youth more engaged in politics.Effective Civics education emerged as a key element.

Brandt Bitterlich and Heather Cliffords, Grade 12 students at Lambrick Park Secondary School, went to the event because they are interested in politics and plan on studying Political Science at UVic in September But they said that most students at Lambrick have no interest in politics, and expressed frustration at the lack of civics education at their school.

“They don’t really teach it a lot in school,” said Cliffords. “And when they do teach it – politics and stuff – it’s kind of boring and no one likes learning about it. They don’t really make it engaging.”

“Our [Social Studies] teacher made us learn the whole Canadian government, and so on, on our own,” said Bitterlich. “He didn’t even bother teaching it last year.”

Istvan Sitar, a teacher at Reynolds Secondary School, brought his Civics 11 class to the event. Reynolds students can choose between Civics 11, which covers government, politics and current events, and Social Studies 11, which has more of a historical focus.

According to the Reynolds course selection guide, “The aim of Civics 11 is to enhance students’ awareness of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and of political life around them in a democratic society.” Sitar said he tries to teach his Civics 11 class in an engaging way by having regular discussions and debates on current events and issues that concern students, and then relating what’s discussed to the structure and function of governments.

“By using some of those current events, [students] engage and say, ‘Oh, that affects me. OK, I am interested in that,’” said Sitar.

Sitar’s 16- and 17-year-old students said that Civics 11 has increased their interest in politics.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said student Hola Mercedes. “Our first unit was about government, and it was really interesting. We took a trip to the Legislature.”

“After taking Civics, if there’s an election happening I’ll be more interested in it,” said Colin Crawford.

“I think if people weren’t going to vote before, after Civics they will,” said Lucy Bartlett.

The Reynolds students strongly favour lowering the voting age to 16. The issues that concern them most are B.C.'s low minimum wage and the high cost of post-secondary education.

If they reduced the voting age and a bunch of young people voted, then [politicians] would be like, 'OK . if these people are going to vote now then we're going to pay attention to them, and we're going talk about things they care about,' said Crawford.

Austria, Brazil and Ecuador, among other countries, have a voting age of 16.

The Symposium also featured a talk by Taylor Gunn, founder of Student Vote, a non-profit that organizes parallel elections in schools during official elections.

In the last federal election, Student Vote helped roughly a third of Canadian schools run parallel elections, with over 500,000 elementary and high school students casting ballots.

“We want to see this happen every election, so through the course of a school career, for a student, voting becomes normal,” said Gunn.

Gunn said teachers tell him that Student Vote “increases students’ interest, knowledge, sense of civic duty, and causes dialogue.”

Another Symposium event featured former Liberal MP Stephen Owen, who said that young people are not being properly engaged.

“We do have to worry about the next generation,” said Owen. “But it’s not apathy; it’s being left out of their conversation, which will dominate politics and will certainly characterize the way we participate as a citizenry in both electing people to governments, but also to participating in a broader governance dynamic.”

He noted how successful President Obama’s 2008 campaign was in engaging and mobilizing young people using targeted language, new technologies and social media.

“Social media, and younger generations … are going to actually dominate public conversation and public decision making,” said Owen. “Within the next decade I think [older generations] are not going to even recognize the type of public discourse that feeds the public imperatives that actually get things done. … I think it’s going to be going right over [the] heads of the current political leadership. So I have great hope for the future.”