Have schools done enough to politically engage their students?
Throughout my years of education, I cannot remember once being taught about politics or how to vote. For some this may come as a shock, but to my fellow local Church of England secondary school goer’s this does not seem too out of the ordinary. Similar to many students in my area, I had not had much of an interest in politics until I entered post-16 education and was able to seek out information on my own. Due to a lack of interest in and access to politics for families with a lower socioeconomic background, it is evident that students with lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to be politically engaged when of voting age (Janmaat & Hoskins, 2019); but how are schools tackling this?
Since 2002, schools have introduced different forms of citizenship education to encourage students to maintain an interest in politics (Keating, Kerr, Benton, Mindy, & Lopes, 2010). These range from developing the classroom structure to allow for more informed and accepting debates to more intense classroom teachings of democracy and voting. Similarly, schools also have the opportunity to engage students in pretend elections such as School Council, demonstrated in the photo below. These citizenship teachings gave disadvantaged children, who are unlikely to be taught at home, an opportunity to understand politics as well as building on skills that other, more privileged students may have had access to from an earlier age. So why is this not enough? During the 2017 UK election, around 15 years after the introduction of Citizenship education, the lowest voter turnout in terms of social group were young people (aged between 18-34) who were either unemployed or in unskilled/semi-skilled labour roles at a shocking 35%, followed by young people in skilled manual labour roles at 49% (Janmaat & Hoskins, 2019). In comparison, “all other social groups according to gender, age, social class and ethnicity” had a voter turnout of more than 50% (Janmaat & Hoskins, 2019). Evidently, a lack of education post-16 has been the largest culprit for students sharing limited interest in the political system.
So, why are those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds still not interested in politics despite being given the tools to understand it themselves? This is likely due to the differences in home lives among students. Students with a higher socioeconomic background are more likely to understand the political system already through the knowledge their parents have whereas, students from a lower socioeconomic background are less likely to have parents that understand the political system themselves (Janmaat & Hoskins, 2019). As a result of these backgrounds, certain students are able to take on the citizenship teachings more appropriately and be able to respond better to this form of education, likely leading to a career in politics compared to students of a lower social class. From my own experience, I preferred to avoid class discussions about politics as I had always lacked enough knowledge to be able to contribute to these discussions myself. In tandem, my mother, from a working-class background, preferred not to vote and didn’t understand the political system so preferred to keep out of it. This is very common among working class families who either don’t receive the information to understand politics at a young age or don’t want to understand politics. In parallel, politicians from working class backgrounds are becoming scarcer and politics as a whole will eventually be dominated by the middle-class (UCL, 2018) as a result of political disengagement from young people.
Crucially, we must ask ourselves: is it too late to improve on voter turnout among lower socioeconomic groups?
Never!
There are always ways to adapt and improve what we know already to benefit our future generation of politicians. Particular theorists have discussed the idea of enforcing compulsory voting to encourage members of all social groups to have a larger interest in politics. I know what you’re thinking, COMPULSORY voting would surely limit the expression of political identity? Liang makes sense of this, suggesting that those with the lowest voter turnout are likely limited in voting due to their socioeconomic obstacles (Liang, 2015). By ensuring that voting is compulsory, the obstacles faced by those in the working-class (where voter turnout Is lowest) are no longer present, hopefully increasing voter turnout. Another improvement to be made could be to make citizenship teachings compulsory until the age of 18 rather than 16. This would likely encourage the younger generation to have more of an in-depth understanding of their role in society and the necessity of voting. Finally, the most crucial change to make would be to teach young people that their vote matters and that elections are relevant to them (Baston & Ritchie, 2004)!
Bibliography
Baston, L., & Ritchie, K. (2004). Turning out or turning off? London: Electoral Reform Society.
Janmaat, J. G., & Hoskins, B. (2019). Education, Democracy and Inequality: Political Engagement and Citizenship Education in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Keating, A., Kerr, D., Benton, T., Mindy, E., & Lopes, J. (2010). Citizenship education in England 2001-2010: young people’s practices and prospects for the future: the eigth and final report from the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS). London: Department for Education.
Liang, C. (2015, April 9). Political disengagement and socioeconomic inequality: the case for compulsory voting. Retrieved from 99 percent Campaign: http://www.99percentcampaign.org/blog/2015/04/09/political-disengagement-and-socioeconomic-inequality-the-case-for-compulsory-voting/
UCL. (2018, July 30). Decline in working class politicians, shifted Labour towards right wing policy. Retrieved from UCL News: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2018/jul/decline-working-class-politicians-shifted-labour-towards-right-wing-policy
Hi Talia,
Your blog was really interesting to read as I was able to relate to you in some aspects. You’re right, there isn’t nearly enough being done by schools to encourage political participation – especially in sixth form where political engagement is most crucial as voting begins at 18. I was fortunate enough to do Politics as an A-level and it was a shock to me that many of my friends weren’t educated in political candidates, political parties, elections etc.. I think making voting compulsory will scare of young votes as they’ll feel like they’re obliged to vote to avoid getting in trouble rather than taking the time to consciously make the decision to educate themselves, then vote. What are your thoughts on making voting compulsory? Unfortunately, I feel like the government have placed these troubles on us for not normalizing those in working classes being involved in politics. We’ve placed stereotypes on what ‘political candidates’ are so I feel like as well as using citizenship classes to educate the youth about politics, we should work on breaking these stigma’s down. If educating the youth in schools hasn’t shown a drastic change in youth political participation, do you think we should focus on a student’s self-esteem? For instance, making their vote feel like it matters can help them feel more inclined and motivated to independently educate themselves on politics, and even go for as voting for themselves.
Thanks for your comment! I completely agree with you about the lack of encouragement to engage in politics in A-Levels espescially as they are where students go before being able to vote! I definitely didn’t receive any information about politics in a-levels and it made me feel very unprepared for when it was my turn to vote. I agree that making the vote compulsory may scare off younger voters, however the idea to make registration compulsory seems more realistic. It doesn’t force people to vote but let’s them know a little bit more about the political process etc. I also agree with you that politics is tailored towards the higher classes and alienates the working class, so a step forward would definitely be to change the political processes to be more inclusive to everyone! Thank you again for your comment, this has been a very interesting conversation :).