Lived Citizenship and Political Participation among Young People
Summary
Lived citizenship among young people encompasses the ways in which adolescents and young adults negotiate rights, responsibilities and belonging through everyday practices, social networks and digital platforms. Far from being passive recipients of civic education, young citizens today draw on diverse registers—environmental activism, community mapping projects, online campaigns and diaspora networks—to articulate political subjectivities and contest established power relations. Scholarship has shifted from viewing youth as future adults to recognising them as active agents who enact citizenship in the here and now, blending formal participation (voting, institutional membership) with informal modes (social media engagement, place-based initiatives, grassroots organising). The intersection of spatial, environmental and digital registers reveals how young people contest spatial inequalities, mobilise climate justice narratives and reframe local concerns as global challenges. Educational interventions, from collaborative mapping in urban peripheries to citizen-science curricula, demonstrate practical applications that deepen civic competencies and foster lasting attachments to community well-being. Across diverse political regimes, from established democracies to more constrained settings, young people’s lived experiences of belonging and dissent illuminate the shifting contours of contemporary citizenship and signal new pathways for inclusive and participatory governance.
Research from Nature Portfolio
No recent Nature Portfolio content available.
Lived Citizenship and Political Participation among Young People publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in lived citizenship and political participation among young people across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Lived citizenship: the enactment of rights, responsibilities and belonging through everyday practices and social interactions.
Political participation: activities through which individuals engage with, influence or contest public decision-making processes.
Everyday citizenship: routine actions and interactions in daily life that shape and reflect one’s civic identity and community belonging.
Spatial citizenship: the capacity to understand and engage critically with the socio-spatial dimensions of one’s community.
Digital citizenship: the utilisation of digital platforms and tools for civic engagement, political dialogue and collective action.
References
- Youth citizenship: Expanding conceptions of the young citizen. Geography Compass (2022).
- Cultivating spatial citizenship through collaborative mapping: an empirical study on youth engagement in peripheral urban Ecuador. Cogent Education (2024).
- Youth environmental citizenship formation: Struggled political subjectivities and everyday experiences of young people in Turkey. Children & Society (2023).
- Building the Bridge to a Participatory Citizenship: Curricular Integration of Communal Environmental Issues in School Projects Supported by the Internet of Things. Sensors (2023).
- Transnational lived citizenship turns local: Covid‐19 and Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora in Nairobi. Global Networks (2022).
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.