Yesterday, CIRCLE met with a delegation of 10 students and youth leaders from various universities in Egypt to explore the significance of political and civic engagement of youth in the U.S., and to examine the roles of schools and civic organization in fostering political and civic engagement of youth leaders.  Several topics were discussed during this conversation, but a few main questions came out of the conversation that are applicable to both the US and Egyptian context (many of which don’t have answers and need more research).

• What terminologies make civic engagement marketable to youth? Many of these young leaders from Egypt expressed that it was necessary for them to sell the idea of civic engagement, especially in post-revolution and rebuilding stages, to citizens who are not as involved in the community and political process.  We’ve learned from research that people respond differently to language around civic engagement. In the United States, for instance, the term “service” can mean different things to different people.  For organizing and outreach purposes, it is important to recognize these differences and to tailor language and terminologies around the specific populations.

• Do the internet, social media and online networks act as a true second public sphere? And can we use the internet to sustain a movement? Many of the students explained that in Egypt’s case, the conversation about a potential revolution was happening face-to-face before it spread to the online world. However, it is recognized that the online sphere created a space for many of these young people to voice their opinion while still having some anonymity. One question that was posed was related to the post-revolution, and whether this tight-knit online citizenry will continue along with the changes in Egypt and the development of a new government. We know from research that young people are using the internet as a vehicle for making change, as we saw in Egypt, but whether it can continue to be the ONLY vehicle is yet to be seen. We know from our research with young marginalized youth that face to face contact is still important to engaging them.

• What strategies are there if government structures do not support full participation by the public? We know from several examples that grassroots organizing can eventually have a larger impact. In the case of Egypt, we have a good reason to believe that in some cases, the peer-to-peer network can have a significant impact, even in a political system that may not be participatory. The change can even be to the point of changing the governance structures entirely. Local knowledge and expertise in this work would be especially helpful for future research.

• How do you build a citizen infrastructure of volunteers when culturally, volunteerism is not prioritized? Many of the young leaders from Egypt we spoke to found significant differences in how volunteerism is valued in the United States. For instance, we find that civic skills are often the same as those used in a professional setting, and therefore many people in the United States are able to cite volunteer experiences on their resume – a standard that was not the same in Egypt. We know from research that volunteerism is both good for the well-being of the community and for the people that partake in it. With this in mind, if enough stakeholders are on board with this concept, it could be that the perception of volunteerism can change as a whole.

–Surbhi Godsay

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2011 at 9:17 am and is filed under CIRCLE Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.