Civic Competence of Youth in Europe: Measuring Cross National Variation Through the Creation of a Composite Indicator

Cohort differences in the development of civic engagement during adolescence

Investigating whether changing societal circumstances have altered the development of civic engagement, this study compared developmental changes from mid- to late adolescence (i.e., age 15-18) across two cohorts of representative Swiss samples (born in1991, N = 1258, M_{age T1}  = 15.30, 54% female, 33% migration background representing diverse ethnicities; born in 2000, N = 930, M_{age T1}  = 15.32, 51% female; 33% migration background). Findings from latent multigroup models revealed similar levels in attitudes about social justice in both cohorts, remaining stable over time. Adolescents reported lower levels of political efficacy and informal helping in the cohort born in 2000. Both aspects slightly increased during adolescence. Informal helping had a steeper increase in the 1991 compared to the 2000 cohort, suggesting developmental differences between cohorts.

Civic Competencies During Adolescence: Longitudinal Associations with Sympathy in Childhood

Civic competencies are essential prerequisites for adolescents' active citizenship; however, little is known about their developmental precursors. In order to address this research gap, this study examined the role of sympathy in late childhood, early, and mid adolescence for civic competencies in mid and late adolescence. Based on a representative sample of 1118 Swiss children (51% females, M_{age T1} = 9.26, SD_ageT1 = 0.20, range_ageT1: 8.50-9.67-years), this study investigated associations of sympathy with four components of civic competence: attitudes about social justice, informal helping, perceived efficacy to take responsibility and perceived political efficacy. The findings revealed that sympathy in late childhood (i.e., age 9) reflected an early predictor of all four components of civic competence assessed 6 years later. Moreover, sympathy in early adolescence (i.e., age 12) positively predicted attitudes about social justice and informal helping in late adolescence (i.e., age 18). Lastly, changes in sympathy from mid to late adolescence (i.e., age 15 to 18) positively correlated with changes in all four components of civic competence. This study highlights that civic competencies reflect a multidimensional construct that starts to form in late childhood, with sympathy being a central individual predictor in the emergence of civic competencies during adolescence.

Civic and Political Engagement in Youth

Abstract. This paper reviews the research that has been conducted into youth civic and political engagement since 2010. We begin by noting the claim that youth are not sufficiently engaged either civically or politically. We argue that this claim is probably incorrect: rather than using conventional forms of political participation, youth today are often engaged through nonconventional and civic means instead. We also indicate at the outset some important cautions about the interpretation of research findings in this field, in particular the need to consider the kinds of political issues with which youth are involved, the moments in time at which they are involved, and the societal contexts in which their involvement occurs. We argue that these specificities mean that it might be difficult or even impossible to construct a unified model or comprehensive understanding of youth civic and political engagement. The review then considers recent research findings on the role of micro-, meso-, and macro-level factors in influencing youth engagement. Micro-level factors include political interest, efficacy, ideologies, values, and identity; meso-level factors include the family, school, peers, and the neighborhood; while macro-level factors include political-cultural, economic, legal, and institutional factors. We also review recent findings on the role of young people’s demographic positioning, the effects that social media might be playing in transforming youth engagement, and how political parties can actively mobilize youth. We conclude that young people are far from being apathetic and uninterested in politics, but that they need to find ways to be involved that are meaningful to them. We also indicate some possible future lines of research that could be profitably pursued.

Vulnerability of global food production to extreme climatic events

It is known that the frequency, intensity or duration of the extreme climatic events have been changing substantially. The ultimate goal of this study was to identify current vulnerabilities of global primary food production against extreme climatic events, and to discuss potential entry points for adaptation planning by means of an explorative vulnerability analysis. Outcomes of this analysis were demonstrated as a composite index where 118 country performances in maintaining safety of food production were compared and ranked against climate change. In order to better interpret the results, cluster analysis technique was used as a tool to group the countries based on their vulnerability index (VI) scores. Results suggested that one sixth of the countries analyzed were subject to high level of exposure (0.45-1), one third to high to very high level of sensitivity (0.41-1) and low to moderate level of adaptive capacity (0-0.59). Proper adaptation strategies for reducing the microbial and chemical contamination of food products, soil and waters on the field were proposed. Finally, availability of data on food safety management systems and occurrence of foodborne outbreaks with global coverage were proposed as key factors for improving the robustness of future vulnerability assessments.