The Complex Ecology of Young People’s Community Engagement and the Call for Civic Pedagogues

This paper focuses upon the community engagement of young peoplegrowing up in socio-economically disadvantaged areas and the creation ofapt civic learning spaces. It is in direct response to public policy within theUK, as in many other democratic countries, giving continued attention tohow young people’s active citizenship can be best supported. As aconsequence of processes of globalisation, social change and technologicaladvancement it is being increasingly recognised that young citizens faceunprecedented challenges in the 21st century. At the same time youngpeople growing up within areas of socio-economic disadvantage arecommonly identified as being most at risk of social exclusion anddiscouragement with regard to their civic participation.This paper draws from the EngagED project, a two-year study based inEngland that used a mixed methods research approach to explore the civicaction and learning of young people living in both inner city and rural areasof socio-economic disadvantage. It presents an eco-systemic model of thehost of factors and agencies that influence young people’s civic identity andpatterns of community engagement. It outlines two new civic learningspaces that were created in response to these complex ecologies and fromthese experiments in ‘pre-figurative practice’ proposes a set of keyprinciples for the effective civic pedagogue. This radical notion of the civiceducator moves away from educational strategies that seek to ‘transform’young people into good future citizens, towards finding personalised waysof supporting young people ‘as’ citizens.