How are young Australians learning about politics at school?: The student perspective

Journal article

Ghazarian, Zareh, Laughland-Booy, Jacqueline, De Lazzari, Chiara and Skrbis, Zlatko. (2020). How are young Australians learning about politics at school?: The student perspective. Journal of Applied Youth Studies. 3(3), pp. 193-208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43151-020-00011-7
AuthorsGhazarian, Zareh, Laughland-Booy, Jacqueline, De Lazzari, Chiara and Skrbis, Zlatko
Abstract

In order to confidently participate in the democratic process, citizens from liberal democracies require knowledge about how their nation’s system of politics and government functions. For the past 30 years, successive Australian governments have endeavoured to educate school students about the political system via a civics and citizenship curriculum. Despite this, official data suggests that current approaches may not be providing young Australians with the level of understanding they require to be active and informed citizens. In this paper, we present a study of Australian school leavers who were interviewed about the civics and citizenship education they received while at school. The first-hand experiences of these young people have enabled us to highlight potential problems with how the curriculum is being delivered and identify ways of improving the political knowledge of young people.

Keywordscivics and citizenship; political knowledge; young people; first-time voters; Australia
Year2020
JournalJournal of Applied Youth Studies
Journal citation3 (3), pp. 193-208
PublisherSpringer
ISSN2204-9193
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/s43151-020-00011-7
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85124461479
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range193-208
Publisher's version
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All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online13 Jul 2020
Publication process dates
Accepted25 Jun 2020
Deposited23 Mar 2022
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