Styles and spaces of youth participation in Europe: an educational challenge

The increasing electoral abstention and the crisis of the identification with traditional political parties are a clear sign of youth participation’s decline in the conventional forms of politics. Nevertheless, alternative styles of engagement are growing among the younger generations in the European countries. These new forms of participation, which could be located on the border between the public and private space, express anyway the desire of a more direct democracy. This article, based on the intermediate findings of the European project Spaces and Styles of Participation, aims to analyze the different ways in which young people (15-30 years old) participate in the decisions concerning them and the life of their communities in eight countries: Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom with a special focus on the educational debate on this topic.