Is conventional Political Participation An Indicator of Youth Civic Engagement?

Abstract

Although civic engagement is a multidimensional concept, the low participation of youth in conventional politics is often interpreted as an indicator of low civic engagement. This study questions the centrality of conventional political participation as the main indicator of civic engagement, and assesses whether attention to conventional politics is an indicator of civic engagement among young people. Findings of a logistic regression analysis on a sample of young Chileans (N = 390) classified as: (a) political (N = 279) and (b) apolitical (N = 111) indicated that conventional political participation predicts membership to the political and local participation to the apolitical group. Levels of tolerance, civic competencies, participation in nonconventional politics did not predict group membership. Findings indicate that conventional political participation is not the main indicator of civic engagement, and suggest the need to advance multidimensional models civic engagement beyond conventional politics.