Cultures of youth participation: the case of border regions in Portugal

Abstract

This article seeks to portray the cultures of participation of young people in secondary education and residing in border regions in mainland Portugal. These regions are, in general, marked by economic, social and cultural inequalities which translate into fewer opportunities of educational supply, employment and spaces for participation. From a sociology of youth perspective, data from a questionnaire applied to 3968 young people in 38 municipalities is analysed with the aim of mapping youth participation and discussing proposals for other forms of participation to which they have less access. The results point to some differences between sexes and social class, revealing that they get involved more in sporting activities and less in activities of political and civic participation. We conclude that the contexts analysed here have a lesser diversity of supply of spaces for participation, which translates into a lower involvement of young people. This work points to the pertinence of equating participation models centred on young people and led by them. This work contributes to an analysis of the spectrum of youth participation in less studied contexts, such as rural and border regions.

Keywords
youth; participation; border regions; rural regions; youth cultures