Young People and Politics in the UK
Kierra Box
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
David Marsh, Therese O'Toole and Su JonesPalgrave MacmillanISBN 0230 0013 1950
![Cover of Young People and Politics in the UK](/media/134714/reviewpoliticsthumbjpg-350x250.jpg?&width=780&quality=60)
The combined membership of British political parties is less than two-thirds of that of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Election turnout is falling and political apathy is rife. Yet the conclusion of this book is in marked contrast to this - young people do care. They just engage in different ways to those defined as formally "political".
I wish someone had given me the funding used for this research to run a youth project. But, then again, it is reassuring to have anecdotal experiences and personal understandings of the world confirmed in an academic source. The quotations from the young people interviewed make for interesting and sometimes uncomfortable reading, especially in terms of their pessimistic views of the state and their life chances.
This is an academic text, and it attempts to compensate by offering detailed introductions to the structure of the book as a whole and to each chapter, but this leads to a lot of repetition and I'd advise skimming over anything that gives you deja vu. Equally, I'd recommend skipping the first chapter if you have no interest in the ideology behind social participation or have anything more than a GCSE in sociology.
Despite these faults, the book offers an interesting look at traditional sociological perspectives and modern research and it reinforces what everyone working with young people should believe anyway: there is hope in the passion and commitment of young people to local, concrete change and new forms of political action.
- Reviewed by Kierra Box, founder, Hands Up!, www.handsupfor.org.