Doing Democracy

This book presents the results of a collaborative research project through which our team completed a multisite ethnographic fieldwork in seven Quebec civil society organizations. We observed, analyzed and compared a diversity of innovative citizenship education practices aimed at young people in these “third places” of citizenship education, i.e. spaces of socialization different from school and family. Theoretically, the book offers an in-depth analysis of children’s and teenagers’ citizenship, as well as of educational discourses on democratic citizenship.

Focusing on the presentation of case studies, the book reveals the diversity of formative experiences offered to young Quebecers. The pooling of case analyses leads to a fruitful reflection on education for democratic citizenship through a plurality of citizen experimentation practices rooted in the defense of children’s rights, feminist social action, the community movement, alterglobalism and municipal and school public action.

With its original conceptual vocabulary and qualitative methodological approach, this book will help to push back the geolinguistic and disciplinary boundaries that often separate research currents closely or remotely related to the social and political engagement and participation of young people. Written in an accessible style, it is aimed at a wide audience, including youth organization staff, graduate students, the youth policy sector and anyone interested in the issues surrounding youth citizenship in the 21st century.