Journal of Social Work Education and Practice, Volume 5; Issue 2, 01/04/2020

Political participation and active citizenship in Spain: An analysis of youth, participatory culture and their social network​

Patricia Fernandez de Castro 1, ​Orlanda Díaz García 2, ​David Alonso González​ 3
1 Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, Talavera de la Reina, Spain 
3 Faculty of Social work, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT: The new socio-political and economic context sponsored by globalization, the revaluation of particular political interests, linked more with specific problems than with the great left and right ideologies of traditional political organizations and the increase and/or the visibility of the inequalities supported by certain social groups have brought about a substantial change regarding how citizenship can be exercised actively from political action. Young people currently live in a participatory structure in which various forms of political participation are combined, on individual occasions, in other collective cases, and exercised both from within the political system and from public administration as well as outside it. Through the exploitation of data from official statistical sources, the present work shows how the political participation of young Spaniards is, their participatory culture and how they deploy their social network with the objective of exercising political action, incorporating a comparative analysis of the population between 18 and 24 years of age concerning the population as a whole, as well as a gender perspective analysis of the issue.
 
Keywords: political participation, citizenship, youth, participatory culture, social network.

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