Young Citizens Participation

Abstract

A growing body of literature from different disciplines addresses concepts and measurement of citizenship. The present article seeks to contribute to this field by examining the issue of youth citizenship from a comparative international perspective and proposing a simplified conceptual model that can be operationalized. This model includes a community dimension, which refers to individual’s relationship with their community associations, and a civic dimension, concerning institutional processes such as voting and/or political activism. The model was tested using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and measurement equivalence for eighth-grade students (n = 139.875) across 38 countries that participated in the International Civic and Citizenship Study (2009). Our results find support for the proposed conceptual model and its invariance across countries, and we discuss the implications for theory and further research.

Keywords

measurement invariance citizenship participation civic engagement measurement development

Introduction

Participation in the public sphere is a cornerstone of citizenship in modern democratic systems, ranging from liberal conceptions of democracy based on voting to more diverse current forms of participation (della Porta, 2013). Nevertheless, the increasing diversification of citizen participation repertoires, particularly in the last decade, presents new challenges for understanding changing participation patterns (van Deth, 2001) in light of certain paradoxical characteristics. That paradox refers, on one hand, by decline in participation and disaffected attitudes regarding the electoral process and partisan membership, and on the other, by the emergence of newer forms of political activity as contentious participation or involvement in different types of social movements (Dalton, 2008; Ekman & Amnå, 2012; Putnam, 2001; Stolle & Hooghe, 2005; Wattenberg, 2009). These changing patterns of participation demand wider conceptual models of citizen participation as well as new approaches to operationalization and measurement (Albacete, 2014; Amnå, Ekström, Kerr, & Stattin, 2009; Ekman & Amnå, 2012; Fox, 2014; Hooghe, Hosch-Dayican, & van Deth, 2014; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016; Turner, 1990; van Deth, 2014).

New forms of participation are particularly salient in the case of young populations (Albacete, 2014; Hay, 2007; Marien, Hooghe, & Quintelier, 2010), whose lack of participation along traditional lines (such as voting) is becoming a global issue for the future functioning of current democratic systems (Abendschön, 2013; Albacete, 2014; Cox & Castillo, 2015; van Deth, Abendschön, & Vollmar, 2011). The upcoming generational replacement has led social scientists as well as national and international agencies to prioritize understanding of political behavior among younger cohorts (Amnå et al., 2009; Blais & Rubenson, 2013; Flanagan & Levine, 2010; Flanagan & Sherrod, 1998; Gidengil, Wass, & Valaste, 2016; Hooghe, 2004; Keating, 2014; McIntosh & Youniss, 2010; Niemi & Hepburn, 1995; Quintelier, 2015). However, current approaches fail to link theoretical conceptualization of youth citizen participation to empirical measurement, as they focus mainly on adult population and the increasing complexity of participation turn the prospects of operationalization and measurement an increasing endeavor (Ekman & Amnå, 2012; Hoskins & Mascherini, 2009; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016; van Deth, 2001, 2014). Attending to this situation, the present article attempts to develop a simplified framework for studying youth citizen participation both conceptually and empirically. The analysis is informed by two research questions:

Research Question 1: What are the main dimensions of a broad concept of young citizens’ participation?

Research Question 2: How can this concept of youth citizen participation be comparably measured?

In short, this is a conceptual and methodological proposal for the measurement of young citizens’ participation and its comparability across countries.

The article aims to contribute to current research on comparative youth citizen participation in three main respects. First, by proposing a conceptual model of youth citizen participation that integrates current developments into comprehensive frameworks based on adult and youth populations. Second, the conceptual framework is operationalized with confirmatory measure to ensure its valid application to different contexts through measurement equivalence procedures (Davidov, Meuleman, Cieciuch, Schmidt, & Billiet, 2014; Millsap & Meredith, 2007; Millsap & Yun-Tein, 2004). And third, by using existing international publicly available data which means researchers from different countries can use this research tool. The data include the Civic Education Study (CIVED; applied in 1998), the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS; applied in 2009), and the forthcoming ICCS 2016, all of them implemented by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). These studies measure civic knowledge, attitudes, and citizenship behavior in countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Toward a Young Citizens Participation Model

From the middle of the last century, there have been different approaches for the understanding of citizen participation. Van Deth (2001) distinguished several stages in this process. The main focus during the 1940s and 1950s was on voting, but by the 1970s, citizens were already exploring alternative modes of involvement in the public sphere, including unconventional forms of participation. From the 1990s onward, conceptual frameworks have generally encompassed “‘civil’ activities such as volunteering and social engagement” (van Deth, 2001, p. 6), and nowadays, it is also common to find references to online activities (Bennett, Wells, & Rank, 2009; Li & Marsh, 2008; Oser, Hooghe, & Marien, 2013; Theocharis, 2015; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016). Nevertheless, as the online dimension is something that emerged recently, it remain less well incorporated in the available data of international comparative studies of youth participation, for that reason we restrict our definition to what is now sometimes called as “offline participation.”

In recent years, new and diverse forms of participation have continued to emerge, making this phenomenon more difficult to understand in any precise or parsimonious way (Hooghe et al., 2014; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016; van Deth, 2001, 2014). At present, the list of citizen participation activities is very extensive; the most common items include voting, party membership, protest, boycotting, contacting media, contacting authorities, political discussions, volunteering, donation, and community group membership. Based on these diverse activities, scholars interpellate available conceptual models of citizenship to generate newer taxonomies (Fox, 2014; Reichert, 2016; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Carpini, 2006) that take account of these different forms of citizen participation. These include conventional political participation, formal political participation, unconventional political participation, political protest, public voice, contentious politics, creative participation, consumerism participation, civic engagement, and social participation and/or community participation (Micheletti & McFarland, 2015; Putnam, 2001; Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016; Stolle, Hooghe, & Micheletti, 2005; Stolle & Micheletti, 2013; van Deth, 2001, 2014; Verba, Nie, & Kim, 1978).

In addressing the challenges of defining and studying participation, some scholars have adopted a broader perspective, using conceptual frameworks that look beyond the use of voting or party membership as key indicators (Ekman & Amnå, 2012; Hoskins, 2006; Hoskins, Janmaat, & Villalba, 2012; Hoskins, Villalba, & Saisana, 2012; Norris, 2011; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016; Topf, 1998; Zukin et al., 2006). In pursuing a minimal version of forms of participation on the basis of the extant literature, two major groups can be identified: those that include the term “political,” and those labeled “civil,” “social,” or “community.” Here, we will argue that one way of grouping these within a single framework is to combine definitions that distinguish between traditional political participation and other types into a wider concept of citizen participation. For present purposes, we understand citizen participation as an umbrella term that encompasses diverse forms of active participation ranging from traditional voting to political activism and community activities.

One widely accepted conception of political participation refers to activities that influence political decisions, related to government and/or the selection of representatives (van Deth, 2001; Verba et al., 1978). Accordingly, we take political participation to refer to a spectrum of political activity that includes voting turnout, party membership, and protest. In line with this approach, a predominant conception of traditional political participation in international educational studies is linked to the concept of civic education, which “focuses on knowledge and understanding of formal institutions and processes of civic life (such as voting in elections)” (Schulz, Fraillon, Ainley, Losito, & Kerr, 2008, p. 22). Traditionally, definitions of political and/or civic participation have excluded forms of participation oriented to community activities and civil or social associations, which were understood as nonpolitical in a traditional way. On the contrary, the concept of civic engagement, and the diffuse concepts of social and community participation have tended to exclude traditional political/voting participation forms (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). However, as noted by Ekman and Amnå (2012), more recent definitions of both political participation and civic engagement have sought to encompass almost every type of participation, making them too wide to inform empirical research on citizenship behavior.

In this context, one useful concept is the idea of active citizenship, defined by Hoskins and Kerr as “participation in civil society, community, and/or political life, characterized by mutual respect and non-violence and in accordance with human rights and democracy” (2012, p. 12). Other definitions have emphasized duty-based and engaged citizenship (Dalton, 2015), highlighting social concern for the welfare of others beyond formal political roles. Similarly, Zukin et al. (2006) identified conventional activities, community activities, and public voice (i.e., protest or contacting representatives) as aspects of engagement in public life. In the same vein, educational research is moving toward a wider conception of citizenship that “focuses on knowledge and understanding and on opportunities for participation and engagement in both civic and civil society. It is concerned with the wider range of ways that citizens use to interact with and shape their communities and societies” (Schulz et al., 2008, p. 22). Therefore, modern conceptions of citizen participation encompass both civic participation (as traditional political participation), and participation in civil society and the community as a political behavior.

The conceptual model proposed here follows Ekman and Amnå (2012) and Schulz et al. (Schulz et al., 2016; Schulz et al., 2008), who organized a wide range of activities along two main dimensions, which we call community and civic participation. The community dimension of participation refers to voluntary and personal activities such as improving local community conditions, charity work, or simply helping others. Such activities are not located or targeted to the sphere of government, state, or politics, but are politically relevant because they address collective or community problems (van Deth, 2014). The civic dimension of participation was described in the citizenship education framework developed by Schulz et al. (2016, Schulz et al., 2008), which is widely understood as referring to “all actions directed towards influencing governmental decisions and political outcomes” (Ekman & Amnå, 2012, p. 289) or as Schulz et al. (2016) put it, “refers to the principles, mechanisms, and processes of decision making, participation, governance, and legislative control” (p. 15). Within this dimension, we distinguish two subdimensions: the formal participation (the classic way of understanding citizenship situated in the political system as voting or party membership) and activism (which seeks to influence government or politics through unconventional, informal, or extra-parliamentary modes of participation, such as protests).

The proposed conceptual model of civic-community youth citizenship offers several advantages in terms of parsimony. First, it positions modes of participation such as formal–informal or conventional–unconventional as civic, based on the general idea that such activities seek to influence government or political outcomes. Second, it positions participation in civil society as community participation, referring to community-based or face-to-face activities. In this sense, the proposed model of civic and community participation allows the main methods of participation in civil society and participation that influences the political system to be more accurately distinguished. We argue that both are constitutive of citizenship and that bringing both under one umbrella makes it possible to construct a more parsimonious account of youth participation.

Operationalizing Youth Citizen Participation

Even more than in adult population, the lack of comprehensive framework capturing the diversity of young people’s participation repertoires clearly limits the scope of empirical research. Typically, description and measurement of citizen participation have depended on a set of questions to quantify electoral turnout, rates of demonstration attendance, and/or rates of political party membership (van Deth, 2014). However, in the case of young people of school going age, one obvious problem is that they are not yet formally recognized as citizens; specifically, they have no voting rights, and they do not share adults’ options for participation. Nevertheless, students can manifest their intent to participate in the future and they can also participate in demonstrations or voluntary groups.

To address the issue of measurement, then, indicators of participation can be used as a proxy for community and civic participation (formal and activist). On that basis, we also consider another axis that has to date been largely neglected in research on youth participation: reported student participation at school and intended participation on entering adult life (Quintelier & Blais, 2015). The combination of reported/intended participation and community/civic participation (with subdimensions formal/activist) produces a 3 × 2 conceptual matrix for analyzing students’ citizen participation. Table 1 summarizes the different types of participation identified by this approach: reported community, formal, and activist participation, and intention to participate in community, formal, and activist modes in adult life. Identification of these six types of participation facilitates measurement and comparison of youth citizen participation.

Table 1.

Hypothetical Citizen Participation Types.

	Community	Civic
	Participation	Formal participation	Activist participation
Intended	Intended community participation	Intended formal participation	Intended activist participation
Reported	Reported community participation	Reported formal participation	Reported activist participation

Measurement and Equivalence

In existing empirical research on citizen participation, two types of study can be identified. Person-centered studies attempt to classify individuals into distinct groups, using techniques such as cluster analysis or latent class analysis (see, for instance, Alvarez, Levin, & Nuñez, 2017; Hooghe & Oser, 2015; Oser, 2017; Oser et al.,2013; Reichert, 2016). This person-centered approach has attracted increasing attention over the last decade as a means of identifying types of citizen. The second approach is variable-oriented, seeking to capture and measure citizen participation and its dimensions using such techniques as exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; see, for instance, Talò & Mannarini, 2014; Theocharis & van Deth, 2016). Given present purposes—that is, to identify the main dimensions of citizen participation—the variable-oriented approach was considered appropriate.

The dimensions of citizen participation are hypothetical constructs that cannot be directly observed; strictly, then, they are latent variables and should be measured accordingly (Albacete, 2014; Bollen, 2002; Quaranta, 2015). Latent variables are estimated on the basis of a set of observable indicators—that is, the hypothetical underlying constructs are captured by scales constructed using statistical techniques such as CFA (Bollen, 2002; Hoyle, 2014), an extended analytical strategy commonly used for such purposes.

In developing measures of social concepts, one of the main challenges is meaningful comparability (Davidov et al., 2014; Millsap & Meredith, 2007). In the case of international surveys, respondents speak different languages and are born and socialized in different socioeconomic, sociocultural, and sociopolitical contexts and conditions. For this reason, it becomes necessary to use techniques developed specifically to assess the target concepts and their comparability across divergent populations. In the last decade, social science research has utilized a set of statistical techniques that facilitate evaluation of comparability measurements (Davidov et al., 2014). Among these, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) is widely used to assess measurement comparability, technically referred to as measurement invariance (Millsap, 2011) or measurement equivalence.

Within this framework, comparability is evaluated sequentially at different invariance levels. The basic level, configural invariance, assumes that, in all groups, latent variables entail the same indicator variables, and it is expected that the same latent model structure applies to all research population groups. This level of invariance confirms the same structure but “does not warrant any between-group comparison of the construct the latent variable represents” (Beaujean, 2014, p. 59). The next level is metric (or weak) invariance, which is considered the minimal condition for comparing the relation between latent variables and observed variables across groups, and assumes that factor loadings are the same across groups (Beaujean, 2014; Davidov et al., 2014; Desa, 2014, 2016). Scalar (or strong) invariance assumes that intercepts or thresholds (for categorical variables) are the same across groups. This allows for valid comparison of the levels of latent variables among groups, as well as comparison of the relation of latent factors to observed variables, as in correlation or regression coefficients. Although it is possible to establish the strict invariance level that tests equality of error variance across groups, the scalar level of invariance suffices for meaningful comparison of group means (Beaujean, 2014; Davidov, 2009).

Within this conceptual and technical framework, the general hypothesis tested here regarding measurement is that the latent variables of the civic and civil dimensions of youth citizen participation can be confirmed and validly compared across countries.

Data, Variables, and Methods

The data come from the ICCS 2009, a comparative project coordinated by the IEA. A stratified, multistage random sample of eighth-grade students was selected from schools in 38 countries. In the first stage, around 150 schools were drawn in each country. In the second stage, at least one whole class was selected from each school, with all the students in the classes participating in the study. The country samples are representative of the entire population of eighth graders in each country (Schulz et al., 2008). Table 2 shows the distribution of students per country.

Table 2.

Participants for Each Country.

Country	n
Austria	3,368
Belgium-Flemish	2,966
Bulgaria	3,248
Chile	5,182
Chinese Taipei	5,153
Colombia	6,194
Cyprus	3,145
Czech Republic	4,626
Denmark	4,374
Dominican Republic	4,536
England	2,900
Estonia	2,724
Finland	3,297
Greece	3,139
Guatemala	3,998
Hong Kong SAR	2,821
Indonesia	5,038
Ireland	3,348
Italy	3,363
Korea	5,250
Latvia	2,744
Liechtenstein	356
Lithuania	3,896
Luxembourg	4,817
Malta	2,138
Mexico	6,567
Netherlands	1,917
New Zealand	3,930
Norway	2,983
Paraguay	3,382
Poland	3,247
Russian Federation	4,294
Slovak Republic	2,968
Slovenia	3,060
Spain	3,293
Sweden	3,432
Switzerland	2,918
Thailand	5,263

To handle the missing data, we used the full information maximum likelihood (FIML) method available in the software Mplus 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 2015). This procedure allows for the inclusion of any case containing information for any variables included in the analyses. The final sample consisted of 139,875 students in 5,369 schools from 38 countries.

The variables used as indicators for the dimensions are related to the students’ community and civic (formal and activist) participation, both in a future-intended sense as well as in their current lives. Table 3 shows the items and answers for each type of participation.

Table 3.

Set of Indicators Used to Measure the Types of Participation.

	Community participation	Formal participation	Activist participation
Intended . . .
a. Listed below are different actions that you as a young person could take during the next few years. What do you expect that you will do? b. Listed below are different ways adults can take an active part in political life. When you are an adult, what do you think you will do? c. There are many different ways how citizens may protest against things that they believe are wrong. Would you take part in any of the following forms of protest in the future? Response scale: 1. I will certainly not do this 2. I will probably not do this 3. I will probably do this 4. I will certainly do this	• Volunteer time to help people in the (local community) • Talk to others about your views on political and social issues • Contribute to an online discussion forum about social and political issues • Join an organization for a political or social cause	• Vote in local elections • Vote in national elections • Get information about candidates before voting in an election	• Write a letter to a newspaper • Contacting an (elected representative) • Taking part in a peaceful march or rally • Collecting signatures for a petition
Reported . . .
a. Have you ever got involved in the activities of any of the following organizations, clubs, or groups? b. At school, have you ever done any of the following activities? Response scale: 1. No, I have never done this 2. Yes, I have done this but more than a year ago 3. Yes, I have done this within the last 12 months	• A youth organization • An environmental organization • A voluntary group doing something to help the community • An organization collecting money for a social cause • A cultural organization based on ethnicity • A religious group	• Voting for (class representative) or (school parliament) • Taking part in decision making about how the school is run • Becoming a candidate for class representative or school parliament

As there were not indicators for the reported activist participation in the ICCS 2009 data set, this participation type was not estimated in the measurement model.

Methods of Analysis

CFA, multigroup CFA, and invariance tests were used to perform the analysis. Given the nested design of samples, estimates were specified to take account of complex sample design and sampling weights (Schulz, Ainley, & Fraillon, 2011). First, CFA was used to estimate the latent model for each country (Davidov, 2009). To evaluate the goodness of fit for each model, chi-square testing was used as a first approach. Because of the sensitivity of this indicator to sample size, three other indicators were also used: comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). According to the criteria proposed by Brown (2006), the RMSEA cutoff point should be ≤.06. In the case of CFI and TLI, the suggested criterion is closer to .95 or greater, although “CFI and TLI values in the range of .90–.95 may be indicative of acceptable model fit” (Brown, 2006, p. 87). Second, the multigroup CFA estimates the fit of community-civic measurement model assuming ordered variables. This kind of analysis permits the evaluation of scale configuration in the different countries using Weighted Least Square Mean Variance (WLSMV) with robust estimation of standard errors (Desa, 2014, 2016; Millsap & Meredith, 2007; Muthén & Muthén, 2015). Finally, to advance in the comparison between countries, we used an invariance test that examines the equivalence of measurement across the different countries, using CFI, TLI, and RMSEA to evaluate the different levels of invariance: configural, metric, and scalar. Each model was evaluated observing the fit indexes criteria mentioned above. In Addition, we used the changes in the fit indexes between a higher level of invariance and a lower level of invariance, considering the criteria proposed by Rutkowski and Svetina (2014) to compare more than 20 groups, where |∆CFI| ≤ 0.020, |∆TLI| ≤ 0.020, and |∆RMSEA| ≤ 0.020 (Desa, 2014). The chi-square difference test was not used because of its sensitivity to large samples (Cheung & Rensvold, 2000; Davidov, 2009).

Descriptive analyses were performed using the Stata 14 statistical package, and Mplus 7.4 software was used for the multigroup CFA. Replication materials are available on request or visiting the Open Science Framework website: https://osf.io/6sq3j/. These include the syntax for the invariant measurement model, enabling further analyses with the citizen participation variables as endogenous or exogenous in the models. For researchers unfamiliar with this methodology, a second-best alternative is to use factor scores, which are also available in the replication materials by student ID that can then be merged with the ICCS data set.

Results

This section shows, first, the general results regarding the extent to which the empirical indicators correspond to the theoretical citizen participation construct, tested by CFA procedure for each country. Second, it reports the estimation of the multigroup analyses and the equivalence of measures across the countries tested. Finally, there is a brief description of the variability of participation patterns as well as the correlations among dimensions of the model.

Single Country Analyses

In accordance with the above criteria, CFA analyses confirmed the proposed measurement structure for community-formal-activist and intended-reported young citizens’ participation for each country. The hypothetical five-factor model measuring youth citizen participation received consistent empirical support.

Despite model confirmations, the fit indexes showed some variation across countries. Although most countries show fit indexes above the cutoff points (RMSEA ≤ .06, CFI ≥ 0.95, and TLI ≥ 0.95), exceptions included Paraguay (CFI = 0.948 and TLI = 0.939) and Indonesia (CFI = 0.943 and TLI = 0.932) which are slightly below the cutoff for CFI and TLI. Nevertheless, the CFI and TLI remain within an acceptable range (Brown, 2006).

Multigroup CFA and Testing Invariance

Multigroup CFA was used to test invariance estimates for parameters across countries. The results indicate a good fit of the configural model ( $χ^{2}$ = 29,438.902, df = 6080, p < .001, CFI = 0.972, TLI = 0.967, RMSEA = 0.032). This model fit information provided the baseline against which other levels of invariance were compared. The results indicate that specification of the items forming the constructs has the same configuration across countries. The second MGCFA estimation for testing of metric invariance constrained factor loadings as equal across countries. The absolute results indicate that loadings were substantially invariant for the proposed model ( $χ^{2}$ = 41,564.217, df = 6635, p < .001, CFI = 0.958, TLI = 0.954, RMSEA = 0.038) indicating that correlational analyses can be conducted comparably. In a relative comparison, the differences in CFI (∆ = 0.014), TLI (∆ = 0,013,) and RMSEA (∆ = 0.006) were within the range of the cutoff criterion. Finally, estimation for testing the scalar invariance, constraining the factor loading and thresholds, indicates that the tested model was acceptable ( $χ^{2}$ = 57,849.957, df = 7597, p < .001, CFI = 0.940, TLI = 0.943, RMSEA = 0.042), following the criteria proposed by Brown (2006). Considering the comparative criteria, the model was also found to be invariant at this level as well, that is, the difference in the CFI (∆ = 0.018), TLI (∆ = 0.011), and RMSEA (∆ = 0.004) was within the range of the cutoff criterion. Given this level of invariance, mean comparison and relational analysis comparison with the construct are allowed.

Descriptive Patterns

Given that “scalar invariance guarantees that cross-country differences in the means of the observed items are a result of differences in the means of their corresponding constructs” (Davidov, 2009, p. 69), the description of levels for each participant country is allowed. Although interpreting country differences is clearly beyond the scope of this article, the scales created enable to explore the profile of citizen participation in each country and can serve to show the possibilities that these kind of comparisons offer for future research.

A first result to highlight is the proportion of variance linked to the country level (see Table 4). To describe the decomposition of variance, one multilevel model for each type of participation was estimated, allowing to calculate the proportion of variance associated with each level of the analyses. As can be observed in Table 4, all types of participation show relevant proportion of variance associated with the country level, particularly reported community participation (42.9%), reported formal participation (25.1%), and intended community participation (18.4%). A complementary result shows that the types of participation are correlated with different strengths among each other, but with medium to large effect sizes, which indicates that they do not function independently. For instance, as it is shown in Table 4, the highest correlations are actually between intended types of participation, whereas the lowest correlations occur in general between intended and reported participation.

Table 4.

Correlations Between Types of Participation.

	1	2	3	4	5
Intended community participation	–
Intended formal participation	0.617	–
Intended activist participation	0.794	0.574	–
Reported community participation	0.539	0.312	0.460	–
Reported formal participation	0.369	0.354	0.364	0.465	–
General mean	2.215	1.947	2.038	2.007	1.826
SD	0.674	1.621	0.764	0.743	0.796
Intraclass correlation at country level	18.4%	11.7%	15.0%	42.9%	25.1%

Discussion

This aim of this article was to propose a conceptual model of youth citizen participation and to test its operationalization and comparability with international survey data. The model was grounded in a theoretical framework offering a plausible and parsimonious concept of citizenship in terms of community and civic participation. The tested model considers community-based participation as well as civic participation (formal and activist) combined, taking into account intended participation in adult life and reported participation at school or at the local community. Within this framework, community participation is understood as community oriented and face-to-face, whereas civic participation involves influencing the political system through institutional participation and/or extra-institutional channels. The analyses were performed for 38 countries, using data from the ICCS study of 2009.

A first element to discuss refers to the relative weight of the contribution of this study in conceptual and in empirical/measurement terms. The model is presented as top-down, starting from available conceptual models of citizenship and their extension both to new participation forms as well as to youth population. However, it is clear that this exercise was constrained from the beginning by a bottom-up perspective, as we were well aware of the operationalization and measurement possibilities for international comparison given by ICCS. In this sense, we aimed at reaching a reasonable equilibrium between concepts and measurement, having as a trade-off that there are evident conceptual vacuums (as online participation), as well as limitations of the current ICCS data to operationalize all proposed components of the conceptual model.

Overall, the proposed items were found to measure the constructs in an acceptable way for the countries analyzed. In addition, the conceptual structure of citizen participation proved to be invariant at the scalar level across those countries. These results suggest that all latent variables from community and civic intended and reported participation share the same structure. Moreover, their scalar invariant structure permits direct comparison of mean scores and correlates of the latent variables across countries (Beaujean, 2014; Davidov et al., 2014).

In conceptual terms, this wider parsimonious model of youth citizenship seems useful for theoretical and empirical analysis of the phenomenon in an international comparative setting. By comparison with previous models, it seems to more fully address the complexity of citizen participation in a simpler way. Confirmation of the model’s structure indicates that the specified dimensions are of use in evaluating participation in the school context and the expected participation during adult life.

There are some limitations that are worth mentioning to be considered by future studies. First, as the conceptual model captures only offline participation, it precludes any discussion of the Internet’s role in diversification of participation repertoires. This is given the lack of indicators in the data analyzed and the limitations of survey research itself to address this area of research. Second, the student’s age is an issue in terms of the implications of the results. The evidence supporting the conceptual model’s measurement structure is based on eighth-grade students, which can be problematic in two ways. The absence of legal-citizen status limits access to the full diversity of participation (such as voting or activism activities), and the meanings of those restricted forms of participation can be blurred in light of those inexperienced activities.

In addition, it is relevant to mention that the proposed comparable scales can be used to assess not only the levels of citizen participation across countries but also to evaluate the differential correlates of what constitutes a wider idea of citizenship. For instance, there is empirical evidence of differences in the adult population between developed and developing countries in terms of participation repertoires (Stockemer, 2015); therefore, it would be interesting to assess whether these differences are already possible to detect at school age both in community and/or in civic participation. Furthermore, the use of this model with international data as ICCS allows to incorporate country characteristics as related with differences in participation. For instance, are country context characteristics such as compulsory voting or inequality related to different participation forms and levels? This macro–micro research agenda is even more relevant when the amount of variance in different types of participation associated with the country level is considered. Finally, another area of fruitful research refers to the association between participation and socioeconomic background variables (Marien et al., 2010; Schlozman, Verba, & Brady, 2012; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 2003; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995), which has barely been studied in youth population considering different participations form international comparison.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article was supported by the Doctoral Scholarship CONICYT 2015 and by the Center of Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies—COES CONICYT/FONDAP N°15130009.

Author Biographies

Daniel Miranda is a research assistant at the Longitudinal Chilean Social Study (ELSOC) developed by the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies - COES. He holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Universidad de Talca, Chile; a Master degree in Social-Community Psychology and is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His research interests and agenda are political socialization and inequality, youth citizenship participation, intergroup relations, public opinion, quantitative methods, structural equations models, measurement invariance and multilevel models.

Juan Carlos Castillo is a professor at the Institute of Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) and deputy director of the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies COES. He obtained his PhD in sociology at the Department of empirical research methods of Humboldt University, Berlin. Among his current research interest are quantitative methods (particularly multilevel and SEM), subjective inequality, meritocracy, citizenship education, comparative survey research and open science.

Andrés Sandoval-Hernández is a lecturer in Educational Research at the University of Bath, UK. Andrés has worked as head of the Research and Analysis Unit at the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in Germany; and as a Research Associate for the Universidad Iberoamericana and for the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, both in Mexico. His research work deals with comparative analyses of educational systems using large-scale assessment data with a focus on educational inequalities.

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