Young people’s political participation and knowledge has, in the recent years, been a concern for political elites and elected officials. This concern has led to education policies and further research into ways formal spaces such as schools and national elections could encourage young people’s engagement in the United Kingdom (Uberoi and Johnston, 2022). Thus, leading to formal schooling policies implementing curricula targeted at developing young people’s knowledge surrounding formal political processes. However, Wood (2017) argues young people are in constant learning about politics that impact their everyday lives through their life transitions. Wood (2017) states young people are constantly learning through experiences, interactions with one another about the sociopolitical climate surrounding their lives. While there are many contested meanings of “young”, “participation”, and “political education”, this research aims to tie in these conceptualisations to explore beyond formal spaces of political education and participation to look at community partnerships as non-formal spaces of political education and participation. In doing so, this research aims to look at how non-formal and informal spaces of political participation are also sites of young people’s everyday political engagement and the learning opportunities such experiences bring to the lives of young people. Thus, centrally asking the question, “What do young people learn through their informal and non-formal participation in politics?”. To conduct this research, I partner with Youth Focus Northwest, a youth work group in North England aimed at supporting young people in championing sociopolitical issues. Thus, exploring how young people craft their own political participation both in and outside of the organisation and what they learn from such interactions. Through this exploration, this research hopes to bridge the gaps between formal political education with the community educational experiences of young people and draw implications for how these separate spaces could consider the ways they draw from each other as neither exist in a vacuum.

This research employs the use of focus groups. Recruiting young people through the community organisation Youth Focus North West, this research engages with young people through a series of focus groups which aims to map out their political activities across various spaces. In doing so, this research created prompts to discuss how young people understand political participation, what spaces young people perceive political participation to occur and which ones they have interacted with themselves, and finally, drawing on narrative methods, this research explores what their learning experiences are through these spaces.

This research is currently still in its investigation process during the call for papers and does not yet have outcomes or findings.

Uberoi, E. and Johnston, N. (2022) Political Disengagement in the UK: Who is Disengaged? , London: House of Commons Library. Wood, B. E. (2017) 'Youth Studies, Citizenship, and Transitions: Towards a New Research Agenda', Journal of Youth Studies, 20(9), pp. 1176- 1190. Wood, B. E. (2020) 'Youth-led Climate Strikes: Fresh Opportunities and Enduring Challenges for Youth Research - Commentary to Bowman', Fennia 198(1-2), pp. 217-222.