1. Active citizens? Presentation by the Vienna team: Claire Wallace, Georg Datler and Reingard Spannring Youth & European Identities Active citizens? Presentation by the Vienna team: Claire Wallace, Georg Datler and Reingard Spannring

2. Youth & European Identities What are active citizens? What makes young people into active citizens? Are active young citizens better Europeans?

3. What are active young citizens? Politically empowered whether or not it was worth voting whether or not it made any difference which government was in power whether they could influence what the government does whether one really should vote questions

4. Percentages of respondents Empowerment in the research regions Percentages of respondents

5. What makes young people into active citizens? Why did some people feel that they were empowered and some did not? employment and educational status, citizenship education at school

6. Does citizenship education encourage active citizenship? questions discussions about democracy and citizenship participation of school pupils learning about other religions and cultures the possibility to meet and discuss with politicians collecting for charity collecting signatures for a petition

7. Results Lack of citizenship education at school leads to feelings of powerlessness about politics Feeling empowered was strongly associated with experiences of citizenship education in school Citizenship education leads to stronger interest in European integration Empowerment increases willingness to vote at all levels: local, regional, national and European However, there are important differences in citizenship education between regions

8. Citizenship education in the research regions Percentages of respondents who had at least 4 out of 6 citizenship experiences at school

9. Citizenship Education Feeling empowered Willingnes s to vote Interest in European issues Schematic illustration of key findings

10. What do young people in Austria say themselves? The EU is not seen to engage with the issues that young people think are important, e.g. opportunities in education and work, environmental issues High expectations of Europe are not fulfilled EU politics are overshadowed by national politics Young people would like better representation in European politics

11. Recommendations More citizenship education and experiences in all types of schools Providing citizenship education in general schooling not just elite education Promoting greater knowledge of European issues Giving young people the feeling that their voice counts at the European level and that policies respond to their needs Developing a European public space, where European issues are discussed and not just national ones, e.g. TV-channels Encouraging young peoples’ participation at all levels