Reconnecting UK Youth to Europe

In this project, we explored how young people in the UK connect to the European Union and intuitions. We found that the EU does not figure highly in their imagination or in their plans for the future. The European Union was abstraction one step to far for many of the young people who we have spoken too. For the young people surveyed most identified with possessing a shared sense of European identity however they knew very little about EU institutions themselves. There was an uncomfortable truth uncovered in the project about feeling European but yet not enacting one’s rights or responsibilities towards Europe. At times the views of UK youth echoed the tabloid press in their mythologising of a broken Britain under further strain by EU workers and their families. Their understanding was coached in their daily realities based upon their post code, city or region. This project intentionally set out to speak with different groups of young people who would conventionally be described as being disadvantaged or marginalised to ascertain at a grass roots level how the EU is constructed and felt to impact on their daily lives.

RECONNECTING_UK_YOUTH_TO_EUROPE_-_RAISING_AWARENESS_TO_FOSTER_CIVIC_ENGAGEMENT