Phillips, L., Perales, F., & Ritchie, J. (2017, September 11). Giving voice to the young: Survey shows people want under-18s involved in politics. The Conversation.
Young people are largely excluded from consultation and contribution to government decision-making. Both Australia and New Zealand are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and are obliged to honour children’s rights to freely express their views in all matters affecting them.
However, neither country has mandated mechanisms to ensure children’s views are heard within their civic institutions. Western models for citizenship participation have been designed by, and for, adults. The default position in social and political theory is to disregard children altogether, or to consider them as learner-citizens.
To understand what the public thinks about children’s political participation, we commissioned a question to be added to the 2016 Australian and New Zealand versions of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP).