Global Public Policy Reactions to an Increasingly Political Young Generation
Public Policy
Volume 7 | Issue III | September 2023
Milton High School ’24
Georgia, USA
Politically speaking, my greatest passions are youth engagement and international public policy. I have done work with youth political organizations nationally and internationally. In 2022, I had a discussion about youth involvement with some friends from the United Kingdom; this conversation introduced me to the concept of youth parliaments. After email exchanges with leaders in the United Kingdom Youth Parliament, conversations with other US politicians on youth engagement, and some Internet searches, my simple curiosity about youth parliaments evolved into a desire to research. Using sources like JSTOR, my local library, and international organizational archives, my paper for The Schola began to develop into an analysis of youth parliaments and the youth voice dilemma. It wasn’t until a comment by my history teacher on the role of youth in all major American social movements that I recognized how disproportionate it was that youth have sought change and yet are powerless to make it in the United States. During my writing, I delved into the vast academic research regarding youth voice and the array of decisions by nations across the world as states seek to apply the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to public policy. I hope readers learn about a topic rarely discussed and for my paper in The Schola to add to the conversation on the role of youth in policymaking, unique in perspective as it is coming from a youth. Most importantly, I hope there is a broader discussion on how the United States, a nation standing on the basis of democracy and equity, has treated its children and their voices.