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Sahasra Yelepedi, 16, has lived in Allen, Texas all her life. Last year, a gunman killed eight people and wounded at least seven at an outlet mall there, one “I’ve been going to since I was born,” he told me.
“I realized that these issues that we hear about in the news, gun violence being one, are not abstract, but they are affecting everyday Americans,” Sahasra said.
Millennials are the director of development for High School Democrats of America, the nation’s official high school Democratic organization, and she won’t be too old to vote in November, an ardent supporter of Kamala Harris. She admired the vice president’s stances on gun reform and reproductive rights, and seeing a black and Indian American woman in a leadership role “really resonated with me as an Indian American,” Sahasra said.
Millennials may be more politically engaged than their peers, but according to scholars and educators, many children are paying attention to politics right now — and not in the way we adults expect.
Media outlets (and adults in general) tend to associate young people with a certain subset ie climate change And Gaza War.
In fact, teenagers’ top political concerns look a lot like this Many adults: They are just as likely to be concerned about affordable housing or the national debt, as they are about sea level rise. In fact, millennials listed the “housing crisis and rising cost of living” as important issues to people their age, along with climate and safe schools.
While children may not be radically different from adults in terms of their priorities, they are at a different stage in life, coming to the political debate with a fresh perspective and not yet exhausted by decades of pressure and debate. And while they’re far from immune to polarization, they may have some lessons for adults about how to have productive and respectful conversations about politics.
“They’re always surprised by how much the seniors will argue,” says Shari Condit, a government teacher at Woodland High School in Washington state.
Children now seek economic stability
As early as kindergarten, children have some idea of government, said UC Merced political science professor Christopher Ojeda, who has studied how people form their political ideologies. When asked about the government, young children might draw a picture of a police officer or the White House, she said.
In elementary school, children may begin to express support for — or distaste for — political parties, but often “they don’t really know what that means,” Ojeda said. “They’re parroting parents or peers.”
In middle and high school, kids “begin to have a deeper understanding of where the parties stand on different issues,” she said. Historically, they mostly gained this understanding from their parents, but Ojeda thinks parents have become less influential since the rise of social media, which exposes children to political messages not only from classmates and other peers, but also from influencers and activists alike. lets hear around the world
Kids now get a lot of their political exposure from TikTok, says Condit, who teaches 11th and 12th graders in Woodland, a small town in Washington state’s purple district.
Surprisingly, however, they care about many of the same things as adults, even pesky ethical issues When Condit asked his students to write down the top issues for them in the November election, responses about the economy were the most common, with some students listing specific concerns such as “affordable housing,” “inflation,” “gas prices,” and the like. Even the “national debt.”
It’s pretty much what adults tell pollsters every day: The economy was the top problem, too September Pew Poll Among registered voters, 81 percent listed it as very important to them. It is also compatible with vote of 18- to 29-year-oldsWHO Economy ranks consistently as a top concern.
Condit’s students listed “border control,” “abortion rights,” “affordable health care,” and both “gun restrictions” and “gun rights” as key issues for them. Climate change, in another surprise, has not come up at all. (Despite record temperatures and the growing threat of extreme weather, climate is not a top issue for most adult voters this year.)
“I think that 17- and 18-year-olds want to feel a sense of stability in their world,” Condit told me. For his students, many of whom are not college bound, that often means “they want to figure out how to transition into the next phase of their lives in a stable way,” and they want to see an economy that makes that possible.
The political divide looks different for children
something Recent polls Youth, especially boys and young men, have been shown to be more conservative than their elders. in one Large national surveys 12th grade, About a quarter are boys have identified as conservative in recent years, while just under 15 percent identify as liberal — the biggest split in decades. Among girls, the results were the opposite, with about 30 percent identifying as liberal and only 10 percent listing themselves as conservative.
Among boys, however, the most popular answers in the survey were “none of the above” and “I don’t know.” Some fear it’s a sign of political disconnect — the results “show how disconnected young people feel from both sides of the political aisle,” says the Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi. Written in 2023.
“Many teenagers and young adults have political apathy and don’t care about politics because they don’t think it affects their lives,” Katie Mirren, a 16-year-old high school junior and chair of the New Jersey high school Republican, told me in an email.
But there are also signs that kids care about issues that don’t map neatly into electoral politics. A 2024 survey Market research group YPulse found that 75 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds were passionate about a social cause or issue. The top issues they cited were animal rights, followed by cyberbullying, poverty, racism and mental health care. While child-focused nonprofit Common Sense Media this year 12 to 17 year olds are asked As for their top concerns regarding children’s health and well-being, mental health challenges topped the list, followed by gun violence, the effects of social media, and drug abuse.
Condit, meanwhile, spends a lot of time discussing local politics with his students, such as a Recent ballot measure To raise money for education. And when it comes to more nationwide issues, she said, her students learn to keep an open mind when talking to each other and “recognize the value of words, versus trying to claim someone is right or wrong.”
It’s a mindset he’s teaching them, but it’s also one they’ve taken to heart, he said. “My students live in this world where we’re talking to each other very calmly and acknowledging different points of view.”
For millennia, growing up as a Democrat in a red state taught him to respect different opinions. “Living in Texas has shown me the power of politics to facilitate real change,” he said, “but it’s also shown me that politics, at the end of the day, is an aspect of my personality.”
what am i reading
Schools are failing to support victims of objectionable deepfake images, according to a… A recent survey of teachers.
A Lack of bus drivers Another example of the problem I wrote about last week is leading to long waits and late arrivals for students in New York City.
More than half of US states have now moved to ban or restrict cellphones in schools. According to a new analysis.
Do you want a Skibidi Toilet Halloween costume? here.
We met again at my house the circle, squareAnd the triangle By Mac Barnett and John Klassen. These books are about three figures that alternately support and torment each other in an eerie landscape of rocks, waterfalls and darkness. i think the circle Best but they are all very good.
from my inbox
A while back, I asked readers for their thoughts Toy spread In the lives of today’s children. “Sorting them, rotating them, removing them from rotation and hiding them from the kids is a part-time job until they can be taken to the consignment store/Goodwill,” responded reader Lynn Marie. “Forget trying to move broken toys, it’s a lost cause. My kid likes to build a ‘nest’ which is a pile of all his possessions that can cover the entire floor of his room and make it impossible to get in and out.”
My kids have also been known to nest in toys. More on this soon!
For an upcoming newsletter, I will be dealing with childhood trauma lice. Have you or the children in your life experienced these itchy insects? Contact anna.north@vox.com.
