Youth Citizenship and the European Union

Elvira Cicognani is Professor of Social and Community Psychology at the University of Bologna, Italy. Her current research interests concern forms and processes of civic and political participation and active citizenship, particularly in adolescence and young adulthood; sense of community and psychosocial well-being; psychosocial and community processes in health behaviors; and health promotion interventions. Frosso Motti-Stefanidi is Professor of Psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has served as President of the European Association for Developmental Psychology, and as President of the European Association of Personality Psychology. Her research has mainly focused on the study of immigrant youth adaptation and wellbeing, which she examines from a risk and resilience developmental perspective.

• Introduction – Bringing the European Union closer to its young citizens: Youth active citizenship in Europe and trust in EU institutions 1. Citizenship’s tangled web: Associations, gaps and tensions in formulations of European youth active citizenship across disciplines 2. Being both – A European and a national citizen? Comparing young people’s identi¬fication with Europe and their home country across eight European countries 3. Apathy or alienation? Political passivity among youths across eight European Union countries 4. Young European citizens: An individual by context perspective on adolescent European citizenship 5. Cross-border mobility, European identity and participation among European adolescents and young adults 6. Trust in alternative and professional media: The case of the youth news audiences in three European countries 7. Commentary: Who among European youth are active citizens at the EU level and why?