Learners Democratic Participation
Democratic participation
By positively impacting young people’s political knowledge and understanding, their skills and confidence to engage in politics, and their trust in politicians and the democratic system, Digital Dialogue: Wales enables learners to better participate in democracy.
More likely to vote
The Dialogue sessions positively impacted participants' attitudes toward voting. Following the sessions, there was a 5% point increase in learners who felt a duty and responsibility to vote, rising from 49% to 54%, and a 11% point increase in the number of learners who knew how to register to vote and vote, rising from 28% to 39%
% of learners that believe they should vote and know how to before and after Digital Dialogue: Wales
Motivation
93% of teachers agreed that their learners felt more motivated to engage with the democratic process because of Digital Dialogue: Wales. Emma Davies, a teacher at St John Baptist High School gave this example: “One learner who engaged in The Digital Dialogue with Mark Drakeford decided to set up and run a successful campaign in school to enrol learners on the electoral register and ran a mock election last summer.”
Teachers: learners are more motivated to engage in democratic process due to Digital Dialogue: Wales (%)
Positive change
While democratic participation wasn't an explicit aim of the programme, it was considered a desired longer-term outcome. We have seen that meaningful engagements with politicians lead to consistent, if small, positive changes to the likelihood of learners engaging in a range of different ways in democracy.
We see opportunities to pair this programme with other work that is explicitly designed to support voting and engagement, to boost engagement with elections, or with social action projects to boost everyday democratic participation.
