Young Citizens in Changing Times: Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The importance of politics to young people in Northern Ireland, their knowledge of basics like voting age, the salience of politics in their families, and their interest in participating eventually themselves were investigated in this study of young people in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Whether or not they saw a future for themselves in Northern Ireland was found to be related to their perceptions of the fairness or unfairness of the system, and these were both mediated by their feelings of national identity. Participants who thought of themselves as British or Irish were more likely to give higher ratings of importance to politics than those who characterized themselves as Northern Irish, Catholic, or Protestant; and those who identified themselves as Irish were more likely to do so than those who identified themselves as British. Cross‐community contact was similar for both groups and was not related to attitudes toward politics.