Does youth civic engagement enhance social and academic performance?

In recent years Youth Civic Engagement (YCE) has received increased attention constituting an important impetus for its research, particularly during the last decade since young people have been taking up a crucial role in the future of democratic societies and are now considered to be important contributors to their development. However, there is a gap in the literature concerning their motivation toward society engagement. In the current research, a quantitative methodology based on a questionnaire administered by email to 370 university students aged between 18 and 24 years was used to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the motivations for YCE? (2) What demographic factors affect YCE? and (3) What impact does YCE have on social and academic performance?. The results indicate that students reported mainly expressive motivations related to self-interest, namely social recognition, self-realization and personal development. Our findings also suggest that YCE only influences social performance positively, expressive motivations being the predictors with the greatest weight, followed by young engagement and civic participation. Finally, the outcome of the analysis also reveals that parents’ educational qualifications affect civic participation.