‘Cast a clear vote!’: The role of mock elections in the political education of young people

Pedro Menezes¹ and Norberto Ribeiro, Isabel Menezes^1,

¹Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Cite this paper:
Pedro Menezes and Norberto Ribeiro, Isabel Menezes. ‘Cast a clear vote!’: The role of mock elections in the political education of young people. American Journal of Educational Research. 2023; 11(8):500-509. doi: 10.12691/education-11-8-4

Abstract

Mock elections in schools are common in many countries to promote young people's civic and political education. Despite its popularization and the growing interest in the topic, there still needs to be more research, especially in contexts where there is no tradition for this type of project, such as in Portugal. This article focuses on a project that simulated the 2022 Portuguese legislative elections in a school in the metropolitan area of Porto. The project resulted from the teachers' willingness to address the issue of politics in school and seek ways to intervene in the growing rates of abstention and the lack of interest of young Portuguese in the elections. During the process, we observed the formation of the electoral commission, composed of students, teachers, and parents, the various activities that made up the project, its culmination on the day of the mock election, and the result of this simulation. The promotional and publicity materials were collected. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key players in the project and a focus group with the students who made up the electoral commission. These approaches allowed us to observe the participants' engagement, perspectives, and project evaluations. The findings allow us to examine the relevance of these projects for the political education of young people.

Keywords:
Mock Elections Youth Political Participation Secondary School

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