1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Canadian Heritage’s Citizen Participation Branch helps Canadians to better understand both the diversity and the shared aspects of the Canadian experience, and seeks to connect Canadians to one another and their communities. The Branch is home to a number of programs that serve to fulfill these objectives: Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage, Exchanges Canada, Katimavik, Canadian Studies, and the Young Canada Works Secretariat.

In the spring of 2009, the Citizen Participation Branch hosted a series of facilitated discussions with individuals, organizations, and institutions from across Canada. The topic of conversation was youth engagement, with special focus on the arts, heritage, and culture sectors, and what Canadian Heritage can do to support and increase youth participation and engagement in communities and in these sectors. Themes explored included youth engagement theories and practices, reasons for engaging youth and challenges that arise, as well as current experiences with federal support and roles that the Department could play in supporting youth engagement.

A total of 14 roundtable discussions were held with 92 organizations serving communities and youth (including youth-led organizations). Included in this national conversation were representatives from youth organizations, arts, heritage, and culture organizations. These roundtable discussions were held in Montréal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Moncton, and Toronto. Canadian Heritage officials also supplemented the above-mentioned roundtables by soliciting feedback (either in person, by telephone, or by e-mail) with eight additional organizations[1] based on the questions asked in the roundtable discussion.

In addition to organizational stakeholders, two additional roundtable discussions were held with youth through facilitated group discussions held in Ottawa (March 5, 2009, and March 12, 2009) with a total of 40 Encounters With Canada participants, representing youth (aged 14 to 17) from diverse regions and cultures across Canada.

Listening to Youth Voice

As part of the dialogues conducted at Encounters With Canada (EWC), participants wrote letters to the Department sharing their insights and suggestions about youth engagement. Excerpts from their letters are included throughout the report.

1.2 Methodology

Defining Youth

For the purpose of these conversations, youth was defined according to the definitions used by each organization. This resulted in the word being used to describe children and young adults from the ages of 8 to 35, depending on the context. Despite not putting parameters around the definition of youth, some trends in how organizations defined youth were observed. In the context of education and engagement in institutions like museums, art galleries, and dance, the word “youth” encompassed the younger end of the spectrum (aged 8 to 18) whereas when dealing with employment projects and professional development, youth was more often used to describe young adults (aged 18 to 35).

Defining Engagement

Defining youth engagement for the purpose of the roundtable discussions was done using examples of the types of activities that the Department considered good examples of civic youth engagement activities as well as arts, heritage, culture, and history engagement. These examples were designed to serve as a starting point for conversation, and outlined varying degrees of youth ownership and active participation in activities.

Civic youth engagement examples included youth participating, leading, and developing initiatives that would benefit the community, mentoring other youth, or contributing to leadership and decision making.

Arts, heritage, culture, and history youth engagement examples included participation as an audience, student, creator, or teacher of activities that are related to arts, heritage or culture.

Examples were designed to demonstrate a spectrum of engagement opportunities, from passive to active, with varying levels of time commitment and involvement in decision making and leadership.

Research Questions

There were two main research questions. The first explored youth engagement, both from a theoretical and practical perspective. The second focused on the federal government, and specifically Canadian Heritage, and how it supports and encourages youth engagement.

In order to answer the above research questions, Canadian Heritage chose to undertake a national conversation with a range of youth-led, youth-serving, and community organizations. Some of the consulted organizations are supported by various Canadian Heritage programs, while others are supported by other federal departments, and still others receive no federal funding. An independent consulting firm was engaged to facilitate the process and compile the findings.

In order to address these research questions, Canadian Heritage employees designed a three-pronged approach that consisted of roundtable discussions, interviews, and facilitated discussion with youth. Each of these approaches used a discussion guide developed by an independent consultant in conjunction with Canadian Heritage employees. Three different forms of the discussion guide were developed to be appropriate for each of the three methods of discussion (see Appendix A).

Participants

Participants invited to the roundtable discussions were chosen and invited to attend by Canadian Heritage. They were informed of the purpose of the research prior to their participation, and were sent an agenda in advance. These regional discussions, held across Canada, were facilitated by an independent consulting firm and observed by employees of the Department (see Appendix B for a complete listing of organizations that participated in the roundtable discussions).

Roundtables

Two types of organizational stakeholders were invited to participate in a series of 14 roundtable discussions (see Appendix C for the complete schedule of roundtable discussions). Stream 1 consisted of arts, heritage/commemoration, and culture organizations.  A total of 56 organizations participated in this stream of roundtable discussions, including museums, art galleries, festivals, the literary sector, community arts organizations, and trainers and presenters in the arts.

Stream 2 consisted of community and youth organizations, including those both youth-led (by youth, for youth) and youth-serving (by adults, for youth). A total of 36 organizations participated in this stream of roundtable discussions, including service clubs, community centres, and youth leadership organizations. In some cases, organizational stakeholders were not discretely from one stream or the other, but represented a blend of both.

Roundtable conversations were held in both official languages where necessary (through the use of simultaneous translation and a bilingual facilitator) and participants were invited and encouraged to speak in the language of their choice. Roundtable discussions were audio and visually recorded. Facilitated youth discussions were audio recorded, and interviews were annotated by the interviewer. Participants were made aware of the method of recording prior to the commencement of the discussions.

Additional conversations

 Canadian Heritage officials supplemented the above-mentioned roundtables by soliciting feedback (either in person, by telephone, or by e-mail) with eight additional organizations[2] based on the questions asked in the roundtable discussion.

In addition to organizational stakeholders, two additional discussion groups were held with 40 youth, through facilitated group discussions held in Ottawa (March 5, 2009, and March 12, 2009) with Encounters With Canada participants, who represent youth from diverse regions and cultures across Canada.

1.3 Analysis

Findings from this process are presented in sections representing the six categories that arose in the national conversation about youth participation:

  1. Models of Engagement
  2. Effective Mechanisms to Engage Youth
  3. Incentives to Participation
  4. Challenges to Youth Participation
  5. Experiences with Existing Federal Support
  6. Roles for Canadian Heritage

1.4 Limitations

While Canadian Heritage made significant efforts to ensure that the range of participating organizations represented a broad cross-section of the geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Canada, discussion participation was limited to those individuals who were available to attend the scheduled roundtable discussions or correspond via telephone, e-mail, or through separate meetings during the discussion period. For this reason, the findings in this report represent a sort of national conversation convened by the Department, rather than a representative research study of all youth and youth-serving organizations.

In addition, although roundtables were regionally distributed from coast to coast, individuals and organizations attended based on their availability. In some cases, participants in a roundtable were not from the geographic region in which the discussion took place, or represented an organization that was national in scope. For this reason, regional comparisons cannot be drawn from the roundtable discussions.

Limitations surrounding youth discussions are related to the sample, as young people were accessed through existing organizations which generally attract youth who are already engaged. The perspectives of youth who are not engaged are therefore not directly represented in this report, although participants in organizational roundtable discussions were able to speculate on reasons for not participating and comment on the observed experiences of youth who are not engaged through questions on barriers and challenges related to youth engagement.

Notes


[1]In most cases these were organizations that were not able to attend a roundtable discussion in person but still welcomed the opportunity to provide input.

[2]In most cases, these were organizations that were not able to attend a roundtable discussion in person but still welcomed the opportunity to provide input.

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