Empathy and Radical Youth Engagement: Why it Matters
- Lecture by Professor Mark Brennan
- Time: 25 September 2025 at 15.00–17.00
- Place: Auditorium 109, Virta building, Tampere University (Åkerlundinkatu 5, Tampere)
- Free of charge, no registration
Youth have been, and continue to be, at the forefront of radical positive social change that advances the human condition. Historically major social movements seeking change, equality, and social justice have been driven by youth. The role of youth in facilitating social change is particularly relevant today more than half of the world’s population is currently under 25, and a third under 15. While some see this ‘youth bulge’ demographic as uninformed and vulnerable to extremism and exploitation, we reject this deficit model and see them as a population capable of, and already engaging in, transformational social thought and action.
This lecture argues that the broad field of youth engagement would benefit from examining youth contributions to upholding or challenging the social status quo through varying forms of civic engagement. We seek to guide research and practice in ways to distinguish types of youth engagement to better reflect its potential for positive change. Therefore, this article does three things: 1) distinguishes regimented and radical youth involvement from extremism; 2) distinguishes the contexts and environments where regimented and radical engagement operate; 3) provides a conceptual framework to study and apply the key aspects of both, radical and regimented, youth engagement; and 4) Explore the importance of viewing positive youth development as part of the reciprocal socio-ecological systems from youth (micro) to society (macro) will be explored.
The talk will also introduce the fledgling model of a UNESCO Empathy and Engaged Citizenship Observatory currently under design as a future framework for a better world for youth and civil society.
Information about Professor Brennan (from Penn State Uni’s website):
Dr. Mark Brennan is the UNESCO Chair on Global Citizenship Education for Sustainable Peace through Youth and Community Engagement and Professor of Leadership and Community Development at the Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Brennan’s teaching, research, writing, and program development concentrate on the role of civic engagement, community, and leadership development in the youth and community development process. His work has also increasingly focused on the role of citizens across the lifespan as active contributors to peace building, social justice, and functioning societies. Dr. Brennan was a Fulbright Specialist in 2012 and a Fulbright Scholar in 2021/22.
Dr. Brennan has nearly 30 years of experience in designing, conducting, and analyzing social science research related to community and youth development. This work has involved extensive comparative research throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia and Central America. He is co-founder of the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Children, Youth, and Community. All research outputs have been translated into teaching and outreach curriculum to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to a wider international audience, as well as published in nearly 200 peer reviewed journal articles, UN publications and Extension/Outreach publications.
All research outputs have been translated into teaching and outreach curriculum to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to a wider international audience, as well as published in over one hundred peer reviewed journals and publications. His recent books include Theory, Practice, and Community Development (2013), Community Leadership Development: A Compendium of Theory, Research, and Application (2013), Culture, Community and Development (2021), and Creating Caring Communities to Overcome Times of Crisis (2022).
Most importantly, he has been very active in student mentorship. At the graduate level, he has served on over 100 graduate student committees.
Organizers
HUMANE-CLIMATE research project (Research Council of Finland, Kallio), TURNS enrichment funded project “Ilmastoliikkuvuuskasvatustutkimuksen yhteiskunnallisen vaikuttavuuden vahvistaminen” (Vainikka), SPARG & SPECS.
More Information
Vilhelmiina Vainikka, vilhelmiina.vainikka@tuni.fi