ABSTRACT
In the context of a depressed economy, Portuguese youth struggle with unemployment, precarious employment and forced emigration. There is a marked distrust in politicians and the traditional democratic institutions, as well as an affinity for alternative ways of creating communities, such as sports, religion and charity. Portugal’s recent history is characterized by the emergence of a democratic regime and decolonization in the 1970s and entering the EU in the 1980s; these and other economic, social and educational developments made the current youth generation the most skilled and higher educated in Portuguese history. Citizenship education has been a constant in their schooling, with various emphases along the years, in accordance to governmental positions, ideological trends and social changes, such as growing immigration, which made Portuguese social context more multicultural and diverse. The chapter describes such historical and sociological changes in order to develop an understanding on how the identities, social beliefs and political ideals of these young Portuguese are taking shape.
