The impact of the Scottish Youth Parliament on its former members

Dr Mark Shephard and Dr Stratos Patrikios, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde

The SYP had raw data on approx. 100 out of a total of 426 former youth parliamentarians (background characteristics and broad evaluations of experiences of being a youth parliamentarian, plus specific impact questions in terms of voluntary work and career paths). Contrasts had been made at the aggregate level between background characteristics of the sample and the general population and the sample appears quite representative of the population across a myriad of measures. However, there had been no individual level analysis and no mining and merging of indicators from other datasets such as Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics and the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

The individual level analysis conducted within this project:

explored whether the Scottish Youth Parliamentarian were representative of the Scottish population and of Scottish neighbourhoods

examined if the experiences of being a youth parliamentarian varied by socio-economic background and neighbourhood and by cohort including age

examined differences in the subsequent experiences, behaviours, and personal development of former youth parliamentarians