Handbook and Toolkit for Youth Citizen Social Science

Citizen Social Science brings together social science researchers and citizens focusing on social issues, social phenomena and the social dimensions of the world, while applying and integrating social science methodologies and theories in their collaborative research efforts. These characteristics influence, for example, the focus and management of the project, the role of the researchers and the citizens, the participatory work, and ethical concerns. There are many handbooks and guidelines for conducting citizen science, but mostly within natural sciences. Yet, there are few handbooks detailing hands-on citizen social science with young people, and focusing on co-creative qualitative or mixed-methods approaches. This handbook, and its toolkit, build on the experiences from the H2020 YouCount project (2021-2023) and represent a unique contribution to the field of citizen social science. It is, overall, an exercise on social science communication that can be useful to a wide array of publics: practitioners, academics, policymakers, youth organisations and anyone interested in citizen social science as a way of creating a future shaped by more inclusive, participatory research and social innovation.