Youth Civic Engagement in Vietnam: Envisioning Social Change Through Everyday Actions

This sociological investigation into youth training programmes illuminates how young people’s civic engagement can be nurtured in a one-party political setting where actions that overtly challenge the state’s authority are highly repressed. The study uses qualitative data collected in 2020 from participant observation at training programmes organised by Vietnamese civil society and in-depth interviews with young participants in these programmes. The findings show how such venues provide youths with frames of reference for their everyday civic engagement. As a contribution to scholarship on youth civic participation in the Global South, this study addresses how social transformation unfolds through everyday action and consumption.