Centering voices from the political margins: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Civil Society Organisations' Civic Education approaches in Promoting Youth Political Participation in Kenya.

Suppose educators are to revitalize the language of civic education as part of a broader discourse of political agency and critical Citizenship in a global world. In that case, they will have to consider grounding such a pedagogy in defense of militant Utopian thinking in which any viable notion of the political takes up the primacy of pedagogy as part of a broader attempt to revitalize the conditions for the individual and social agency while simultaneously addressing the most fundamental problems facing the prospects for social justice and global democracy. Henry Giroux (Winter 2004, p.36) The overall aim of this research is to identify and evaluate the civic education approaches used by civil society organizations to promote the participation of youth in political processes in Kenya, as well as propose the adoption of critical pedagogy as the most effective in empowering youth to be transformative agents of their society. The study used a qualitative approach and employed semi-structured interviews as the data collection method. The study draws from the perceptions and experiences of eight civil society organizations and finds a direct correlation between the values and ontological positions the civil society brings to the field and the civic education approach, which in turn affects the civic knowledge acquisition of the youths. The study also found that most of the approaches used by civil society in Kenya are rooted in a deliberative pedagogy that often has little focus on power inequalities that are at the core of the political system. Consequently, the study draws from Frearean pedagogical principles to propose adopting a critical pedagogical approach in the youth civic education programs. This research adds to the body of knowledge on youth civic engagement by suggesting a pedagogical approach that is most suited when empowering disillusioned and apathetic youth, as is the case with the Kenyan Youth