Teenagers on What Has Shaped Their Political Beliefs and Values

This fall, we're asking teens around the country and the world to explore their political and civic identities, values, and beliefs and discuss them with others in Election 2024 Student Discussion Forums.

In the first of these forums, we invited students to introduce themselves and answer the question: How does your identity shape your political beliefs and values? So far, more than 1,500 teens in 31 states and 15 countries have responded.

In today's special edition of our current affairs chat, we've rounded up a selection of their responses. Although this collection is by no means representative of all teenagers, we believe it provides an interesting look at how young people's early political identity is formed. For some, their beliefs and attitudes have been influenced by their families and communities, for others by an aspect of their identity, and for others by a particular life experience or world event.

Then there were those who pointed to their political atmosphere. In some cases, we have highlighted conversations between students, many of which we encouraged and were happy to see.

Thank you to all the students who participated and the teachers who brought their classes to answer. At the bottom of this post, you can find a list of the schools we saw that appeared.

This forum and our other forums remain open to comments. We hope students from around the world will continue to share their thoughts leading up to Election Day and beyond. We plan to feature more of your responses in the coming weeks.