Generation Xi: Youth Attitudes Toward Civic Engagement in China
November 14 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Speaker: Jessica Teets, Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College
Moderator: Qin Gao, Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice, Associate Dean for Doctoral Education, Director of China Center for Social Policy, Columbia School of Social Work
Jessica Teets presents findings on how China’s “COVID generation,” youth who came of age during lockdowns, are reshaping civic engagement norms. Drawing on original survey data from the Civic Participation in China Surveys (2018-2024), she explores shifting attitudes toward volunteering, local governance, and state-society relations across generational lines.
Speaker’s Bio: Jessica C. Teets is a Professor at Middlebury College, and Guang Biao Distinguished Chair Professor at Zhejiang University. Her research focuses on governance in authoritarian regimes, especially the role of civic participation. She is the author of Civil Society Under Authoritarianism: The China Model (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and has a new book manuscript (with Dr. Xiang Gao) under review on changing governance under Xi Jinping, tentatively titled Beyond Fragmented Authoritarianism.
This event is part of the 2025-2026 lecture series “COVID-19 Governance and Impacts: China from Comparative Perspectives.” The series will be part of the China COVID Project, a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. It aims to spotlight new empirical and theoretical research that interrogates China’s post-COVID standing through social, economic, political, and gender-based lenses. It features scholars working on governance, public health, digital statecraft, labor, gender, and civil society responses in China and Asia. The series will foster public dialogue and contribute to documentation and analysis of the pandemic’s legacy.
This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Columbia China Center for Social Policy.
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