Key Insights An openhearted consultation Beyond the norm Between dissensus and division Living together in harmony, the overarching imperative An openhearted consultation: introspection, selfies, and confidences Taking part in the Youth Talks initiative is not just an opportunity for the youth worldwide to share their opinions and experiences: for a fair number of participants it also turned out to be an introspective journey. Answering questions about issues they had never really thought about before led these young people to delve deep into their identity and convictions. Some of these sessions of introspection lasted up to an hour, but, on average, participants spent about ten minutes answering our questions, during which time they formulated about a dozen responses to open-ended questions, some of which they found difficult to articulate as these thoughts had surfaced for the first time. As we analyzed their contributions, we observed an incredible surge of authenticity and humility. Our algorithm detected over 10,000 “nuggets”—contributions deemed exceptional for their quality of form and content—which were then validated by our team of analysts. These nuggets are the perfect example of how the participants were not afraid to reveal their inner thoughts and share their experiences, their ideas about the future or their uncertainty.Their contributions reflect a touching vulnerability, proof of their genuine engagement with the process. The participants also expressed their engagement by taking pictures and recording voice notes. Their photographic responses, originally intended to illustrate their written contributions, became a selfie gallery: genuine, authentic faces, often left out of traditional image libraries, are here revealed in all their diversity. These selfies, taken at arm’s length with a smartphone, become declarations of existence and affirmations of identity, despite the initial anonymity of the initiative. What’s more, the audio contributions add another sensory dimension to the consultation. The voices of these young people tell of their context, feelings, and hopes with an intensity that cannot be captured with written words alone. The quiet murmuring of a young girl hoping to become independent despite opposition from her family, the fears of a young man in the face of increasingly frequent natural disasters, or the words of another, simply sharing their good mood: all these stories bring the consultation to life and bring participants and analysts together in quite an unprecedented way. The participants’ interest in Youth Talks is undeniable, but the most striking aspect of it all is their authenticity. By entering into the spirit of such introspection, not only did they contribute to a worldwide consultation, they also explored their own identity, their own beliefs, and their own hopes for the future. Beyond the norm: the unique diversity capturedin Youth Talks The results of the Youth Talks consultation reveal the extraordinary diversity of the themes addressed—a very significant cross-cutting result. For every question asked, over 150 different themes were addressed by the young participants, testimony to the rich, complex nature of their thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. This whirlwind of ideas beautifully illustrates the dynamism and diversity of today’s youth. Conventional, multiple-choice surveys often tend to produce the following type of results: “Eighty percent of young people think that… or would like to see…” However, this seeming uniformity is completely illusory and can give a very simplistic impression of reality. This is because having to choose from amongst a predetermined set of options can force participants to put themselves into boxes that do not necessarily reflect their true feelings or opinion. Such formats tend to neglect diversity of experience and perspective, and consequently can be lacking in nuance and depth. This is precisely what makes the Youth Talks consultation so spectacularly different: our results reveal a multiplicity of nuances, ideas, and points of view. Every response is the reflection of a single, unique voice and a single individual experience, and contributes to a much richer, more detailed understanding of what reality is for today’s youth. This diversity is by no means a disadvantage; on the contrary, it is an asset, showing that young people are not a monolithic group, but rather a multitude of individuals with diverse and varied ideasand convictions. In this respect, Youth Talks is a truly innovative operation in terms of consulting young people. It provides a space where every voice can be heard and every idea shared, without having to conform to predetermined paradigms established by the designers of the questionnaire. It is a valuable tool for understanding the complex, nuanced reality of youth today. Between dissensus and division: complexity of the younger generation’s aspirations and concerns But this diversity in the trends emerging from the consultation also bears witness to deep divisions and conflicts in our societies, as each person puts a different value on the issues they find most important. This diversity is indicative of complex realities. For example, when we examine the answers to questions about making sacrifices (Q6 and Q7), a sharp contrast between the positions taken by the young people can be seen. While Q6 asks young people what they would be ready to give up to obtain the future they desire, Q7 mirrors it by asking them what they would not be ready to give up. In reply, some young respondents said they were ready to give up the lifestyle they currently enjoyed and cut their material consumption, while others clearly state their reluctance to make such sacrifices. These contradictory responses illustrate the underlying tensions when it comes to choosing between the comforts of today and the future they seek for tomorrow. More generally, they underline the complex nature of the choices this young generation has to make and spotlight the challenges of reconciling these differences if consensus is to be achieved. This means that we all need to look more deeply at how we can foster constructive dialogue and effective collective action, and work towards a common goal that respects a variety of different aspirations. Living together in harmony, the overarching imperative: young people call for an in-depth transformation of education Implicit throughout the whole consultation, and repeatedly alluded to by the youth, is the idea of personal values and virtues, whose importance they refer to either directly or more indirectly, by pointing out individual behaviors seen as harmful and worrying, either for themselves or for the world as a whole. Thus, when asked what we should all learn at school to create the future they seek (Q9), their greatest demand was to learn or relearn the values and virtues that help people to live together in harmony. They mention areas such as respect, kindness, solidarity, moral values in general, tolerance, open-mindedness, empathy, acceptance, responsibility, friendship, love, and more. These concepts, which might seem to be learned more naturally in real life than at school, are repeated in the mirror question, which asks what we should all learn in life (Q10). Thus we can dismiss the hypothesis that the young respondents might have misunderstood this question about school, and instead generalized it to learning from life. When talking about “what to learn in life,” this result is hardly surprising, reflecting as it does the beliefs and moral foundations usually passed on within families or communities. Which only makes it all the more surprising to see that, in the question specifically referring to school (Q9), traditional skills and abilities such as STEM, the social sciences, and even technology are hardly mentioned, if at all, and that this is the case for every region of the world except East Asia and the Pacific, particularly East Asian countries (especially China), where traditional skills and abilities still take priority. The urgent need to “learn to live together once again,” based on a shared value system and common foundations, is seen to be a matter of such urgency that the young respondents make it an absolute priority, relegating all the abilities and skills traditionally learned at school to the bottom of the pile. How should we interpret this surprising result? Although we need to wait for experts to help us with our interpretation, there are a few ideas in the “To go further” sections for questions 9 and 10. Marine Hadengue, Ph.D.Executive DirectorHigher Education For Good Foundation Kristy AnamoutouAssociate Director @ bluenove