Generation Xi: Youth Attitudes Toward Civic Engagement in China

For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 4:00pm on Nov. 13 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event. NOTE: You cannot access campus using the QR code from Eventbrite.

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 entitled 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.

Host or Publisher Weatherhead East Asian Institute