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There is widespread debate about the nationalistic top-down approach of citizenship education. By using the notion of cultural citizenship as a useful theoretical lens, citizenship education research tends to focus on the process of subjectivity construction among students’ citizenship learning process. The Communist Party of China plays a dominant role in cultivating citizens in the form of ideological and political education (IaPE) in Chinese universities. The research problem thus focuses on the dynamics and complexity of how Chinese university students construct their subjectivities regarding citizenship learning through IaPE. The main purpose of the study is to provide some research directions for understanding students’ citizenship learning today.

With the case study of one university in China and interview data from 25 students, this paper examines the ways in which students understand and respond to dominant discourses.

The findings revealed there is a deficit of citizenship learning in IaPE, and students felt ideologically pressurized. This study suggests students’ complex subjectivities of active participants but confused minds as a phenomenon in Chinese higher education, in which they must involve in IaPE for personal academic and career development, while they adopted covert strategies for self-conscious citizenship learning expectations. These strategies took the form ranging from obediently completing basic curriculum requirements and distancing away by studying abroad, to actively searching for learning opportunities from other courses and media society.

This paper contributes to citizenship education research by recognizing the complexities of how subjectivities are formed in formal university settings.

This chapter contributes to deepening understandings of the diversity of young people’s political participation and the socio-political and cultural influences that shape the uptake of activism. Drawing on scholarly theorisation of ‘implicit activism’, it begins from the premise that forms of activism vary depending on the social values, culture, and politics of different societies. To unpack the relationships between socio-political and cultural contexts and different forms of activism, this study addresses the question: what kind of activism do Japanese citizenship teachers envisage for secondary school students? Interviews were conducted with 11 educators across Japan; data were thematically analysed, and findings suggest that Japanese citizenship teachers encourage implicit forms of activism. This includes students being encouraged to develop personal and political efficacy to participate in political structures and raise their voices. Teachers also aim to develop students’ critical thinking skills to analyse society, with a focus on decoding political messages in one’s daily life. In the Japanese social and cultural context, which favours cohesion rather than confrontation, the endorsement of philanthropic activism, such as making donations, is also evident. Findings indicate that implicit forms of activism are embedded in everyday life. The study offers fresh insights into less tangible forms of activism characterised by small acts that address social concerns and issues affecting people’s own lives and the lives of others. It is argued that such implicit activism should not be overlooked, for as with explicit activism, it is also centrally concerned with fostering change.

This special issue aims to address the complexities and dynamics in contemporary China’s citizen-making processes, with a focus on the educational dimension.

The four articles in this special issue present citizen-making processes in both educational and cultural arenas. Based on the rich, first-hand data collected inside and outside China, the researchers revealed the dynamics of the educative processes, as the interplay of different mechanisms produces new understandings of citizenship practice.

This special issue sheds light on the rise of new types of citizens, who are emerging at the grassroots level in China, beyond the state’s strict direct regulations, along with the rise of market forces and multicultural communities in Chinese society today. Contributors to this special issue have captured an ongoing change, in that the diversified citizen-making mechanisms are, to a certain extent, mitigating the party-state’s definitive monopoly on forging citizens and are creating new spaces for individuals to develop fresh forms of political subjectivity and citizenship practice. In this sense, we argue for the unpacking of the citizen-making processes in present-day China not only from the lens of state-dominated, top-down initiatives but also from that of participatory, bottom-up initiatives performed by grassroots groups with differentiated socio-economic statuses and cultural traditions.

This special issue can be regarded as a contribution to the growing field of Chinese citizenship studies, which constitutes an integral part of the unfinished project of citizenship after orientalism.

This paper aims to explore Chinese female international students’ construction of global citizenship identity by examining their accumulation of cultural capital in different forms from transnational higher education in the UK.

Participant observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese female international students at a British university to explore their experiences with transnational higher education, cultural identities, the construction of global citizenship and perceived future job opportunities.

In this research, participants revealed that accessing a global elite university helps them accumulate institutionalised cultural capital. Embodied cultural cultivation acquired from transnational higher education is justified by students’ experiences in the context of transnational higher education. Rising confidence is shown by the participants’ narration and global-oriented awareness, which is their ability to understand and respect people from diverse cultural backgrounds, which was developed during their studies in the UK. However, they still realise the potentially difficult conversion of cultural capital to real job competitiveness. Recognition of global citizenship identity may be complicated if students plan to return home after studying.

This study provides further insight into the single-child generation of globally mobile Chinese female international students. Participants were aware of the positive accumulation of cultural capital in its embodied and institutionalised forms obtained from the UK higher education system and its contribution to the construction of global citizenship identity. However, the newly constructed global citizenship identity remains complex. Participants question the extent to which the new identity fits into the Chinese social context if they decide to return home.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the originality of the paper lies in expanding the global citizenship framework with the specific application of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to show Chinese female international students’ study experiences in UK transnational higher education, rather than addressing the Chinese international student experience in general.

Perceiving the world as a global village has never been a more acceptable and realistic notion than nowadays. The COVID-19 pandemic has – beyond a reasonable doubt – united the world as never before into the one human community striving to achieve the one goal: survive and go back to “normal” life. Educationally, there is a true demand to set effective approaches, initiatives, and programs that would promote and prompt intercultural citizenship and global citizenship for students, particularly tertiary students, Generation Z, who will be leading the world or the global village post-COVID-19. In response to such a demand, the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) and Phoenicia University (PU), Lebanon, planned and implemented a joint intercultural program: The Global Cultural Village. The Village connected and brought together 20 students (10 Afghani and 10 Lebanese) from two different cultures at a time of social and physical distancing all over the world. Over a period of five months, virtual, fortnightly meetings (discussions and presentations) were led by the students themselves and facilitated by three conveners from both universities. This chapter evaluates the effectiveness of the intercultural experiences and competencies acquired by the students throughout this program and the subsequent impact on students’ intercultural citizenship and global citizenship knowledge and skills. The methodology adopted was a mixed methods one, entailing a pre-test questionnaire (76 candidates), observational field notes (3 conveners), and post-test semi-structured interviews (14 participants). The study found that the Global Cultural Village created a safe and pleasant virtual environment that stimulated sufficient curiosity, a genuine desire to learn about the other culture, and mutual respect among both the Afghani and Lebanese students. The Village has succeeded in developing students’ intercultural competencies and intercultural communication skills. Students’ intercultural citizenship knowledge, skills, and capabilities have significantly developed as a result. Such a significant development has positively impacted students’ global citizenship knowledge and skills, where they started authentically connecting and practically engaging in global issues and discussions amid COVID-19 and are equipped to do so post the pandemic. This case study will inform higher education institutions (executives, faculty, and staff) in meeting their commitments toward internationalization and contribute to the developing literature about intercultural citizenship and global citizenship amid and post-COVID-19.

This study aims to interrogate and expand on the flexible citizenship framework by illuminating students' emergent identities and imagined future mobilities in China's expanding international school sector.

In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with international school students and their parents in Shenzhen, covering their motivations for overseas higher education, experience with international schooling, self-perceived identities and imagined futures.

The participants aspired to overseas higher education for both symbolic capital attainment and embodied cultural cultivation to thrive in a globalised world. They expressed confidence that international schooling experiences prepared students for mobility to Western higher education and cultivated globally-oriented identities while not undermining their Chinese roots. They imagined their futures in terms of considerable flexibility, with a rising China viewed as an attractive and feasible option for career development.

This research provides an enriched understanding of a new generation of globally mobile Chinese students. The participants held distinctively different outlooks, aspirations and attitudes than depicted in the flexible citizenship framework, which emphasised a one-dimensional and instrumentalist portrayal of Chinese international students. This study discusses cross-generational changes in the desire for overseas education and a global-national outlook among young people in the context of significant social transformations in urban China.

The originality of this study is in expanding the flexible citizenship framework with reference to the emergent identities and pathways of students in the international schooling sector in China.

Previous studies highlighted a shortage of scale to measure digital citizenship among Indians. Accordingly, this study examined the psychometric properties of Jones and Mitchell’s (2016) digital citizenship scale in the Indian context with the help of two independent studies.

In the first study, the factorial validity of the scale was determined using the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In the second study, Cronbach’s alpha (CA) and composite reliability (CR) values checked the internal consistency reliability of the scale. Also, convergent, discriminant and criterion validity were examined.

EFA recommended a two-factor structure explaining 58.219% of the total variance. The item loadings varied from 0.540 to 0.793. The Indian version of the scale showed one variation. In the original digital citizenship scale, the seventh statement (“I like to present myself online as someone was making positive choices”) was part of factor 1 (online respect); however, this study suggested that the seventh statement should be included in factor 2 (online civic engagement). In the second study, the acceptable (>0.70) values of CA and CR concluded the internal consistency reliability of the scale. The convergent validity was suggested by average variance explained values (>0.50). In addition, as expected, the Indian version of the digital citizenship scale reported a statistically significant positive correlation with Internet self-efficacy and a considerable negative relationship with cyberbullying. These findings concluded the criterion validity of the scale.

The Indian version of the digital citizenship scale showed appreciable psychometric properties among Indian students.

Scholarly literature on the Internationalization of Education has generated important theories, debates, and insights supporting in-depth understandings of the field, yet we lack comprehensive reviews exploring the design, implementation, and impact of practical approaches. The present review addresses this gap, mapping the literature on international curriculum design, identifying trends and themes across approaches and pedagogies while revealing limitations and lack of attention to issues that inhibit practice in the field. It highlights the privileging of “instrumental,” or quantifiable skills-based curricula, over “transformative” internationalization dedicated to social justice and equity, and observes important disconnects between theory and practice: publications in the field offer critical conceptualizations of what internationalized curricula should achieve and why but with little attention to specific content and teaching practice that would lead to achieving these objectives. The review further analyzes such disconnect in the literature dedicated to decolonial internationalizing pedagogies, while simultaneously illuminating how prevailing decolonial theories of international education erase and ignore parts of the world. It concludes by contending that approaches to the internationalization of curriculum would benefit from increased practical frameworks that could guide educators, practitioners, and students in crucial conversations at the intersections of social justice and International Education.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the role of Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation in business education students' leadership motivation and citizenship motivation.

This study followed a quantitative approach: a conceptual model was developed based on an extensive review of the related literature; a questionnaire-based survey was conducted through an online link sent to faculty members and heads of business schools across Jordan which has AACSB accreditation. In total, 307 questionnaire surveys were completed and used in the statistical analysis. The two-stage approach of structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze and interpret the data and used to validate the conceptual model of this research.

The findings through SEM indicate all five latent constructs of organizational effectiveness have a significant and positive impact on business student citizenship motivation (SCM), whereas for the student leadership motivation (SLM), only student career development (SCD) has an insignificant impact.

Some limitations are associated with the quantitative methods of data analysis, missing demographic details of some respondents, and non-observation of response bias. The study model only includes five latent constructs of organizational effectiveness, which are appropriate to the study population and environment.

This research offers a substantial contribution to the unexplored area of the organizational effectiveness of accreditation and its impact on the student leadership and citizenship, specifically in the context of Jordan. Moreover, as there are few AACSB studies in the Middle East, this research goes some way to address this shortage.

This opening chapter of the edited volume, Childhood, Youth and Activism: Demands for Rights and Justice from Young People and Their Advocates, explores activism and advocacy – by and for children and young people. It begins by considering how activism has been understood in the scholarly literature, before making a case for a broad and inclusive conceptualisation of what counts as this particular form of social action. Relatedly, it examines the contours of the relationship between activism and advocacy, drawing attention to the ways in which these concepts converge, an issue that is particularly salient when applied to the categories of child and youth. Themes that emerge in research on child and youth activism are then drawn out and we identify some of the key issues that animate this work across various disciplines. These include observations that young people have long been central to social movements, the role of social media in youth activism, the nature of child and adult relationships in social movement organisations, and some of the issues that arise for young activists in relation to intersectional identities. To this we add debates regarding the politics of recognition, questions of voice and agency, and responsibility and their temporal registers. This discussion also foreshadows themes that emerge in the chapters across this volume. Finally, we offer a reflection on some of the conceptual issues raised when considering the book in its entirety, including those of voice, responsibility for the future, the politics of possibility and hope, and the many different forms and practices that activism and advocacy for and by young people take.