Education in the North Volume number (year), http://www.abdn.ac.uk/eitn 1 ARTICLE Students’ Perceptions of Citizenship and Civic Engagement at Higher Education Institutions in Germany Javid Jafarov,
[email protected] University of Vechta, Germany DOI: https://doi.org/10.26203/0s32-2652 Copyright: © 2018 Jafarov To cite this article: Jafarov, J., (2018). Students’ Perceptions of Citizenship and Civic Engagement at Higher Education Institutions in Germany, Education in the North, 25(3), pp. 49-72. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non- commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Education in the North, 25(3) (2018), http://www.abdn.ac.uk/eitn 49 Students’ Perceptions of Citizenship and Civic Engagement at Higher Education Institutions in Germany Javid Jafarov,
[email protected] University of Vechta, Germany Abstract Literature on citizenship emphasizes the role of education in providing an opportunity for young people to participate effectively in democratic life and society. However, this role and responsibility have mostly been imposed on schools, not higher education institutions. Being able to participate effectively in democracy is a complex issue that requires opportunities to gain skills, knowledge and strategies for effective engagement. So civic engagement at school level is not enough to foster civic engagement, as learning how to participate in democratic life and society as an informed and active citizen is a life-long process. This study investigates students’ perceptions of citizenship and the current situations and approaches at German universities with respect to civic engagement.