Fostering Active Citizenship through International Student-Led Online Extracurricular Activities in Higher Education

Abstract

Since the 1980s, formal education has been instrumental in fostering democratic citizenship, particularly in Europe through the Europeanization process, which positions active citizenship—participation in civic and social life within the educational context—as a central objective. In Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), universities offer opportunities of participation in a number of programs in partnership with the NGOs. In line with this, this study aims to investigate the outcomes of those programs on the alumni, and the impact of those programs on the development of active citizenship among the participants. The data was collected through, a close- ended questionnaire with 117 students, and three sessions of focus group interviews with 13 students, which was analyzed through both statistical tools and thematic analysis, respectively. The findings explored that six dimensions of active citizenship were achieved by the program alumni. All the participants have achieved the competencies of life skills (FLIPS), societal accountability, moral social responsibility, knowledge of democracy and human rights. Other sub-themes that surfaced included awareness and intercultural understanding. The study comes to the conclusion that because the students have started projects to address community issues, they can be considered active agents in their communities. It is recommended that curriculum developers and universities combine more online international programs through certain associations, with the actual effects of those programs being tracked later.