"Our Generation, Our Choice": Student political activism and the development of political citizenship in higher education

自从“公民美德”的概念在早期的共和民主学说中被表达以来，大学校园作为公民的场所的角色在英国高等教育的公民角色的论述中变得突出起来。尽管现有的关于政治社会化的文献主要集中在学龄儿童身上，但有证据表明，大学里的学生激进主义在培养未来的政治价值观和行为方面发挥着关键作用。然而，最近的文献也表明，与十年前相比，学生们在政治上不那么激进和活跃。这不仅显示了学术文献在这一主题上的差距，也清除了社会和教育问题：如果学生参与政治与政治公民发展之间的关系被描述为这样，而且近年来学生确实变得不那么积极，这对当前和未来毕业生群体的政治价值观和行为意味着什么？这项研究旨在通过Przybylski(2021)的“混合人种志”，结合线上和线下对英国大学基层学生活动团体的比较人种学研究，来调查学生政治激进主义背景下学生“积极”的政治公民行为和价值观的发展。在这样做的过程中，这项研究旨在概念化和理论化英国大学学生激进主义背后的角色、动机、观念和关系，并考虑这些与政治公民身份的发展以及大学在当代高等教育环境中的公民角色的关系。

Since the expression of the concept of 'civic virtue' inearly doctrines of republican democracy, the role of theuniversity campus as a site of citizenship has beenprominent in discourses of the civic role of highereducation in Britain. Although existing literature onpolitical socialisation has focused on school-agechildren, evidence suggests that student activism atuniversity plays a key role in developing future politicalvalues and behaviours. However, recent literature alsosuggests that students are less radical and politicallyactive than even ten years ago. This presents not onlya gap in the scholarly literature on the topic but also aclear societal and educational problematic: if arelationship between student engagement with politicsand the development of political citizenship is asdescribed, and students have indeed become 'lessactivist' in recent years, what does this mean forpolitical values and behaviours in the current and futuregraduate populations? The proposed study aims toinvestigate the development of students' 'active'political citizenship behaviours and values in thecontext of student political activism through a form ofPrzybylski's (2021) 'hybrid ethnography', blendingonline and offline comparative ethnographic study ofgrassroots student activist groups at Britishuniversities. In doing so, this research aims toconceptualise and theorise the roles, motivations,perceptions and relationships lying behind studentactivism at British universities, and consider therelationship these have with the development ofpolitical citizenship and, ultimately, the civic role of theuniversity in the contemporary HE setting.