Social Engagement Among Students

Social engagement among students.

../../../Doktorhut_mikrofaser.jpg

../../../Portada.jpg

Student: David Martínez Lozoya.

Professor: Dr. Julia Kormann.

Seminar Paper.

18/1/2016

________________

Table of contents.

Introduction.

1. International Situation.

2. Ethical and Civic Formation among University Students. 3rd University Mission.

3. Citizenship and European Higher Education Area.

4. Service Learning and University´s rolls.

5. First approach to Service Learning.

6. Service Learning as a Multidimensional Proposal.

7. Reflexions and Proposals.

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Web References.

________________

Introduction.

Over recent decades we have observed how the international concern is increasing among occidentals’ democracies due to the low social engagement among students. We may see that poor engagement reflected into the invisible youth social interactivity. In addition, they don’t seem to be interested in the political or society situation, even they are allowed to decide for that.

Actually we should be aware of many people who are used to don’t agree the youth life style. In that way we may also think about older people who don’t get worried about engagement, because sometimes they are doing even worst than youngers. But we have to understand that the focus is on young people, because they are going to become into the future. First of all, we should have a look at the lack of culture existing in every country, which takes their citizens to the status of not being worried about the social or political engagement.

This matter ought to be studied in greater depth, that’s why we are going to focus on Universities as a social formation space. We also want to test how a well education system is the greater influence in the social engagement among students.

1. International Situation.

Often, university youth doesn’t identify with political institutions or social habits in our actual society which is characterised for being individualistic about values. Some consequences come from that situation, e. g; social exclusion, youthful violence or electoral absenteeism.

Over the last few years many countries have shown their worry about the impact of these social problems over the politic life, national identity and democratic citizenship. These are some reasons why it has become the view of education in their ethical and civic dimension as a search for an answer or way to solve many of the social problems facing sometimes some exaggeration to education as a solution. Some examples of this international orientation are the introduction of the “Civic, Legal, and Social Education” in France in 1999. It had been also introduced in England “Education for the British Citizenship” in 2002. And the latest one “Living and Learning from Democracy” (Demokratie Lerne & Leben) developed in Germany in 2006.

A research conducted by the Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), has shown how important is the integration of the civic education for getting positive results into the promotion of the social engagement. Well then, the effort dedicated to promote the social dimension among higher education has been tight in the education field.

However, some Anglo-Saxon countries (USA, Canada, and a part of UK), take care about interesting initiatives like Service Learning is. Its really interesting seeing how they compete for being a college/university with a conscience. Some studies show how the Service Learning improves students’ academic results.

So the higher education institutions are able and responsible of inform about the current issues and also to provide the tools for solving them. In particular, they have the task of being a social agent change.

2. Ethical and Civic Formation among University Students. 3rd University Mission.

With its universal dimension, university contributes to raise the coexistence and development between people and cities. But it would be interesting wondering if university has an educational purpose. This is not a new topic at all, but it is quite interesting as far as orientation, social cohesion and identity formation is concerned.

If the political concern is decreasing among students, we will have to study deeply their causes. Then it would be necessary to think about creating some spaces where young people can talk about their complaints, alternatives and express their selves.

As a starting point we should have clear two points:

An enlightened person has a great knowledge for dealing with coexistence issues.

University plays an essential roll related to the development of communication skills which students need for solving problems. We have to think about participating in social and civic topics may has a relation with the irruption of new jobs related to development and cooperation under sustainability parameters. Then, we may think that moral behaviour gets power from efficiency and works better. The point is not about university has a social or civic mission, it´s about university is the social or civic mission. University is civility and that means that it has some rules that make easy to establish a dialogue into the community and get knowledge