Graduate Citizens: Issues of Citizenship and Higher Education

Graduate Citizens illuminates and explores the links between reforms in higher education, student experience of university and issues of citizenship. It poses questions about the condition and future of citizenship in Britain and discusses the implications for citizenship education. Since the introduction of student loans and tuition fees, the situation of students and new graduates has changed considerably. Set in this context, Graduate Citizens takes a look at the current generation of students’ attitudes towards citizenship and matters of social and moral responsibility. Drawing on small-scale case studies of students in two universities, the authors explore students’ changing sense of citizenship against the backdrop of changes in higher education. It addresses students’ approaches to being in debt, the role of their families in providing support and their attitudes towards careers. Questioning the claim that this generation of students is politically apathetic, the book shows that they are in fact socially concerned though distant from official, mainstream politics. It investigates students’ responses to such political and economic phenomena as globalization and the ever-increasing promotion of market forces.