This course provides a comprehensive introduction to political citizenship from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, with a particular emphasis on its participatory dimension. Participants will engage with fresh teaching materials, alongside insightful interviews and case studies, thanks to contributions from researchers in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Geneva as well as international experts on political participation, citizenship, and migration. The various components of the MOOC offer a diverse and well-rounded approach to understanding citizenship.
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Citizenship consists of membership in a political community and involves both rights and duties, including the duty to actively engage with and contribute to that community. It also entails addressing the challenges encountered by specific groups, such as migrants and young people, in relation to their citizenship status, rights, and participation. This course aims to offer a deeper comprehension of the features and complexities of citizenship in today's globalized world, while also fostering the development of critical thinking.
Whether you are already familiar with the notion of citizenship or not, this course offers you fresh insights into some of the key contemporary challenges surrounding citizenship and their far-reaching social impacts on citizens.
What you'll learn
- A primary knowledge about citizenship and its interplay with political equality and democracy.
- The understanding of the origin, meanings and implications surrounding political citizenship.
- To foster critical thinking regarding the unequal political voices of citizens.
Syllabus
Theories of Citizenship
This module will provide you with the basic theoretical tools for the entire course. You will discover how the concept of citizenship has come into being, the values that can justify different views of citizenship and its components (membership, rights, participation). Together, we will examine how citizenship can hold diverse meanings and implications for various groups, such as migrants, young people and the unemployed. After completing the module, you will be able to identify various models of citizenship and understand the impact of being a citizen on people's lives, both in general and within democracies.
Citizenship and Participation
This module focuses on the participatory dimension of citizenship from a general point of view. You will discover the various forms of political participation (electoral and non-electoral, voting and social movements), how they have evolved over time, and how they help to define the outline of citizenship in contemporary societies. We shall touch upon, amongst other, concepts such as "active citizenship" and "participatory citizenship". After completing this module, you should be able to identify the main issues related to the relationship between citizenship and political participation.
Citizenship and Migration
This module examines the conceptual and practical connections between citizenship and participation in the field of migration. You will discover how the conceptions and institutional practices of citizenship, as seen in the first module, shape the migration field and how they relate to both discourses and actions that influence the degree of political inclusion of immigrant groups. You will gain familiarity with the historical emergence of integration policies and observe how these relate to collective mobilization and individual participation in migration politics. The module will allow you to assess key determinants of the political inclusion of immigrants in contemporary democracies. After completing this module, you should be able to identify the main issues related to the relationship between citizenship and political participation with respect to migration politics.
Youth Citizenship
This module examines the conceptual and practical connections between young citizens and political participation. You will discover how young people are seen in the public sphere and how they challenge the conceptions of citizenship. Specifically, you will understand how young people relate to both discourses and actions pertaining to young people, and how this affects their political inclusion. Moreover, you will gain familiarity with the social and political inclusion of young people, how and under what circumstances young people are socialized to the public life, and how they relate to collective mobilization and individual participation. After completing this module, you should be able to identify the main issues related to the relationship between citizenship and young people.
