Agentic Citizenship Learning

This chapter explores Chinese youths’ citizenship learning from the perspectives of social structure and agency. It first outlines the life experiences of high school students, including their aspirations, family relationships, struggles in school, and experiences with globalization. These elements relate to their political views and influence their citizenship learning. The chapter then addresses students’ agentic learning of rights, responsibilities, political participation, and socialist identity. It reveals how students reinterpret rights and political participation in terms of individual freedom and personal interests while passively resisting socialist ideology. It explains that students’ citizenship learning is shaped by both their agency and the social structures of standardized testing and China’s civic environment. The chapter also demonstrates the continuities and changes in youths’ conceptions of citizenship and citizenship learning in recent years, highlighting students’ continued pursuit of individualism alongside an increasing interest in stability, gender equality, and employment issues.