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Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme

This dissertation explores the University of Cape Town’s Global Citizenship (GC) Programme as a site for teaching citizen leadership. We live in times that are marked by complexity, uncertainty, and a plethora of global challenges, many of which have resulted in injustices in people’s lived experien...

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Main Author: Joseph, Loren
Other Authors: Ward, Catherine
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Psychology 2020
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access_status_str Open Access
author Joseph, Loren
author2 Ward, Catherine
author_browse Joseph, Loren
Ward, Catherine
author_facet Ward, Catherine
Joseph, Loren
author_sort Joseph, Loren
collection Thesis
description This dissertation explores the University of Cape Town’s Global Citizenship (GC) Programme as a site for teaching citizen leadership. We live in times that are marked by complexity, uncertainty, and a plethora of global challenges, many of which have resulted in injustices in people’s lived experiences. Increasingly ordinary citizens are calling for new ways of leading change which combats social injustices. This form of leadership values social justice, democracy, equity, shared agency, active and engaged citizenship – this is regarded as citizen leadership. Higher education institutions have a role to play in developing student leaders who are equipped with the capacities to confront uncertainty and thrive in a changing world. This study recruited student participants of the GC programme courses. In total, ten students participated in one of four focus group discussions which were guided by semi-structured interviews, and ninety students consented to have their reflective essays on the GC programme courses analysed. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the participants’ experience of the programme, in the focus group discussions and reflective essays, was examined to determine how they understood citizenship, social justice and leadership in relation to the programme’s teachings. The findings revealed that most students regarded the programme as developing their capacities for active and engaged global citizenship. Most students did not view the programme as teaching leadership; however, based on the definition of citizen leadership, I argue that the programme is indeed a site for teaching this form of leadership. It is recommended that the programme staff make the connection between active and engaged citizenship, social justice, and leadership more explicit in their curricula and teaching. It is believed that this change to the programme will enable students to have a clearer understanding of themselves as leaders prepared for the world beyond university and enabled to bring purposeful change to the world.
format Thesis
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:28.941Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher Department of Psychology
publisherStr Department of Psychology
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31216 Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme Joseph, Loren Ward, Catherine Global Citizenship Programme citizen leadership social justice active and engaged citizenship This dissertation explores the University of Cape Town’s Global Citizenship (GC) Programme as a site for teaching citizen leadership. We live in times that are marked by complexity, uncertainty, and a plethora of global challenges, many of which have resulted in injustices in people’s lived experiences. Increasingly ordinary citizens are calling for new ways of leading change which combats social injustices. This form of leadership values social justice, democracy, equity, shared agency, active and engaged citizenship – this is regarded as citizen leadership. Higher education institutions have a role to play in developing student leaders who are equipped with the capacities to confront uncertainty and thrive in a changing world. This study recruited student participants of the GC programme courses. In total, ten students participated in one of four focus group discussions which were guided by semi-structured interviews, and ninety students consented to have their reflective essays on the GC programme courses analysed. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the participants’ experience of the programme, in the focus group discussions and reflective essays, was examined to determine how they understood citizenship, social justice and leadership in relation to the programme’s teachings. The findings revealed that most students regarded the programme as developing their capacities for active and engaged global citizenship. Most students did not view the programme as teaching leadership; however, based on the definition of citizen leadership, I argue that the programme is indeed a site for teaching this form of leadership. It is recommended that the programme staff make the connection between active and engaged citizenship, social justice, and leadership more explicit in their curricula and teaching. It is believed that this change to the programme will enable students to have a clearer understanding of themselves as leaders prepared for the world beyond university and enabled to bring purposeful change to the world. 2020-02-21T09:09:59Z 2020-02-21T09:09:59Z 2019 2020-02-20T09:23:55Z Master Thesis Masters http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31216 eng application/pdf Department of Psychology Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle Global Citizenship Programme
citizen leadership
social justice
active and engaged citizenship
Joseph, Loren
Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
title_full Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
title_fullStr Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
title_full_unstemmed Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
title_short Educating for citizen leadership: exploring the University of Cape Town’s global citizenship programme
title_sort educating for citizen leadership exploring the university of cape town s global citizenship programme
topic Global Citizenship Programme
citizen leadership
social justice
active and engaged citizenship
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31216
work_keys_str_mv AT josephloren educatingforcitizenleadershipexploringtheuniversityofcapetownsglobalcitizenshipprogramme