Societal-Democratic Engagement as a Dimension of Student Success (GesDimS)

Background:

Findings on the development of societal-democratic engagement in the course of studies are still rare since the assessment of higher education performance in studies and teaching tends to be based on economic efficiency criteria. Higher education correlates positively with both political and social engagement and related attitudes (political interest, pro-democratic values, etc.). Against the backdrop of developments such as the rise of extreme right-wing groups and declining trust in politics, the study of such issues is of particular relevance.

Main research question:

How does societal-democratic engagement among students develop over the course of their studies and how is it related to common criteria of academic success and dropout?

The main research question investigates:

The main research question of the project GesDimS investigates changes in democratic attitudes and in participatory behavior over the course of university education.

Research objective:

The aim is to contribute to the research on non-monetary academic success in terms of societal-democratic engagement and to investigate to what extent dropouts also participate in these democratization processes through (partial) academization.