Integration or fragmentation? College student citizenship in the global society

Globalization has led to a societal shift toward increased emphasis on the position of individuals in the transnational context and decreased focus on distinct, but unified, national identities. This shift has led scholars to question the relevancy and effectiveness of education as a mechanism of democracy and national unification as prominently outlined in the philosophical writings of John Dewey. However, student citizenship patterns in the context of the contemporary global society have yet to be clearly identified and adequately studied from a quantitative perspective. Accordingly, we analyze national data extracted from the 2005 College Senior Survey to examine college student citizenship in terms of integration and fragmentation. The results of our exploratory cluster analysis lead us to offer four propositions on college student citizenship in the current era of globalization.