Developing and establishing the psychometric properties of the Strathclyde Citizenship Measure: A new measure for health and social care practice and research

There has been increasing interest and research attention towards citizenship-based practices and care within health and social care settings. A framework for implementing citizenship-based interventions has helped support the participation in society of persons who have experienced major life disruptions. Yet, having ways to measure the impact of citizenship 'in action' within specific socio-cultural contexts has proved challenging. We report on the development of the Strathclyde Citizenship Measure (SCM) which seeks to establish a psychometrically sound measure of citizenship that is relevant to the Scottish context. We outline the three phases of developing the SCM: (1) item generation, (2) item reduction and piloting, and (3) measure validation. Having generated items for the SCM using concept mapping techniques, we piloted it with 407 participants who completed an online survey of a 60-item version of the SCM. The aims were to assess the validity of the items and reduce the number of items using principal components analysis for the final measure. This resulted in a 39 item SCM. We then sought to establish the psychometric properties of this shorter version of the SCM through testing its reliability, convergent, concurrent and discriminant validity. The 39 item SCM was administered online to 280 Scottish residents along with additional measures including the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS), the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS21), the Sense of Belonging Instrument (SOBI-A); the Big Five Personality Inventory (Shortened Version; BFI-10) and the Personal Social Capital Scale (PSCS-16). The factor structure and dimensionality of the SCM was examined using exploratory factor analysis and it was found to be reliable and valid. This paper explores the potential for the application of the SCM across health and social care settings and identifies future work to develop citizenship tools to facilitate dialogues about citizenship across health and social care practice settings.

Does Deliberative Thinking Increase Tolerance? Political Tolerance Toward Individuals With Dual Citizenship

A growing number of states permit dual citizenship, but continued fears about communitarian values and worries about divided loyalties of dual citizens frequently boil up, leading to forms of political intolerance against such individuals. Dual-process theories argue that tolerance is more likely when people engage in deliberative (vs. intuitive) thinking in which they recognize and consider the equal rights of all citizens. We used a survey experiment to manipulate deliberative versus intuitive thinking to test whether deliberative thinking increases political tolerance of immigrant-origin individuals with dual citizenship. Using a nationally representative sample of Dutch majority members, we found that deliberative thinking can indeed increase political tolerance. This finding was robust across demographic differences in gender, age, religiosity, educational level, political orientation, and authoritarianism.

Dilemmas of sexual citizenship: A critical social psychological analysis of Civil Union law representations in Greek Cypriot newspapers

In this article we bring a critical social-psychological approach to the study of sexual citizenship. This approach seeks to understand how citizenship is constructed through ideological resources and negotiated in local contexts. We do so by studying newspaper representations of the Civil Union (CU) law in the Cypriot context. This law represented a major legal development for a largely heteronormative, patriarchic social context and sparked debate around sexual rights in general. We analysed 82 opinion articles that appeared in four newspapers of different political orientations between 2011 and 2015, through thematic and critical discourse analysis. The analysis revealed that CU was debated in terms of two oppositional themes. The first theme debated whether CU protects universal rights or introduces special rights, which are either not deserved or create inequality. The second theme approached the CU law as a sign of a much-needed societal progress or as a sign of decline and national degeneration. We show how these themes draw upon two broader ideological dilemmas, that of universalism versus particularism and that of Occidentalism versus Orientalism, and discuss the implications of these ideological streams in constructing the boundaries of citizenship for LGBT+ in this context.

Dual citizenship and the perceived loyalty of immigrants

This survey experiment examined national majority group members’ reactions to immigrants’ citizenship status with a focus on dual citizenship. A sample of 779 participants ( nFinland = 174; nNetherlands = 377; nGermany = 228) was used to examine whether immigrants’ citizenship status affects trust towards immigrants, willingness to accept immigrants in strategic positions, and support for immigrants’ social influence in society. Perceived group loyalties were expected to mediate these relationships. Compared to national citizens, dual citizens were perceived as having lower national loyalty and higher foreign loyalty. Compared to foreign citizens, dual citizens were perceived to have higher national loyalty but equally high foreign loyalty. Higher national loyalty was further associated with higher trust, acceptance, and support, whereas higher foreign loyalty was associated with lower trust, acceptance, and support. These findings are discussed in relation to societal debates on dual citizenship and the limited social psychological research on this topic.

Young People’s Citizen Identities: A Q-Methodological Analysis of English Youth Perceptions of Citizenship in Britain

Since the late 1980s, successive United Kingdom (UK) governments have sought to develop initiatives designed to promote forms of “active citizenship” among young people. But despite the substantial amount of work done by social scientists on the topic of citizenship in recent decades, relatively little research work has been done in social psychology to analyse citizens’ actual understandings of citizenship, viewed in terms of membership of a political community. This article presents the findings of a Q-methodological study of how teenagers (n = 75) from different parts of England (M = 17.25 years; SD = 1.41) regard citizenship and construct their own identities as citizens. It sets out the three factors and four distinct stances on what it means to be a citizen that emerged in the research: The active citizen, the rooted citizen, the cosmopolitan citizen, and the secure citizen. Understanding the multiple ways in which young people construct citizenship is essential for effectively engaging with them. In this way, young citizens can be enabled to make an impact on, rather than simply being at the receiving end of, the development of citizenship policy in Britain.

Decolonising research methodologies: opportunity and caution

Decolonising methodologies attempt to bring together a number of critical, indigenous, liberation, and feminist methodologies to strengthen decolonisation research. Decolonising methodologies have potential, but it is important to be aware of possible limitations. I argue that the manner in which decolonising methodologies is located in the paradigm debate is limiting and prescriptive, lacks clarity of the concepts that it draws on, reproduces problematic representations of the marginalised, overemphasises how much choice researchers have in choosing decolonising methodologies, and does not address the systemic barriers to decolonisation scholarship. Recommendations for how to strengthen decolonising methodologies are presented.

Understanding Membership in a World of Global Migration: (How) Does Citizenship Matter?

This article synthesizes the literature on citizenship and immigration to evaluate the heft of citizenship and theorize why it matters. We examine why citizenship laws vary cross-nationally and why some immigrants acquire citizenship while others do not. We consider how citizenship influences rights, identities, and participation and the mechanisms by which citizenship could influence lives. We consider frameworks, such as cultural and performative citizenship, that de-center legal status and the nation-state. Ultimately, we argue for a claims-making approach to citizenship, one that is a relational process of recognition, includes actors outside the individual/state dyad, and focuses on claims to legitimate membership.

Taking the Concept of Citizenship in Mental Health across Countries. Reflections on Transferring Principles and Practice to Different Sociocultural Contexts

Transferring principles and practices to different sociocultural and professional contexts in the field of mental health can be very complex. Previous research on public health policy points to difficulties in different areas such as the understanding the new concepts, their applicability in different health systems, and suitable approaches to its effective implementation. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the process of transferring the concept of Citizenship, from its United States origins in mental health outreach work with persons who are homeless to Catalonia, Spain. We define Citizenship as promoting the rights, responsibilities, roles, resources and relationships of persons with mental illnesses, along with a sense of belonging that is validated by other citizens. The process of this transition involves embedding Citizenship in the mental health “first-person” (internationally known as Consumer/Survivor/Peer) movement in Catalonia. The paper includes a discussion of the concept of transference, including a case example of the adoption of the concept of mental health recovery in different countries. Following this, we describe the United States Citizenship model and key elements of its development. We then turn to Spain and the evolution of its mental health system, and then to Catalonia for a brief case history of transference of the principles and practices of Citizenship to that region. The “take home message” of this work is that concepts being brought from one sociocultural and national context to another, must focus on contextualization in the ‘adoptee’s’ practices, including the balance between personal involvement and professional rigor, the involvement of key actors, and ongoing evaluation of actions taken.

The Social Psychology of Citizenship: Engagement With Citizenship Studies and Future Research

In this article we review the argument outlined in the opening article in this special thematic section: that the current social psychology of citizenship can be understood as the development of longstanding conceptualisations of the concept within the discipline. These conceptualisations have contributed to the current social psychological study of the constructive, active and collective (but often exclusive) understandings of citizenship in people’s everyday lives, as evidenced by contributions to this thematic section. We consider how this emerging body of work might fit with current citizenship studies and in particular how it may contribute to the current trend towards conceiving citizenship as an active practice embedded in everyday social life. Specifically, we highlight three areas of future research that we think are particularly promising: citizenship and recognition; displays and enactments of citizenship in public space; citizenship and lived coexistence. Although this is far from an exhaustive list of possibilities, we propose that research in these areas could enable the way for social psychology to articulate a distinct, recognisable and valuable contribution to citizenship studies.