The goal of this investigation was to quantify and analyze the effectiveness of a citizenship education program in the Tecnológico de Monterrey, a private higher education institution in Mexico, from the perspectives of its undergraduate students, faculty, and administration.

Such citizenship education program, called Social Education Model, includes an academic component in the form of required courses in the study program for all undergraduate students, the mandatory participation in social service projects, and the voluntary participation in student groups that include community service activities as part of their agendas.

Experiences with this model were collected through online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students, faculty members, and administrators of the higher education institution where the investigation took place.

To provide a contextual framework for citizenship education and learning in higher education, it is necessary to bring together concepts and approaches from different disciplines. It is not enough to consider political philosophy and its contribution to the ideas associated with citizenship. This perspective often includes undertones that the liberal, communitarian, and republican ideologies insert in the meaning of citizenship, but fails to consider a critical aspect: the notion that citizenship, independently from any ideology, is a social construct that derives from a learning process.

To be liberal, communitarian, or republican is something one learns. Occasionally, taking part in some established and defined groups conveys a particular identity that may even become a permanent mark in the life of an individual. In this sense, Ottaway, M. (2005). Civil Society. En P. Burnell & V. Randall (Eds.), . Oxford: Oxford University Press.Ottaway (2005) offers some examples in different contexts where being born to a family with a particular religious or political orientation makes it inevitable for the individual to belong to a universe of representations and beliefs stemming from the family.

Citizenship learning and the development of a set of skills related the topic are part of a long socialization process in an individual's lifetime thoroughly described decades ago by Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1986). . Buenos Aires: Amorrortu. ISBN 978-84-85043-11-8.Berger and Luckham (1986). It is through primary school (in which identity is acquired), and secondary school (in which social references are evaluated) socialization processes that social skills are developed and the identity of the individual is shaped. Castoriadis, C. (1996). La democracia como procedimiento y como régimen. , 38.Castoriadis (1996) refers to this individual and social learning process as follows:

The development of certain basic life skills, such as the ability to decode messages and meanings from texts through reading, is heavily determined by the reading habits of the parents and in particular of the mother, as research on factors related to academic performance has been able to prove (UNESCO, 1993). Therefore, citizenship learning and political enculturation are two essential references to be able to reflect upon the form, the processes, and the contents of a citizenship education model.

Another perspective to consider is the previous work on citizenship education in the context of higher education in Mexico. The conceptualization, the resources, the processes, and the frameworks the institutions adopted about citizenship education enables reflection upon the current state of citizenship learning, but most importantly, it leads to the improvement of such learning within the classroom.

Learning is the outcome of an individual and his/her social process. To understand the learning process, psychology has made many contributions. Here we will only briefly summarize those most relevant to the social aspect of learning, as well as some elements that sociology has contributed.

If the learning process favors the development of competences but only the procedural skills -specific skills and competencies to carry out particular tasks (with a special emphasis on those that derive in economic results)- are emphasized, there is a risk of losing sight of the comprehensiveness of the learning process in areas such as those related to the different social competences or skills upon which citizenship is built.

Therefore, it is essential to recognize that, from the psychological perspective, the construction of a reflective consciousness is the result of social and representational mechanisms, then commitment is made as a result of a complex network of motivations and experiences developed by the individual, both intra and interpersonally. Two elements are identified as distinctive to reflective consciousness: flexibility and criticism to dogmatisms: 'In summary, the reflective consciousness is displayed through life skills, which can be understood and explained as social competence' (Gómez, J. H. (2005). . Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José Caladas.Gómez, 2005, p. 27).

The concept of social competence has evolved with the contributions of different authors over three decades, from a set of skills susceptible to be quantified through psychometrics in the 1960s, to more emotional variables, such as empathy in the 1990s.

According to López de Dicastillo, N., & Iriarte, C. (2006). La competencia social y el desarrollo de comportamientos cívicos: la labor orientadora del profesor. .López de Dicastillo and Iriarte (2006), social skills include a set of dispositions in the individual from which stem the abilities to relate to others; of understanding and accepting opposing points of views; of mediating conflicts; as well as the creation of emotional bonds and the personal self-concept about others.

Therefore, social skills are foundational to citizenship education as they enable and prepare the ground for the civic participation of the individual through mechanisms of formal or informal involvement in the social arena.

It would be inaccurate to insist on the idea that expert knowledge of citizenship models and democracy as government form constitute the only desirable elements in citizenship education. However, it is essential that this set of social skills and dispositions related to the harmonious coexistence within a social group and oriented to its care and survival are developed and learned.

From a sociological perspective, it is also possible to find the concept of reflective consciousness in Giddens, A. (1986). . Buenos Aires: Amorrortu .Giddens (1986) and his structural theory. In such theoretical proposal, reflectiveness, from its inception, implies that every social actor becomes a social theorist, someone whose actions come after reflection, and only then he or she is defined as a social agent. On this regard, one of the contributions of phenomenology and mostly of ethnomethodology was to prove that: 1) Behavior in social life involves an ongoing theorization; and that, 2) Even the longest running habit -or the deepest rooted social norm- involves reflective, continuous, and careful attention (Giddens, 1986, p.5).

This ongoing theorization grants the social actors a permanent social competence that enables them to act through a so-called practical skill, and to discursively express their acts in the world through language and oral expression. This is consistent with the concept of social competence as defined in psychology, as both definitions share the self-referral aspects of the individual as common foundations, a matter that has also been pointed out from the ethics perspective in Camps, V. (1990) . Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Camps (1990) and the decentralization processes related to the discursive consciousness in Giddens, A. (1986). . Buenos Aires: Amorrortu .Giddens (1986).

The knowledge body of a social theory of learning has been classified by Gómez, J. H. (2005). . Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José Caladas.Gómez (2005) into: The practice theories, in which he identifies Bourdieu, P. (2003). . Madrid: Itsmo Col Fundamentos.Bourdieu (2003) and other authors within the french, neo-marxist critical sociology, and where learning is conceived as the result of an ongoing process of meaning production. This process is the result of a continuous interaction between the social actors within specific contexts.

Secondly, identified within the so-called symbolic interactionism -rooted in the School of Chicago Blumer, H. (1938). “Social Psychology” En E. P. Schmidt (Ed.), (pp. 144-198). Nueva York: Prentice-Hall, Inc. (1937).Blumer (1938)- Blumer (1938) postulates that -as a result of the interaction and through the exchange of symbols- the individual develops their perception of the environment; increases its problem-solving abilities; and, creates identities for specific contexts. This perspective stresses the role of exchange and the individual decentralization of the symbol, while the former stresses the role of the context and the interpretative practices of the community.

Lastly, a line of thought related to the social construction of learning is identified within the identity theories. This perspective groups the psychoanalytical positions, where the development of the individual is emphasized and therefore learning is an active process of categorical association and creation. Jerome Bruner, J. (1997). . Madrid: Visor.Bruner (1997) is one of its principal authors.

In this way, both individually and socially, citizenship skills are progressively developed in a person. The characteristics that citizens may display under certain circumstances and in specific moments in time will depend upon the process and the historical context. What is important to stress out is that citizenship is learned and put into practice within a common framework or group of persons.

In conclusion, it is possible to assert that citizenship skills are the result of the social context in which a personal history unfolds. It is both individually and subject to historical norms that the social knowledge, the self-awareness and awareness of others, and the abilities and skills to interact publicly are shaped.

It has been stated that citizenship as a learning object requires an approach from the educational institution where democratic practices are commonplace, and it's a daily practice. So that it can be understood as a plural learning and not as a monolithic concept that is introduced in the syllabi of one or more courses that some students must take and through a few strategies that permeate into the institutional culture.

Citizenship learning, defined by Gómez, J. H. (2005). . Bogotá: Universidad Distrital Francisco José Caladas.Gómez (2005) as a production and reproduction process of constructed meanings adopted by social actors, requires the examination and review of the institution's own practices, as well as creating spaces for reflection, besides the training that everyone who participates in them must receive. It is both in the classroom and in the institutional and social areas that students acquire their own sense of citizenship. And in such learning, a combination of norms, values, and behaviors accepted and geared by the sociopolitical system come together and contribute to shaping a political socialization through all the resources that both the institution and the community provide to the students. This enables them to participate in the different political and symbolic scenarios of civil society and government.

In the institution where this study was carried out, citizenship education follows three approaches: Academic, required and elective courses that are part of their study programs; active participation in social service, which for Mexico is a requirement for graduation for all higher education students; and voluntary participation in student groups. It is in these three scenarios citizenship education takes place.

An ethnographic design (Hernández-Sampieri, R., Fernández-Collado, C., Baptista, P. (2006). (4a ed). Ciudad de México: McGraw Hill.Hernández-Sampieri, Fernández-Collado, and Baptista, 2006) was selected for this qualitative study, and following questions were formulated to guide the research:

What is the perception of the institution's undergraduate students regarding the Social Education Model and its elements in connection with the development of citizenship skills?

Citizenship education should start in the family and continue through basic education, but this does not exempt higher education institutions from continuing offering opportunities for the development of skills that are fundamental in the life of democratic or aspiring democratic societies.

It is in this context that the institution has designed an educational model to achieve such development, in the first place by stating two institutional citizenship skills. The model includes an academic component through courses in the study program, the participation in social service projects that culminate in a written reflection that allows students to reflect upon their individual role as active citizens, and finally the opportunity to participate in student groups that include voluntary work in their agendas.

The findings include a shared notion of citizenship among undergraduate students, faculty members, and administrators, as well as some elements leading to the improvement of the institution's citizenship education model.