Extracurricular activities and university political participation: A systematic review of methodological and thematic gaps
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Abstract
Student political participation is a relevant dimension of university education, particularly in a context in which higher education institutions are expected to strengthen democratic competencies, leadership, and civic engagement. However, empirical evidence on the specific impact of extracurricular activities on these attitudes remains fragmented and insufficiently differentiated. The objective of this article was to identify the methodological and thematic gaps in empirical studies examining the impact of specific extracurricular activities on political participation attitudes among university students. A systematic literature review was conducted using a Boolean search strategy and previously defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The final corpus consisted of seven relevant empirical articles, which were analyzed through a data extraction matrix organized into three dimensions: types of extracurricular activities studied, predominant methodological approaches, and thematic gaps identified. The findings show that the most frequently examined activities include student organizations, service learning, university activism, student government, intercultural experiences, sociopolitical debates, and community-based projects. The review also revealed the predominance of quantitative approaches, longitudinal designs, and cross-sectional studies, although mixed-method and comparative research remain limited. The main gap identified is the tendency to treat extracurricular activities as a broad category without differentiating their specific effects on leadership, civic engagement, and political participation. The study concludes that future research should develop more comprehensive methodological designs capable of explaining how, under what conditions, and with what level of intensity these university experiences contribute to students’ political formation. Overall, this review contributes to organizing a dispersed field of inquiry and provides a basis for future empirical studies and institutional strategies aimed at strengthening democratic education in higher education
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