Critical Consciousness and Collective Political Action: An Empirical Study of Serbian Students

Jelena Starčević; Bojana Dimitrijević

doi:10.19090/pp.v19i3.2734

Authors

Jelena Starčević Faculty of Education, University of Kragujevac, Serbia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7742-992X
Bojana Dimitrijević Faculty of Education, University of Kragujevac, Serbia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4599-4005

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19090/pp.v19i3.2734

Keywords:

critical consciousness, collective political action, student protests, Serbia

Abstract

Participation in collective political action has primarily been linked to perceived injustice, emotional reactions, group efficacy, and identification with a disadvantaged group. The present study examined whether participation in collective political action is associated with differences in critical consciousness. Data were collected via an online survey in 2025 following the onset of student protests at higher education institutions in Serbia. The sample comprised 311 students who reported protest participation (77.9%) and 83 students who reported non-participation (20.8%). Measures included sociodemographic variables, an item assessing protest participation, and the Short Critical Consciousness Scale (ShoCCS). Psychometric results suggest that the Critical Action scale may require contextual adaptation, whereas the Critical Reflection and Critical Motivation scales demonstrated evidence of validity and reliability. After correlating the error terms for two pairs of items and removing the Critical Action items with insufficient loadings, the revised model demonstrated very good fit: χ²/df = 2.10, TLI = .97, CFI = .98, GFI = .97, AGFI = .95, RMSEA = .05, 90% CI [.03, .07], SRMR = .06. Protest participants scored significantly higher on Critical Reflection (t = 4.62, p < .001, d = 0.56), two-item Critical Action (z = -4.04, p < .001, r = 0.20), and Critical Motivation (t = 8.29, p < .001, d = 1.18), with no significant differences between the subsamples in age, gender, ethnic or religious minority status, or perceived household income. Overall, the findings indicate that critical consciousness may contribute to explaining participation in collective political action.

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