When experiential learning emphasizes student participation and voice, experiential learning can be an effective form of political socialization to facilitate learning processes by enhancing knowledge construction and developing civic competency. Employing qualitative research, this study examined how meaningful and significant experiential learning could not only allow students to co-construct the meaning of citizenship but also contribute to civic development and further participation. The results revealed that teachers stressed civic engagement as an important attitude of ‘good citizens’ which could have affected how they viewed and organized learning activities (such as experiential learning) for their students. Experiential learning that provided space for student participation and voice helped nurture students to become ‘good citizens’ and contributed to students’ further civic engagement despite many challenges. The findings of this study suggest that governments need to rethink their policies on integrating youth engagement to accommodate the voices and interests of young people and expand on theories of citizenship and highlights cultivating active participation as important aims of civic education.

Experiential learning has an important role to play in education; the typologies of experiential learning for civic education was employed to examine two case studies. One case study involves a teacher guiding Hong Kong students in experiential learning, which took place at a national level in mainland China. His approaches aligned with justice oriented and charity oriented. The second case study concerns a teacher who personally undertook experiential learning at a global level in Africa. Her approaches aligned with these typologies of experiential learning (personal development and justice oriented). Their journeys illustrated that different types of experiential learning have various influences on the perceived civic learning outcomes of learners. We suggest adding facilitating and hindering factors into the typologies of experiential learning, which would provide a more comprehensive conceptual framework to guide educators and researchers in organizing and conducting experiential learning activities and studies.