Exploring the Role of Digital and Socio-civic Skills for Promoting Youth Participation and Digital Citizenship

<p style="text-align: justify;">The emergence of digital technologies and a more global and digital society has brought about the need to develop and educate in Digital Citizenship, as well as to study how youth are taught to participate and learn citizenship in a digital age. This paper aims to explore the role of digital and socio-civic skills development, as facilitators for youth participation and analyses the relationship between sociodemographic variables (sex, age, educational level, and political ideology) with the participatory profile of participants. This is a study with a quantitative methodology, where, based on non-probabilistic convenience sampling, 534 young people between 16 and 35 years old from Spain, completed an online questionnaire regarding the development of digital and socio-civic skills. The results indicate how a participant’s participatory profile is related to other variables. In addition, significant differences are observed between the different participation profiles and digital and socio-civic skills, underlining that the development of digital and socio-civic skills are essential for educating in digital citizenship.</p>

«YOUTH» AND «YOUTH WORK»: MEANING OF CONCEPTS

Youth is the predominant component of modern Ukrainian society, major factor of socio-economic progress, the driving force of youth work. The purpose of the article is to analyze the semantic content of the basic concept of «youth» in the context of the development of youth work as a field of scientific and practical activities. Research methods: on the basis of the analysis of scientific literature and legal documents, comparison of scientific sources and regulations characterizing a subject of research, the basic aspects of conceptual-terminological content of concepts «youth» and «youth work» are covered; synthesis and generalization of scientific and regulatory sources helped to form definition of the basic concepts of the study. The article analyzes the definition of «youth», «youth work» in the scientific and formal business literature; the main tasks of youth work are defined; It is noted that young people are the bearers of great intellectual potential, new and modern knowledge from various spheres of public life. The research uses such methods as analysis, comparison and generalization of scientific sources on the researched problem. The study highlights the main needs of young people: social and economic; adherence to a healthy lifestyle; involvement in public life; national and patriotic identity; tolerance; assessment of the effectiveness of public policy; the values of youth are determined in the following directions: values of youth, efficiency of youth policy (assessed by youth); civic and political activity of youth; participation and role of youth in the processes of state reformation; training, education; mobility and migration guidelines for young people; family and family values of young people.We have determined that youth work is work with young people, which is aimed at: personal and professional development with the acquisition of relevant competencies; youth participation in public life; involving young people in planning and decision-making at the local, regional and national levels.

‘Democracy and Active Citizenship Are Not Just About the Elections’: Youth Civic and Political Participation During and Beyond Singapore’s Nine-day Pandemic Election (GE2020)

Youths have responded to the unprecedented socio-economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic through civic and political participation. However, knowledge gaps exist with documenting specific motivations and forms involved in participation, as well as the implications for subsequent engagement. Using public podcast episodes produced by the author during Singapore’s nine-day election campaign held under lockdown, youth perspectives were analysed thematically to understand youth motivations, participation forms and how participation shapes future sociopolitical engagement. Findings suggest that Singaporean youth were motivated to build awareness and activism and take action between elections and during GE2020. Youth participation was a mix of conventional and non-conventional activities with seamless digital transitions. That any form of participation during the election resulted in youth resolve to continue or expand their engagement beyond GE2020, with awareness and activism and action perceived as mutually reinforcing motivations, has implications for future political behaviours and activities and issues in which youth are engaged.