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>

Social media news deserts: Digital inequalities and incidental news exposure on social media platforms

Some people live in social media “news deserts,” while others are embedded in online networks that are rich in news content. These news deserts represent a new form of digital inequality—distinct from problems of access, resources, or civic skills—that could foreclose one of the ways social media are believed to contribute to informing citizens and engaging them in democratic processes: providing opportunities for incidental news exposure. This study investigates incidental exposure on social media platforms, drawing on an online survey administered just before the 2018 US Midterm Elections ( N = 1493). The study finds that even after controlling for key individual-level factors, characteristics of social media discussion networks play a role in explaining variation in incidental exposure. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theory about incidental exposure, public engagement, and digital inequalities.

Demokrasi

ABSTRAK Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan dan menganalisis pengaruh penerapan budaya demokrasi di lingkungan sekolah terhadap pembentukan civic skills siswa siswi SMK PGRI 2 tahun pelajaran 2013/2014. Metode dalam penelitian ini menggunakan deskriptif kuantitatif. Subjek penelitian seluruh siswa dengan sampel 48 siswa. Teknik pokok menggunakan angket, sedangkan wawancara dan dokumentasi sebagai teknik penunjang. Teknik analisis data menggunakan chi kuadrat. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang telah dilakukan dapat diketahui bahwa terdapat derajat keeratan, yaitu dengan koefisien kontingensi C= 0,63 dan koefisien kontingensi Cmaks= 0,81. Kata kunci: Budaya demokrasi, civic skills, penerapan budaya

PENGARUH PENERAPAN BUDAYA DEMOKRASI DI LINGKUNGAN SEKOLAH TERHADAP PEMBENTUKAN CIVIC SKILLS

Metode dalam penelitian ini menggunakan deskriptif kuantitatif. Subjek penelitian seluruh siswadengan sampel 48 siswa. Teknik pokok menggunakan angket, sedangkan wawancara dandokumentasi sebagai teknik penunjang. Teknik analisis data menggunakan chi kuadrat. Berdasarkanhasil penelitian yang telah dilakukan dapat diketahui bahwa terdapat derajat keeratan, yaitu dengankoefisien kontingensi C= 0,63 dan koefisien kontingensi Cmaks= 0,81.

A Systematic Review of Co-Educational Models in School Handball

This study aims to address the characteristics presented by the co-educational models that have been put into practice in school handball, showing a general overview, after providing a systematic review of the literature on the topic published over the last ten years on co-educational paradigms in the practice of handball as a school sport. For the description and recording of the process of selection and filtering of documentary sources to be analyzed, use was made of the PRISMA flowchart. After the elimination of duplicates and entries not compliant with the criteria for time limits and type of document, the final sample surveyed was composed of thirty academic articles. The results considered (n = 26) showed a presentational pattern divisible into three segments or groups. These were: technical and sporting aspects of handball, highlighting the benefits of this sport in schools relative to other options (n = 7), co-education (n = 8), and results based on differences between the sexes (n = 11). Co-education stresses significant improvements in skills, together with perceived effort, enjoyment, and participation. These lead to improvements in the social climate and group cohesion, thanks to the practice of sports. Handball within schools, seen from a co-educational angle, should be approached with an eye to its predisposition for the development of social and civic skills. These include respect for the rules of a game, teamwork and solidarity, fair play, commitment, and responsibility. This paper lays out precisely and exhaustively the lines of investigation undertaken in the area of co-education, and, more specifically, how this is handled within the practicing of a confrontational team sport like handball.

The Ripple Effect of Civic Education Empowerment: Unravelling the Pillars of Good Citizenship

Discourse on pivotal current issues through and in education is the best approach to promote civic engagement and meaningful political participation among the youth. In this paper, the benefits of civic education empowerment from among Grade 12 students of Sablan National High School was explored. The essence of civic education empowerment has three main goals: political knowledge and understanding, democratic attitudes, and a readiness for democratic political action. Schools play an important role in catalyzing increased civic engagement; they can do this by enabling the youth to develop and practice the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours needed to participate in civic life. The ripple effect of civic education empowerment is manifested in the relevant learning experiences obtained by the participants in terms of their civic knowledge and civic skills. As to how these civic knowledge and civic skills enhance their civic dispositions and participation, it is evident that participant-respondents assimilated the necessary civic knowledge for an informed choice which reflects their civic dispositions in the formulation of their standards for suffrage. Civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions and participation constitute the core elements of an informed and active citizenship.

Direct Democracy and Party Membership: Testing the Role of Political Efficacy

The declines in political party memberships along with an increase in direct democracy have drawn numerous scholarly discussions. Previous literature has explored the relationship between direct democracy and party membership, but the role of political efficacy in shaping this relationship has not been systematically examined. In particular, direct democracy can increase political efficacy by enhancing citizens’ civic skills and perceptions about government responsiveness and indirectly raise citizens’ interests in joining political parties. Using the structural equation model, this study shows that political efficacy strongly correlates with direct democracy and plays a significant role in influencing the effect of direct democracy on party membership. Moreover, results from the bootstrap mediation test of examining potential causal inferences suggest that there are distinct differences in the indirect effects of direct democracy mediated by internal efficacy and external efficacy on party membership.

The Ripple Effect of Civic Education Empowerment: Unravelling the Pillars of Good Citizenship

Discourse on pivotal current issues through and in education is the best approach to promote civic engagement and meaningful political participation among the youth. In this paper, the benefits of civic education empowerment from among Grade 12 students of Sablan National High School was explored. The essence of civic education empowerment has three main goals: political knowledge and understanding, democratic attitudes, and a readiness for democratic political action. Schools play an important role in catalyzing increased civic engagement; they can do this by enabling the youth to develop and practice the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours needed to participate in civic life. The ripple effect of civic education empowerment is manifested in the relevant learning experiences obtained by the participants in terms of their civic knowledge and civic skills. As to how these civic knowledge and civic skills enhance their civic dispositions and participation, it is evident that participant-respondents assimilated the necessary civic knowledge for an informed choice which reflects their civic dispositions in the formulation of their standards for suffrage. Civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions and participation constitute the core elements of an informed and active citizenship.

The effectiveness of using edublogs as an instructional and motivating tool in the context of higher education

The aim of this research is to study the impact of blogs on improving self-reported motivation and learning in a higher education context. A quasi-experimental study was carried out in a social science core unit of the Primary Education degree at the University of Murcia, Spain. The study involved two groups of student teachers, with a total of 101 participants, who created their own blogs as a framework for exchanging their views and sharing their ideas on a variety of contemporary issues related to social science teaching. Data were collected through pre- and post-tests to measure whether the expected changes had occurred as a result of using this digital information platform. The results indicate that the use of blogs helped students to develop their digital literacy, to enhance their social and civic skills, and increase their self-perceived motivation. It is therefore worth updating the current communication processes with regard to online learning with a view to promoting digital access to information and fostering a meaningful learning network through these web resources.