Youth Global Digital Citizenship
Diasporic youth in a connected world
This project aims to understand how young Australians think about and express their digital citizenship in secondary school classes and in their everyday social media use.
Diasporic youth in a connected world
The Project
About
This project aims to understand how young Australians think about and express their digital citizenship in secondary school classes and in their everyday digital and social media use. The research will help us better understand and improve the relationship between policy, learning material and young people’s online digital media use and practices.
Why?
Young people aged 15 to 24 are ‘the most connected age group in the world’ (UNESCO, 2019:18). Understandably, there are fears and anxieties about young people’s online activities in relation to online bullying and harassment, worry about accessing inappropriate content, and online radicalisation. Because of these fears, there has been a lot of emphasis on young people’s negative online activities. But we know from more recent research that there is also a positive relationship between young people’s ‘everyday’ use of digital and social media and civic engagement, political activism, and anti-racist action that can also provide a sense of belonging, global community and connectedness. We need to balance these approaches to enhance digital citizenship learning.
Digital Citizenship
A digital citizen is anyone using information technology (such as computers or mobile phones) to access social media, apps, games and other software for entertainment, information seeking, communication and to engage with their social networks and the wider society. Schools are increasingly developing digital citizenship curriculum to help students navigate opportunities and risks associated with digital participation. For our project, we are interested in learning more about how young people use digital media both at school, and outside of school in everyday spaces, such as at home. It is important that young people’s experiences and perspectives inform future initiatives such as developing school curriculum and government policy about digital citizenship.
Digital citizenship and young people
49%
Almost half of the Australian population is born overseas or has one parent born overseas, 25% of young people aged 12-24 are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
(ABS 2016)
50%
Around half of multicultural young people surveyed in Victoria are in daily contact with family and friends overseas. Digital technology is facilitating transnational friendships and contact with their homeland ( CMY 2018)
53%
A high proportion of young people aged 12 to 17 in Australia have encountered hateful online comments about cultural or religious groups. Girls (57%) experience this more than boys (50%) (eSafety Commission 2016)
About Us
We are a team of researchers from University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Deakin University, Australia.
We have been awarded an Australian Research Council grant to investigate diasporic youth and global digital citizenship in high school classes and everyday social media practices.
Address
University of Technology Broadway
Ultimo NSW 2007
Youth Global Digital Citizenship 