Engaging students as digital citizens

ABSTRACT

Learning and teaching on physical university campuses have been enhanced by digital technology both in formally scheduled learning and teaching events and in the less formal spaces in which the higher education experience unfolds. The digital skills and know-how with which students arrive at university will arguably develop throughout the academic journey, though the extent to which they will underpin students’ growth into digital citizens, that is, confident and competent participants in a broader range of digitally enhanced social and professional communities, is likely to vary. The present article is the outcome of a research project which explored how students experience learning, teaching and communicating through digital technologies on a range of undergraduate courses at a UK university. Focus groups with fifty-five students in different years of study across twenty-three undergraduate courses revealed a nuanced understanding of the notion of ‘digital native’, yet a lack of readiness to link participation in digital spaces to digital citizenship and to articulate attributes of an effective participant in digital communities. The focus groups highlighted inconsistent alignment between personal, academic and professional digital spaces. They clearly signalled a need to explore further the commonalities and points of intersection between the three, moving beyond a skills mindset, and paying particular attention to the way in which participants in higher education construct and take up virtual identities, how they negotiate access to digital environments, the degree of control they are able and ready to exercise over digital spaces, and the contribution that universities can make to facilitate the complex developmental journeys towards digital citizenship.     

Children as citizens: literacies for social participation

The last decade has seen, in the policy arena, a broad global push for children to be treated as active participants in society rather than as the passive recipients of adult decisions and interventions. The topic of literacy learning and teaching has, however, been absent from much of the policy and literature on children's social participation. This paper is an exploratory foray into possible connections between literacy and citizenship from the perspective of young children and those responsible for their education. Drawing from both sociocultural and semiotic perspectives on literacy, this analysis crosses between institutional texts, ethnographic accounts and children's own representations of their places in the world. A hierarchical model of literacy development, which emphasises the teaching of basic decoding skills in the early years, is associated with a view of young children as future citizens rather than as active social participants. Recognising children's agency, and supporting their meaningful participation, requires literacies of social participation.     

Students as global citizens: strategies for mobilizing studies abroad

Universities globally are increasingly seeking to improve the international mobility of their students. There are several latent benefits that accrue to a university whose students and staff actively participate in international exchange programs. Essentially this can lead to an increase in the university's international reputation, opportunities for benchmarking against best practices, capacity to develop international relationships, diversity of student population with all the benefits that accrue from diversity, and access to potential recruitment markets. In this paper we review extant literature to elicit the range of practical factors that play a role in the decision of students to study abroad. We also discuss results from a recent survey among Australian students that revealed their preferences for international work placements.     

宜家善种作新民——梁启超女学观新探

梁启超女学观是其维新改良教育思想重要组成部分,独树一帜。以作新民为第一急务,开民智为第一要义,兴学校为第一政事,办女学“为天下存亡强弱之大原”。女子是可以受教育的,女子需要受教育,要让女子接受新式教育。唯有通过新式女子教育,才能造就智开、平等、自立、宜家、善种的女“新民”,而“新民”的核心素质应该为“民德”、“民智”、“民力”。     

Environmental Action as Context for Youth Development

This study explored the practices of teachers, nonformal science educators, community organizers, youth program managers, and other educators facilitating youth participation in local environmental action, as well as the experiences of some of the youth involved. We conducted narrative interviews with 33 educators facilitating youth environmental action in communities throughout the United States and group interviews with 46 youth participating in nine environmental action programs in New York State. Through interpretation of educators' stories and youths' reflections, we discovered strong parallels with theory and empirical research in the youth development literature suggesting environmental action is a valuable context for positive youth development.     

Youth Participatory Action Research as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

In this article, I present the ways in which youth participatory action research (YPAR) provides opportunities for academically rigorous and culturally sustaining pedagogy for immigrant high school students learning English. In a course sponsored by the City University of New York’s College Now program, I introduced students to the principles of critical ethnographic research and then guided them through the creation of a research proposal catalyzed by their own observations and questions of their immediate surroundings. A subset of this class of 15 was then mentored by me through the implementation of their research proposals, from question refinement to methods to data collection and analysis. Throughout the article, implications for teaching and learning for immigrant youth learning English are discussed.     

Educating citizens for changing economies

While economic factors play a crucial role in determining election outcomes, the place of economic understanding in educating citizens is neither widely recognized nor substantially articulated in the literature. Although economic educators have frequently asserted that economic understanding is important to citizens’ education, they have not set out their case by engaging with the wider literature on citizenship education. This paper identifies two dimensions of an economic education that enable it to contribute to a ‘maximalist’ citizenship education.     

Young sexual citizens: reimagining sex education as an essential form of civic engagement

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) pose a significant threat to the health and well-being of populations worldwide, and to young people in particular. Des]pite empirical evidence that comprehensive sex education is an important tool for prevention, the legitimacy and content of sex education in schools continue to be challenged by conservative narratives within society. This paper argues that sex education should be re-imagined as a form of civic training for children and recognised as an important corollary to public health efforts aimed at reducing the rate of STIs. The author's claim builds on notions of sexual citizenship, which consider sexuality to be an essential aspect of citizenship and a form of civic engagement. Sexual citizenship can make three important contributions to the advancement of sex education. First, the model can lead to greater acceptance of the idea of sex education by challenging conservative notions about children and sexuality, which are at the root of the classic objections to sex education. Second, it can help shape the content of sex education by eliciting parallels between civic participation and sex education. Finally, by emphasising how sex education can address some of the social phenomena underlying the spread of STIs, the model can be used to facilitate the incorporation of sex education into public health agendas. Although the author uses sex education in Canada as the principal case study, the paradigm may be equally helpful in other countries.     

Students positioned as global citizens in Australian and New Zealand universities: A discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Higher education plays a critical role in producing society’s leaders by preparing graduates with the knowledge, capabilities and disposition to appreciate diversity and address social injustice. Many higher education institutions within and beyond Australia have aimed to internationalise their curricula to ensure students achieve capabilities that enable them to contribute to an evolving global knowledge economy. However, the inclusion of global citizenship as a graduate attribute embedded in internationalised curricula, and the processes to achieving this, are highly contested. Guided by a discourse analysis approach, this study explored how Australian and New Zealand universities position students as global citizens in public web pages. Publicly available policy and other text documents on university websites relating to internationalisation and/or global citizenship were collected and screened. Those that met inclusion criteria were analysed to identify discourses and to further understand how higher education institutions describe their plan to advance and achieve global citizenship agendas. Two key themes were generated: expressions of internationalisation policy and global citizenship as an obscured educational intention. These findings are further elaborated, providing an outline of the possible implications for higher education policy and practice relating to the internationalisation of curriculum for global citizenship and its potential impact on educators and students.     

Reframing Service-Learning as Learning and Participation With Urban Youth

This article describes a critical service-learning project that resulted from an educational partnership among a national teachers' union, a local teachers' union, and a major research university. The partnership—funded by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service, Learn and Serve program—focused on professional development opportunities for K–12 educators across subject areas throughout an urban school district. Teachers enrolled in a university-level graduate course where they learned about critical service-learning, engaged in community-based activities, developed partnerships with local organizations, and facilitated critical service-learning projects in local schools and communities. Here, we highlight one of the many projects that emerged from this partnership as we attempt to connect theory with practice by reframing service-learning as learning and participation. We ask: How can a reframing of service-learning as learning and participation impact how we understand the educative and social engagements of four urban youth?     

新加坡乐龄教育:策略与启示

随着人口老龄化的加剧以及终身教育思想的广泛传播,老年教育日益受到世界各国的关注。亚洲四小龙之一的新加坡将"乐龄教育"作为应对人口老龄化问题的主要对策之一。其实施"乐龄教育"的策略主要有:扩展教育对象,实施乐龄准备教育;创设快乐学堂;以终身学习为理念,开展GSP合作以及依托社区创设第三龄与黄金乐龄学院。这些策略的成功实施可为"十二五"期间处于老龄化加速发展阶段的我国对老年教育新模式的探索提供一定的参考。     

"世界公民"--晏阳初与赛珍珠

晏阳初是 2 0世纪中国教育家中最具国际影响的世界性人物 ,他把毕生的精力都投入到了平民教育与乡村建设中。赛珍珠是一位高产的美国作家 ,曾长期在中国生活 ,她与晏阳初虽国籍不同 ,性格各异 ,但却有着相似的文化背景。他们都是人道主义者 ,都对中国及世界的劳苦民众倾注了极大的热情与巨大的精力。     

Youth

青春不是年华,而是心态;青春不是粉面、红唇、柔膝,而是坚强的意志,恢弘的想象,炙热的恋情;青春是生命深处的自在涌流。     

Youth

Youth is not a time of life;it is a state of mind;it is not a matter of rosy cheeks,red lips and supple knees;it is a matter of the will,a quality     

青春

太平洋战争打得正酣之时,麦克阿瑟将军时常从繁忙中抬起头,注视挂在墙上的镜框,镜框里是篇名为<青春>的文章.这篇文章一直伴随着他,后来,日本人在东京的美军总部发现了它,于是<青春>开始在日本流传.     

青春寄语

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosycheeks, red lips and supple(柔韧的)knees; it is a matter of will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.Youth means a temperamental predominance(支配,主导)of courage over timidity(胆怯),of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of