Introducing Digital Citizenship Education for Young Immigrants in Preparatory Courses

Abstract

In recent years the immigrant population in Finland has increased rapidly. Due to the societal changes, new measurements have been implemented in different areas. In the area of education, preparatory courses have been designed as an essential part of the newcomers’ integration plan in order to strengthen the pupils’ Finnish language skills as well as to acquaint them with Finnish customs and teaching methods. On the other hand, digital technology has constantly been developed and it has become more and more utilized in the area of education. This fact poses diverse challenges due to the lack of digital citizenship education. In preparatory courses for young immigrants in Finland, a variety of subjects are offered to the pupils, however there is a lack of citizenship education, and needless to say of digital citizenship education, making them more vulnerable on digital platforms and not giving them the opportunity to fully exercise their right to citizenship.

The present study aimed at demonstrating that there is an urgent need of implementing digital citizenship education in preparatory courses for young immigrants. The main reasons are, firstly because through observations I became aware of the pupils’ misuse of digital devices in formal education, secondly due to the immigrants’ vulnerability in digital platforms as they have been constantly object of bullying and hate speech, and lastly, so that they can have the opportunity to appropriately exercise their rights and responsibilities in the digital world. For this reason, I designed and implemented a digital citizenship course, having as a base the four elements of digital citizenship that correspond to the category of student environment and student behaviour that Ribble (2015) has described, as well as the theory of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). For this purpose, a qualitative case study (with certain elements of action research) was conducted and analysed through the content analysis method.

Based on the two main research questions posed by this study: what are the challenges of introducing digital citizenship education in preparatory courses for young newcomers? and how can young immigrants in preparatory courses benefit from a guided course in digital citizenship education? two main categories emerged. The categories found were “challenges” and “benefits”. Four challenges were encountered through this study that demonstrated the imperative need of digital citizenship education for young newcomers. On the other hand, the benefits, although less in number, were essential to the development of the young immigrants in having a better understanding of appropriate behaviours in digital platforms. The benefits showed a correlation with the main elements of the zone of proximal development. The results revealed that further research in this area must be conducted and changes in preparatory courses must be done in order to have an appropriate implementation of digital citizenship education in preparatory courses for young immigrants living in Finland.