DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IN GEORGIA’S TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND PARENTS

TitleDIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IN GEORGIA’S TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND PARENTS
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2023
AuthorsLobzhanidze, S, Urchukhishvili, G, Sikharulidze, M
JournalProblems of Education in the 21st Century
Volume81
Issue5
Start Page667-686
PaginationContinuous
Date PublishedOctober/2023
Type of ArticleOriginal article
ISSN1822-7864
Other NumbersE-ISSN 2538-7111
Keywordsdigital citizenship education, digital competences, digital domains, digital school culture, exploratory sequential design
Abstract

The Council of Europe’s (CoE) model on Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) has at its basis the ‘Competencies of Democratic Culture’ model, which considers being an active and responsible citizen and implies the development of a set of lifelong competencies both online and offline at various levels, as well. Taking the ‘Competencies of Democratic Culture’ the CoE experts elaborated on the DCE domains, which are the appropriate way to develop democratic culture competences in the digital environment. Georgia, as a member country, signed the agreement on DCE to be applied at the K-12 curriculum level and joined the DCE project of the CoE in July 2020. Thus, as an educational concept, DCE is relatively new to the education system of Georgia. The aim of the study was to describe the current situation concerning DCE in Georgia, namely on awareness of the concept and its foundations, as well as identifying self-reported DCE competences by teachers, students and parents, in the light of the Ribble’s and the CoE’s models. Data was collected in five schools in 2020. The issue was studied using the quantitative method, an online survey, 1954 respondents were involved in the research. It was demonstrated that most of the respondents had a lack of awareness about information-communication technologies. It can be concluded that communication among school teachers, students and parents about the issues of digital security has not started yet. The correlation between the geographic location of a school and teachers’ digital competences is not confirmed.

URLhttps://oaji.net/articles/2023/457-1699124594.pdf
DOI10.33225/pec/23.81.667
Refereed DesignationRefereed
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