Teachers’ Perspectives on Digital Citizenship Education and Their Practices: A Comparative Analysis of Teachers in Germany and Hong Kong

In many countries, citizenship education in schools is considered essential for preparing young people for their roles as citizens. Although the curriculum defines the goals and contents to be learned, teachers also make decisions influencing student learning. There is widespread agreement that teachers’ beliefs about education influence their teaching practices and student learning outcomes (Fives and Buehl 2012; Park and Oliver 2008). Teachers’ beliefs can act as a filter in selecting topics and instructional activities (Reichert and Torney-Purta 2019), affecting instructional decisions as well as the quality of student learning (Patterson et al. 2012). Thus, teachers’ beliefs about citizenship and citizenship education and how these beliefs influence educational practices have been a focal point of research on citizenship education (Alviar-Martin 2017; Evans 2006; Sampermans et al. 2021). However, the meaning and possibilities of citizenship have expanded with the advent of digital technologies, challenging not only traditional approaches to citizenship education, but also traditional concepts of citizenship. The blurring of boundaries between the online and the offline worlds, aided by the rapid development of information technologies, has introduced new approaches which extend and reframe the conceptual scope of citizenship (Kim and Choi 2018). Unsurprisingly, the notion of “digital citizenship” has burgeoned in recent years, often referring to aspects such as online civic engagement or media literacy. With reference to the concept of digital citizenship, different approaches for education for citizenship in the digital age, or “digital citizenship education”, have emerged (Choi et al. 2018; Kenner and Lange 2019). Acknowledging the crucial role of teachers in citizenship education at school, researchers have also begun to examine teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, and competences regarding digital citizenship and education (Ata and Yildirim 2019, Choi et al. 2018, Yang and Chen 2010). However, still little is known about teachers’ concepts of digital citizenship and how they believe citizenship education should prepare young people for their roles as digital citizens. This paper expands prior research by examining teachers’ concepts of digital citizenship and digital citizenship education, while also exploring their relation to classroom instruction and perceived challenges for implementing digital citizenship education. Semi-structured interviews with teachers of civics subjects were conducted in Hong Kong and Germany during the Covid-19 pandemic. Qualitative content analysis reveals an ambivalent view on digital citizenship by teachers. On the one hand, teachers acknowledge the positive impact of digitization on opportunities to gather information and to participate in society. On the other hand, they also highlight the risks of manipulation and interference by anti-democratic actors. Furthermore, many teachers emphasize the need to facilitate media literacy (including technical skills) and analytical competencies as essential aspects of digital citizenship education. Yet teachers also identify constraints that impede education for digital citizenship; these constraints are imposed by the curriculum (esp. in Germany) and political uncertainty (esp. in Hong Kong). The findings will be discussed with respect to the skills required for being a citizen in the digital age and how schools can promote the development of digital citizenship.