The recent rapid expansion of digital technologies brought with it the promise that these technologies would bring citizens, and especially youth, closer to political decision-making processes. But studies on youth participation and technology suggest that this promise has failed to materialize. The present article looks at nontraditional and informal online forms of civic participation to better understand students' civic agency when using the Internet. Results from a countrywide survey of 11th-and 12th-grade students in Portugal suggest that their informal online civic participation (e.g., posting and sharing civically relevant items) is positively correlated with their formal civic participation offline (e.g., in community groups and school decision-making), perceived opportunities to participate offline, and formal online civic participation. In addition, students tend to react to and share civic content on online social networks more often than they perform more structured and formalized civic actions. The results suggest that the Internet is a space of youth civic agency and participation-a global playground-contrasting with formal institutional and formal online spaces, where youth lack a voice.
Peer-to-peer programs are growing in popularity in higher education (HE) due to institutions' increased interest in engaging students as partners in learning and teaching. This study explores one institution's approach to engaging level 5 and level 6 undergraduate students as teaching assistants (TAs) in engineering to support the first-year transition and academic success. The study focuses on the effect of the pilot program on the peer mentors i.e., the TAs, rather than on the peer mentees. An online questionnaire was designed to investigate TAs' experiences of participating in a student-staff role, and the impact the role had on their academic and nonacademic skills development. The findings show that the TA role contributed to enhanced subject understanding and transferable skill development, particularly communication and learning skills. The main attribute valued by TAs was helping others and making a positive impact, contributing to their sense of belonging.
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