Analysis of Digital Citizenship Subject Contents of Secondary Education Curricula

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the secondary education curricula in terms of the subdimensions of digital citizenship. Curricula used for secondary education (High School 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Grades) in the 2017-2018 academic year were used as data source. The curricula examined in this scope belong to the following courses: Computer Science, English, Geopgraphy, Democracy and Human Rights, Religion and Ethics, Philosophy, French, Visual Arts, Music, Medical Knowledge and Traffic, Revolution History and Atatürkism, History, Turkish Language and Literature and Contemporary Turkish and World History. The study was carried out with qualitative research methods, and data were collected through document review. In the analysis of the data, induction analysis method was used on the basis of “Digital Citizenship Scale for the Young” developed by Kuş, Güneş, Başarmak and Yakar (2017). The present study reveals that the courses having the highest number of references to digital citizenship in the curricula are “computer science” and “democracy and human rights”. Although computer science curriculum gives wide coverage to digital skills, the coverage of rights and responsibilities in the digital environment and ethical and critical thinking skills is limited. In the curricula of the other courses, contents related digital citizenship are highly limited.