History/Political Science paper by Oross, Daniel
Political Participation, Civic Education and Gamification from Comparative Perspective
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
There is a consensus among researchers that compared to former generations, young peoples’ political participation is changing. Since globalization effects young people both in the USA and in Hungary, there is a need to understand how changing social (youth transition to adulthood) and technical conditions (digitalization) bring changes in the way how young people get information, get interested in public matters and find their ways of political participation.
Online games are recent technological advancement to be viewed as an educational panacea and a force for democracy. Civics education research shows that higher levels of civic knowledge are often correlated with greater civic participation. As such, the civic knowledge gains experienced by students playing online civics education gaming programs should not be discounted since this increase in civics knowledge may increase students’ propensity for civic participation.
Based on interviews and own teaching experience the first part of the presentation brings evidence from US Campus context to show how learning experience from online games (such icivics.org) can be incorporated into action civics in the classrooms.
The second part of the paper aims to find out how experiences from US College context can be replanted into civic education in a new democracy. Online games are a popular in Hungary and they are used for educational purposes (e.g. honfogalo.hu). However in Hungary, civic education is weak and political topics are expelled from classrooms. To show what effect lack of civic education had on Hungarian students’ civic skills and concept about democracy the paper brings empirical evidence from interviews with leaders of Hungarian NGOs dealing with non-formal civic education and from data collected by Active Youth in Hungary Research Group among students enrolled to Hungarian Higher Education.
Although social and political context matters, the presentation argues that online gamification can create platform for students in both countries to study and practice their civic knowledge.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Oross, Daniel PhD is political scientist. He received his PhD in political sciences from the Corvinus University of Budapest in 2015. Since 2011 he is junior research fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Political Sciences. During the 2017-2018 academic year he teaches as a Fulbright Scholar at Hartwick College in Oneonta, (NY). His research interests are political participation, youth policy, political socialization. orossd@hartwick.edu