Youth Civic Engagement through Computing: Critical Computational Literacy

Computing is promising in supporting people to engage in civic activities and become creators of information and communication technologies. This study presents a survey of computing-based civic programs. We examined the features of these programs and how they supported participants to learn civic engagement and computing skills. Based on our analysis, we present suggestions for the design of computing-based civic programs, including expanding who can participate, what participants can create, what they can use to create, where and how a program can happen, as well as how to effectively support participants’ learning in a program. The findings not only reveal the features and commonalities across the surveyed programs, but also highlight ways for civic engagement researchers, organizations, and computing educators to expand possibilities for people to engage in civic activities through computing.

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