Education and citizenship for cyberspace

This paper addresses the need to focus on the content of education in cyberspace and, specifically, about reaching people to be citizens, not just consumers, in this new arena. The paper begins by reviewing three general conclusions from research on education in cyberspace. First, most of it takes place in the developed world; cyberspace is empty space for most of the world's people. Second, in the West, the emphasis is first on technical education, on teaching people how to use technology. Third, where attention is paid to content, most is directed to teaching people how to be consumers of products and services. Notwithstanding the value of technical and consumer skills, the paper calls for a stronger commitment to teaching people to be citizens of cyberspace. This includes the ethical value of treating cyberspace as a public space or 'new commons' to which all people have rights of access and participation, reasonable expectations of privacy and security, and, along with these rights, civic responsibilities of participation and mutual respect for fellow cyber-citizens. The paper concludes by identifying examples of programmes that promote this new form of citizenship.