Digital Citizenship in Young Peruvian University Students

Digital citizenship is of utmost importance today because, taking advantage of the technological resources of these times, empowers citizenship as never before. This research aimed to determine conceptualizations and practices of digital citizenship among higher education students in Peru, within a context of rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) and digitalization, where civic engagement is required. The study follows the integrative paradigm by combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. On one hand, it employed a survey technique with an online questionnaire consisting of 26 questions covering five dimensions, based on Choi et al.’s (Comput Edu 107:100–112, 2017) proposal. The sample consisted of 426 university students from communication faculties of 19 Peruvian universities. On the other hand, 14 student leaders from 11 universities were interviewed. The university students acknowledge experiencing their digital citizenship, but at levels that still need enhancement, while they use online tools, it’s for instrumental purposes. Their definitions of the topic are theoretically more valid. It is concluded that even in a favorable environment of ICT and digitalization, digital citizenship is not yet translated into relevant praxis among them, requiring social, political, and educational institutions to make creative interventions to improve their civic participation in the Digital Era.