Youth are coming of age in a digital era and learning and exercising citizenship in fundamentally different ways compared to previous generations. Around the globe, a monumental generational rupture is taking place that is being facilitated—not driven in some inevitable and teleological process—by new media and communication technologies. The bulk of research and theorizing on generations in the digital age has come out of North America and Europe; but to fully understand the rise of an active generation requires a more inclusive global lens, one that reaches to societies where high proportions of educated youth live under conditions of political repression and economic exclusion. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), characterized by authoritarian regimes, surging youth populations, and escalating rates of both youth connectivity and unemployment, provides an ideal vantage point to understand generations and power in the digital age. Building toward this larger perspective, this article probes how Egyptian youth have been learning citizenship, forming a generational consciousness, and actively engaging in politics in the digital age. Author Linda Herrera asks how members of this generation who have been able to trigger revolt might collectively shape the kind of sustained democratic societies to which they aspire. This inquiry is informed theoretically by the sociology of generations and methodologically by biographical research with Egyptian youth.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Fall 2012
Research-Article|
September 10 2012
Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt
Harvard Educational Review (2012) 82 (3): 333–352.
Citation
Linda Herrera; Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt. Harvard Educational Review 1 September 2012; 82 (3): 333–352. doi: https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.82.3.88267r117u710300
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Client Account
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Could not validate captcha. Please try again.
Sign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionCiting articles via
Black Bullet in the Gun: Troubling Silence and Silencing in Antiracist Teacher Education
Esther O. Ohito, Sherry L. Deckman
Book Notes
Jane Choi, Woohee Kim, Catherine E. Pitcher
Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom
Catherine E. Pitcher