Citizenship education should give young people the skills and knowledge to participate in political debate on social media

Young people engage increasingly interact on social media, including engaging in political debate. Mark Shephard, Stephen Quinlan, Stephen Tagg and Lindsay Paterson have studied this form of discussion, and believe it offers potential to increase political literacy and engagement. However, there are important lessons that need to be learned by users of social media platforms, including about the accuracy of information and dealing with inflammatory statements. This post is part of our series on youth participation.