"It's Not Like They're Selling Your Data to Dangerous People": Controversial Issues, Teens, Internet Privacy

• In Event: 51.074 - Social Studies Teaching in the 21st Century

Abstract

This paper draws on four secondary-level classroom deliberations on Internet privacy conducted in 2016. The challenge of these deliberations contrasted with the success of a previous round of deliberations with the same students on immigration policy. For the majority of participating students (N=100), Internet privacy was a non-controversial issue. This case study complicates categorization of controversial public issues (CPI) as “settled,” “open,” or “tipping,” highlighting issues around the design of classroom deliberations and asking whether teachers should create controversy where none exists. The study also raises questions regarding students’ views of Internet privacy as personal (individual) rather than collective (societal) and what this suggests for advancing ideas about citizenship—as something that extends the self—in social studies education.

Authors

• Margaret S. Crocco, Michigan State University

• Avner Segall, Michigan State University

• Anne-Lise F. Halvorsen, Michigan State University

• Rebecca Jacobsen, Michigan State University

• Alexandra M Stamm, Michigan State University