Dr Ella Taylor-Smith E.Taylor-Smith@napier.ac.uk
Senior Research Fellow
HUWY explored ways for the Internet to support young people’s involvement in decision-making and piloted a model of distributed discussions, which could be used by people of various ages, focused on a range of topics.
The HUWY project aimed to support young people’s eParticipation in policies about the Internet and its governance, through a distributed discussion, centred on hub websites, previously at http://huwy.eu. The hub websites held supporting information and structured space for results and feedback from policy-makers. Young people chose the topics and questions, hosted their discussions on their own web pages (or offline) and posted the results on the Hubs. HUWY pilots ran in four countries (Estonia, Germany, Republic of Ireland and the UK). The pilots validated the distributed discussion model as an effective way to involve young people, by increasing the depth and quality of their ideas to improve the Internet. Participants had an enjoyable and rewarding experience that furthered their engagement with democracy and their awareness of best practice in using the Internet. The model’s flexibility enabled a variety of people to become involved, without specialist deliberative or technical skills, or even good Internet access.
The pilots also revealed the challenges of the model. It is resource-intensive, requiring teams to undertake a wide variety of tasks, during all pilot phases from planning to evaluation and dissemination. Young people were reluctant to take on the roles that we hoped they would enjoy, such as organising their own discussions (on or offline) and bringing peers into the project through social networks. Those who did take on these roles provided an impressive list of positive personal outcomes in evaluation interviews. We suggest that these challenges can be met through funded partnerships with youth organisations. Partnerships could also help to get more groups involved.
The HUWY project was sponsored by the European Commission under the eParticipation preparatory action. Collaborative project, total project costs 666,666 Euros.
Status | Project Complete |
---|---|
Funder(s) | European Commission |
Value | £500,828.00 |
Project Dates | Jan 1, 2009 - Mar 31, 2011 |
e-Participation Scotland Baseline Oct 1, 2008 - Oct 31, 2008
This one day event brought people and organisations together from across Scotland. At the workshop, presentations and group activities enabled participants to share knowledge about current and future e-participation projects and opportunities and...
Read More about e-Participation Scotland Baseline.
How are we positioning apprenticeships? A critical analysis of job adverts for degree apprentices Jan 1, 2020 - Aug 31, 2021
The introduction of the degree apprenticeship presents opportunities for students to pursue a degree while working in paid positions relevant to their studies. Within this model, employers take an active role in recruitment, funding, and degree conte...
Read More about How are we positioning apprenticeships? A critical analysis of job adverts for degree apprentices.
Gendered information landscapes and their impact on routes into and through apprenticeships Oct 1, 2022 - Oct 31, 2025
The aim is to understand the myriad sources of gender stereotyping that impact on young people’s choices around apprenticeships and work-based learning (WBL). First, by a policy and literature review around occupational segregation in apprenticeships...
Read More about Gendered information landscapes and their impact on routes into and through apprenticeships.
Gender Imbalance in Digital Technology Feb 12, 2021 - May 31, 2021
This project will examine what tertiary education institutions are doing to help tackle the gender imbalance in their Digital Technology courses. It will focus on the area of positive female role models and their use to raise awareness, aspirations a...
Read More about Gender Imbalance in Digital Technology.
Role Models Framework Pilot Jan 24, 2022 - May 13, 2022
This project follows on from the project Gender Imbalance in Digital Technology, which created the Five Aspects Framework. This project pilots and evaluates the framework.
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