C. (Çigdem) Bozdag Bucak, Dr

Dr. Çiğdem Bozdağ is currently carrying out the research project "Intercultural Digital Media Education for Social Inclusion of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Youth in the Urban Migration Society" (INCLUDED). INCLUDED is an interdisciplinary participatory action research and is supported by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) of the European Research Framework Horizon 2020. The project will be carried out in the Faculty of Education at the University of Bremen with the cooperation of ZeMKI (Center for Media, Communication and Information Research) between August 2019 and July 2023. 

INCLUDED develops an innovative integrated approach to digital media literacy and intercultural competence arguing that they can mutually support each other in order to increase young people's chances for social inclusion. Social inclusion of socioeconomically disadvantaged youth with diverse cultural backgrounds is one of the major and urgent challenges European societies face today. Social inclusion of disadvantaged youth can be supported by improving their digital media literacy and intercultural competence because (1) they require digital skills to be able to economically, culturally and socially participate in today’s high mediatized societies; (2) intercultural competences are key for everyone in the migration society for increasing social cohesion of people of diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, these competences may support the development of democracy education by fostering critical attitudes and communication skills against discrimination. 

Existing research on digital inclusion points out to inequalities in relation to gender, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, but fails to provide contextualized analyses of the dynamics behind these inequalities Moreover, the role of schools for improving digital skills of socioeconomically disadvantaged youth in the urban migration society is not sufficiently addressed. INCLUDED aims to fill these gaps through an in-depth analysis of digital media use of disadvantaged youth in a school located in a poor migrant neighbourhood. INCLUDED will also develop a participatory action by designing and applying teaching modules for digital media education in diverse societies.