Educational leadership, political communication, and students' civic participation in the digital political era: The mediating role of digital citizenship
Abstract
Purpose - This study examined whether educational leadership and political communication are associated with Indonesian secondary students’ civic participation directly and indirectly through digital citizenship.
Method - A cross-sectional survey involved 262 eligible students recruited purposively from cooperating public and private secondary schools. Four constructs were measured with an 80-item questionnaire. The measurement and structural models were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling with 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
Findings - All five direct relationships were positive and significant. Political communication had the strongest direct association with digital citizenship (β = 0.587, p < 0.001), followed by digital citizenship with civic participation (β = 0.348, p < 0.001). Educational leadership and political communication were also indirectly associated with civic participation through digital citizenship (β = 0.104 and β = 0.204, respectively; both p < 0.001). The model explained 70.7% of digital citizenship and 71.9% civic participation.
Conclusion and Implications - Digital citizenship connects institutional leadership and students’ political communication with meaningful civic participation. School leaders should embed information verification, ethical digital dialogue, and civic inquiry across policy, curriculum, and student activities. Longitudinal and multi-informant research is needed to test temporal ordering and reduce self-report bias.
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