Experiencing citizenship through digital problems: a phenomenological ethnography of civic learning among Indonesian university students

This field-based phenomenological ethnography examines how Indonesian university students experience and negotiate citizenship through digitally mediated issues in civic education. Moving beyond approaches that reduce citizenship to constitutional knowledge or measurable outcomes, it investigates how human rights and gender equality become lived moral encounters. Conducted at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Central Java, the ethnographic fieldwork combined participant observation in civic education classrooms, semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers, and analysis of artifacts produced through problem-based digital activities. Students encountered citizenship as abstract, state-centered knowledge shaped by textbooks, lectures, and examinations. Digital cases connected public issues with personal experience, generating reflection, empathy, and competing moral interpretations. Deliberation transformed the classroom into a provisional civic space where students practiced argumentation, listening, negotiation, and decision-making. Findings demonstrate that civic skills are culturally situated practices produced through digital mediation and social interaction. The study contributes to educational anthropology by conceptualizing civic becoming as students’ formation through encounters with issues, moral differences, and participatory classroom practices.