Effects Of Gender And Technological Fluency On Learners' Attitude To Cyber Crime Prevention In Urban Learning Ecologies: Lessons For Swedish Gymnasiums

The technology age has produced new kinds of ‘yakuza’ called ‘cyber bandits’. Unfortunately, the laws that could curb these new loci of criminal activities were promulgated in the analog era in Nigeria and Sweden. The rise of Internet use among children in secondary schools in Nigeria and Sweden has influenced the increase in the rate of cyber scams in these countries. This study showcases the use of a participatory action research paradigm to develop a cybercrime prevention programme. The action programme was evaluated using the quasi experimental design of a pretest-posttest type. The confounding effects of gender, technological fluency, and the action programme were tried out on 218 students to test their attitude to crime prevention in the cyber space. The analysis gave a disordinal interaction, as the sex difference was evident for the low, medium and high technologically fluent students. Additionally, the students’ perceptions of the action program were positive. The implications of these findings are discussed, while a blue print is given on replicating the participatory cybercrime prevention programme with upper secondary education students in Sweden.