What is digital education? Decoding notions and encoding critical thinking, human rights and participation for fairer digital societies

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.5784

Keywords:

digital education, systematic literature review, digital rights, human rights

Abstract

This research addresses some of societal challenges in the digital age by analysing key features and contextual factors associated with digital education’s notions among academic literature. It problematises some of its shortcomings by zooming into digital education’s references to critical thinking, human rights and participation. A Systematic Literature Review was applied among peer-reviewed articles published in English since 2014. Results for discussion hinged upon the implications of dominant conceptualisations, factors enabling missing links with digital rights, and tactics steering education towards social justice in digital societies.

Advancing democracies in the digital age entail comprehensive efforts oriented by human rights including technologies, regulations, research and education. Among these, education has been pointed as fundamentally affecting a stark ‘division of learning’. This gap is the axial point for the financial and controlling interests of big wealthy companies and governments. The implications of these digital divides have expanded the field of digital rights in the last decade, which was accelerated after the COVID-19 digital transformation. Nevertheless, the right to a quality education has remained broadly sidelined among digital rights, and most of the concerns from this field have been minimally included in educational agendas.

References

Audrin, C., & Audrin, B. (2022). Key factors in digital literacy in learning and education: a systematic literature review using text mining. Education and Information Technologies, 1-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10832-5

Barassi V (2020) Datafied Citizens in the Age of Coerced Digital Participation. New media & society, 22(9) 1545–1560.

Bayne, S., & Gallagher, M. (2021). Near Future Teaching: Practice, policy and digital education futures. Policy Futures in Education, 19(5), 607-625. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14782103211026446

Boland, A., Cherry, G., & Dickson, R. (Eds.). (2017). Doing a systematic review: A student's guide. SAGE Publications.

Castells, M. (2000). Globalización, sociedad y política en la era de la información. Bitácora urbano-territorial, 4(1), 42-53.

Choi, M. (2016). A concept analysis of digital citizenship for democratic citizenship education in the internet age. Theory & research in social education, 44(4), 565-607. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2016.1210549

CRC. (2021). General Comment No. 25 on Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment, 2 March 2021, CRC/C/GC/25. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-comment-no-25-2021-childrens-rights-relation

Dillenbourg, P. (2016). The evolution of research on digital education. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 26, 544-560. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40593-016-0106-z

Dunleavy, G., Nikolaou, C. K., Nifakos, S., Atun, R., Law, G. C. Y., & Tudor Car, L. (2019). Mobile digital education for health professions: systematic review and meta-analysis by the digital health education collaboration. Journal of medical Internet research, 21(2), e12937, 1-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/12937

EDRi (2023, October 26). If the Commissioner isn’t responsible for DG HOME’s alleged unethical and unlawful actions, who is?. EDRi blog [Online]. Available at: https://edri.org/our-work/if-dg-home-commissioner-isnt-responsible-who-is/

Emejulu, A. & McGregor, C. (2016). Towards a radical digital citizenship in digital education. Critical Studies in Education. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1234494

Facer, K. (2011). Learning Futures. Education, technology and social change. London and New York. Taylor & Francis.

Frau-Meigs, D., O’Neill, B., Soriani, A., & Tomé, V. (2017). Digital citizenship education: Volume 1: Overview and new perspectives. Council of Europe.

Goddard, M. (2017). The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): European regulation that has a global impact. International Journal of Market Research, 59(6), 703-705. http://dx.doi.org/10.2501/ijmr-2017-050

González-Zamar, M. D., Abad-Segura, E., Luque de la Rosa, A., & López-Meneses, E. (2020). Digital education and artistic-visual learning in flexible university environments: Research analysis. Education Sciences,10(11), 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/educsci10110294

Gopal, V. (2020). Digital Education Transformation: A Pedagogical Revolution. i-Manager's Journal of Educational Technology, 17(2), 66. http://dx.doi.org/10.26634/jet.17.2.17136

Hope, A. (2018). Unsocial media: school surveillance of student internet use. The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control, 425-444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71559-9_22

Ilomäki, L., Kantosalo, A. & Lakkala, M. (2011). What is digital competence? European Schoolnet (EUN).

JAAKLAC (n/d). JAAKLAC initiative [Online]. Available at: https://jaaklac.org

Kohler, F., Kuthe, A., Rochholz, F., & Siegmund, A. (2022). Digital education for sustainable development in non-formal education in Germany and COVID-19-induced changes. Sustainability, 14(4), 2114. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14042114

Kuner, C. (2020). The GDPR and international organizations. American Journal of International Law, 114, 15-19.

La Rue, F. (2014). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, A/69/335. New York: United Nations General Assembly. Available at: www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A.HRC.17.27_en.pdf

Law, N., Woo, D., & Wong, G. (2018). A global framework of reference on digital literacy skills for indicator 4.4. 2 (No. 51). UNESCO.

Liberati, A., Altman, D. G., Tetzlaff, J., Mulrow, C., Gøtzsche, P. C., Ioannidis, J. P. & Moher, D. (2009). The PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: explanation and elaboration. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 62(10). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.06.006

Livingstone, S. & Bulger, M. (2014). A global research agenda for children’s rights in the digital age. Journal of Children and Media, 8(4): 317–335. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2014.961496

Makhachashvili, R., & Semenist, I. V. (2021). Interdisciplinary Trends of Digital Education in the COVID-19. Paradigm: Global Event Horizon. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics 19(9), 57-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.54808/jsci.19.09.57

Magnone, S. (2024, February 20). CDE campaign | "Stories of learning that transforms societies". JAAKLAC blog [Online]. Available at: https://jaaklac.org/blog/cde-campaignstory/

Magnone, S. (2022, February 24). Critical Digital Education for All! Activating global digital citizenship in Latin America and the Caribbean [Online]. Available at: https://medium.com/datasociety-points/critical-digital-education-for-all-adbf1ab82e17.

Magnone, S. (2021). Government digital policies and children’s rights in Uruguay: An assessment framed by the UN CRC’s dimensions of provision, protection and participation. Global Studies of Childhood. Themed Issue: South American Childhoods in the Digital Era. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20436106211027580

Magnone, S. (2019). The Council of Europe Digital Citizenship Education project. Analysis of its human rights and multi-stakeholder governance approach (Master's thesis). University of Oslo.

Nawaila, M. B., Kanbul, S., & Ozdamli, F. (2018). A review on the rights of children in the digital age. Children and Youth Services Review, 94, 390-409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.09.028

Ødegaard, N. B., Røe, Y., & Dahl-Michelsen, T. (2022). “Learning is about being active, but the digital is not really active”: physiotherapy teachers’ attitudes toward and experiences with digital education. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 1-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593985.2022.2119907

RightsCon (2023a, October 19) Sharing our approach for the first hybrid RightsCon [Online]. Available at: https://www.rightscon.org/sharing-our-approach-for-the-first-hybrid-rightscon/.

RightsCon (2023b) RightsCon Costa Rica Outcomes Report. Coalitions Formed [Online]. Available at: https://www.rightscon.org/rc23-outcomes-report/#coalitions

Ross, J. (2017). Speculative method in digital education research. Learning, Media and Technology, 42(2), 214-229.

Selwyn, N. (2015). The discursive construction of education in the digital age. Discourse and digital practices. Doing discourse analysis in the digital age, 226-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315726465-15

Soroka, V. (2020). Digital Education in the International Pedagogical Discourse, Comparative Professional Pedagogy, 9, 74–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/rpp-2019-0040

Szabó, Z. A., Soós, S., & Schiller, E. (2024). Deductive content analysis as a research method in the field of education sciences–A systematic literature review of journal articles in Web of Science (2019–2023). Journal of Adult Learning, Knowledge and Innovation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/2059.2023.00094

Von Solms, S., & Van Heerden, R. (2015, February). The consequences of Edward Snowden NSA related information disclosures. In ICCWS 2015—The Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security: ICCWS2015 (p. 358).

Third, A., Bellerose, D., Dawkins, U., Keltie, E., & Pihl, K. (2014). Children's Rights in the Digital Age: A Download from Children Around the World. Retrieved from http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/753447/Childrens-rights-in-the-digital-age.pdf

UN GA, (2020). Road map for digital cooperation: implementation of the recommendations of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Report of the Secretary-General A/74/821, 29 May. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/content/digital-cooperation-roadmap/

Van Laar, E., Van Deursen, A. J., Van Dijk, J. A., & De Haan, J. (2017). The relation between 21st-century skills and digital skills: A systematic literature review. Computers in human behavior, 72, 577-588. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.03.010

Williamson, B. (2019). Digital policy sociology: software and science in data-intensive precision education. Critical Studies in Education: 1-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1691030

Zhao, W., Zhang, J., Liu, X., & Jiang, Z. (2022). Application of ISO 26000 in digital education during COVID-19. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 13(3), 101630, 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2021.10.025

Zawacki-Richter, O., Kerres, M., Bedenlier, S., Bond, M., & Buntins, K. (2020). Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives and application. Springer Nature. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27602-7

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York: PublicAffairs. http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/rmi.2021.55150

Downloads

Published

2024-10-02

How to Cite

Magnone, S. (2024). What is digital education? Decoding notions and encoding critical thinking, human rights and participation for fairer digital societies. Seminar.net, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.5784

Issue

Section

Articles