Under what conditions can schools contribute to digital equality and the construction of active citizenship? Results from an action research project in a Spanish school
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1344/der.2023.44.54-60Keywords:
Digital inequalities, Digital participation, School, Digital citizenship, Educational technologyAbstract
Various studies point out that, in the school digital sphere, the same inequalities are (re)produced as in offline spaces. Given this reality, the article explains the results of an action research project for the building of active digital citizenship, which seeks to overcome these gaps through a democratic digital perspective. The field work was carried out in a school situated in a disadvantaged area of a large town (50,000 inhabitants), near Barcelona (Spain). The results were obtained through questionnaires, interviews and discussion groups with 236 families, 30 teachers and 97 pupils. These results indicate that, in order to reduce inequalities, it is important to: a) recognise the diversity of needs, skills and digital access of the teachers, families and pupils in the decision-making process; b) design and articulate different participatory school spaces: formal and informal, physical and virtual; c) promote the participation of all school agents in the digital spheres and guarantee the acquisition of skills and digital access to the whole school community. The article concludes that in order to build an active digital citizenship, processes and actions that are explicitly designed towards this end and that are methodologically consistent with a democratic and inclusive perspective are required.
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