Digital citizenship in primary education: A systematic literature review describing how it is implemented.

Abstract

Digital citizenship (DC) has been introduced to the curriculum at Swiss primary schools, a fact that underscores the importance digital skills have for citizens of the future. Already prior to this development, an increasing number of scholarly publications on the concept appeared. In this project, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify how DC has been operationalized in teaching practices to date. The findings reveal that DC is often used as an umbrella term for technology-related learning tasks that nevertheless fail to actively engage students in practicing DC in a critical manner. In addition, older students are often asked to develop DC in project-based learning outside the school setting. While interdisciplinary approaches to DC have been proposed, disciplines such as philosophy or ecology—apparently necessary to work on citizenship—are not considered. Finally, digital tools/environments are never questioned and always imposed; as such, a critical approach to DC is not explicitly developed in the classroom. This literature review discusses the practical implications of the current state of research.