Conference Agenda

Currently, the Spanish public education system relies heavily on digital educational platforms of technology corporations, in a global context of digitization of education accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This process is characterised both globally and locally by the monopolisation and outsourcing of the provision of educational technologies and by a great lack of knowledge about the consequences of their use for schoolchildren. In this context, despite their potential reluctance, families are forced to authorise the use of corporate digital platforms in the school (Livingstone & Blum-Ross, 2020) to prevent their children from being excluded from access to a resource increasingly used in schools and, therefore, from the very right to education.

In legal terms, advances are identified such as the right to personal data protection in the European legislation and the imposition of sanctions for breaches of the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU are identified (Voigt & Von dem Bussche, 2017). However, despite the obligation of governments to protect their population from potential abuses regarding the improper use of personal data, Amnesty International claims that private suppliers of digital services have been left to be "virtually self-regulated" (2019). In addition, the European Court of Justice declared the transatlantic Privacy Shield agreement invalid, finding that there is no guarantee that data leakage and commercialization between the EU and the United States can be prevented.

In this global scenario, the data of the educational community become the commodity of exchange for the corporations that provide digital services to the education systems. UNICEF demonstrates that children are more susceptible to digital marketing techniques, more likely to become consumers and dependent users of these technologies, and therefore, more manipulable (Williamson, 2017; Cobo & Rivera-Vargas, 2022). Hence, children are much more vulnerable to "surveillance capitalism" (Zuboff, 2019) because they are more exposed to the violation of rights of privacy, protection and personal information and reputation. This is in addition to the reproduction of gender inequalities and the intersectionalities of apps associated with these corporations that, for example, make girls and boys who use them receive advertising or see sexist and racist roles reproduced in their search engines.

It also affects their right to education, as the public system is commodified and the public administration loses control of the pedagogical methodology and educational content on these digital platforms. Evidence shows that this dependence on transnationals is undermining pedagogical and digital sovereignty at the global level, allowing these corporations to develop their commercial objectives in an educational and public space, imposing their ideologies, for example through the increased use of social networks linked to "gamification" in education, where technology holdings link their other platforms and digital resources (Sancho-Gil, Rivera-Vargas & Miño-Puigcercós, 2020).

In this context, the project "Digital platforms and datification in primary education in Spain: child protection in a context of educational digitalization" arises (MICIN, PID2022-137033NA-I00), whose main objective is to explore and analyse the socio-educational effects of the use of digital platforms and data storage and management on child protection in primary education in Spain. From there, it is expected to provide evidence that will contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge and social debate around the platformisation and datification of primary education.

Digiproted is organised into four phases. This paper will present the preliminary results of the first of them, where normative and political texts related to the protection of children in digital contexts at international, European, national, and regional levels are being analysed.

In the post-COVID 19 pandemic context, important debates arise about the current and future cultural, political and economic impact of the use of digital platforms on the protection and privacy of children and young people (Morozov, 2018; Snowden, 2019; Zuboff, 2019). . In this sense, national and regional public administrations in Spain have approved laws that directly address the protection of minors in the digital environment, as well as the guarantee of their digital rights. These documents recognize the fundamental role of the family in promoting the responsible use of technology. In addition, digital education programs have been developed for children, adolescents and their families. Along the same lines, foundations, NGOs and observatories promote different initiatives to protect children and adolescents in the digital context and raise awareness about the responsible use of technology. In the academic field, a body of scientific literature seems to be growing focused on the digital socialization of young people from an intergenerational perspective, as well as research groups aimed at studying the relationship between families and technologies.

In this framework, the research project "PlatFAMs: Platforming Families - tracing digital transformations in everyday life across generations" (CHANSE Cofund 2021 PCI2022-135025-2) aims to explore the integration of digital platforms into routines and daily dynamics of contemporary families in five European countries (Norway, Estonia, United Kingdom, Romania and Spain). Within the framework of the development of the first phases of this project, all participating countries carried out research on the use and regulation of digital platforms in families. This article offers the results of this work in the Spanish case from an intergenerational perspective, addressing the actions developed by national and regional public administrations, as well as the initiatives promoted by foundations, NGOs and observatories. It also examines the contributions of academia in this context. A content analysis of 24 documents including regulations and digital reports is carried out to identify concepts related to the use and regulation of digital platforms. This review provides detailed information on the measures adopted to promote the digital rights of children, adolescents and families, highlighting the diversity of approaches and resources deployed by the different actors in Spanish society. From the approval of laws to investment in the modernization of the educational system, efforts and tensions are observed to address the challenges and opportunities presented by digital development in the country. According to this framework, the objective of communication is to relate the views of the regulatory framework, scientific knowledge and civil society organizations on digital platforms in families.

Educational systems are the product of analogical and virtual relationships between several actors, interacting with each other in different contexts and at different levels. With the digital age and after the COVID-19 situation, the relationships among the different components of the school – starting from peers and teachers – need to be intentionally aligned and designed to achieve citizenship outcomes (Khan & Obiakor, 2020): political engagement, in fact, is changing with the pervasiveness of information flows through digital technologies, creating new opportunities for political participation (ICCS, 2023).

This project aims to explore, according to a qualitative-quantitative approach, citizenship education in school contexts, reflecting on the possible link between digital skills and relational aspects within the classroom environment.

The investigation starts from the reflections on the network society (Castells, 2004), the categorization of students and teachers according to the meanings of digital natives or immigrants (Prensky, 2001) and visitors or residents (White, Le Cornu, 2011), and the relative upgrade to the concept of citizenship, based on the definition postulated by Ribble (2011).

The pedagogical framework recovers the thought of the democratic school of Dewey (1915), who defines the school as a place of democratic action stressing how this environment must lead the young generations to share values, behaviors and ways of being through experience. In a world inhabited by avatars, the educational system must also recover the idea of citizenship as a concrete action aimed at the well-being of the community (Maritain, 1947); this reflection linked the training of the student and the education of the citizen, assuming the class group as a space of social belonging, guided by values such as altruism, cooperation and solidarity. These two pedagogical reflections blend in the phenomenological perspective of Bertolini (2003) and his link between schools and political education; the principal task of the school is to educate students thinking about them primarily in their civic role (today both analogical and digital), focusing on the promotion of helpful tips that can be used in classroom as well as in society.

Over the years, the legislative directions has been enriched with numerous documents about citizenship education in school (Eurydice Report, 2017; European Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, 2019). The last European Framework (DigComp 2.2, 2022) specifies the citizenship competence as “the ability to act as responsible citizens and to fully participate in civic and social life” (p. 2) and specifies the interconnection between real and virtual world, highlighting knowledge,skills and attitudes for both of these living environments. In particular, the Area 2 (Communication and Collaboration) outlines “the ability to have a critical understanding of and interact with both traditional and new forms of media and understand the role and functions of media in democratic societies” (p. 3).

The project is in line with the interest for civic education in Italy, returned thanks to Law 92/2019 which establishes the reintroduction of Civic Education as a cross-disciplinary subject, unfortunately still lacking clear references for teachers and headmasters. The interest is twofold: to understand how the school context is dealing with the training of students and teachers as digital citizens and to value if digital citizenship programs can have positive effects on classroom climate. The classroom climate is the result of the creation of a significant relational network, composed of emotional and motivational elements, as well as the co-construction of objectives (Polito, 2000).

Starting from these considerations, the work assumes that education have to think about a new idea of digital citizenship education, which lies at the interconnection between digital skills and relational competences and can also prevent bullying and cyberbullying events.