From Media Education to Digital Citizenship. Origins, perspectives and policy implementations in the school systems across Europe

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the concept of digital citizenship, as it emerges from disciplines such as Media Education, Digital and Media Literacy and Media and Information Literacy, and how this is translated into national school innovation plans in some European countries. The first part of the article analyses the concept of media education, by carrying out an operation of disambiguation between the different disciplines often confused among them: Media Education, Digital and Media Literacy and Media and Information Literacy. The first part of the paper aims to disambiguate the various terms related to media literacy in general, often used interchangeably across the various disciplines, namely Media Education, Digital and Media Literacy and Media and Information Literacy. The second part of the paper illustrates and compares several international projects that support the formalization of competence frameworks for digital citizenship while highlighting the need to move towards a concept of technology education that also supports aspects related to active citizenship, democratic participation in society and take into account the social-relational dimension. In conclusion, national digital innovation plans for schools in Spain, Germany, UK, France and Italy will be presented with the aim of highlighting the aspects of innovation while critically reflecting on the concept of digital citizenship education therein.

Keywords

• digital citizenship
• digital literacy
• media and information literacy
• national school policies
• european guidelines