Citizenship in a digitalizing world: Exploring the connection between citizenship and digital literacy in educational research and practice

David van Alten and Saro Lozano Parra

Research project financed by: Youth Education & Life Skills (Dynamics of Youth)

Project duration: 1 year (start January 2024)

Project outline:

Digital literacy and citizenship are both urgent, yet separate topics of debate in public policy about education. Because the learning objectives are formulated within their respective learning areas, it appears that a much-needed societal perspective on what it means to live together and be part of a digitalizing world is somewhat lacking. Our goal is to connect both fields by enabling exchange of expertise between scientists, schools, and societal partners in practice. In doing so, our aim is to strengthen teachers in their work to develop students’ essential life skills, enabling them to become active and critical citizens in an increasingly digitalizing world.

Research question: How can the integration of digital literacy and citizenship education in secondary schools strengthen teachers to develop students’ life skills of becoming active and critical digital citizens, and what strategies can facilitate the practical implementation of this integration?

Meer en beter leren lezen door gepersonaliseerde ondersteuning met Leeswijzer.ai  / Reading more and better through personalized support with Leeswijzer.ai

Co-creation project funded by: NOLAI | National Education Lab AI

Project duration: 3 years (start February 2025)

In this co-creation project, secondary education school Cals College Nieuwegein, reading assessment-platform Diataal, and researchers Moniek Schaars and David van Alten from Utrecht University will work together to develop an AI-prototype to address the decline in reading comprehension among secondary school students. The goal is to develop an AI-powered algorithm that adaptively matches school texts and comprehension tasks to students’ reading level, interests, and subject content. This reduces the manual workload for teachers and also helps teachers to integrate reading support into the different subjects. In addition, the tool hopefully improves students’ reading motivation and engagement. Using a design-based research approach, we will iteratively develop, test, and refine the tool through practice-based evaluations with teachers and students.