Educational approaches beyond digital capitalism

As digitization and datafication continue to extend into all areas of society, digital capitalism becomes equally ubiquitous and universal. Digital capitalism, and related phenomena such as data, surveillance or platform capitalism, operate on the basis of a comprehensive expropriation and exploitation of personal data profiles. It functionalizes life worlds and places of education to an unprecedented extent. This special issue is responding to the following questions: What position/s can media education in research and application take to respond to these developments? Which theories, concepts and methods help to formulate adequate analytical, critical and transformative answers?

PurposeThis paper aims to address the limitations in designing educational approaches that apply critical approaches to data literacy, given the obscure nature of digital platforms, which leave youth unable to develop discourses that challenge dominant narratives about the role of data in their lives. The purpose of this study is to propose and evaluate a critical data literacy approach that empowers youth to engage with data from a sociocultural perspective using a speculative participatory research approach that affords opportunities to develop alternative discourses.Design/methodology/approachThis is a multiple-case study that involves five alternative schools in Uruguay which implemented the Nayah-Irú curriculum over ten weeks leading to the development of six distinct research projects about the materialization of data in youth lives. The curriculum incorporates an alternate reality game (ARG) to engage youth in critical data literacy, based on the principles of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) epistemology and Speculative Civic Literacies.FindingsThe findings of this study highlight the integration of speculative storytelling and real-life experiences in developing alternative discourses about datafication. The analysis revealed instances of discursive closure among the youth, but through the curriculum's speculative fiction elements, such as the narrative of Nayah-Irú, emotional connections were formed, leading to increased engagement, critical inquiry, and problem framing.Research limitations/implicationsThe study conducted on the Nayah-Irú curriculum shows its effectiveness in engaging youth and educators in critical data literacy by affording opportunities for youth to engage in the analysis of their personal data literacies in an alternative world. Bringing speculative approaches to data literacy can open new avenues for exploring data literacy with youth in ways that center their voices and help them overcome different forms of discursive closure.Originality/valueThis study offers new insights into critical data literacy education blending youth participatory action research epistemologies with a speculative literacies framework to support youth in developing alternative discourses regarding the role of data in their lives.

The project Development of research on media education surveyed research on children’s media education and, in cooperation with professionals in media education and media education research, outlined guidelines for future research on media education for children and young people. The project also explored the possibilities associated with the applicability and popularization of knowledge. In this project, media education research is understood as a broad entity comprising content themes significant for media education. Research refers to both scientific research and less academic surveys and reports. The project results take concrete shape in the future vision for research on children’s and young people’s media education which, through future orientation, presents the needs for research on children’s and young people’s media education particularly from the perspective of the development of research. The project is divided into four parts: 1) a survey of research that has been done; 2) discussions held with experts of the cooperating bodies; 3) a questionnaire targeted at actors; and 4) work on the future vision for research on children’s and young people’s media education. In all, 515 studies, surveys and reports linked with 0–12 year-old children’s media education done in Finland in 2000–2014 were selected for the survey. Of these, 65% were theses and 35% were other studies, reports and surveys. Two-thirds of the theses are linked with education sciences. A relatively greater share of the theses are qualitative case studies, observation and studies utilizing action research methods. In other studies, reports and surveys, the data often comprise questionnaires, interviews, and listings. The theses concentrate in particular on media relations, media use and media education methods. The other studies, surveys and reports most often provide support for the choice of media education methods, for conceptualization of the media environment and media relations, and for justification of the need for media education. In the discussions held with experts in media education and media education research, one of the central issues that came up was: what types of issues in relation to the media do children encounter in society, and how. In connection with adults, emphasis was placed on the need to examine how the guardians of children and young people relate to the media and, through this, their media education skills. Some demands for research on media education terminology and concepts surfaced in the discussions. The development of media education research should focus in particular on multidisciplinary, qualitative research and longitudinal research. On the questionnaire, media education research was characterized as an important element in describing and understanding phenomena of the media and media education. It was hoped that the focus of research would be on qualitative research, but the importance of quantitative research to the whole was also recognized. The utilization of research findings in the planning and targeting of education was an often repeated theme. In the future vision for research on children’s and young people’s media education, children’s and young people’s media education is conceived as a broad phenomenon which combines themes of the media, childhood and youth, and education. The role of research in children’s and young people’s media education is not only the production of a conceptual grip but is also strongly linked with the development of practices. It is pivotal to create the preconditions for utilizing studies in many fields so that the processes and results of academic basic research, applied research as well as surveys and reports would complement each other. The vision outlines three priorities that overlap in both research and media education work: Priority 1. Media-driven media education research examines the media as the environment where children and young people live, function, experience emotions and grow. What does living in a media society and culture mean for children and young people? Priority 2. Media education research focusing on children and young people concentrates on what happens in children’s and young people’s relation to the media and the significance of this. Aside from the relation to the media, media education is taken into account from the perspectives of media use, media-related emotions and mental images, as well as child and youth cultures. Priority 3. The focal point of education-driven media education research is research supporting media skills and meta skills, the development of critical thinking, and the shaping of courses of action and thought models. Thoughts about the learning and growth environment can be examined from the perspectives of institutions, the home, culture and peer relations, taking education phenomena into account. Implementation of the priorities of the future vision for research on children’s and young people’s media education requires a research approach tackling the production and publication of knowledge at various stages and cooperation possibilities transcending borders. As a critical success factor, the research-based development of media education can be conceived from three perspectives: the generation of new openings; knowledge closely linked with activities; and a knowledge-based approach. These three perspectives are connected by dialogue and multi-method research as the preconditions for research-based development. Interaction at the levels of both activities and knowledge involves the idea that not only professionals in media education and media education research but also, for example, children and young people, guardians and administrative staff serve as active players. Professional coordination and the testing of familiar working methods promote a dialogic operating and research culture. Concrete encounters and joint action at various stages of the research open up possibilities for both new and proven multi-method research forms. Careful resource allocation and investment in entities support the qualitative development of research on children’s and young people’s media education.

Advocates of digital education have increasingly recognized the need for young people to acquire digital media literacy. However, this idea is often seen in instrumental terms, and is rarely implemented in any coherent or comprehensive way. This paper suggests that we need to move beyond a binary view of digital media as offering risks and opportunities for young people, and the narrow ideas of digital skills and internet safety to which it gives rise. The article propose that we should take a broader and more critical approach to the rise of ‘digital capitalism’, and to the ubiquity of digital media in everyday life. In this sense, the paper argue that the well-established conceptual framework and pedagogical strategies of media education can and should be extended to meet the new challenges posed by digital and social media.This article presents some reflections as an epigraph of the special issue "Digital learning: distraction or default for the future", whose final result has allowed us to group a set of critical research and analysis on the inclusion of digital technologies in educational contexts. The points of view presented in this epigraph is also developed in more detail in the book "The Media Education Manifesto" (Buckingham, 2019).

Braiding together theoretical perspectives from critical literacy studies, data literacy, and visual cultures, this article describes how two young children’s textual compositions functioned as sites of rhetorical invention through the playful production and circulation of critical data literacies.

Digital capitalism has produced a new concentration of capital, knowledge, and power unprecedented in history. Quantification is fundamental to digital and capitalistic structural principles. In view of a comprehensive quantification and measurement of life and society, questions of meaning and significance must be asked beyond quantifying process structures.
 The first part of the article identifies capitalistic and digital structural principles, showing affinities between both principles. The second part points out central challenges and problem areas of digital capitalism. The third part discusses the manoeuvres of the IT industry in Germany to gain more influence on the education sector. Against the background of these developments, the last part outlines the need for alternative pathways and presents dimensions of a critical media education.[1]
 
 [1] The article is based on two German language publications (Niesyto, 2017a, 2021).

Purpose This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies. Design/methodology/approach This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis. Findings The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures. Research limitations/implications Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures. Originality/value The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.

PurposeIn light of a need for more critical education about datafication, this paper aims to develop a framework for critical datafication literacy that is grounded in theoretical and empirical research. The framework draws upon existing critical data literacies, an in-depth analysis of three well-established educational approaches – media literacy, the German “(politische) Bildung” and Freirean “critical pedagogy” – and empirical analyses of online educational resources about datafication.Design/methodology/approachThe study interconnects theoretical analyses with an empirical mixed methods investigation that includes expert interviews with creators of online educational resources about datafication and a qualitative survey with educators interested in teaching about data technologies.FindingsThe research identified novel findings on the goals of resource creators and educators, such as a focus on empowering and emancipatory approaches, fostering systemic understanding of datafication and encouraging collective action. Such perspectives are rare in existing critical data literacy conceptualisations but show resemblance to traditional education scholarship. This highlights how much can be learnt from practitioners and from these more established educational approaches. Based on these findings, a framework for critical datafication literacy is suggested that aims for systemic understanding of datafication, encouraging critical thinking and enabling learners to make enlightened choices and take different forms of action.Originality/valueThe study is unique in its interconnection of theoretical and empirical research, and it advances previous research by suggesting a grounded framework for critical datafication literacy.

This article develops a sociotechnical conceptualisation of data literacies in relation to citizens’ data practices: highlighting the agentic, contextual, critical, and social aspects of data skills and competencies, it frames data literacies as both discursive and material. In order for civil society organisations to make sense of big, small, open and other data they need multiple skills, beyond the technical; it is, therefore, unhelpful to talk about a single form of data literacy. It is more helpful to consider how such literacies in the plural develop within the material social contexts of civic cultures, and how they can progress in tandem with critical awareness about the power aspects of data, so they can become central tenets of data advocacy. The primary purpose of the article is to move forward the debate around how to conceptualise data literacy – and to question how far the concept is useful in the first place. The article draws on empirical research and starts from the premise that it is imperative to develop frameworks and training schemes that enable civil society actors and publics more generally to use open data, to make data more relevant to stakeholders, and to support their engagement in policy debates around datafication.

New(s) Readers: Multimodal Meaning-Making in AJ+ Captioned Video

In order to improve patient safety, healthcare professionals who care for patients directly or indirectly are required to possess specific knowledge and skills. Patient safety education is not or only poorly represented in education and examination regulations of healthcare professionals in Germany; therefore, it is only practiced rarely and on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, several training curricula and concepts have been developed in the past 10 years internationally and recently in Germany, too. Based on these concepts the German Coalition for Patient Safety developed a catalogue of core competencies required for safety in patient care. This catalogue will serve as an important orientation when patient safety is to be implemented as a subject of professional education in Germany in the future. Moreover, teaching staff has to be trained and educational and training activities have to be evaluated. Patient safety education and training for (undergraduate) healthcare professional will require capital investment.

1 IntroductionTeachers represent the crucial factor in determining quality in schools, and students' subsequent emotional, professional and social development, therefore, teachers' professional development is acquiring an ever increasing importance in all educational systems and in directing national policies. The process of teachers' professional development is carried out along a continuum, starting with initial teacher training and ending with retirement from the profession. In the first stage, that of initial teacher training, would-be teachers get acquainted with specialised knowledge and competences pertaining to and didactics. In Romania, this stage still coincides with the psycho-pedagogic modules I and II, concurrent with the bachelor and MA degree studies (Popescu & Iordachescu 2013).Unfortunately, these two modules contain no courses in intercultural education, which affects trainees' ability to cope with the multifariousness of problems that they might encounter as beginning teachers, especially if they set out in their career in a remote village, with mixed-ability and mixed-age groups of students, most of them of different ethnic or race backgrounds (Hungarians, Roma, etc.) In a society still dominated by prejudice of all kinds (race, sex, even religion), the young teacher finds himself in an embarrassment of choice over his philosophy of teaching, and in the process of finding his own teaching mantra, he would most often fall prey to deeply engrained prejudgment and stereotypes over the social role of the teacher.2 Literature ReviewThe preferred approach today to different societal issues in general and educational ones in particular, is an intercultural dimension, which is about the encounter of cultures, in their broadest sense. The school itself is the theatre of such an encounter, where different group identities, with differing values and beliefs, with different social status, come in contact. Is the modern teacher prepared to face the ensuing clashes between these minority or identity groups?According to Sonia Nieto (2012), the cultural competence of teachers is not only appropriate in a democratic society, but also leads to equitable (Nieto 2012: 9). She provided in 1992 a definition of multicultural education which is still taken into consideration by many educators nowadays, identifying seven dimensions of multicultral education: antiracist, basic, important for all students, pervasive, education for social justice, a process and critical pedagogy (Nieto & Bode 2008:44).Throughout this article I will be using the term intercultural education, instead of multicultural one, as this distinction needs to be made in order to distinguish between the coexistence of different cultures, national, ethnic, religious groups all living within the same territory, but not necessarily coming into contact with each other (multicultural societies), and the coexistence of different cultures, and groups living together within the same space, but constantly interacting, in a process of mutual respect and understanding of each other's values and traditions (intercultural societies) (cf. CE 1995).According to Guðrun Petursdottir (2009), when talking about intercultural education one needs to at least three questions into account:a). First, there arises the why question. Why should we need intercultural education? What in our society has changed that we need to take different educational approaches? Why should an educator take intercultural teaching approaches into consideration and why should teachers even envisage changing and adapting their teaching styles?b). The second question is the how one. How do we achieve the aims of intercultural education in our classes? How can we organize our teaching so as to attain those aims? Are some methods more likely to give better results rather than others?c). The third question that arises is the what question. …

Critical pedagogy is an educational movement which gives people the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and sense of responsibility necessary to engage in a culture of questioning. These abilities are of benefit to young people, increasing their political agency through heightened awareness of social injustice and the means by which to communicate and challenge this. A central feature of the critical pedagogical approach is critical literacy, which teaches analysis and critiquing skills. Critical literacy has been recommended by a number of authors as a valuable aspect to include in information literacy (IL) instruction. Critical IL could contribute to enabling the development of political agency and increasing meaningful and active involvement in democratic processes. With the focus on the value of IL becoming increasingly important within library and information science (LIS), it is important to be aware of its roots, the problems yet to be overcome and to consider ways in which the concept can be developed. The paper argues that it is necessary for IL to adopt a critical approach in order to meaningfully engage with the democratic social goals of LIS and address some of the limitations of IL theories. The paper focuses on the ways in which the theory of critical IL may be of benefit to young people of secondary school age, in terms of increasing their political agency through increased critical abilities, channeling their perceived political cynicism and distrust into critical thinking and a sense of agency, increased political knowledge, efficacy and participation. It is suggested that libraries could contribute to critical IL instruction in partnership with young people and people in teaching and parenting roles, and that it is important for the LIS profession and discipline to embrace the inherently political nature of pedagogy and LIS practices to effectively apply critical theories. Further research into the ways in which IL can contribute to democratic goals would be of benefit. A current PhD research project which explores a methodology for identifying the needs of young people in order to apply critical IL practices for political agency is introduced. This paper is based on a presentation given at LILAC 2013.

Introduction. Implementation of the gender approach in education and upbringing of the younger generation is an up-to-date focus area of modern education. This issue is especially significant in the sphere of physical culture and sports, where gender problems are more acute than in other spheres of public life.Materials and Methods. The research methods were: analysis of scientific papers, articles, educational programs, and Internet resources; study of physical education teaching practices in educational organizations and experience of teachers ' professional development in implementing the gender approach; generalization and systematization of data.Results. To organize physical education classes based on a gender approach, it is necessary to develop the competence of teachers, creating the following organizational and methodological conditions for this. First of all, the inclusion in additional professional programs of the training module "Gender approach in modern education", which contains educational and methodological support, diagnostic tools, recommendations for conducting gender analysis of educational literature, textbooks, and lessons. Another condition is to attract specialists in the field of gender pedagogy and psychology to conduct training sessions. During the inter-course period, it is advisable to organize conferences and seminars, creative meetings with leading scientists on gender issues. It is important to get acquainted with the experience of regional innovation platforms that implement a gender approach in the educational process. Promising tasks are: ensuring continuity in the development of the physical education teacher's competence to implement a gender approach in working with students; development of diagnostic tools for studying teacher competence deficits in gender issues.Discussion and Conclusions. The conditions considered by us (personnel, educational and methodological, scientific and methodological, informational) will contribute to improving the competence of physical education teachers in the application of a gender approach and can be widely used in their training and professional development in pedagogical colleges, universities, and institutes of postgraduate education.

This paper deals with professional ethics in the context of cases of sexual violence against children and young people by pedagogical professionals in Germany. On the basis of two contrary theoretical concepts of professional ethics in social science by Andrew Abbott and Sarah Banks, the relevance of professional ethics in the current debate about sexual violence is traced. It becomes apparent that ethics is indeed one actual reference point for crisis management in the light of the widespread failed actions in the pedagogical field. And it can be observed that formal prescriptions are dominating in the current debate. In order to prevent sexual violence formal ethic codes are rather restrictive and include obligatory codes of conduct for pedagogues. In contrast, there are hardly any reference points that start off from the motivational and experiential background of the pedagogical professionals aiming at an ethical work of the individual pedagogue. For a critical reflection on the current concepts of professional ethics concerning sexual violence in pedagogical contexts the paper refers also to the considerations of the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt. The paper ends with a plea for an interplay between prescriptive and enabling forms of professional ethics as a response to the crisis of pedagogy elicited by cases of sexual violence in schools and social work.