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Critical Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) literacy cannot be reduced to a universal framework. Rather, it must be understood as a constellation of situated literacies, shaped by disciplinary perspectives, socio-political contexts, and technological affordances. This multi-authored article explores the emerging concept of critical GenAI literacy and its postdigital configurations. Fourteen authors contributed with different sections, followed by five author-reviewers who examined the article as a whole. The objective was to invite diverse perspectives, constructive critique, and promote collaborative efforts to develop a clearer and more inclusive understanding of critical GenAI literacy. The introduction focuses on establishing some initial assumptions about what we mean by ‘critical’ in general, and for GenAI literacy in particular, and why a conjunction of postdigital configurations of the construct emerges as an adequate methodological solution. In the main part of the article, some authors focus on the concept of ‘literacies’ as a starting point for their reflection, while others directly examine critical GenAI literacy through a postdigital perspective. We conclude that critical GenAI literacy requires moving beyond technical skills to engage with AI’s epistemological, ethical, and relational dimensions, ensuring learners critically interrogate its role in knowledge production. Future inquiry should focus on integrating this literacy into education in ways that promote social justice, epistemic diversity, and democratic participation.

Increasingly pervasive digital technologies in societies are placing complex demands on the development of young people’s digital citizenship and digital competence. Social science education and teacher education (TE) play important, but poorly understood, roles in this development. Through reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews, this paper explores 15 Swedish teacher educators’ (TEDs) views of teaching for digital citizenship, particularly social science TE’s role. We also consider organisational and personal conditions that may influence TEDs’ views of professional digital competence (PDC) for such teaching. Their views are examined through a postdigital lens, with a focus on democratic implications in evolving socio-technical environments. The results indicate that TEDs acknowledge the importance of social science TE in teaching for digital citizenship, but find maintaining responsiveness to societal changes challenging. Challenges are also posed by the multidisciplinary character of social science education, including how personal trajectories shape TEDs’ views of their dual-didactic task of teaching to teach for digital citizenship. This paper contributes knowledge of how TEDs, as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ in social science TE, navigate between written and performed education policy in teaching for digital citizenship, with specific attention to the dynamic character of PDC in social science education.

Embedded in society, digital infrastructure has changed citizens’ lives. Young people therefore need to develop digital competence and digital citizenship, and schools have an important role in this regard. To prepare new schoolteachers for this role, teacher educators (TEDs) need professional digital competence (PDC) that includes knowledge, competences, and a conceptual understanding to teach teaching for digital citizenship. In light of the limited body of research on theorizing digital citizenship in relation to TEDs’ PDC, this paper critically analyzes three conceptualizations of digital citizenship. Being potentially normative and part of the latest phase of development in the field, these conceptualizations could shape TEDs’ PDC and practice. In a qualitative content analysis of the selected conceptualizations, this paper uses a postdigital lens to bring into focus and critically analyze aspects of philosophical underpinnings related to socio-technical relations. The results show that conceptualizations of digital citizenship convey different understandings of human–technology relations and the knowledge and competences necessary to exercise digital citizenship. These differences have far-reaching implications for TEDs’ PDC in ways that could impact students’ opportunities to develop digital competence and digital citizenship. Therefore, TEDs’ PDC needs to include a critical understanding of digital citizenship, and the post-pandemic juncture of “new normal” provides opportunities to rethink and reframe PDC. To this end, a postdigital lens can shift the focus to how PDC is contingent on the shifting entanglements in which pedagogical activities are situated and orchestrated, and how these relate to broader issues of injustice in society.

With the past 20 years of increasingly pervasive digital technologies in educational and societal contexts, young people’s development of digital citizenship has become important to participate and act as members of society. To this end, schools have an important role, and new teachers need to be prepared through the support of teacher educators. Focusing on their dual-didactic role, this lightning talk highlights opportunities and challenges for teacher educators’ professional digital competence (PDC) to teach for digital citizenship. Using examples from the Swedish context, the talk highlights tensions in teacher educators’ PDC where their understanding of digital citizenship may be broadly compatible with the postdigital but less nuanced in the context of education. Similarly, teacher educators may have PDC to teach about digital citizenship but feel ill-prepared to teach teaching for digital citizenship, where further complexity comes from the strive to have PDC that is responsive to postdigital developments in society. The lightning talk draws attention to the opportunities of using a postdigital lens to support teacher educators’ PDC to include a deep conceptual understanding of digital citizenship, which is important for the preparation of future teachers and, in turn, young people’s development of digital citizenship.

Digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), increasingly permeate societal contexts, impacting how citizens interact, for example, through datafication and algorithms supported by AI (Hintz et al., 2019). Citizens, therefore, need to develop digital citizenship which includes knowledge and skills to engage critically with AI (Vuorikari et al., 2022). Aspects of digital citizenship are present in Nordic K-12 curricula (Christensen et al., 2021), and while teaching AI in education has broadly drawn attention (Holmes & Tuomi, 2022), it is still unclear what knowledge and skills teachers need to focus on to help young citizens develop their digital citizenship in relation to AI (cf. Markauskaite et al., 2022). In response, numerous frameworks and materials for teaching AI have been developed, which could provide teachers with guidance.

 In a Nordic context, this paper aims to analyze materials and resources that could influence K-12 teachers’ work of teaching AI as an aspect of the digital competence young people need to develop as part of their digital citizenship. This is done by a close reading of the European Union framework DigComp 2.2 and the Swedish National Agency for Education’s supportive materials available teachers to operationalize the teaching of AI. Using Touretzky et al. (2019) as an analytical node, the paper examines the discursive construction of AI-related knowledge and skills that young citizens need and how teachers can operationalize these through available policy and support materials. The early results highlight tendencies to present AI as a threat to democracy which is why citizens need relevant knowledge and skills. This often reflects instrumentalism rather than a holistic understanding of digital technologies in society or what AI can do. The paper thus highlights the need for teachers to engage with these materials critically. Given the potential implications for citizenship formation, such critical engagement becomes important in a Nordic context, where educators tend to conceptualize digital citizenship in different ways (Örtegren, 2022).

References

Christensen, I. R., Biseth, H., & Huang, L. (2021). Developing Digital Citizenship and Civic Engagement Through Social Media Use in Nordic Schools. In H. Biseth, B. Hoskins, & L. Huang (Eds.), Northern Lights on Civic and Citizenship Education: A Cross-national Comparison of Nordic Data from ICCS (pp. 65-92). Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Hintz, A., Dencik, L., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2019). Digital citizenship in a datafied society. Polity Press.

Holmes, W., & Tuomi, I. (2022). State of the art and practice in AI in education. European Journal of Education.

Markauskaite et al. (2022). Rethinking the entwinement between artificial intelligence and human learning: What capabilities do learners need for a world with AI? Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 3, 1000056.

Touretzky, D., Gardner-McCune, C., Martin, F., & Seehorn, D. (2019). Envisioning AI for K-12: What Should Every Child Know about AI?. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 33(01), 9795-9799.

Vuorikari, R., Kluzer, S., & Punie, Y. (2022). DigComp 2.2: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with New Examples of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. Publications Office of the European Union.

Örtegren, A. (2022). Digital Citizenship and Professional Digital Competence – Swedish Subject Teacher Education in a Postdigital Era. Postdigital Science and Education, 4(2), 467-493.

I ett samhälle genomsyrat av digitala teknologier blir det allt viktigare för unga att utveckla och utöva ett digitalt medborgarskap för att agera som medborgare, exempelvis i mötet med fake news, algoritmer och artificiell intelligens. Det digitala medborgarskapet ställer därför nya krav på skolans demokratiuppdrag och hur ämneslärarstudenter förbereds för detta uppdrag. Sådan förberedelse kräver att lärarutbildare har en professionsspecifik digital kompetens som omfattar teoretisk och praktikrelaterad kunskap kopplad till digitalt medborgarskap. Syftet med detta papper är att undersöka hur lärarutbildare ser på sin professionella digitala kompetens (PDK) för att kunna undervisa blivande ämneslärare för ett digitalt medborgarskap och diskutera hur praktiknära forskning kan bidra till att vidareutveckla sådan undervisning. Pappret, som är ett delarbete i en avhandling, utgår ifrån en förståelse av PDK som fyra sammanflätade dimensioner som lärarutbildare behöver för att undervisa för ett digitalt medborgarskap: (1) generisk digital kompetens, (2) ämnesrelaterad, didaktisk digital kompetens, (3) professionsrelaterad digital kompetens och (4) transformativ agens (Gudmundsdottir & Hatlevik, 2018; 2020; cf. Örtegren, 2022). Dessa dimensioner präglas till viss del av temporalitet och plasticitet, varför PDK blir ett koncept i ständig förändring (Almås et al., 2021). Analysen av intervjuer med lärarutbildare visar att deras syn på sin PDK för att undervisa för ett digitalt medborgarskap varierar. Lärarutbildares tidigare erfarenheter, till exempel egen forskning, kan bidra till generisk och delvis ämnesrelaterad PDK. Samtidgt visar resultaten att få lärarutbildare ser sin ämnesdidaktiska PDK som tillräcklig för att möjliggöra för ämneslärarstudenter att stötta elevers utveckling av ett digitalt medborgarskap. Mot bakgrund av resultaten ger pappret förslag på framtida praktiknära forskning som involverar lärarutbildare med fokus på undervisning för ett digitalt medborgarskap. Denna typ av forskning kan bidra till att stärka ämneslärarstudenters förberedelse för skolans demokratiuppdrag.

Teacher education (TE) is not only about skills and knowledge but also about citizenship formation as student teachers are prepared for the democratic assignment of school. In a postdigital era, blurred boundaries between digital technologies and physical reality place new demands on citizenship, teacher education institutions (TEIs), and teacher educators (TEDs). This paper explores Swedish TEDs’ views of digital citizenship and the professional digital competence (PDC) required for teaching subject student teachers to teach for digital citizenship. Seven TEIs participated and 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted with TEDs teaching a Core Education Subjects module on education and democracy mandatory for all student teachers. TEDs generally believe that the digitalization of society impacts the democratic assignment and addressing this requires specific PDC. Conceptualizations of digital citizenship tend to foreground source criticism as well as ethical, safe, and sound use of digital technologies, and to some degree also (im-)material means of democratic participation. While generally believing that TE should address questions relating to digital citizenship and that TEDs have an important role in this regard, digital technologies are discussed in the module coincidentally and TEDs are unsure to what degree student teachers receive such training. Challenges include lack of time and unclear Degree Objectives. To develop TEDs’ PDC to include questions relating to digital citizenship in their teaching, support is needed through policy and continuous professional development for TEDs, including reviews of course content and program structure. Future TE research needs to explore digital citizenship in the school subject social studies.

In a postdigital era, an increasingly important dimension of citizenship is digital citizenship, which is reflected for instance by digital civic engagement, fake news, and disinformation, not least during the Covid-19 pandemic. Teacher education (TE) prepares student teachers for the fostering of citizens in K-12 schools, and various conceptualizations of digital citizenship appear in educational research that could inform TE practice. This paper explores two common conceptualizations of digital citizenship in educational research, Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship and Choi’s four-category model, and critically examines how these reflect digital citizenship in a postdigital era, including potential implications for TE. The paper shows that neither conceptualization fully reflects digital citizenship in a postdigital era although Choi’s model mirrors some characteristics, for instance a blurredness between binaries such as “online” and “offline”, and a multi-faceted understanding of citizenship and digital technologies. Critically analyzing digital citizenship is important as the conceptualizations informing TE may impact the preparation of future teachers to teach for digital citizenship in a postdigital era.

In a postdigital era, the conditions in Europe for digital citizenship further change as digital technologies pervade societal contexts to the degree where they have become embedded, a blur of relationships between the digital and the physical, the online and the offline, technology and social life (Jandrić et al., 2018), which changes how people interact as members of society (Burbidge et al., 2020). Consequently, digital citizenship is not limited to a ‘digital’ sphere but non-linear and interrelated with the material, being one among other integrated dimensions of citizenship (Choi, 2016), and this places new demands on teacher educators’ (TEDs) preparation of social studies teachers to address questions relating to digital citizenship in their teaching.

TEDs believe that digital citizenship is important to address in teacher education (TE), and some suggest that social studies TE is where such questions ought to be addressed (Örtegren, forthcoming). Some examples illustrating the importance of digital citizenship are digital civic engagement (Lindgren, 2017), partisanship amplified by social media (Hasen, 2020), and the role of artificial intelligence systems and algorithms in relation to citizenship (Burbidge et al., 2020). Digital citizenship has also been highlighted by the European Union, for instance in citizenship frameworks such as DigComp 2.1 (Carretero et al., 2017), and Sweden has established a commission (Government Directive 2018:88) targeting challenges to democracy in relation to digital technologies which includes educational efforts. 

TEDs have a key role in preparing student teachers for the fostering of democratic citizens (Raiker & Rautiainen, 2020), and in Sweden, social studies has a long history of addressing citizenship even if the fostering of democratic citizens concerns all school subjects (Sandahl, 2015). Currently, Sweden’s social studies curriculum for upper secondary school covers among others the use of digital technologies for democratic influence (cf. Swedish National Agency for Education, 2018), which reflects how ideals of digital citizenship are present in the Swedish curriculum (Christensen et al., 2021), and the curriculum is a key document for TEDs to consider when preparing social studies teachers. Therefore, teachers of social studies, and by extension TEDs in social studies TE, require professional digital competence, which are profession-based skills and knowledge of digital technologies in education (Lund et al., 2014) in relation to digital citizenship (Choi, 2016).

The aim of this paper is to examine Swedish teacher educators’ views of digital citizenship in social studies TE, and the related conditions for TEDs’ professional digital competence to teach teaching for digital citizenship. Previous research has identified a need for TEDs to support student teachers of social studies to develop their understanding of democracy, including implications of different conceptualizations of democracy in social studies for classroom practice (Eriksen, 2018). Similarly, research has shown that TEDs in social studies TE need policy support to develop professional digital competence necessary to fulfill their tasks (Miguel-Revilla et al., 2020). This echoes broader TE research which highlights the importance of continuous professional development in relation to professional digital competence (e.g., Lindfors et al., 2021). Thus, this paper addresses calls for more educational research on teaching for digital citizenship (Christensen et al., 2021) focusing specifically on social studies TE (Örtegren, forthcoming).

Method: In Sweden, subject TE prepares teachers for teaching pupils aged 13-19, which requires a Degree of Master (4 to 5.5 years of full-time study, 240-330 ECTS); program length depends on if the students choose the compulsory-school track or the upper-secondary school track. Six of 19 TE institutions in Sweden that prepare teachers of social studies participated, representing variation as to geography, age, and size. By means of purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews were conducted on Zoom at the beginning of the spring semester of 2022 with 14 TEDs, holding various positions, who taught social studies TE that included questions relating to citizenship. Based on prior research, the interviews covered areas such as digital citizenship and professional digital competence to teach for digital citizenship in relation to social studies TE. The manner was similar to in-depth interviewing with follow-up questions and probes, such as ‘What do you think could…?’. The interviews were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim. Course documents specific to the area of social studies TE taught by the TEDs and the transcriptions were imported into NVivo Release 1.5.1, which was used for search queries, organizing, and coding the data. A Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun et al., 2019) was performed whereby the researcher generated themes. This process comprised iterative phases of close-reading and notetaking, coding, merging and grouping codes based on similarity, and subsequently the formation of subthemes and main themes. The analysis of dimensions of professional digital competence needed to teach teaching for digital citizenship drew theoretically from the Professional Digital Competence Framework developed for Norwegian TE (Kelentrić et al., 2017).

Expected Outcomes: Initial results indicate an agreement among TEDs that questions relating to digital citizenship need to be addressed in social studies TE. Important reasons include the impact on democracy by algorithms, disinformation, post-truth politics, and broadly challenges to democracy where digital technologies are used or facilitate such processes, for instance by extremist groups or authoritarian regimes. Echoing previous research on digital citizenship in Swedish subject TE (Örtegren, forthcoming), TEDs conceptualize digital citizenship in different ways, which the early analysis suggests are linked to the perceived type of impact on democracy linked to digital technologies. For example, an increase in disinformation necessitates a conceptualization of digital citizenship where important features include searching for information, assessing and comparing sources, and drawing conclusions based on available information. Similarly, these conceptualizations are linked to different dimensions of professional digital competence, and TEDs require professional development in this field. Combined, the span of conceptualizations and the subsequent professional digital competence required may impact TE equivalence in relation to how student teachers are prepared to teach for digital citizenship. This could impact not only the skills and knowledge that future K-12 pupils develop in social studies, but the way future teachers address questions relating to democratic work. Therefore, the early results highlighted by this paper indicate that TEDs need continuous professional development in digital citizenship, and it also echoes previous studies emphasizing the need for professional development in relevant dimensions of professional digital competence (e.g., Lindfors et al., 2021). Moreover, the paper highlights the role of TE policy to promote equivalence regarding digital citizenship in social studies TE, and in this regard, an important question is what conceptualizations such TE policy should promote. These early results could speak to other national contexts where digital citizenship similarly is highlighted as important, for instance in the European Union.