Overview

This research explores children’s digital safety and citizenship through multi-stakeholder collaborations in three countries—India, South Korea, and Australia. In ethnographic fieldwork, we have engaged with two groups of stakeholders: children aged 3–13; and adults who are policy, education and/or industry influencers. In roundtable discussions underpinned by a deep literature review and applying creative methods, we have engaged child and adult stakeholder in the three countries in collaborative conversations to gain insights about their experiences of, and approaches to, young children’s digital safety and citizenship (including education, support and regulation).

 

Project aims

• To provide a body of information about children’s digital citizenship, in particular, one overarching inquiry about their understanding of digital citizenship and insights about ten aspects of children’s experiences (drawn from the literature review).
• To involve stakeholders, including children, as contributors to a holistic strategy for stakeholder engagement that involves the key concepts of attitude, awareness, ability and access, in order to mitigate the risks and maximise the resilience consequent to young children’s experiences of digital citizenship.

Project design

The concept of digital citizenship has been applied as a lens to critically examine what children say about their digital experiences and what policy makers and industry say about young children’s digital safety, and the regulation, education and support that impact this. We have examined what corresponds with a digital citizenship framework applied in the Asia Pacific region, and what gaps are revealed in the collaborative stakeholder roundtable conversations. This research project entailed four main phases of activity, taking place from January 2022 to March 2023 as follows:

• An extensive literature review of policy contexts in India, Korea & Australia—phase one.
• Play-based research roundtables with 48 children aged 3 to 13 held in the three countries—phase two.
• A detailed report of children’s perspectives of digital citizenship in India, Korea & Australia — phase three.
• Research roundtables with 45 adults in India, Korea & Australia — phase four (a).
• A detailed report and recommendations of principles for stakeholder engagement— phase four (b).

 

Participants in this project

Partner/s

The LEGO Group; Edith Cowan University

Reports

Timeframe

February 2022 to March 2023

Contact

Dr Kylie J. Stevenson

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