Digital ethics of care and digital citizenship in UK primary schools: Children as interviewers

A digital ethics of care (DEC) framework was initially developed with adolescents (11 to 18-years) to provide an infrastructure for understanding their digital social and emotional literacy, focusing on their ability to understand emotions and build respectful relationships online. In this study, we explore how that framework can be utilised with younger children aged 10 to 11-years-old. All children in class participated in a teacher-led lesson to develop skills and an understanding of interviewing. From this class, 18 children participated and interviewed each other in pairs. The interviews were conducted using a semi-structured approach consisting of question clusters framed around digital media use, wellbeing, social interactions online, empathy and kindness, and actions following negative behaviours. Using thematic analysis, four themes were developed: 1) recognising DEC in practice, 2) emotional consequences and coping with online adversity, 3) need for education on digital citizenship, and 4) developing a Digital Ethics of Care lesson. The results of the study led to the framework being refined. From this, a toolkit with lesson plans was created which was founded in the children's contributions and ideas for use by schools. Prior state of knowledge: Teachingdigital citizenship is an important part of education. However, children's moral decision-making can be constrained by a lack of social cues when using digital media. Children's digital empathy can be reduced because of the mediation of a screen.Novel contributions: A digital-ethics-of-care framework provides a novel, child-centred way to help educators appreciate how pedagogy can encourage respect, responsibility, empathy and care in moral decisions made by children.Practical implications: Founding digital citizenship education on the values associated with a digital-ethics-of-care is a useful tool. Listening to children's voices informs the priorities of that lesson planning and using a DEC framework offers a practical implementation through a story-based game.