Digital literacies and practices from youth agency. Challenges for education in Chile

Abstract

This article presents a discussion on digital literacy and the practices of young Chilean schoolchildren and their possibilities of agency. Chile has the highest levels of accessibility to Information and Comunication Technologies (ICT) in Latin America, but also one of the most unequal educational systems. Both factors are evident in the evaluations regarding the digital abilities of students made in the country. However, these measurements do not allow us to understand how these differences are expressed concerning youth digital practices. This article proposes a conceptual articulation to generate meaning and guide research on digital literacy, and also presents results of an exploratory study of mixed design, aimed to characterise media practices and skills of adolescents from three educational institutions in Santiago, Chile. In a first quantitative phase, a questionnaire was applied to 143 cases, and then qualitative analysis workshops were held with a sample of 30 students. The quantitative results confirm differences in the use of ICT according to socioeconomic level. The qualitative findings allow us to understand these differences and make the definition of digital literacy more complex in about youth practices and agencies.