Digital Citizenship and Professional Digital Competence — Swedish Subject Teacher Education in a Postdigital Era

25Citations
Citations of this article
150Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

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.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

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. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00291-7

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free