Two decades in the making: A scoping review on research on digital making and its potential for digital empowerment in non-formal settings

Abstract

FabLabs and makerspaces offer unprecedented opportunities for digital empowerment, especially for children and adolescents. However, reviews on making with regard to empowerment are lacking. We identified n = 180 publications on digital making with children and adolescents and, after categorizing them regarding formal criteria and formality of settings, identified the main topics in publications on digital making in non-formal settings. Results revealed a great demand for empirical studies with experimental designs. Three main topics emerged: domain-specific determinants of participation, equity, and skills and competencies. Implications for further research and limitations as well as implications for digital empowerment processes are discussed.

Keywords:

• Maker movement
• digital empowerment
• maker education
• children
• scoping review

Author’s contributions

Conceptualization: KS, SK; Data curation: KS; Funding Acquisition: SK; Investigation: KS, SK; Methodology: KS, SK; Project Administration: SK; Supervision: SK; Visualization: KS; Writing – Original Draft: KS, SK; Writing – Review & Editing: KS, SK.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in osf.io at https://osf.io/7dejm/.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01JKD1711) to Benjamin Jörissen and Stephan Kröner.

Notes on contributors

Kathrin Smolarczyk

Kathrin Smolarczyk received her Bachelor of Education from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg and completed her theoretical teacher training with the first state exam. She furthermore received her Master of Arts in Empirical-Educational Research from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. She is doctoral student at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Stephan Kröner

Stephan Kröner received his MA (Diplom) in Psychology from Justus-Liebig-University (Gießen, Germany), his Ph.D. in Psychology from Erfurt University (PH Erfurt, Germany) and his venia legendi for a habilitation thesis submitted at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.