Towards a radical digital citizenship in digital education

ABSTRACT

In this article, we attempt to define and explore a concept of ‘radical digital citizenship’ and its implications for digital education. We argue that the ‘digital’ and its attendant technologies are constituted by on-going materialist struggles for equality and justice in the Global South and North which are erased in the dominant literature and debates in digital education. We assert the need for politically informed understandings of the digital, technology and citizenship and for a ‘radical digital citizenship’ in which critical social relations with technology are made visible and emancipatory technological practices for social justice are developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Black Lives Matter
• digital activism
• digital capitalism
• digital citizenship
• digital education
• digital labour
• digital literacy
• digital materialism
• social justice
• social movements

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jen Ross, Jeremy Knox and the two anonymous reviewers for Critical Studies in Education for their valuable and constructive feedback.

Notes

1. Note that activists make a distinction between #BlackLivesMatter, the twitter hashtag, Black Lives Matter, the national activist network set up by Garza, Tometi and Cullors and the Movement for Black Lives, the broader social movement struggling for justice and equality for Black people. For our purposes here, we are discussing all three manifestations of this movement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Akwugo Emejulu

Akwugo Emejulu is senior lecturer and programme director of the MSc Social Justice and Community Action at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the political sociology of race, gender and grassroots activism.

Callum McGregor

Callum McGregor is lecturer in Education at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the intersection of education and social movement activism.