School of Social & Environmental Sustainability

An ambitious new research project led by the University of Glasgow aims to work with schools and software developers to help young people engage with the many moral and social challenges of life in a digitally connected world.

UK Research and Innovation identified digital citizenship as a priority for their recent Education funding call, and a team led by Dr David Lundie, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Glasgow, working together with colleagues in Glasgow’s School of Education and Urban Big Data Centre has been awarded a large grant to carry out curriculum mapping and development work across the four nations of the UK. The Centre for Technological Futures at the University of Edinburgh will also partner in the project. The University of Glasgow will be funding a postgraduate research studentship to support the project.

Principal investigator, Dr David Lundie, speaking about the project, told us “Young people face myriad challenges and uncertainties in a fast-paced and changing digital world – from cyber-bullying to online radicalisation; from the day-to-day harvesting and commercialisation of their personal data to surveillance of their movements and appetites; and teachers sometimes struggle to keep up. Moreover, in 2020 we saw up close the chaos that emerged from the well-meaning but misguided attempt to use an algorithm to allocate A-Level and Higher grades to students; indeed, how unexpected results can follow from naively automating the way in which we measure educational achievement. In this project, we will engage with the best practices that already exist in schools, whether that’s in Citizenship, PSHE or Computer Science and bring that into a constructive and imaginative dialogue with some of the leading-edge perspectives in digital ethics. In doing so we hope to help young people to be more aware of how to prudentially and ethically navigate the opportunities that digital citizenship brings.”

The research team will work closely with 12 secondary schools and four sets of resource developers, observing practice, interviewing pupils, reflecting on key challenges as part of a national group, and making use of an innovative smartphone-enabled daily survey method with young people. Resources will be developed in co-operation with schools to teach about digital challenges. The final report of the project will be completed in December 2024.

The “Teaching for Digital Citizenship: In the Classroom and Beyond” team:

• Dr David Lundie, Senior Lecturer in Education & Deputy Head of School, University of Glasgow School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Principal Investigator
• Professor James Conroy, Professor of Religious and Philosophical Education, University of Glasgow School of Education
• Professor Bob Davis, Professor of Religious and Cultural Education, University of Glasgow School of Education
• Dr Jeremy Knox, Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education, University of Edinburgh, Moray House School of Education
• Professor Joao Porto de Albuquerque, Director of the Urban Big Data Centre, University of Glasgow

Project Homepage

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First published: 12 December 2022