Digital competence among young people in Spain: A gender divide analysis

 Elisenda Estanyol, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)

 Mireia Montaña, Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona (Spain)

 Pedro Fernández-de-Castro, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)

 Daniel Aranda, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)

 Leila Mohammadi, Open University of Catalonia (Spain)

https://doi.org/10.3916/C74-2023-09

Keywords

Digital citizenship, citizenship education, media literacy, critical thinking, gender equality, young people

Abstract

Datafication in today’s communicative ecosystem poses a challenge to media and digital literacy, especially with regard to young people’s participation and civic and democratic engagement. We address this issue using the notion of digital citizenship, in order to study the gender digital divide as it relates to competence (i.e., skills and knowledge) and the possibility of leveraging said competence to promote civic education grounded in gender equality in the digital environment. For this study, we surveyed a representative sample of 600 young people between the ages of 16 and 18 in Spain to gauge their digital competence through three variables: technical skills, informational skills and critical knowledge. We then performed a descriptive analysis resulting in percentages, means and standard deviations and a bivariate analysis using significance testing (T-tests) between the above variables and the gender variable. Results show a relative balance between men and women in technical and informational digital skills, albeit tipped slightly in favour of women. By contrast, men claim to have more critical knowledge. Based on these results, we discuss the need to consider the contributions of feminist theories in the field of technology to develop proposals for teaching digital competence that encourage active digital citizenship based on gender equality.

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Fundref

This article is a result of the research project “Educación social digital: juventud, ciudadanía activa e inclusión” [Digital social education: youth, active citizenship and inclusion] (reference: PGC2018-095123-B-I00), approved in the 2018 call for “Proyectos de I+D de Generación de Conocimiento” [Knowledge Generation R&D&I Projects] under the Programa Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento y Fortalecimiento Científico y Tecnológico del Sistema de I+D+i [National Programme for Knowledge Generation and for the Scientific and Technological Strengthening of the R&D&I System], funded by Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

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Technical information

Received: 30-05-2022

Revised: 30-06-2022

Accepted: 13-07-2022

OnlineFirst: 30-10-2022

Publication date: 01-01-2023

Article revision time: 31 days | Average time revision issue 74: 40 days

Article acceptance time: 44 days | Average time of acceptance issue 74: 69 days

Preprint editing time: 171 days | Average editing time preprint issue 74: 194 days

Article editing time: 216 days | Average editing time issue 74: 239 days

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