Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of debates on how to respond to the growing list of challenges posed by digital technologies. The educational responses proposed to deal with these challenges are varied, ranging from limiting access to digital technologies and teaching netiquette through to raising critical awareness of discriminatory biases in algorithms. While often not acknowledged, these educational responses are underpinned by different (often, opposing) political worldviews and narratives of digital technologies. They draw upon different ideas of what is considered safe/dangerous in the online world and what a ‘good’ digital citizen is. This blog post focuses on introducing a framework which seeks to understand digital education responses, expose what is missing in dominant debates, and point at the need for more critical responses.

A framework to understand digital education responses

To make sense of the variety of educational responses to digital technologies, we have recently developed the framework outlined in Figure 1. This framework allows educational scholars, practitioners and policymakers to understand digital risks, actions and educational responses as contested and underpinned by different assumptions on the potentiality of digital technologies and how these should be governed.

The framework transposes conceptions of citizenship (horizontal axis) with narratives of digital technology (vertical axis). The horizontal axis takes Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) classic distinction between personally responsible citizens (that is, those with ‘appropriate’, ‘safe’ and ‘responsible’ behaviours) and participatory and justice-oriented citizens (those actively and critically engaged in sociopolitical issues). The vertical axis of the framework differentiates between techno-optimist and techno-sceptical narratives of digital technologies (Pleasants et al., 2024). The intersection of both axes forms four quadrants, each of which represents a distinct educational response: safeguarding, equipping, empowering and resisting.

Figure 1. Educational responses to digital technologies (Estellés & Doyle, 2025)

‘Unlike its techno-optimist counterparts, the resisting response questions the belief that digital technologies can provide a path towards more democratic and inclusive societies.’

The safeguarding response, also termed the ‘control paradigm’ (Third et al., 2019), aims to protect young people from encountering online risks and advocates for educational practices focused on restricting and controlling online activity. This response is driven by fears of the so-called ‘3Cs’ risks (contact, content, conduct), which are seen as a threat to the development of the ideal personally responsible citizen.

Within the equipping response, young people are encouraged to make the most of the online world; and, in turn, teachers should cultivate the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to navigate this world in a ‘safe’ manner. For this response, good digital citizens are seen as responsible, law-abiding and ethical. Contrary to the safeguarding response, however, the equipping response holds a more positive narrative of digital technology in which the opportunities outweigh the risks.

For the empowering response, the focus is shifted to promoting critical digital literacies and participatory skills. As such, ‘good’ digital citizens are concerned with the (re)production of social inequalities (that is, the risks for this approach) and engage in digital actions aimed at reducing such inequalities. While this response recognises the relationship between digital technologies and social injustices, it highlights their potential for enabling collective action (hence, its techno-optimistic view).

Finally, the resisting response advocates for a disengagement from the digital world or, at least, an increasing de-virtualisation of social life. Unlike its techno-optimist counterparts, the resisting response questions the belief that digital technologies can provide a path towards more democratic and inclusive societies.

A need for more critical responses

Most digital education debates in the literature have focused on the safeguarding and equipping responses located in the left-hand side of the framework above (Heath, 2018; Estellés & Doyle, 2025). While these responses make valuable contributions to educational debates, they promote problematic acritical and depoliticised views of citizenship and technology, which tend to implicitly hold individuals (in this case, students and teachers) responsible for safety in the digital world. This form of what sociologists have called ‘individualisation of social risk’ (Bauman, 2001) has diverted attention away from the responsibilities of governments and IT corporations. We would like to urge educational scholars, practitioners and policymakers to more seriously consider critical (empowering and resisting) responses to digital education, in which the focus of change is not only the individual but also technologies and broader social dynamics.

References

Bauman, Z. (2001). The individualized society. Polity Press.

Estellés, M, & Doyle, A. (2025). From safeguarding to critical digital citizenship? A systematic review of approaches to online safety education. Review of Education, 13(1), e70056. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.70056

Heath, M. K. (2018). What kind of (digital) citizen? A between-studies analysis of research and teaching for democracy. The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 35(5), 342–356. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-06-2018-0067

Pleasants, J., Krutka, D. G., & Nichols, T. P. (2023). What relationships do we want with technology? Toward technoskepticism in schools. Harvard Educational Review, 93(4), 486–515. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-93.4.486

Third, A., Collin, P., Walsh, L., & Black, R. (2019). Young people in digital society: Control shift. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57369-8

Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237–269. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312041002237