ABSTRACT This classroom‐based qualitative case study examines how critical and digital media literacies can be coconstructed with elementary students amid South Korea's contested rollout of the AI Digital Textbook (AIDT). Framed by engaged and creative pedagogies, the study conceptualizes the classroom as a democratic space where teachers and learners collaboratively interrogate educational policy that directly affects children. The case involved 28 sixth graders who participated in a five‐lesson unit—provocation, news analysis, stakeholder exploration, role‐play debate and civic writing—designed during a period of intensified policy debate over whether AIDT would become a mandated textbook or remain an optional resource. Data sources included student artefacts generated during classroom activities, civic writing and reflections and transcribed classroom dialogues; analysis traced critical incidents where significant learning occurred. Findings show that (1) establishing a safe environment enabled students to surface lived concerns and move from everyday experience to discourse‐level critique; (2) role‐play and deliberation helped students recognize competing stakeholder interests and the contingency of authority; and (3) civic writing translated critique into public voice, with several students voluntarily submitting policy proposals to government portals. The study argues that even under strict political‐neutrality constraints, integrating critical and digital media literacies through engaged and creative pedagogies can cultivate learner agency and extend literacy from classroom interpretation to civic action.
Kim et al. (Fri,) studied this question.