From protection to participation: a digital citizenship education for preschool children in South Korea

As children’s rights to participate in digital environments have increasingly been emphasized globally, how participation is understood and practiced continues to vary across cultural and educational contexts. In South Korean early childhood education, opportunities for preschool children’s meaningful participation in digital environments have often remained limited by adult-directed, protection-oriented practices. This study examined how participation-centered digital citizenship education was associated with preschool children’s digital literacy and critical thinking. Using a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design, 46 five-year-old children from two preschools participated in a 10-week intervention. Children in the experimental group engaged in collaborative activities such as fact-checking, digital storytelling, video creation, and reflective digital interaction, while the control group received no digital citizenship education. ANCOVA results indicated that the experimental group demonstrated significantly higher levels of digital literacy and critical thinking than the control group. The findings suggest that participation-centered digital citizenship education may support preschool children’s collaborative inquiry, communication, and responsible participation in digital environments.