Towards a school-based ‘critical data education’

The ongoing ‘datafication’ of contemporary society has a number of implications for schools and schooling. One is the increasing calls for schools to help develop young people’s understandings about the role that digital data now plays in their everyday lives – especially in terms of the ‘data economy’ and ‘surveillance capitalism’. Reporting on three research projects, we explore the challenges of doing ‘critical data education’ in schools with young people. Each project was based on three learning objectives: materialising data and data processing; understanding the implications of data processing; and trialling strategies and tactics to manage and protect personal data. Our findings highlight technological, ethical and social issues encountered and the need for data education programmes to articulate with young people’s expectations for media use. The paper concludes by considering how this might be achieved in schools through re-imaging the dominant forms of digital ‘cybersafety’ education in schools.