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Edusharenting on Instagram: A Comparative Analysis of Privacy Risks and Marketisation Strategies in the Catalan Context

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: School communication has evolved over the last decade, and social media, especially Instagram, has become a dominant platform for sharing pictures of students with their families. This phenomenon, named "edusharenting", has raised significant concerns regarding the tension between school branding and children's privacy rights. This comparative case study analyses how divergent institutional funding models (state, semi-private, and private) shape these digital communication practices, visual representation choices, and student exposure risks within the educational market of Catalonia. Using mixed-methods content analysis evaluated through descriptive and inferential statistical testing (Chi-Square and Mann-Whitney U tests), a corpus of 994 institutional Instagram posts was examined utilizing a live coding procedure to ensure data minimization and ethical compliance. The variables analysed tracked students' visual identifiability according to the acquaintance standard, the aggregation of personally identifiable information driving the mosaic effect, and institutional procedural compliance. Results show that edusharenting is a deeply normalised practice, with minors present in 81.5% (n = 810) of the total corpus, and 79.8% of them being completely identifiable. Contrary to Hypothesis 2, this visual exposure is not primarily motivated by aggressive marketing campaigns; instead, identifiable minors are predominantly featured within routine “informative” or "celebratory" posts, usually without any explicit mention of privacy disclaimers or legal consent markers. The thesis concludes that the marketisation of student identity acts as an invisible collateral effect driven by the platform's engagement algorithms, which subtly coerce schools into trading student privacy for visibility. Ultimately, this study highlights the urgent need to protect students' digital dignity (Floridi, 2016) through robust data governance policies and targeted digital literacy frameworks within educational institutions.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212093322
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