Work

“I can Be Responsible With Digital Technology”: What Children Want Adults to Know About Their Use of Digital Technologies for Learning and Play

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Children have a right to participate in decisions shaping their lives, including how digital technologies are integrated into learning and everyday practices. This research explores children’s perspectives on digital learning and play, foregrounding their voices as central to inclusive, rights-based pedagogies. Building on research with early childhood educators, we engaged children (aged 6–11) and three 12-year-old co-researchers in a deliberative World Café workshop. Through arts-based methods, embodied practices, and dialogic engagement, children discussed research data, voted on key issues, and collaboratively developed recommendations. Challenging dominant assumptions surrounding children’s technology use, children positioned themselves as aware and agentic; wanting adults to see them as responsible digital citizens. Children demonstrated nuanced understandings of opportunities and risks and envisaged digital futures where child-adult relationships are reconfigured and context-sensitive decision-making supported. This paper advances the field by situating children as co-constructors of knowledge, co-interpreters of data, and co-regulators of their digital lives.

Source: Australasian Journal of Early Childhood

DOI: 10.1177/18369391261504039

Authors: Lisa K. Kervin, Lois Peach, Kate Lewis, Annette Braunack-Mayer, Steven J. Howard

Institutions: University of Wollongong, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Monash University, University of Oxford

Language: English

Topic: Children's Rights and Participation

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650