Cite: Zimmermann, N. & Pirker, G. (Ed.) (2025). European Youth in the Digital Transformation. How Education for Democratic Citizenship/ Youth Work could contribute to pedagogies of digitality and digital empowerment. Analysis and conclusions from the DIYW-ROAD project. Digital Youth Work – rights-sensitive, open, accessible, democratic. Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (DARE Network), Brussels.
107 pages, DARE network, 2025
Contributors: Rapetti, E. (DARE Network), Rosende, P. A. (Funcacion CIVES), Fernandes, F. (Dinamo), Plasencia, M. (Sozialprofil), Kolarova, D. (Partners Bulgaria Foundation), Kacheva, A. (Partners Bulgaria Foundation).
The Contribution of Education for Democratic Citizenship and Youth Work to Pedagogies of Digitality and to Digital Empowerment
Young people experience digitalisation as a reality and not as ‘new’. This is a distinction to other generations, who are witness to the transition, or also have experienced several waves of digitalisation in different areas of life (work, private, social). In this regard one cannot moan unawareness or practices/habits of a younger generation but has to take into account the perspective of digitality as first time normality in young peoples life.
Digital Youth Work itself can be seen as a result of youth work encompassing the various socio-political and economic developments of digital transformation in a processual and youth centred way. This means accompanying the different aspects of digitalisation as young people encounter them in their everyday life.
This analysis tries to identify key elements of transformation processes for the field of youth namely for those where power reflection and emancipation are important. From the perspective of non-formal learning as emancipatory and power critical pedagogical practice this analysis also describes the potential of Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) for mutually filling these spaces and why EDC/HRE is a necessary perspective in discussions on digital youth work, digital competence digital citizenship education, media pedagogy, informational pedagogy.
Table of Content
Introduction
How to read the analysis?
On digital youth work terminology
The political dimension of digitalisation
The postdigital perspective
The youth voice
In a nutshell
Environment and Digitality
The material aspects of digitalisation
Effect of digitalisation on climate change
Digital lifestyle
Identity and Digitality
Visibility and self-creation of the digital picture
The self – raw material of the digital economy
Health & wellbeing and the physical body
Identification and prediction
Active consumers
Governance of the Digital
Whom to trust, whom to give power?
Bringing order into Information disorder
Working with data
Civic competence and digital skills
Created by
- Arbeitskreis deutscher Bildungsstätten e. V. (AdB) (Berlin/Germany),
- Sozialprofil – Verein zur Förderung individueller, institutioneller und gesellschaftlicher Entwicklung (Graz/Austria),
- Dinamo (Sintra/Portugal),
- Fundación CIVES (Madrid/Spain),
- Partners Bulgaria Foundation (Sofia/Bulgaria),
- Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (DARE)
in the frame of the project DIYW-ROAD
Co-funded by the European Union