Becoming digitally literate: reinstating an educational lens to digital skills policies for adults

Journal article

Abstract:: The development of digital skills for all is a key focus of many educational policies across the globe. Despite the significant attention paid to the nature and suitability of such policies targeted at young people, there has been far less focus on digital skills policies targeted at adults. This article contributes to this literature. It outlines current digital skills policy in England. Having established this background, it analyses 30 interviews with digitally competent adults from lower socio‐economic backgrounds about their experiences of learning to use the Internet. In doing so, the article highlights that a narrow and instrumental digital skills agenda is emerging in the education of adults, driven by the needs of the commercial sector, that is in stark contrast to the experiences, motivations and hopes of adults who learn about, and use, digital technologies. Reframing digital skills as part of a broader adult education agenda may offer a way to facilitate the development of digital literacies that individuals seek.

Language:: English
Keywords:: lifelong learning

digital inclusion

digital skills

digital literacies

adult education

FFR

digital inequalities
Pubs id:: 1139790
Local pid:: pubs:1139790
Deposit date:: 2020-10-25

Copyright holder:: Rebecca Eynon.
Rights statement:: ©2020 The Authors. British Educational Research Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British EducationalResearch AssociationThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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