What is digital education? Decoding notions and encoding critical thinking, human rights and participation for fairer digital societies

This research addresses some of societal challenges in the digital age by analysing key features and contextual factors associated with digital education’s notions among academic literature. It problematises some of its shortcomings by zooming into digital education’s references to critical thinking, human rights and participation. A Systematic Literature Review was applied among peer-reviewed articles published in English since 2014. Results for discussion hinged upon the implications of dominant conceptualisations, factors enabling missing links with digital rights, and tactics steering education towards social justice in digital societies. Advancing democracies in the digital age entail comprehensive efforts oriented by human rights including technologies, regulations, research and education. Among these, education has been pointed as fundamentally affecting a stark ‘division of learning’. This gap is the axial point for the financial and controlling interests of big wealthy companies and governments. The implications of these digital divides have expanded the field of digital rights in the last decade, which was accelerated after the COVID-19 digital transformation. Nevertheless, the right to a quality education has remained broadly sidelined among digital rights, and most of the concerns from this field have been minimally included in educational agendas.