Co-researching with primary school students to retrace their digital footprint

Young children are extensively datafied today even from before birth where families may share information about them or allow them to use digital technologies at a very young age. Schools typically collect children's data for compliance and to construct a set of norms and deviance in predicting risks and educational outcomes, often without children's knowledge and consent. Yet, children's understanding of their digital footprints is limited by the scope and design of curriculum delivery. This research worked with 62 primary school children between ages 10 and 11 to investigate how they understood and critically viewed their digital footprint. Adopting a co-research approach, children conducted their own research to develop their understanding of their digital footprint. Findings revealed that, while children were knowledgeable about the concepts of data and digital footprint, curriculum design plays a key role in supporting ways children can make meaningful connections between these concepts and children's day-to-day experiences with digital data, both personal and educational. • Schools contribute to the data generation which form children's digital footprints. • Pedagogical design can enact children's rights to understand their datafied lives. • As Co-researchers, children identify who shares and what data is shared about them. • Explicit teaching can address the invisible implications of children's datafication. • Children's agentic participation is a vital 21st century information literacy skill.