CRITICAL DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP: EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE TO USE AI ETHICALLY AND AUTONOMOUSLY
Keywords:
Digital Citizenship, Artificial Intelligence, Youth, Ethics, EducationAbstract
The expansion of artificial intelligence in communicational, educational, and social dynamics places education for digital citizenship at the center of contemporary pedagogical debate. This chapter discusses critical digital citizenship as a formative requirement for young people living in digital ecosystems mediated by recommendation algorithms, surveillance systems, and datafication processes. Based on a narrative literature review, contributions from authors such as Selwyn, Williamson, Jenkins, Rojo, Lankshear and Knobel, Floridi, Noble, Benjamin, Pariser, and Zuboff are articulated, in addition to guidelines from international organizations such as UNESCO and the European Union. It is argued that critical digital citizenship is structured on three interdependent axes: algorithmic awareness, critical digital literacy, and socio-technical ethics. It analyzes how young people are affected by informational, affective, and political vulnerabilities, and how schools can transform such vulnerabilities into educational potential through investigative practices, multiliteracies, and ethical debates about AI. Finally, implications for educational policies that integrate curriculum, teacher training, infrastructure, and data protection are discussed. It is concluded that training young people to use AI ethically and autonomously is a condition for democratic participation and cognitive justice in increasingly automated societies.
