Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: No Exam

In spring 2020-spring 2021, the United States ran a nationwide, real-time, high-stakes experiment to see what happened when you put digital educational and related technologies into the home environments of almost every young person in the country. Even before this emergency immersion into remote learning for primary and secondary schools, kids and teens were at the vanguard of the twenty-first century transformation toward living networked lives within networked institutions. Children’s and adolescents’ openness to and facility with new and emerging digital technologies, such as generative AI, create a sense of community that transcends physical and other traditional institutional boundaries, as well as a sense of self that is highly individualized. The potential for new connections and new forms of self-expression both online and off are essentially endless—as are the accompanying questions about whether and how state and federal laws, regulations, and other institutional policies, norms, and values interact with youth data privacy and other components of youth digital citizenship. This reading group will look at youth digital privacy and digital citizenship more broadly in the context of three primary institutions: (1) learning ecosystems; (2) the justice system (including school disciplinary proceedings, interactions with law enforcement, and court proceedings); and (3) family units (including nuclear, extended, foster, group home, institutional, and homeless configurations). The group will identify, analyze, and challenge the laws, regulations, policies, practices, and norms that enable or constrain the development of youth data privacy and digital citizenship through diverse readings and dynamic discussion of these cutting-edge topics.

Note: This reading group will meet on the following dates: TBD.