Around the world, digital policies are designed and implemented to propel regions and countries into digital futures, creating opportunities for digital participation and wellbeing.
Digital policies refer to policies advocating for:
- digital transformation (infrastructure, content creation, and human resources) and
- digital inclusion (inclusivity, support, and resources).
Children in digital policies examines the extent to which current digital policies consider children and their rights around the world and whether inequalities among children are taken into consideration.
This project takes a particular focus on policies in understudied countries and regions.
Methods
The research sourced digital policies, applied them to a coding framework and wrote up key learnings from each of the following countries, regional and intergovernmental organisations:
Intergovernmental organisations: World Bank, OECD, UNESCO and UNICEF
Africa: African Union, Angola, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Togo
Asia: ASEAN, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan
Europe: European Union, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom
MENA: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Sudan
North America: Canada, and the United States
South America: Comisión Económica Para América Latina (CEPAL), Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay.
A coding and analytical framework was developed which will enable other researchers to replicate this work in other countries and regions.
Project aims
The key aims of the project:
- Analyse how children are presented in digital policies across different countries and regions, identifying best practices.
- Assess what (if any) children's rights are considered and if inequalities amongst them are recognised.
- Create a methodology (incl. conceptual framework, sampling, code book, analytical approach) that can be replicated for other countries and regions exempt from these reports.
- Provide recommendations for policy makers and activist organisations on how policy might change to shape a better digital future for children.
Meet the team
Project leads: Ellen J. Helsper and Shivani Rao
Several Research Assistants have supported this project. Without their invaluable work and support, this report would not have been possible.
Ghea Adasta-Fauzan, Omer Abdulhamid Gibreel, Laura Betancourt-Basallo, Thomas Cessou, Helen Ho, Malika Kaloo, Diego Martinez-Castro, Andri-Ridhiani Putri, Zayna Resley, Sramana Sabnam, Thais Sanches Cardoso, Ruofan Shi, Tham Truong, Tanishqa Vaish, Remi Waxman, Cong Xu, Hao Yun Yu and Marisa Lyons Longworth.
See the Digital Future for Children centre's other projects.