Digital literacy for social education: From digital skills to critical knowledge

We address the intersection between digital literacy and social education, particularly in socio-educational work with young people aimed at fostering their civic engagement. This challenge requires that social education professionals have holistic training in digital literacy, both in skills and critical digital knowledge. To find out their perceptions of their levels of digital literacy, we carried out a survey of the digital skills and knowledge of social education professionals (N= 144), looking at different sociodemographic variables. We proposed a bivariate analysis using correlations and a multivariate analysis with a multiple linear regression, taking critical digital knowledge as the dependent variable. The results show that, although sociodemographic variables have no effect on the level of critical digital knowledge, certain advanced technical and IT skills do have a significant influence. Finally, we discuss the possibilities for designing training focused on critical digital literacy, to improve performance working with young people.