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Empowering Children for Social Justice–Design Research in the Context of Children’s Computing Education

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After Latour: Globalisation, Inequity and Climate Change (IFIPJWC 2023)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 696))

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Abstract

In the contemporary digitalized society, it is pivotal to provide children with skills to ideate, design and develop digital technology and to critically reflect on it and its consequences. In the current world full of crises, it is also crucial to make visible for children that digital technology is never value-free and that it can be used for making the world a better place but also for discrimination, marginalization, and oppression. Information Systems (IS) scholars have not addressed these topics with children, while IS as a discipline would provide very suitable expertise for this. We, inspired by frameworks on empowerment and social justice, have invited children to tackle a wicked societal problem of bullying through design of digital technology as part of their computing education, and while doing so, aimed at empowering children to empower those suffering from bullying, i.e., advocating social justice. In this design research study, we analyze and showcase our empowering design process and outcomes. We contribute to IS literature by offering insights on how IS research can contribute to children’s empowerment and social justice oriented computing education. These insights serve also IS researchers working with adults and pursuing social justice and empowerment agendas.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by Academy of Finland (Grant #324685, Make-a-Difference project). This research is connected to the GenZ-project, a strategic profiling project in human sciences at the University of Oulu, supported by the Academy of Finland (Grant #318930) and the University of Oulu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu, 90014, Oulu, Finland

    Netta Iivari, Leena Ventä-Olkkonen, Heidi Hartikainen, Sumita Sharma, Essi Lehto & Jenni Holappa

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  1. Netta Iivari
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  2. Leena Ventä-Olkkonen
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  3. Heidi Hartikainen
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  4. Sumita Sharma
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Correspondence to Netta Iivari .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Matthew R. Jones

  2. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Arunima S. Mukherjee

  3. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Devinder Thapa

  4. University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Yingqin Zheng

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Iivari, N., Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Hartikainen, H., Sharma, S., Lehto, E., Holappa, J. (2023). Empowering Children for Social Justice–Design Research in the Context of Children’s Computing Education. In: Jones, M.R., Mukherjee, A.S., Thapa, D., Zheng, Y. (eds) After Latour: Globalisation, Inequity and Climate Change. IFIPJWC 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 696. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50154-8_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50154-8_15

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