Narrow Frames, Shallow Roots: Prospective Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Digital Citizenship in Pakistani Teacher Education

Abstract

How teachers teach digital citizenship depends on their conceptual understanding of it, and currently available research indicates that it is often only partially developed and focused exclusively on safety and not well-informed in a wider context of law, civic, and rights-based education. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that aimed to explore the conceptualisation of digital citizenship by prospective teachers at a public university in Punjab, Pakistan, and to infer from these the extent of the adequacy of existing teacher preparation. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to explore the findings. The data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with the participants who were enrolled in BS Education programmes. Four themes were created in the analysis: a reductive conceptual frame, which was marked by considerations of safety and ethics; experiential knowledge as a substitute for formal instruction; and a gap between participants' knowledge and that required by international frameworks on digital citizenship. The results show that teacher preparation in this context views digital citizenship as a "side matter" and a matter that, for the most part, is only briefly and superficially covered in teacher preparation programs, producing a fragmented conceptual map in prospective teachers. The paper concludes that changes to the curriculum, practice-based pedagogy, and policy are needed to prepare teachers to develop students as full digital citizens.