Youth Perspectives on Critical Data Literacies

Abstract

As contemporary youth learn, play, and socialize online, their activities are often being recorded and analyzed. What should young people know about these data collection and analysis efforts? Although critiques of these new forms of data collection and analysis have grown increasingly loud, the voices of users, and particularly youth, have largely been absent. This paper explores the critical perspectives of youth who are programming with public data about their own learning and social interaction in the Scratch online community. Using a bottom-up approach based on ethnographic observation of discussions among these young users, we identify a series of themes in how these youth critique, question, and debate the implications of data analytics. We connect these themes-framed in terms of critical data literacies-to expert critiques and discuss the implications of these findings for education and design.