Big data literacy for youth: an intervention agenda

Children and young people are growing up in increasingly datafied societies, with rapid developments in related digital technologies. In this context, it becomes essential to promote the necessary skills to identify, understand, and critically interact with (big) data, being able to deal with their impacts on society and daily life. Exploring the emergent field of research on youth’s big data literacy through a thematic analysis of references selected by a scoping literature review, we identify relevant gaps and trends and propose an intervention agenda. Specifically, we aim to propose a larger understanding of young people's big data literacy and reflect on future paths – including central themes and pedagogical strategies – that can be used to enhance it. We identify four main topics for this agenda: 1) the defiance of big data’s mythology and data-driven technologies as neutral and impartial tools; 2) situating the big data phenomenon within the digital economic ecosystem; 3) connecting big data to artificial intelligence’s impact on society and 4) working on potential strategies to overcome youth's stances of apathy and indifference.