Realising children's rights in the digital age: The role of digital skills.

The EC-funded research network ySKILLS aimed to identify the actors and factors that undermine or promote the wellbeing of children aged 12–17 in a digital age. This report synthesises its findings to inform child rights organisations, advocates and duty bearers, and researchers concerned with child rights. It reviews new evidence from the ySKILLS to determine whether gaining digital literacy facilitates the realisation of children's rights. It also examines the opposite possibility: is there evidence from ySKILLS research that the insufficient realisation of children's rights impedes children in gaining digital literacy?

ySKILLS conceives and measures digital literacy as the combination of digital knowledge and digital skills. Four dimensions of digital literacy are distinguished: technical and operational, information navigation and processing, communication and interaction, and content creation and production. Involving 16 partners from 13 countries, ySKILLS deployed multiple methods (see Appendix 1), including a three-year longitudinal survey complemented by a range of qualitative and quantitative studies.