Digital Defence & Activism Lessons: Equipping young people to navigate contemporary digital cultures in and around school

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In 2015, a group of girls set up a Twitter account as part of their secondary school feminist society. Less than an hour after posting their first tweet, they received a barrage of angry, sexualized responses. Over the coming weeks, they were attacked, threatened, and belittled. The girls were told to 'kill themselves', called 'Feminazis,' sent porn links, had official statistics on sexual violence challenged, told to 'shut up' and 'make me a sandwich.' Since 2014, we have been studying young people's use of digital technologies to challenge gender inequality, sexism and harassment (Mendes et al. 2019). While digital technologies offer new possibilities for change, they make those who speak out vulnerable to vicious, often gendered, sexualized and racialized trolling. Our research shows that while some pupils possess necessary personal resilience and digital literacy skills to cope with these challenges, many do not and end up feeling silenced, politically disengaged, or traumatized. Drawn from broader challenges of keeping young people safe online, combating disinformation, developing pathways to resilience, and fostering opportunities for political engagement identified through our research, this follow-on project has three key aims: First, we will develop seven bespoke Digital Defence & Digital Activism (DD&A) workshops for secondary-students (Key Stages 3-5). The first three Digital Defence sessions will cover general topics such as how to identify disinformation and fake news in a 'post-truth' world (Marwick & Lewis 2017), developing online safety strategies, image sharing and the law, and managing mental and physical health. The final four Digital Activism workshops will teach young people to harness digital technologies for political activism. We focus on feminist activism because it allows us to draw on findings from our original AHRC award, and because there is a need for feminist education, training and political engagement (Ringrose 2012). Second, we will develop workshops and guidance for teachers on how to link our DD&A workshops to the newly mandatory Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum. Third, we will develop open-access resources such as handbooks, podcasts, worksheets and videos from social media influencers. These digitized resources, hosted by Leicester University's Figshare repository for a 10-year-minimum will maximize the workshops' reach to new (inter)national audiences, enabling their sustainability beyond the funding period. While our original AHRC award focused specifically on challenges and opportunities of digital feminist activism, scholars have documented vicious trolling towards others who dare to 'talk back' (hooks 1989) to oppression, including campaigners on LGBTQ+ issues, and those fighting for racial equality online (Scheurman et al. 2018). As a result, safety strategies employed by our participants have broad applicability to all activists, or anyone who wishes to express their views via digital technologies.Working with key stakeholders and collaborators, this project will have immediate impact with 2.3k secondary students who will gain specific understanding of gender and sexual inequalities; laws around image sharing; improved pathways to resilience and digital literacy skills. Longer term impact will include increased and more effective civic engagement; a reduction in criminal offences and prosecution of image-based crimes (revenge porn, upskirting); a generation better equipped to identify and combat disinformation; and decreased levels of stress, anxiety and depression.The project will also immediately impact 2.5k teachers who will be able to deliver effective and relevant RSE lessons. In the long term, it will develop teachers who are more confident addressing 'the digital' in young people's lives. Through digitizing our resources, the project has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of people in years to come.