Los entornos digitales, entendidos como redes donde sujetos, discursos, artefactos, dispositivos y subjetividades, entre otros elementos (Mackness et al., 2016), se cruzan, entrelazan, constituyen y se constituyen de manera híbrida en el juego online-offline (Latour, 1993). En este ámbito híbrido, las relaciones poder/saber operan (Foucault, 1980) en constante cambio y tensión y, impulsadas por el capitalismo de plataforma (Srnicek, 2018), se transforman hacia un nuevo régimen social. Los debates en torno al potencial democratizador de las tecnologías digitales y las críticas que suscitó este discurso (Dussel, 2012) han adaptado ahora un nuevo rostro que, además de ampliar las viejas brechas sociales, como la brecha de género, está propiciando el surgimiento de nuevas y oportunidades. En esta línea, en el contexto occidental, la brecha digital de género está disminuyendo gracias a las posibilidades de acceso a material a los artefactos digitales (Smahel et al., 2020); sin embargo, persiste en un sentido inmaterial. Diversos estudios han identificado los entornos y tecnologías digitales como dispositivos capitalistas que reproducen diferentes oportunidades de aprendizaje (Miño Puigcercós et al. , 2019), así como oportunidades de agencia y autorrepresentación (Vera et al., 2020) para mujeres, disidentes de género y hombres. Estos estudios están en controversia con otros que apuntan líneas de fuga (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980) en las representaciones contrahegemónicas en línea del género, la aparición de debates en torno al género y la sexualidad como categorías políticas, o el asociacionismo (Walker & Laughter , 2019) . Se perfila así una controversia que incide en el desarrollo de competencias de las mujeres (en sus tres dimensiones: actitudes, habilidades y conocimientos) y se refleja entre las preocupaciones de instituciones políticas como la ONU (2020) y la Comisión Europea (2018).

The concern around the relationship of women and gender dissidents with technologies has had an impact on the academic context, with the proliferation of publications on the digital gender gap in the platformised society in the past years. In such a context, this work, carried out in the framework of the project Entornosdigitales e identidad de género en la adolescencia (Digital Environments and Gender Identity in Adolescence, EDIGA), financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (PID2019-108221RB-I00), suggests a review of the state of the art of the intersection between gender and digital environments in youth, as this is a key stage in the self-construction of subjectivity in which digital media are gaining more and more prominence. The objectives of this work are the following: (1) to identify the theoretical approaches to gender and digital environments based on which the intersection of these concepts has been dealt with, and (2) to analyse the methodological strategies used.

This study has adopted the following approaches: (a) Gender as a regulatory sociocultural (De Laurentis, 1989), colonial (Connell & Pearse, 2018) and intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989) construction, which binds technologies of the self (Foucault, 1980) operating in the processes of power and knowledge of the becoming a woman subject. According to de Barbieri (1993), there are three main approaches to the study of gender as an analytical category, which have guided the analysis of the texts: (I) the social relationships of sex, favouring the social division of labour; (II) the trends of the self, focused on socialisation processes, and (III) gender systems understood as power systems. (b) Digital environments understood as social construction (Bijker et al.,1987), de carácter híbrido (Latour, 1993), con valores que permean la cultura y están vinculados al pensamiento, la lengua y los patrones identitarios, cuya introducción tiene consecuencias políticas, financieras, sociales, ecológicas y otras, más que entendidas como un elemento neutro. propuesta tecnica de la que se puede hacer buen o mal uso.

A systematic literature review was made based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology. The quality standards of this statement (Page et al., 2021) were followed to explore the whole of the existing scientific production up to the past year in relation to gender identity and digital environments in youth. The search was conducted fundamentally in internationally recognised databases, although it was completed with other nationally relevant databases in order to contextualise the research problem (Table 1). Table 1 Search strategy Source Search strategy Results Scopus (“identity” OR “identification”) AND (“adolescent” OR “teenager” OR “young” OR “child”) AND (“digital” OR “ICT” OR “digital environment) AND “gender” AND (“female” OR “male” OR “queer” OR “transgender”) AND (learning) 20 Web of Science 30 ERIC 24 EBSCO (“identity” OR “identification”) AND (“adolescent” OR “teenager” OR “young” OR “child”) AND (“digital” OR “ICT” OR “digital environment) AND “gender” AND (“female” OR “male” OR “queer” OR “transgender”) 32 Taylor and Francis (“identity” OR “identification”) AND (“adolescent” OR “teenager” OR “young” OR “child”) AND (“digital” AND “ICT” AND “digital environment”) AND “gender” AND (“female” OR “male” OR “queer” OR “transgender”) AND “learning” AND (“building” OR “development”) AND (“online” OR “offline”) 102 Microsoft Academic 38 Dialnet “identidad” AND (adolescente OR jóvenes) AND (digital OR TIC OR entornos digitales) AND “género” AND (mujer OR queer OR transgénero) 24 Redalyc (“identity” OR “identification”) AND (“adolescent” OR “teenager” OR “young” OR “child”) AND (“digital” OR “ICT” OR “digital environment”) AND “gender” AND (“female” OR “male” OR “queer” OR “transgender”) AND (learning) AND (“building” OR “development”) AND (“online” OR “offline”) 80 This search yielded a total of 350 documents. After discarding all duplicates, the studies obtained were examined to determine their inclusion in the final analysis, systematically applying exclusion and inclusion criteria. Studies were included which: (1) were peer-reviewed; (2) were of an empirical nature; (3) were written in Spanish and in English; (4) discussed the intersection between gender identity and digital environments, and (5) focused on any of the age brackets encompassed by youth according to UNESCO (1985) (14-24 years). This process concluded with 34 documents in the final analysis.

The study reveals multidisciplinarity, with the fields of education (n = 20) and communication (n = 11) being the most notable. The articles were produced mostly in the United Kingdom (n = 10) and the United States (n = 7). Gender identity and digital environments are studied mostly in relation to practices on social networks and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, and in the stage of adolescence. Works discussing gender as a power system (n = 13), from a post-structuralist approach (n = 9) (de Barbieri, 1993), an intersectional approach (n = 5) and a non-binary approach (n = 5) prevail. The studies that discuss gender from the perspective of gender relations or trends of the self show greater conceptual ambiguity regarding gender and identity, which appear as binary sociodemographic variables (n = 6). The studies that explore power systems adopt Judith Butler as main reference to define gender, and Erving Goffman for identity, together with Vygotsky in relation to learning. However, while their theoretical framework proves to be more robust, they end up studying gender as a sociodemographic variable. In relation to digital environments, the articles conceived with application of the approaches of gender relations or trends of the self focus on the digital gap and gender stereotypes; with the approach of power systems: agency, participation, self-representation or self-discovery, among others. The exploration reveals the predominance of qualitative designs (n = 16) based on digital ethnography, versus quantitative (n = 5) or mixed designs (n = 5). Interviews (n = 14) prevail over questionnaires (n = 9), followed by the observation of practices in digital environments (n = 7). The study evidences an important corpus that requires systematic work to set solid theoretical and methodological foundations so that the different perspectives will not dissolve on that plane.

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