The ongoing growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) and digital transformation of all areas of life makes digital competences key to active participation in society in the digital age (UNESCO, 2017). The impact of the digital transformation on society provides a major force for reflecting on and reframing today’s function of education (European Commission, 2020b; OECD, 2020). Education across Europe faces the challenge of providing the 21st century's younger generation, growing up with digital technologies as an integral part of everyday life, with digital competences required for active participation in society. On a European level, this is highlighted in the European Commission's Digital Education Action Plan focusing on preparing schools for the digital age. By outlining the importance of ‘Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation’ as a strategic priority, it calls attention to updating the Digital Competence Framework 2.1 for Citizens, which identifies five key areas of digital competence: (1) information and data literacy, (2) communication and collaboration, (3) digital content creation, (4) safety, and (5) problem solving (Carretero et al., 2017; European Commission, 2020a; OECD, 2020).

To explore how education provides the younger generation with digital competences to prepare for life in the digital age, different theoretical models emerge in educational research, among which the ICILS 2018 study framework is particularly suitable since it conceptualises factors likely to influence children and young people’s digital competences required for life and future employability in the digital age. The ICILS 2018 framework differentiates between contextual factors identified as antecedents, such as (1) ICT curriculum, (2) ICT resources and children and young people’s individual background characteristics or processes referring to (3) ICT use for teaching and learning and (4) digital competence instructions (Fraillon et al., 2019, 2020).

While educational systems across Europe should prepare the younger generation for the demands of life in a digital age, research reveals that aforementioned antecedents and processes (1) – (4), such as lack of ICT resources, and lack of teachers’ ICT skills and interest, pose challenges for schools across Europe to digitally educate all children and young people (Godhe et al., 2019; Fraillon, 2019; OECD,2020 European Commission 2020b).

While findings above refer to research primarily conducted by adult academics including children and young people as respondents, a significant trend emerges in educational research towards engaging with children and young people not only as respondents, but rather as experts on their lived experience, collaborators and co-designers in the research process, particularly rooted in the children and young people’s participatory rights and the need to empower them to shape their own future and thus shape future society, as addressed in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Cuevas-Parra & Tisdall, 2019; Cumbo & Selwyn, 2021; Dawson et al., 2019; McMellon & Tisdall, 2020; UNCRC, 1989).

For the younger generation to be architects of their own future and shape their digital education, innovative research is required to gain first-hand insight into their experiences and expectations on how education is preparing them and meeting their needs. Engaging with children and young people as designers of research instruments to get to the bottom of the younger generation’s perspective towards digital education, the following research questions emerge:

What kinds of questions do children and young people aged 10-16 across Europe pose to assess how education prepares children and young people for their future in the digital age?

1. What future digital competences are necessary for participation in society?
2. What are antecedents and processes in school for the acquisition of digital competences?
3. What challenges and problems arise in the acquisition of digital competences in education?

As little research has been conducted on digital education with children and young people as co-researchers designing instruments and collecting data, this contribution follows an exploratory participatory research approach. Through innovative and participatory approaches, the research project "ICT in Education", as part of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project "The Impact of Technological Transformations on the Digital Generation (DigiGen)", aims to get insights into the perspectives of younger generations across Europe towards digital education in school settings during transition phases. Based on the idea of collaborative ethnography, the research on ‘ICT in education’ engages with children and young people across Europe as collaborators, co-designers and co-researchers (Clerke & Hopwood, 2014). Applying the participatory methodological approach of a video workshop enables researchers to explore children and young people’s perspectives to contribute to improving ICT policies to be ‘impactful as well as democratic and inclusive’ (Bradbury-Jones & Taylor, 2015; Cumbo & Selwyn, 2021). In the video workshops, children and young people in particular are introduced to interview research and the projects’ topic of digital education before developing their own interview questions in order to conduct and video-record interviews with other participants using the guidelines they developed. This contribution is devoted to the part of the video workshop in which participants develop interview questions in group work, forming the data basis for the analyses on which this paper is based. Taking on the role of co-researchers and co-designers, they jointly developed interview questions to find out how children and young people rate their education in terms of preparing them for life in the digital age. Children and young people were introduced to the project’s context beforehand, and key issues for the development of the interview questions were addressed in the following broad themes: (1) Things taught at school, (2) challenges and (3) future digital skills needed. Five interview guidelines developed by children and young people who are enrolled in the grade right after the transition into secondary level in order for them to interview children and young people right before transition (Estonia: N=2, Germany: N=2, Greece: N=2, Norway: N=2 and Romania N=2) serve as the data basis. The qualitative data analysis took the form of a thematic content analysis of the textual empirical data being interview questions developed by the children and young people in five European countries (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Mayring, 2015).

Regarding the main research question, what kind of interview questions children and young people develop to explore digital education through school to prepare for life in the digital age, various issues along the three sub-research questions, emerge. In terms of (1) digital skills required for future life competence areas were addressed ranging from coping with text and presentation programs, video-conference tools and school platforms to content creation for social media. Regarding (2) antecedents and processes linked to digital education, questions on availability of digital devices and internet at school as well as teachers’ digital skills and ICT-use were developed. Further, digital technology’s potential to motivate or help in learning was addressed, referring to the internet and gaming. Still, the impact of COVID-19 is reflected in questions developed in Romania and Greece, addressing distance online-learning. Beyond the use and benefits questions were developed on the younger generation’s satisfaction with the implementation of digital technology in education asking for ways of improvement. Overall, questions on (3) challenges in terms of digital education accounted for a smaller part, ranging from problems with the internet connection and well-being especially during distance learning to the issue of internet safety and digital responsibility. Although questions children and young people across Europe developed can be located in the above-mentioned ICILS 2018 framework, a different understanding of digital competencies required for the future emerges. While young people in Estonia are for example addressing improvement of PowerPoint and Excel skills, it is typing on the computer in Romania, and a significant relevance of content-creation for social media in Germany. Varying approaches when it comes to future-relevant digital competences, raises the question of how the concept of digital competences can be further explored and captured from the younger generation’s perspective to contribute to improving school practises in digital education.

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