Cultivating digital empathy: Children’s voices on identity, ethics, and coexistence in a hybrid digital world
Background: The growing influence of digital environments is reshaping how children and adolescents interact, learn, and build relationships. At the same time, rising narratives of hate and exclusion, and polarisation highlight a gap in how children are supported to navigate these spaces ethically. This work responds to the need for approaches that strengthen empathy, critical consciousness, and responsible digital engagement.
Aim: This study explored the adaptation of Arigatou International’s flagship program, Learning to Live Together, for digital environments. Grounded in children’s rights, ethics education, and intercultural and interfaith learning, the initiative aimed to strengthen empathy, ethical decision-making, and responsible digital engagement among children through a transformative pedagogy that positions them as protagonists of their own learning process, active agents of change, and equipped to make ethical decisions in their interactions with others.
Method/approach: A first implementation phase involved co-creating and testing activities through online workshops with 11 adolescents (15–17) from Latin America and the Caribbean. A mixed-methods approach combined surveys, session feedback, facilitator observations, and thematic analysis using inductive coding to assess learning, engagement, and perceived impact. Consent and safeguarding procedures were completed for all participants.
Results/findings: Participants experience the digital world as a space where online and offline life are interconnected and actions have real consequences. They highlighted how the absence of non-verbal cues contributes to misunderstanding and dehumanisation, while also recognising both the opportunities and risks of digital interconnectivity. Many described hiding aspects of their identity due to fear of judgment.
Conclusion: These results underscore the need for a “hybrid pedagogy” that treats digital and offline life as a single social reality grounded in empathy, ethics, and participation. The findings also emphasise the importance of strengthening digital emotional intelligence and co-creating digital citizenship approaches with children to ensure they reflect their lived experiences online.
Implications for children and families: You can move from passive protection to active ethical agency by recognising the impact of your online actions, practising empathy, and helping create safer and more compassionate digital spaces.
Implications for practitioners: You should treat digital and offline interactions as part of the same social reality, and co-create approaches with children that strengthen empathy, ethical reflection, and responsible participation in increasingly AI-driven digital spaces.
Funding: Supported through the operational funding of Arigatou International Geneva, no specific external funding was received for this study.
Keywords: ethics education, meaningful child participation, digital citizenship, transformative pedagogy
This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: