Research project Sweden today is permeated by embedded digital technology such as generative AI and near-body technology. Today's students must leave school digitally competent and with the ability to adequately exercise digital citizenship. Swedish teacher education has a key role here in terms of creating the conditions for future teachers to develop a professional digital competence (PDK) that can promote their future students' development of their digital competence.
Teachers need a professional digital competence (PDK) to be able to arrange digitally impregnated teaching and learning environments where students from a democratic perspective learn to, for example, understand the logic behind algorithms or decode 'fake news'. Teachers need skills to enable students to leave school digitally competent and with the ability to adequately exercise digital citizenship. This development of Swedish society brings attention to how Swedish teacher education today handles the issue of prospective teachers' PDK.
In the light of this societal development, the purpose of the project is to study how teacher education at several levels supports student teachers' development of PDK to an extent that allows them to develop the students' digital competence and an up-to-date digital citizenship. The project runs between 2025–2028 and will continuously collect and analyse data from three levels in Swedish teacher education. From management staff, teacher trainers and student teachers. The project will carry out three different sub-studies, one at each level. Data will be collected from a total of 20 teacher training programs in Sweden that offer the Primary Teacher Program 4–6.
The results of the project will be extremely relevant for researchers in the field of educational science, for principals and directors in Swedish teacher education, for teacher educators and student teachers, for policy makers and for staff in Swedish primary and secondary schools.
