How do we best include social media in the teaching of Danish and English?

Children and young people's use of social media is a major topic in the public debate these years.

But what experiences have students in secondary school, for example, actually had with social media such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram? And can we as a society become better at teaching students about their use of the platforms?

A new research project, which is supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark, will examine students' experiences of, for example, the impact of algorithms on the types of content students in 7th and 8th grade are presented with on social media. 

At the same time, the students will be involved in how the use can be changed with the goal of achieving a critical approach to social media and a greater understanding of technology. Together, this will result in help for teachers who teach Danish and English.

»It's not the kind of project where you just hit the students on the head and say 'shame on you’. Because there is already an enormous amount of shame and guilt among young people about social media. If teachers or their parents ask about it, they will typically only focus on all the bad things, and then the children will say what the adults want to hear,« says Thorkild Hanghøj, Professor at the Department of Culture and Communication at Aalborg University, who will be in charge of the project.

»It's not necessarily wrong, but it's also only one side of the story. Because there is a reason why young people use social media. They do this to strengthen their social networks, keep their friendships alive, and because they find inspiration. So, we aim to be nuanced in the project by being curious and try to understand what makes sense for the young people,« he adds.

An alternative to prohibition

The researchers will start by mapping social media habits among students from 7th and 8th grade at three different primary schools. 

The students will be asked about what positive and negative experiences they have had. Furthermore, the students will be asked to imagine how it could make sense for them to work with social media in school, and how the use of social media can be done differently than today.

The second part of the project will focus on developing methods together with teachers for teaching about social media as part of the subjects Danish and English.

»In many ways, our project is an alternative to the dominant discourse that we should ban social media in primary and lower secondary schools. Because then they won't learn what this is, how to navigate it, and how things could be different. We simply have to go in and relate to what kind of content the young people encounter and how they can work with it in school,« Thorkild Hanghøj emphasises.

At the end of the four-year research project, researchers and teachers at the teacher education programme at University College Copenhagen will collaborate on developing teaching that also focuses on teacher education in Danish and English.

Teaching provides access to professional engagement in young people's digital lives

Teachers' competences in teaching social media have already become a focus area elsewhere in society. For example, Save the Children is a partner in the research project, and in 2025 the organisation gave the go-ahead to the initiative 'Children's life in digital well-being' with just that focus.

»The dream scenario is that we can become much wiser in relation to what children experience when they are on social media, both good and bad. And that we develop professional approaches to Danish and English on how we can work with this critically and constructively, designed for teaching in close collaboration with teachers,« says Thorkild Hanghøj and concludes:

»As a society, we should find ways to engage academically with what young people encounter on social media through education. We can't just think that we're solving the problem by prohibiting or ignoring it. Instead, we need to explore young people’s own experiences and create concrete didactic pedagogical approaches to working with this in Danish and English.«