Digital Literacies Learning in Contexts of Development: A Critical Review of Six IDRC-Funded Interventions 2016–2018

As global development agencies and governments seek to address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 for Universal Education, evidence of the real impacts of digital literacies interventions in local contexts are needed. This critical review of the designs, impacts and markers of quality of six literacies interventions offers new insights into the strengths and weaknesses of fixed and open approaches to literacies learning in contexts of development. Open interventions offered greater promise for learning a range of digital literacies practices than fixed interventions, even though fixed interventions, based on mobile and web-based apps were inherently digital. This raises important questions about the ways literacies have been conceptualised in development research.