A workshop in the International Conference on Interaction Design and Children in Reykjavik, Iceland on June 2025

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and mixed reality increasingly pervade the world of children, from their schoolwork to leisure activities and social relationships. This has led to Child Computer Interaction research supporting children’s critical understanding of digital technologies and their ability to influence the design of future digital technologies. Despite these efforts, there are several limitations and challenges in terms of Computational Empowerment of children.

This full-day hybrid workshop in the International Conference on Interaction Design and Children in Reykjavik, Iceland on June 2025 aims to unite research from Computing Education, Participatory Design, Child Computer Interaction, and Learning Sciences to create a shared manifesto for computational empowerment of children and develop in a joint effort a research ‘roadmap’ to push the boundaries of computational empowerment of children.

We call for position papers on the topic. Please see submission instructions below.

Background: Computational empowerment of children

Children of today will be living their adult life in an altered world; in a world radically transformed by the emerging technologies of today – such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and social robots – as well as by others currently in the making. Children will be inhabiting a future difficult to imagine or predict by now. The power of computing in contemporary society is continually growing and it can be criticized for reproducing a lot of exclusion, inequality, discrimination and injustice in the world. Moreover, it is not only developments in technology, but the future of the young generation will also be seriously shaped by global crises of various kind, threatening the humankind and the globe. Due to this, the young generation of today is feeling fear, anxiety and hopelessness regarding their future as well as the future of the globe, including both human and more-than-human inhabitants. Now, more than even, is time foster hope and agency among the young generation, so that they would develop skills and abilities, motivation and interest, will and courage to start shaping and making their (digital) futures – more inclusive, equal, just and caring ones.

Whereas Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for decades has been studying human factors in the design of digital technology, the subfield of Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) narrows this scope to explore how children and youth engage with technology in terms of supporting their cognitive development [12], learning (e.g., [4]) and play (e.g., [34]). Along these lines, there are notable developments in the CCI community, aiming at supporting the empowerment of children ([35] for an overview) and at fostering their agency in and through computing (e.g., [13]). A lot of this work can be positioned under the umbrella of Computational Empowerment of children (e.g., [8][32]), which denotes the process in which children and youth, as individuals and groups, develop the skills, insights and reflexivity needed to understand digital technology and its effect on their lives and society at large, and their capacity to engage critically and creatively with the construction and deconstruction of technology [17]. There are many significant developments in CCI research community aligning with this notion, the background of which is in the Scandinavian political Participatory Design tradition, which has inspired a lot of work in CCI research [7]. With the shared aim of empowerment of children, CCI research has engaged children in Participatory Design projects to let children contribute to the development of digital technologies, or even invited children to act as protagonists, who are critically reflecting on digital technologies and driving their development ([16], see also e.g., [10][14]). Children’s criticality towards and empowerment in and through computing has also been underscored in developments extending computational thinking to integrate critical concerns [6] as well as in critical, justice-centered and culturally responsive computing [3][9][20][23][24][29], with an eye on increasing diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice both in and through computing. Criticality towards technology and its implications has also been advocated within approaches fostering critical (AI, data, computing, digital) literacy of children (e.g., [19][22][24]).

Computational Empowerment has recently raised a lot of interest in the research community, for example in the form of a special issue in International Journal of Child Computer Interaction [27]. However, there are several open issues still, despite the fact that there are studies discussing the notion on a conceptual level [1][8][18][27] as well as studies addressing its practical application in different settings (e.g., [11][21][26][28]), some with a specific focus on emerging technologies (e.g., [2][25][28]), and some studies advising on scaling and ensuring sustainable and long-term impacts of computational empowerment (e.g., [5][15][27]).

One great challenge is that the contributions have so far been siloed by different approaches and research disciplines – there is a need to unite the significant yet separate developments, most notably in HCI, computing education and learning science. Additionally, there is a need to address computational empowerment of children in relation to emerging technologies – as a research community, we have only covered a small subset of questions relating to impacts of these technologies on the lives and futures of children, including a multitude of ethical and critical questions to be answered and children agency in regards these technologies to be nurtured. Moreover, even if there are valuable developments on the global scale [13][30], this diversity remains yet to be explored in CCI research. Although there are positive examples of the impact of computational empowerment, even on the level of basic education curriculum [17], there is yet a limited understanding on how computational empowerment can be scaled and assessed, and its impacts sustained in diverse educational and cultural settings. As for the sustained, long-term impacts, there is also a need to place more emphasis on fostering transformative agency of children to take action in the world [13] – empowerment is not something to be given to children but instead something that should be grasped and embraced by them. Fostering this is not a trivial task. Related critical questions require more attention: to what extent and how can power dynamics actually be transformed and empowerment fostered? How social justice, marginalization, domination, oppression and power of technology should be addressed with children and with what kind of expected impacts? How can children through their creative construction truly influence their digital futures? How to address these topics in children’s terms, using their language and advocating agendas they care for? How to ensure diversity and inclusivity in such endeavors? How to address these critical and power-laden topics yet foster their hope for a better future?

Goals of the workshop

This workshop aims to unite several research efforts that target how CCI as a research community constructively, analytically and critically engages children in broader questions about the effects of technologies on their lives and society at large – and their potential role in shaping it [27]. Although there is significant work on Computational Empowerment in the CCI community, the work has been siloed due to different approaches and research disciplines. This workshop represents an attempt to mature the field of Computational Empowerment and engage several related research disciplines (such as Human-Computer Interaction, Child-Computer Interaction, Learning Science, Computing Education Research, Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction) in the effort of supporting children’s ability to code and decode digital technology and to engage critically and constructively in the design of new digital technologies for a better world. Existing research efforts will be united to push the boundaries of Computational Empowerment.

In this workshop we invite researchers and practitioners to share previous or ongoing research studies, technology developments, co-design work, teaching practices and reflective critiques in order to push the boundaries of computational empowerment of children. These can relate to:

1) Emerging technologies: How has the concept of computational empowerment been used to support teaching practices connected to emerging technologies? What are the implications of these technologies on the young generation and on future society? How to addresses the ethical, critical, societal implications of these technologies with children? How to invite children into shaping and making these technologies?

2) Global perspective: What are the different ways in which computational empowerment has been conceptualized and interpreted in different contexts? In which ways is computational empowerment culturally sensitive? To what extent can computational empowerment be culturally translated?

3) Critical perspective: How do we ensure that we are providing opportunities for those traditionally underrepresented, marginalized and excluded in computing to develop their own personally relevant forms of computational empowerment? In practical application of computational empowerment, who actually gets empowered to do what and how, if at all, does that change power relationships in the world? How can we integrate critical and power-laden concerns more strongly into our approaches to computational empowerment? How can we do it in children’s terms, using their language and advocating agendas they care for?

4) Impact and sustainability: How do we develop sustainable and long-term impacts across educational contexts? How can computational empowerment become suitable for scaling in order to be integrated in schools by policy in different settings? How to assess and evaluate computational empowerment in education? How to ensure computational empowerment of children truly empowers children and develops their transformative agency to take further action in the world, beyond the realm of education?

Tentative workshop structure

Submission instructions

The submissions should be max. 4 pages and follow the ACM author guidelines: ACM SIG proceedings templates and formatting and the SIGCHI Accessibility Guidelines for authors (https://sigchi.org/conferences/author-resources/accessibility-guide/). Use the 1-column Word Submission Template (acm_submission_template.docx) or 1-column LaTeX (also on Overleaf).

Submissions are made as a PDF document and uploaded via this online form: https://forms.gle/9fZPZYow7WSpHTPK6

The submissions should disseminate current research, case studies, prototypes, teaching materials, research methods, frameworks or taxonomies on CE., addressing one or several of the following themes:

• Emerging technologies
• Global perspective
• Critical perspective, or
• Impact and sustainability.

Accepted submissions will be published as short papers online in the INTERACT publication series at University of Oulu. See: Interact Publication Series | Interact Research Group (oulu.fi).

Important dates:

• Submission deadline 15.4.2025
• Notification of acceptance 22.4.2025

The organizing committee will review the submissions. If accepted, at least one author must attend the workshop in-person. All workshop participants must register for the workshop and the main conference.

Workshop organizers

• Netta Iivari INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, netta.iivari@oulu.fi
• Ole Sejer Iversen Center for Computational Thinking and Design, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Yasmin Kafai Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, United States
• Alissa N. Antle School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University, Canada
• Marianne Graves Petersen Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, mgraves@cs.au.dk
• Marianne Kinnula INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland
• Christian Dindler Center for Computational Thinking and Design, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Fares Kayali University of Vienna, Austria
• Elizabeth Bonsignore Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland, United States
• Charu Monga Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
• Marie-Monique Schaper Department for Computer Engineering and Digital Design, University of Lleida, Spain, marie-monique.schaper@udl.cat
• Sumita Sharma INTERACT Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland

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