Rethinking the Theory of Upbringing in the Digital Age: A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Values, Character Development, and Digital Citizenship

Abstract

 Children and adolescents increasingly develop values, identities, relationships, and moral judgments across interconnected family, school, peer, and digital environments. Yet theories of upbringing have only partially accounted for how digital platforms and online communities reshape these formative processes. This paper proposes a Digital-Age Upbringing Framework that integrates educational theories of upbringing with research on character and values education, digital citizenship, parental mediation, and young people’s digital experiences. Drawing on diverse educational traditions including Erziehung and Bildung, Islamic tarbiyah, and Confucian traditions of cultivation the framework conceptualizes upbringing as a culturally situated process of human formation rather than the transmission of predetermined values. It addresses a central theoretical gap: scholarship on upbringing, character and values education, family influence, and digital citizenship has largely developed across partially disconnected research traditions, leaving their interactions insufficiently theorized. To examine these relationships empirically, the paper specifies a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design involving adolescents aged 12–17 across culturally distinct educational contexts. The quantitative phase examines relationships among school-based upbringing, parental mediation, digital experiences, values orientation, character development, and digital citizenship; the qualitative phase investigates how adolescents, parents, and educators interpret the mechanisms underlying these relationships. Integration across phases is designed to identify convergence, divergence, and context-dependent explanations. Particular attention is given to cross-cultural interpretation and the ethical requirements of research involving minors and digital behavior. The principal contribution is a theoretically grounded and empirically testable model that conceptualizes family, school, and digital environments as interacting contexts of upbringing, providing a basis for examining how contemporary educational environments shape values, character, and responsible participation in digital society.