A map to keep from sinking in the data tide: this is how DALI presents itself: a data literacy framework conceived for a critical citizenry in the postdigital era. The team, based in Spain, Norway, and the United Kingdom, built the proposal through a three-and-a-half-round Delphi process, gathering experts in education, data, and literacy.
The result organizes competence into four components: Understanding, Acting on, and Engaging through data, all intersected by Ethics and Privacy. It’s not a mere list of good intentions: each subcompetence is defined through level-based indicators (A–C), making it transferable to curricula, teacher training, and adult education programs.
The framework stands out for two clear editorial choices: it shifts the focus from data itself to citizen action, and it embraces an emancipatory vision that includes activism and advocacy. This approach sets it apart from DigComp, which integrates data literacy within informational competence, and from more instrumental corporate models.
DALI also boasts scalability: it can be implemented both in introductory workshops and institutional strategies, and it aligns with the project’s game-based and playful educational initiatives, designed to stimulate engagement and learning demand.
Not everything is celebratory. The expert base is predominantly European and academic (a WEIRD bias), and evaluation relies more on panel consensus than on external validation across diverse contexts. Its effectiveness in non-Western settings and impact on real-world practices (decision-making, policy, activism) still need testing.
Even so, the contribution is clear: a practical framework that turns data literacy into actionable and politically relevant competences, enabling people to navigate, question, and transform an increasingly datafied world.
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How to Cite: Castañeda, L., Haba-Ortuño, I., Villar-Onrubia, D., Marín, V. I., Tur, G., Ruipérez-Valiente, J. A., & Wasson, B. (2024). Developing the DALI Data Literacy Framework for critical citizenry. RIED-Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 27(1), 289–318. https://doi.org/10.5944/ried.27.1.37773
