Will education in the mother tongue contribute to the increase of digital literacies?

Abstract

We live undoubtedly in a digital era in which younger people have more technological knowledge and use technology more than older people who mostly must adapt their lives and practices, learning how, why, and when to use digital tools. In schools, this gap is visible if we compare the curricula for teaching the Portuguese mother tongue and teachers’ practices. As we demonstrate, the references in syllabi are residual, and teachers use digital tools as they used other tools before. This paper aims to summarize and to intersect the results from previous studies on information and communication technologies (ICT), Portuguese mother tongue syllabi, and teachers’ practices with ICT. It also points out some causes of the lack of aims for the increase of digital literacy in mother tongue education.