Abstract
This chapter presents the authors’ attempt to develop a conceptual framework of key competences and new literacies. We aspire to identify theoretical roots underpinning most of the other frameworks of the twenty-first century skills and, thus, offer a clue to their diversity. We analyzed over 180 national and international frameworks of key competences, trying to align them with seminal theories of cognition, development, language, personality, and learning. First, we learn to differentiate between synonyms and conceptually different elements in the frameworks, sorting out competences and literacies. Second, we divide the pool of new literacies into two fundamentally different sets: domain-general and domain-specific literacies (this lets us explain the substantive difference between, e.g., digital literacy and health literacy). Finally, we discuss the structural place of such influential concepts as problem-solving, decision-making, and learning-to-learn. The resulting framework accommodates the thinking and reasoning competence, the interpersonal competence, and the intrapersonal competence. Together with the instrumental (tool-mediated) kind of literacies (i.e., the wide use of communication tools based on sign systems), they are nested under the domain-general umbrella. Other new literacies belong to specific domains and require domain-specific knowledge, as well as domain-general competences and literacies as their prerequisites.
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Notes
- 1.
30 August 2019. Skills change, but capabilities endure. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/future-of-work-human-capabilities.html.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
To be specific, it is all the three components: knowledge + skills + attitudes. However, we deliberately highlight skills here, as it is the major component of a competence. Systematic training of skills constitutes the fundamental basis for the development of competences. See Sect. 2 for more detail.
- 5.
This is where the notion of domain-specific literacy stems from. It is essential to understand not only specific symbols but also to make sense of texts (broadly understood) which describe both one’s practical experience, and complex contemporary reality.
- 6.
Just like the three key competences we single out.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
This point is also addressed in [56], p. 33.
- 10.
We thank J.-F. Rouet for this comment.
- 11.
- 12.
1946 WHO constitution.
- 13.
Domain-general problem-solving …touches on several cognitive and noncognitive skills such as information processing, representation and evaluation of knowledge, reasoning, self-regulation, metastrategic thinking, proactive planning and decision-making [102].
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Dobryakova, M., Froumin, I., Moss, G., Seel, N., Barannikov, K., Remorenko, I. (2023). A Framework of Key Competences and New Literacies. In: Dobryakova, M., Froumin, I., Barannikov, K., Moss, G., Remorenko, I., Hautamäki, J. (eds) Key Competences and New Literacies. UNIPA Springer Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23281-7_3
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