Closing Gaps: Gender and Digital Skills in Initial Teacher Training for Equal Digital Citizenship

In this article, and in line with what is included in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the aim is to reflect how, despite having similar digital devices and skills, there is a differential gender relationship with the online world. This issue causes different opportunities and difficulties depending on whether you are a man or a woman. Starting from a diagnosis phase through a questionnaire carried out among the students of the Primary Education Degree from different Spanish universities, an investigation is presented in which the differences presented by a group of 350 students, depending on their gender, are identified. In the research we analyze their initial conceptions in this regard, and the existence of agreement between their perceptions and the social reality they live, both as citizens and as future teachers. For this reason, the data collection instrument designed has focused on three issues: the use of the internet in personal, academic and work spheres; self-perception regarding the degree of digital skills they possess, based on the skills collected for high school students in Real Decreto 243/2022; and the self-assessment of the Digital Teaching Competencies that they will be expected to possess in their future work. The main results indicate that the gender gap is diluted when there are identical interests and attributions in Digital Skills, both from real ability and from self-perception. The discussion of the results shows an inclination towards equality of digital skills or the superiority of women in terms of their self-perception. However, there is a tendency toward differential use of the internet and technologies based on gender, and some indicators show that an egalitarian digital era in terms of gender is still far away.