A Framework for Co-Designing Social Media Literacy Education with Women from Migrant and Refugee Backgrounds: An Education Justice Approach

Social media is an integral part of everyday life for women from migrant and refugee backgrounds and is sometimes recognised as a ‘critical lifeline’ enabling access to essential support during settlement. Despite this, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women in Australia often have limited and uneven access to critical social media literacy education opportunities, and there remains a lack of in-depth research exploring what CALD women want to learn and how they wish to participate in such educational interventions. Adopting an education justice approach, this article advances a framework for social media literacy education developed with women from refugee backgrounds. The study employed semi-structured interviews and co-design workshops with women from refugee backgrounds, alongside staff from local public libraries and refugee support organisations. The study demonstrates that women from refugee backgrounds primarily use social media for communication and connection, but are also interested in learning how to use these platforms to navigate sexism, racism, and other systemic barriers to settlement. The proposed framework—which can be adopted by public libraries and other grassroots organisations—responds directly to women’s calls for peer-led, value-driven, context-specific, and culturally responsive social media literacy interventions.