Fluent but Not Yet Wise: Rethinking Sixth Graders' Digital Fluency Through Islamic Ethics

Abstract

Sixth graders are widely described as digitally fluent, yet in 2026 Indonesian policy simultaneously offers them an elective in Coding and Artificial Intelligence (AI), restricts their use of instant-answer AI, limits their access to high-risk platforms, and tests them nationally through the Academic Ability Test (TKA). This study aims to examine what “digital fluency” means for grade VI pupils who receive Coding and AI instruction and face the TKA, how these pupils are positioned by the sources that describe them, and what an Islamic ethical and epistemic reading implies for primary education. It used a qualitative critical interpretive synthesis (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006) of 21 sources published between 2001 and 2026, comprising scholarship on digital skills and children’s understanding of AI together with Indonesian policy and press documents, and read them through the concepts of itqan, tabayyun, amanah, muraqabah, and hifz al-‘aql. Five themes emerged: fluency is operational while judgment remains unmeasured; fluent contact encourages over-attribution of intelligence to machines; four policy images of the grade VI child coexist without a shared concept of skill; AI-literacy frameworks lack a developmental and moral anchor for ages eleven to twelve; and independent preparation for the TKA is where AI use at home is least visible. The synthesis also reads changes in the relations among children, families, schools, platforms, and the state as social transformation. The synthesizing argument is that digital fluency without itqan is unfinished mastery. A Trace–Test–Tell routine is proposed, and the Coding and AI elective is suggested as a place to rehearse it. Because the synthesis is document-based and contains no pupil voice, the findings require validation in schools and madrasah.