Study Title: Schooling the mobile generation: The future for schools in the mobile-networked society
Study Author: Selwyn, N.
Publication Details: British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 24, no. 2, 2003, pp. 131-144.
Summary:
What did the research aim to do?
Selwyn examines shifts in the nature of information and communication practices of young people through the uptake of new technologies such as mobile telephony. He outlines the characteristics of ‘fixed’ schools and schooling, and contrasts these with features characteristic of the current ‘mobile generation’ of students. These features include the intensification and expansion of interaction with people and information; the blurring of the conventional work and leisure domains; the development of a common but asynchronous rhythm of life among users; and a means of autonomous life management. The practical implications of these differences for schools and schooling are examined.
How was the study designed?
This review draws from the extant literature across a range of fields including the sociology of information and communications technologies, the spatial theory of Foucault, empirical research on youth cultural practices, and future approaches to curricular and educational reform to frame a theoretical and conceptual case for the need to rethink current understandings and debates. The author’s aim is to generate dialogue and discussion that is more productive than the simplistic dichotomies of advantages/disadvantages and hype/horror that characterise much of the debate on new technologies in the popular press and educational circles.
What were the findings?
Selwyn views institutions such as school communities as fixed technology users whereas most students are mobile technology users. Whilst schools have traditionally been resistant to technological innovation, they can no longer resist the new technologies that have permeated their physical space and changed them. This has implications for schools’ normalisation of students as subjects and control of knowledge. Mobile technologies erode the power of the school to control students through temporal, spatial, and other disciplinary practices. Online space for example, is non-hierarchical and presents challenges for schools in terms of conventional notions of public and private space and time. Conversely, as key users of information and communications technologies, schools are influencing and shaping the technologies. Parents, for example, are driving some of these dramatic changes through the provision, funding, and ongoing use of the devices with their children.
What conclusions were drawn from the research?
Mobile telephony is a socially powerful multimodal platform, which, for the first time, gives children and young people constant and independent access to information and communication. The review notes that insufficient research has been done in this emergent area to substantiate the views of either the hype of futurists or the concerns of luddites.
What are the implications of the study?
There is a need for teachers to explore—and use—the technologies and to challenge the moral panic propagated by the mass media and engage in productive dialogue about these developments. Selwyn asks whether the controversy is really about the effects of information and communication technologies or about social control of young people and the desire to constrain autonomy and the power they gain through access to information and communication.
Keywords: youth culture, mobile phones, new technologies, power