Putting digital literacy in practice: How schools contribute to digital inclusion in the Network Society

Abstract

In the sociology of childhood and youth, children have been conceptualized as passive subjects on hold, still in the process of becoming—rather than in an effective state of being. In effect, children have been conceptualized as the objects rather than the subjects of the research process. This influence got carried over to digital divide research. The latest thinking in the field has started to define and understand children and young people as heterogeneous, nonpassive, autonomous, diverse, and versatile agents actively appropriating the Internet in meaningful contexts of their everyday lives. This article seeks to move the discourse forward via four parallel binary logistic regressions that assess diverse and socially mediated opportunities needed to learn basic digital skills from a representative sample of 6,602 primary and secondary students from 350 schools and high schools in Catalonia, Spain. Our research shows that the school appears to be playing a secondary role, as compared with children and young people’s social practice in heterogenic contexts of everyday life, not only for Internet training but also for providing opportunities to develop and master basic digital skills.