Cyberkids : Youth Identities and Communities in an on-Line World 9781136361739, 9780415230582

Citation preview

Cyberkids

Children are at the heartof contemporarydebatesaboutthe possibilitiesand dangersthat new Information and CommunicationTechnologiesmight bring. Cyberkids: Children in the Information Age draws upon extensive researchwith teenagersat schooland hometo explorechildren'son-line and off-line identities,communitiesand senseof placein the world. Stimulating and insightful, the book addresseskey policy debates about social inclusion and exclusion, as well as academicdebatesabout embodimentldisembodiment and 'real'I'virtual' worlds. It counterscontemporarymoral panicsaboutthe risk from dangerousstrangerson-line, the corruption of innocenceby adult-orientedmaterial on the web and the addiction to life on the screen.Instead,Cyberkidsshowshow children use ICT in balancedand sophisticatedways and, in doing so, draws out the importanceof everydayusesof technology. Sarah L. Holloway is a lecturer in Geography at the University of Loughborough.Gill Valentineis Professorof Geographyat the University of Sheffield.

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Cyberkids

Children in the Information Age

Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine

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Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published2003 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, axon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneouslypublished in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2003 Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine Typesetin Sabon by M Rules St EdmundsburyPressLtd, Bury St Edmunds,Suffolk All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,or other means,now known or hereafter invented,including photocopyingand recording,or in any information storageor retrieval system,without permissionin writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguingin Publication Data A cataloguerecord for this book is availablefrom the British Library Library of CongressCataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-415-23058-6(hbk) ISBN 0-415-230S9-4(pbk)

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements

1 Cyberworlds:children in the Information Age

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IX

1

2 The digital divide? Children, ICT and social exclusion

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3 Peerpressure:ICT in the classroom

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4 On-line dangers:questionsof competenceand risk

72

5 Life aroundthe screen:the place of ICT in the 'family' home

99

6 Cybergeographies:children'son-line worlds

127

7 Bringing children and technologytogether

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Notes References Index

160 162 177

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Figures

3.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6. 1

Surfing for pornographyon-line reinforcesboys' understandingsof themselvesas heterosexualyoung men Parentsneedguidelinesto help them raise children in the digital age 'Net nanny' filter systemsprovide one curb on children's on-line excesses The computeris implicatedin the developmentof children'sbedroomculture The location of the PC in a sharedspacecan provide a gatheringpoint for membersof the family How the PC 'fits' into children'severydaylives: a Westportafter-schooltime-budget diary The Internetprovideschildren with a window on the wider world

56 86 89 111 111 120

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the ESRC for funding the researchCyberkids:children's social networks, 'virtual communities'and on-line spaceson which this book is based (award number L129 25 1055). Gill Valentine wishes to acknowledgethe supportof the Philip LeverhulmePrize in enablingher to work on this manuscript. Thanks are also due to Nick Bingham who was employedas a research assistanton this project. Charlotte Kenten provided an invaluable service tracking down references,statisticsand websites.We are indebtedto the children, parentsand teachersfrom our threecase-studyschoolswho allowed us into their homesand classroomsand gave up their time to talk to us about the role of information and communicationtechnologiesin their lives. The 'Cyberkids'project that this book draws upon was part of the ESRC Children's5-16 Programme.We wish to acknowledgeour appreciationof the guidancewe receivedfrom its director ProfessorAlan Prout, the intellectual and social exchangeswe enjoyed with the other award holders at programmemeetings,but most particularly all the encouragement and support we receivedfrom ProfessorChris Philo of our steeringcommittee. Chris Durbin played a key role in helping us to get the researchoff the ground. Chapter6 includesmaterialproducedas part of the involvementof one of our case-studyschools,Westport, with the Interlink initiative. This was commissionedby the British Council in New Zealandas part of their 50th year celebrations.Interlink was developedand managedby Copeland Wilson and Associates(CWA) Ltd, New Zealand.CWA is a specialistproducer of educationlearningmaterialsacrossall media (www.cwa.co.nz). DeborahSportonand CharlesPattie have provided Gill with occasional, much neededtechnicalsupportnot to mentionnumerouscupsof coffee and a welcomesocial diversion from work. SarahO'Hara has put up with endless discussionsabout the Cyberkids project,and provided both Gill and Sarahwith food and liquid sustenanceat key momentsduring the project. This book was commissionedby Anna Clarkson.We are very grateful to her, and her editorial assistants,for the supportthey haveshownfor this proposal and for waiting so patiently for the final manuscriptto be delivered.

x

Acknowledgements

The quality of the final product is largely due to the hard work of Susan Dunsmore,the copyeditor,SoniaPati, the productioneditor, and M Rulesfor the project management. We are grateful to Jacky Fleming for permissionto reproduceFigure 3.1 (page56) and to The SheffieldTelegraphfor permissionto reproduceFigures 4.1 (page 86) and 6.1 (page 149). Every attempt has been made to obtain permissionto reproducecopyright material. If any proper acknowledgement has not beenmade,we would invite copyright holdersto inform us of the oversight.

Chapter I

Cyberworlds Children in the Information Age

Cyberspaceis one of 'the zones that scripts the future' (Haraway 1997: 100).Justas industrial technologywas seento transformWesternsocietyin the nineteenthcentury,so many contemporaryacademicand popular commentatorsarguethat Information and CommunicationTechnologies(ICT) are about to inflict far-reaching economic, social, cultural, and political changesupon the twenty-first century (for an overview see Kitchin 1998a, 1998b). Most notably, ICT are popularly understoodto be about, if they have not alreadyled to, the transformationof work and the productionof value, as manufacturingis substitutedby information as the dominantform of employment(Marshall 1997). The opportunitiesthat ICT offer usersto accessinformation and communicatewith whom they want, freed from the material and social constraintsof their bodies,identities, communitiesand geographiesmeanthat thesetechnologiesare regardedas potentially liberating for those who are socially, materially or physically disadvantaged (Turkle 1995). Likewise, the speed and connectivity of the Internet offer scopeto facilitate greaterparticipation in the political process,to re-scale politics from the local or nation to the global, and to producemore informed democracy.However,theseopportunitiesalso bring new risks. Most notably that thosewho lack technologicalskills to participatein the Information Age will be excludedfrom theseactivities and, unableto exercisetheir rights and responsibilities,will consequentlybe deniedfull citizenship. Children, as symbolsof the future themselves,are at the heartof debates both about how the possibilities that ICT afford should be realised, and aboutthe 'new' dangersthat thesetechnologiesmight also bring for the Net generation.The British Prime Minister's statementthat 'Children cannotbe effective in tomorrow'sworld if they are trainedin yesterday'sskills' echoes a similar point madein a Labour Party documentCommunicatingBritain's Future'.l This claims that: We standon the thresholdof a revolution as profound as that brought by the invention of the printing press.New technologies,which enable rapid communicationto take placein a myriad of different ways around

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the globe, and permit information to be provided, soughtand received on a scale so far unimaginable,will bring fundamentalchangesto our lives ... In many ways it will be in educationthat the greatestpotential use for the new networkswill emerge. (The Labour Party 1995: 3, 18) While supportingsuchpolitical aims to advance children's technologicalliteracy, popular commentarieshave also highlighted the fact that children may be at risk of corruptionfrom materialthat they can find on the Internet, and abuseat the handsof strangerswhom they might encounterin on-line spaces(Wilkinson 1995; McMurdo 1997; Evans and Butkus 1997). These fears are exacerbatedby the fact that parentsand teachers- particularly those who are less technologicallyliterate than the young people in their care- have a limited ability to control or filter what children might seeand learn on the World-Wide-Web(henceforthWWW). The Internet-connected PC, as the latest form of media (following on from television, stereos,console games, etc.) to play an important role in children's peer group relationships(Susset al. 2001), is also imaginedto threatenchildren'soff-line activities. Popularconcernshave beenexpressedthat using a computeris a solitary and potentially addictiveactivity, provoking fears that somechildren might becomeso obsessedwith the technologythat they will socially withdraw from the off-line world of family and friends (Hapnes1996). In doing so it is suggestedthat they will also miss out on the imaginativeopportunities for outdoorplay that public spaceis perceivedto offer, putting not only their social, but also their physicalwell-being at risk (Gumpertand Drucker 1998; McCellan 1994). In suchways, ICT are regardedby someas a potential threat, not only to individual children, but also to childhood as an institution becauseof their potential to threatenchildhood 'innocence'and blur the differentiationwhich is commonlymadebetweenthe statesof childhood and adulthood. Despitethesefears in the popular imagination,little is known abouthow children actually employ ICT within the contextof their everydaylives. We suggestthat two key factors contributeto this oversight.First, children and young peopleare a social group that has beenrelatively neglectedby academic research.Sociology has beencriticised as an adultist discipline (seethe following section),promptinga new theoreticalturn in the study of children andchildhood(Jameset al. 1998).A similar accusationhasalso beenlevelled at Geography(seealso the following section).While thereis a small but significant literatureaboutchildren'sgeographiesthat datesback to the 1970s (Bunge 1973; Hart 1979),it is only recentlythat researchin this sub-field of the discipline has reacheda critical mass(Holloway and Valentine 2000a). As such,it is widely acknowledgedin the social sciencesthat as adultswe still know relatively little aboutchildren'sown social worlds. Second,despite the growing importanceof ICT in the contemporary

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Westernworld, there are surprisingly few empirical studiesof how people actually use these technologiesin an everydaycontext. Much of the contemporarywriting aboutcyberspacein the social sciencesis theoreticalrather than empirically informed. Where researchhas focusedon actual practices, this has tendedto concentrateon the growth of on-line cultures through Multi User Domain (MUD) environments(textual virtual environmentscreated by a programmeror participants)(see,for example,Turkle 1995). In other words, it has primarily focusedon extremeusersand utopian visions of virtual life ratherthan looking at the complexways that ICT is used,and madesenseof, in everydayworlds (Kitchin 1998a,1998b). This book is important becausein it we addressthe issuesraised above throughan empirical investigationof the ways that ICT are usedin practice by British children aged 11 to 16. The material we present,from children's own accountsof their on-line and off-line worlds, not only advancesour theoretical understandingof children as social actors,it also hasthe potentialto inform public policy initiatives designedto promotechildren'stechnological literacy, and to contributeto the populardebatesaboutthe threatsICT may poseto children and childhood. In this chapterwe first introducethe understandingof children and childhood that underpinsthe way the researchupon which this book is basedwas conducted.Then we introduceour understandingof technologyby outlining someof the theoreticaldebatesaboutICT, drawn from the social studiesof technologyand geographiesof cyberspace.Finally, we introducethe empirical researchupon which this book is basedand outline the structureof the six chaptersthat follow. Introducing

children

'Child' appearsat face value to be a biologically definedcategorydetermined by chronologicalage. Children are assumedby the natureof their youth to be not only biologically, but also socially less developedthan adults. The notion of immaturity, for example,is used not only to refer to children's physical bodies but also to their presumedlack of social, intellectual, emotional and practicalknowledgeand competencies.This less-than-adultstatus meansthat childhoodis understoodas a period in which children haveto be schooledin their future adult roles. The processof learning to becomean adult takes place not only through the educationalsystem, but also the everydayprocessesof socialisationthat children undergoas part of family and wider civic life. The flips ide of being treatedas less-than-adultsis that children in the West are assumedto have the right to a childhood of innocenceand freedom from the responsibilitiesof the adult world (though in practicepoverty, ill-health and so on rob manychildren of the right to enjoy sucha childhood).As such,we, as adults,are chargedwith the duty to both provide for children in the widest sense(materially, emotionally,etc.), and to

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protectthem from dangerousinformation, situationsand peoplethat might posea threat to their 'innocence'and 'freedoms'(Holloway and Valentine, 2000a). This essentialistunderstandingof children as a homogeneoussocial group defined by their biology, that in turn positionsthem as 'other' in relation to adults, has been critiqued by academicsfrom acrossthe social sciences. Rather,like many other social identities,'child' has beendemonstratedto be a socially constructedidentity. Cultural historians,for example,have shown that the contemporaryunderstandingof children in the West as less developed,less able and lesscompetentthan adults (Waksler 1991) is historically specific (see, for example, Aries 1962; Hendrick 1990; Steedman1990; Stainton-Rogersand Stainton-Rogers1992). The work of Aries (1962), whosestudy of mainly Frenchcultural artefactshas beengeneralisedto the rest of the Westernworld (Jenks1996),is commonlyusedas evidenceof the socially constructednature of childhood. He demonstratedthat in the Middle Ages young people,rather than being imaginedas a distinct social category,were actually regardedas miniature adults. It was only in the sixteenthcentury,when children beganto emergeas playthingsfor adultsfrom privileged backgrounds,that they started to be defined in opposition to adults.It is from the Enlightenmentonwardsthat this understandingof the category'child', as inherentlydifferent from 'adult', hasgoneon to dominate our social imagination(Jenks1996). Within this understandingof childhood, Jenks points to two different ways of thinking and talking aboutchildren. He labels theseDionysian and Apollonian. Dionysian understandingsof childhood view children as 'little devils', who are inherently naughty, unruly, and must be disciplined and socialisedinto adult ways in order to becomefully human. In contrast, Apollonian views of childhoodwhich emergedlater, conceptualisechildren as born inherently 'good', only for the 'natural' virtue and innocenceof these'little angels'to be corruptedby adultsas they are socialisedinto adulthood. These ideas underpin the emergencein the nineteenthcentury of a concernfor the educationand welfare of children, which is evidencedin the contemporaryprovision and/or regulation of much childcare, education, and interventionist welfare services.Although notions of the Apollonian child emergedafter that of the Dionysianchild, the former did not supplant the latter. Rather,both apparentlycontradictoryunderstandingsof the child continueto be mobilisedin contemporaryWesternsocieties(Stainton-Rogers and Stainton-Rogers1992;Jenks1996; Valentine 1996a). Even though theseconceptualisationsof childhood draw on essentialist understandingsof children as inherentlygood, or bad, by demonstratingthe historical specificity of childhood in the Westernworld, they prove that far from being a biological category,childhoodis a socially constructedidentity. Yet, the boundariesthat mark the divide betweenchild and adult are not clearly defined.James(1986) cites a numberof legal classifications,such as

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the age at which young peoplecan consumealcohol, earn money, join the armedforces,and consentto sexualintercourse,to show how the definitions of wherechildhoodendsand adulthoodbeginsin the UK are variable,context-specific and gendered.Such variations are equally evident between countries,and are also contestedby different groupsof children and adults, providing further proof of the social natureof childhood. One 'academic'consequenceof the social constructionof child as less than adult, and childhoodas a phaseof socialisation,is that researchon children hasbeenlessvaluedthan that on other topics (Holloway and Valentine 2000b). In the mid- to late-1980sa variety of authorsbeganto bemoanthe lack of researchon young people.Ambert (1986), for example,identified the invisibility of children in North Americansociologicalresearch,claiming that this reflectedthe continuinginfluence of founding theoristswhosepreoccupationswere shapedby the patriarchalvaluesof the societiesin which they lived. She also arguedthat the systemof rewardswithin the discipline that favours researchon the 'big issues'such as class,bureaucraciesor the political systemcontributesto the devaluationand marginalisationof children as a legitimateresearchsubject.Brannenand O'Brien (1995) point out that the position is little different in British sociologywhere children and childhood havetendedto be ignored,with children only being studiedindirectly in subdisciplinary areassuch as the family or education.Here, children tendedto be regardedas human becomingsrather than human beings,who through the processof socialisationare to be shapedinto adults.This understanding of children as incompetentand incomplete'adultsin the making ratherthan children in the stateof being' (ibid.: 70) meansthat it is the forces of socialisation- the family, the school-that havetendedto receiveattentionrather than children themselves(Jameset al. 1998: 25). This relative absenceof children from the sociologicalresearchagendais increasinglybeing challenged.A numberof key texts (e.g. Jamesand Prout 1990; Qvortrup et al. 1994; Mayall 1994;Jameset al. 1998) are beginning to define a new paradigmin the sociologyof childhood.This recogniseschildren as competentsocial actors in their own right (beings rather than becomings)and acknowledgeschildren'sunderstandingsand experiencesof their own childhoods.A growing body of work within the sociologyof education is also beginningto draw attentionto children'sagencyin relation to questionsof identity and differencein the school setting (e.g. Skeggs1991; Dixon 1997; Epstein 1997). In making the claim that such work marks an epistemologicalbreak with earlier studies,Jameset al. (1998) identify this approachto the study of children as 'the new social studiesof childhood'. This namereflects a growing cross-fertilisationof ideasbetweenresearchers in a variety of social sciencedisciplines, linkages that have contributed (amongother things) to a renewalof interestwithin Geographyin children as social actors(Holloway and Valentine 2000a). Like Sociology,and for much the samereasons,children have not beena

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traditional focus of concernin geography(seeJames1990). Though as we suggestedearlier, there is a small but significant literature about children's environmentsthat dates back to the 1970s (Blaut and Stea 1971; Bunge 1973). This work was marked by two discernibledifferencesin approach that persisttoday. One, informed by psychology,has focusedon children's spatialcognition and mappingabilities (e.g. Blaut and Stea1971; Matthews 1987;Blaut 1991).The other, inspiredby Bunge's(1973) pioneeringwork on children'sspatial oppression (throughwhich he soughtto give children, as a minority group, a voice in an adultist world) but more recentlyinformed by new social studies of childhood, addresseschildren's accessto, use and attachmentto space(Hart 1979). Geographicalresearchcontributesto social studiesof childhood by providing evidencefor the ways that childhood is constructeddifferently, not only in different times but also in different places(Holloway and Valentine 2000b).In this book, for example,we show in Chapter2 how placematters by demonstratingthe wide variationsthat exist in children'saccessto ICT at global, nationaland local scales.At the sametime, however,we also seekto illustrate the connectionsbetweenthese global and local processes(see Chapter6). In classifyingwork within the new social studiesof childhood, Jameset al. (1998) identify an irreconcilablesplit betweenresearchwhich is global in its focus (e.g. by examiningthe importanceof global processesin shapingchildren'sposition in different societiesof the world) and that which has more local concerns(e.g. work showing how children are important in creatingtheir own culturesand lifeworlds). By employingan alternative,and more thoroughly spatial understandingof global/local, geographicalwork transcendsthis dichotomyto reveala more complexpicture. For example,in a study of New York and a village in Sudan,Katz (1993) has demonstrated that local manifestationsof global restructuringhave had serious,and negative, consequences for children in both locations. At the same time her study illustrateshow these'global processes'are worked out in 'local' places through'local' cultures.In doing so, Katz showsthat the global and local are not irreconcilablysplit, but ratherare mutually constituted.It is an approach that we also adopt in this book, most notably in Chapter6 where we consider how children's use of the WWW is at one and the same time both global and local. A second,and related,way that geographershaveexaminedthe spatiality of childhood is by focusing on the everydayspacesin, and throughwhich, children'sidentities and lives are producedand reproduced(Holloway and Valentine 2000b). The street,and 'public' spacein general,have been key sites of concernin geographicalstudiesof children's accessto, use of, and attachmentto, space.Most recentlywork hascentredon contemporaryconcerns in North America and Europe about children's presencein 'public' spaces.Theseare characterisedby twin fears, on the one hand, that some (Apollonian) children are vulnerableto dangersin 'public' places,and on the

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other hand that the unruly behaviour of other (Dionysian) children can threatenadult hegemonyin 'public' space(Valentine 1996a,1996b). As we explain in Chapter4, thesesamefears are also apparentin debatesabout children in cyberspace.Indeed,Jacksonand Scott (1999) arguethat notions of risk and safety are increasinglycentral to the constructionof childhood. They write: Becausechildren are ... constitutedas a protectedspeciesand childhood as a protectedstate,both becomeloci of risk and anxiety: safeguarding children entails keeping danger at bay; preservingchildhood entails guardingagainstanything which threatensit. Conversely,risk anxiety helps construct childhood and maintain its boundaries- the specific risks from which children must be protectedserveto define the characteristics of childhoodand the 'nature'of children themselves. (Jacksonand Scott 1999: 86-87) Schoolsare one particularinstitutional spacethroughwhich adults attempt to control and disciplinechildren. In doing so, Aitken (1994) arguesthat they serve wider stratified society, preparingyoung peopleto assumeroles consideredappropriateto their race, class and genderidentities. A number of geographicalstudies have been concernedwith these moral landscapes, including both the historical context of Victorian reformatory schools (Ploszajska1994) and the contemporarycontextof primary schools(Fielding 2000). Contemporarygeographicalresearchalso illustratesthe importance of schoolsas sites throughwhich genderand sexualidentitiesare madeand remade.Hyams (2000) hasexamineddiscoursesof femininity amongLatina girls in Los Angeles,showinghow ideasaboutappropriatefemininities both structure,and are contestedthrough,the girls' everydaypractices.In Chapter 3, we focus not only on the production of femininities, but also on masculinities, within the contextof the heterosexualeconomyof the classroom. This chapterbuilds on our considerationof children'saccessto ICT within the institutional contextof the schooloutlined in the previouschapter.Here, we considerhow nationaldiscoursesaboutchildren and the Information Age are (re)negotiatedby schoolsthrough their specific policies on information technologyaccordingto the schools'assessments of the needsof the local communitiesthat they serve. The home is a spacethat has beenof particularrelevanceto feminist geographerswho have beenconcernedwith genderrelationswithin households headedby heterosexualcouples(see,for example,England1996). As such, other membersof thesefamilies, mainly children but also elders,have often been constructedin terms of the time/care demandsthey place upon the householdrather in terms of their role as social actors in their own right. Recentwork on children and parenting,however,hasidentified the homeas an important site for the negotiation of adult-child power relations (e.g.

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Aitken 1994; Sibley 1995;Valentine 1999a,1999b).Indeed,the homeitself is a spacethat is constitutedthrough familial rules that demarcateappropriate ways for children to behave (Wood and Beck 1990). Some of this researchhas drawn attention to the power of children's voices within the household.This is not only in terms of their ability to articulate their own identities and desires,but also in terms of their ability to shapethe identity and practicesof the householdas a whole (Valentine 1999a). In part, the willingnessof parentsto acknowledgechildren as social actors in their own right is a reflection of the value of their offspring to them. Within the context of individualisation Beck and Beck-Gernsheim(1995) suggestthat parentsfeel increasinglyresponsiblefor their children and under pressureto invest in their childhoods in order to maximise the children's opportunitiesand chancesof successin adulthood.In doing so parentsare not only thinking of their offspring but also of themselves.This is not only becauseyoung people can be a conduit for parentsto live out their own hopes and ambitions (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995; Jacksonand Scott 1999) but also becausebeing a 'good' parentis a rewardingidentity in its own right. Geographicalresearchhas had an important role to play in exploring the connectionsbetweenchildhoodand adulthoodas discursiveconstructions and in examininga variety of spatial discourses.A number of studieshave identified local communitiesas importantsitesthroughwhich understandings of what it meansto be a 'good' mother or father and specific parentingcultures are developed(Dyck 1990; Holloway 1998; Valentine 1997a).In a less predictableworld these definitions are increasingly structuredaround the ability of parentsto protecttheir children from social and physicalrisks. In the caseof children'suse of ICT adult anxietiesaboutchildren'suse of the Internetare heightenedby the discursiveconstructionof children'ssafety on-line as the responsibility of their parents,yet young people'stechnical competenciesoften exceedthose who are chargedwith protecting them. While some parentsregard children's skills as a threat to their status as adults,othersembracethe opportunitiesICT offers to renegotiatetheir relationshipswith young people.Debatesaboutchildren'ssafetyand competence are also negotiatedthrough spatial discoursesaboutthe spacesof the home and the Internet. We explore theseissuesin Chapter4. The importancewe identify here, of children and parentsto eachother'ssocial identities, highlights the need to look at children's accountsof their lifeworlds within the contextof their 'family' relationships.As such,in Chapter5 we focus on the role that the homePC plays in the constitutionof 'the family' and in the production of domestictime-spaces.Here we use the term 'family' not just to describetraditional nuclearfamilies but to cover the diverse,fluid and complex living arrangementsof modernhouseholds(Stacey1990). To summarise,therefore,in this book we understandchildren to be social actorswithin their own right. We recognise,however,that children'sidentities are constitutedin and through particular places, spacesand spatial

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discourses(Holloway and Valentine, 2000b). Here we focus on the sites·of school, home and cyberspace.At the sametime we acknowledgethe ways that understandingsof childhoodcan also shapethe meaningof thesespaces and places.Throughoutthe book we challengethe split betweenglobal and local approachesto childhood by showing how children's everydayuse of ICT is situated within the context of shifts in the global economy, and nationaleducationalpolicies and by examininghow children'son-line activities are constitutedand interpretedwithin the context of local cultures.In doing so, this book contributesto interdisciplinary work on children and parentingin four significant ways. First, we advancethe notion that children's identities and relationshipsare constitutednot only through their relationswith otherpeople,but also throughtheir relationshipswith 'things' that we share our world with, in this case, the Internet-connectedPc. Second,we redressthe paucity of studiesthat examinechildren'sICT usage in different socio-spatialenvironments.This relative lack of attentionto the ways in which children use ICT in different off-line spacesis important because,as Jamesand Prout (1995) suggestin a different context, certain styles of agencyare foregroundedin somesocial environments,with other styles being more appropriateelsewhere.In so doing, our aim is also to learn more about the ways in which these off-line environmentsare geographicallyconstitutedthroughtheir links with other placesand spaces,by the actions of individuals within those spaces,and through ideas about appropriatechildhoodspaces.Third, throughour focus on questionsof risk and competencein this book we explore the possibilitiesthat exist for children to renegotiatethe flexible boundariesof adulthood and childhood. Finally, we do not treatchildren as a homogeneous categorybut ratherfocus on questionsof difference, not only betweentraditional social categories suchas gender,but also within them. Introducing

technology

In the initial flood of academicand popularcommentarieson cyberspacea Clear oppositionhas often beendrawn betweenoff-line and on-line worlds, or the 'real' and the 'virtual' (Laurel 1990; Heim 1991; Springer 1991). In such representationsthe two worlds are viewed as distinct or unconnected from eachother and as possessingdifferent, usually oppositional(seeDoel and Clarke 1999), qualities. For somecommentators(e.g. Heim 1991; Thu Nguyenand Alexander1996),whom we havetermed'boosters'(Binghamet al. 1999), 'virtual' spaceis understoodto be an advanceon the 'real' world, an opportunityto overcomeits limitations. For others(e.g. McLaughlin et al. 1995),whom we label 'debunkers',the 'virtual' is regardedas inauthentic,a poor imitation of the 'real'. Notably, on-line worlds have been uncritically celebratedby boostersas disembodied spaces in contrast to the materiality of 'real-world'

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environments.As such, this technologyhas beenheraldedfor the possibilities it is perceivedto offer its usersto escapethe constraintsof their material surroundingsand bodies by enablingthem to createand play with on-line identities (Springer 1991, Plant 1996). In these terms the human body is regardednot only as invisible on-line but also as temporarily suspended such that it becomesa complete irrelevance(Thu Nguyen and Alexander 1996). In this way, cyberspaceis claimed to offer its usersan escapefrom social inequalities- such as racism or genderdiscrimination- that relate to their embodiment(Turkle 1995). In a similar vein boostershavealso claimed that ICT createnew forms of social relationshipsin which participantsare no longer bound by the needto meetothersface-to-facebut rathercan expand their social terrain by meetingotherslocatedaroundthe globe on-line, mindto-mind. This is a privileging of mind over body that characterises masculinist rationality. Some observerseven claim that 'virtual' relationships are more intimate, richer and liberating than off-line friendships becausethey are basedon genuinemutual interest rather than the coincidence of off-line proximity. In all these representations'virtual' spaceis characterisedas a spacethat is not just set apartfrom everydaylife, but also one that offers the possibility to transcendeverydaylife. It is a zone of freedom, fluidity and experimentationthat is insulated from the mundane realities of the material world (Springer 1991; Laurel 1990). In Doel and Clarke's(1999) terms it providesa hyper-realisationof the real. Like the boosters,debunkersalso view the 'real' and the 'virtual' as both different and separateworlds. However, for these commentatorson-line worlds are viewed as unambiguouslybad. The 'virtual' is conceptualisedas a poor substitutefor the 'real world'. Disembodiedidentities are viewed as superficialand inauthenticcomparedwith embodiedidentities.Likewise, online forms of communicationare regardedas fleeting, individualised and one-dimensionalexchangesin contrastto the more permanentand complex natureof humanengagements in the off-line world (McLaughlin et al. 1995). ICT usersare often characterisedas so immersedin on-line culture that they becomedetachedfrom their off-line social and physical surroundingsand consequentlytheir responsibilitiesin the 'real' world (Willson 1997). For example,as we argueabove,somecommentariespaint a picture of children as so absorbedin their on-line worlds that they reject 'the real', becoming detachedfrom off-line social and familial relationshipsand withdrawing from public outdoor spaceinto on-line fantasy spaces(see Chapter5). In theseunderstandingsthe 'real' is representedas a fragile world underthreat from the seductivelure of the 'virtual' (Doel and Clarke 1999). While boostersand debunkersdiffer about whether the developmentof on-line worlds are positive or negative,what they share is a tendencyto regardthe 'real' and the 'virtual' as not only different, but also as discrete. Researchon cybercultureshascommonlyfocusedon users'on-line activities, ignoring the way that theseactivities remain embedded within the contextof

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II

the off-line spaces,and the social relations of everyday life. Such understandingsof the relationship betweenon-line and off-line worlds are now increasingly subject to critique (see, for example, essaysin Crang et al. 1999). For example,the ability to accesson-line spacepresupposescertain off-line materialresources,not leastaccessto a computerand the electricity to run it. Given the digital divide in terms of accessto ICT both between countries/partsof the world and within them (a point we focus on in Chapter 2), not everyoneis equally positionedto take advantageof on-line opportunities (Kitchin 1998a). The importanceof the off-line spacesin which technologiesare accessedhasalso beenhighlightedby Wakeford (1999). She refers to cyber cafes as 'translationlandscape[ s]', off-line spacesthrough which on-line spacesare produced,mediatedand consumed.The 'translation landscapes'we focus on in this book are the school (Chapters2 and 3) and the home (Chapters4 and 5). Other writers have disputedimaginings of the 'real' and the 'virtual' in oppositionto eachother arguing that 'virtual geographyis no more or less "real'" (Wark 1994: vii). In a study of the use of the Internetby community organisationsin Chicago,Light (1997) criticises the way that ICT are perceived to threatenthe vitality of 'real' cities. Her observationssuggestthat on-line activities, rather than being set in oppositionto the off-line world, provide new ways to revitalisepeople'sengagementwith the urbanenvironment. Other authors have also begun to question the discourse of disembodiment.Sobchack's(1995) accountof experiencingpost-operative pain while on-line, exposesthe error of the boosters'claims that ICT enable usersto transcendtheir physical bodies.Green(1997: 63) observesthat: Attending only to digital spacesignoresthe physicality of technological production and consumptionin everydayprocessesof interaction and the negotiation of meaning that occurs during such encounters. Disregardingthis is preciselywhat has allowed the discourseof disembodiment to become so prevelant in both popular and academic discussionsof cyberspace. Critiquesare also emergingof the debunkers'claims that on-line interactions and relationshipsare not only distinct from, but also lessauthenticthan, offline encounters.As Smith (1992) comments: Despitethe unique qualities of the social spacesto be found in virtual worlds, peopledo not enter new terrainsempty-handed.We carry with us the sum-totalof our experiencesand expectationsgeneratedin more familiar social spaces. Yet, despite the growing uneasewith the ways that on-line and off-line spacesare often dichotomised,researchhasso far failed to map the complex

12

Children in the Information Age

ways that on-line activities are embeddedwithin 'real-world' lives (Kitchin 1998a).In this book we reject any suggestionthat on-line and off-line worlds are oppositionally different or unconnected.Rather, by focusing on children'ssituatedconsumptionof ICT, our aim is to provide primary empirical materialwhich demonstrateshow on-line spacesare used,encounteredand interpretedwithin the context of young people'soff-line everydaylives. In doing so we considerthe mutual constitutionof the 'real' and the 'virtual'. By examining how children and technologycome together,however, we want to reject any simple technologicaldeterminism.By technologicaldeterminism we mean narrativesin which a 'new' technology is presumedto impact (either positively or negatively) on society, replacingwhat has gone before, and producinga predictableset of effectswhich are presumedto be more or less the sameeverywhere(Bingham et al. 2001). Technologically deterministaccountsare commonlyapocolypticalin that they usually draw on metaphorsof inevitable changein which peopleare seenas under threat from techno-'shocks'or 'waves'(Thrift 1996; Bingham1996). As such,they ignore the way that the impact of any technologyvaries accordingto specificities of time and place,who is using it and their intentions,and the other agendasto which technologymay becomeattached(Thrift 1996; Bingham et al. 2001). It is what Bryson and de Castell (1994) term an 'artifactual' view, where technology is severedfrom the normative social context. As Thrift explains: What is missing from technologicallydeterministicaccounts... is any concertedsenseof new electroniccommunicationtechnologiesas part of a long history of rich and often wayward social practices(including the interpretationof thosepractices)throughwhich we have becomesocially acquaintedwith thesetechnologies. (1996: 1472) Despite such criticisms, Winston (1995) observesthat technologicaldeterminism is still popularly employedto explain material-socialchange.This is perhapsmost apparentin the theorisationsof ICT. Bromley (1997) cautions,however, againstadopting the polar position, viewing technologyas a 'neutraltool' whoseimpact is entirely determinedby the intentions of its users.Authors who take this approachcommonly fall into the trap of assumingthat the meaningsof technology are stable and unproblematic.This is becausethey do not acknowledgethe interpretive processesthat are part of all of the practicesthrough which we become socially acquaintedwith technologies,from their design manufacturerand marketing, through to their domestication(see Chapter5) in the home or workplace (Thrift 1996; Bingham 1996). In other words, they substitutea technologicaldeterminismwith a social determinismin which the assumption is that only peoplehave the statusof actors (Ackrich 1992).

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13

Wajcman (1991) labels thesetwo positions use/abuseand social shaping models. Both are basedon setting up false and unproductiveoppositions between'technology'and 'society'in which either strongtechnologyimpacts on weak societyor strongsocietyshapesweak technology(Bingham 1996). As such,they ignore the mutual implication and complicationof bodiesand objects. An alternativeapproachis offered by scholarsfrom the social studiesof technologysuch as Michel Callon (1991), Bruno Latour (1993) and John Law (1994). Thesewriters arguethat we always live amongst,and are surrounded by, objects, and that these bits and pieces that we enter into assemblage with matter.As such,we needto recastthe social to include nonhumans.Callon and Latour (1981), for example,point out that it is our use of objectsthat is one of the things that differentiatesus from animalssuchas baboons.Whereasbaboonsonly form associationsand order their social worlds through actionsbetweenone body and another,as humanswe usea range of objects or 'props' to mobilise, stabilise and order our society. In theseterms, agencyis not somethingpossessedby humansbut rather is an effect generatedby a 'network of heterogenous,interactingmaterials'(Law 1994: 383). It is thereforeboth precariousand contingent.Callon and Law (1995: 484) further demonstratethis point with what they call a thought experiment.Referringto the exampleof an imaginaryoffice managercalled Andrew they write: UJust imagine what would happenif they took away Andrew's telephone and his fax machine. If they blocked the flow of papersand reports.Imagine what would happenif they shut down the railway line to London and stoppedhim from using his car ... Then imagine,also, that his secretarywere to disappear.And his room, with its conference table, its PC and electronicmail were to vanish. In other words, the world cannot be unproblematicallydivided up into 'things' (on the one hand) and 'the social' (on the other) (Bingham 1996). Rather,in order to understandhumanactivity and societywe need 'to take full accountof thosecrowds of non-humansmingled with humans'(Latour 1988: 16). For theseadvocatesof what has becomeknown as Actor Network Theory (ANT), societyis producedin and through patternednetworksof heterogeneousmaterialsin which the propertiesof humansand non-humansare not self-evidentbut ratheremergein practice.In other words, the social and the technicalalways co-develop.As Nigel Thrift explains: the actorsin theseactor networksredefineeachother in action in ways which mean that there are no simple one-to-onerelationshipsfrom technology to people but rather a constantly on-going, constantly

14

Children in the Information Age

inventive and constantlyreciprocalprocessof social acquaintanceand re-acquaintance. (1996: 1485) This study of children'suse of the Internetis informed by theseideas.We do not view computersas things 'with pre-givenattributesfrozen in time' (Star and Ruhleder1996: 112), nor as objectswhich impact on social relationsin fixed ways producinga predictableset of effects (either as positive like the boostersor negativelike the debunkers).Nor do we understandcomputers to mirror the logic of their designersand manufacturers.Rather,we understand them to be 'things' that materialisefor children as diverse social practicesand which may thus haveas many everydaytranslationsas the contexts in which they are used (Bingham et al. 2001). In other words, we understandcomputersand their usersto be in a relationalprocessof coming into being, in which each is transformingand transformativeof the other (Ackrich 1992). In this way, our accountin this book moves beyond technological determinism by demonstratingsome of the ways in which computersand children co-developin ways that cannotbe readoff from presumedstatesof the computersor children individually (Binghamet al. 2001). Notably, we recognisethat computersmay playa diverse range of roles within children'sdifferent 'communitiesof practice'and thus emergeas very different tools. Here we draw on Eckert et al.'s (1996, 4-5) definition of communitiesof practice.They write: united by a commonenterprise,peoplecometo developand shareways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values- in short practices- as a function of their joint involvementin mutual activity. Social relations form aroundthe activities, the activities form aroundrelationships,and particularkinds of knowledgeand expertisebecomeparts of individuals identities and placesin the community. Learning new knowledge and competenciesthat open up fresh strandsof involvement in the world (Horning et al. 1999) is one of the ways that peoplecometo participatein, and becomemembersof suchcommunities.In this book we focus on the different communitiesof practicesthat emergein the off-line spacesof schools(Chapters2 and 3), and homes(Chapters4 and 5), and the on-line spacesof the Internet (Chapter6). In doing so, following Horning et al. (1999: 296) we think of practicesboth as the applicationof alreadyexisting possibilities- 'as repetitive,unfoldings'- and as new creative 'enactments'or 'novel appropriations'.In other words, as both 'repetition and invention' (ibid.). By adopting the approachto technologyoutlined in this section, in this book we contributeto geographiesof cyberspaceand social studiesof technology by providing empirical evidenceof how ICT is embeddedwithin

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15

everydaylife. In otherwords,we clearly demonstratethe mutual constitution of on- and off-line worlds. In doing so we also emphasisethe mutual constitution, not only of the social and technical but also of the spatial and temporal, by showing how each is transformedand transformativeof the other. The different 'communitiesof practice'that we identify and the diverse ways that ICT emergefor them also challengepopularcommentarieson children'suse of cyberspace(outlined above),by providing a foil for the claims of both the 'debunkers'and 'boosters'. Introducing

the research

The findings presentedin this book are basedon materialcollectedas part of a two-year study of children's use of ICT at school and home that was funded by the Economicand Social ResearchCouncil. The first stageof the researchwas basedin three secondaryschools.Two of the schools,Highfields and Station Road, are locatedin a major urban areain Yorkshire; the third, Westport,is in an isolatedsmall rural town in CornwalI.2Highfields is a mixed comprehensiveschoolfor pupils aged11 to 18 locatedon the residentialedgeof a major city. The areais dominatedby private housingand is relatively advantaged,with unemploymentbeingwell below local and national averages.The majority of the pupils are 'white', though at 7 per cent, British Pakistanisform a significant minority of the schoolpopulation.The schoolhas benefitedfrom someinvestmentsince its designationas a technologycollege, and exam results comparefavourably with the nationalaverage.StationRoadis a mixed comprehensivefor pupils aged11 to 16 locatedin a much lesswell-off part of the samecity, wherethe percentageof children eligible for school meals is higher than the national average.The school has a much greaterpercentageof pupils scoring below the nationalaverageon examinations.However,given that 8 per cent of the children are from homeswhere English is not the first language,the school is seenby authoritiesto be performing relatively well. Westportis a mixed comprehensiveschool for pupils aged11 to 18, and is locatedin one of the most isolated rural coastal towns in the UK. The school servesa large, mainly rural catchmentarea,with some pupils travelling considerabledistancesto attend. While there is a variation in the pupils' socio-economic backgrounds,the school catchmentarea as a whole is less disadvantaged than the nationalaverage.The numberof children with statementsof Special EducationalNeedsis relatively high, though exam resultsfor the school as a whole are close to the national average.In all three schools pupils are taughtin nationally recognisedage-groups.The youngest,thoseaged11 to 12, are in what is known as year seven(or Y7), thoseaged 12 to 13 are in year eight (Y8) and so on up to 15 to 16 year olds who are in what is known as year 11 (Y11). Within the case-studyschools,we undertook a questionnairesurvey of

16

Children in the Information Age

753 children aged 11 to 16 asking about their use of computersand the Internetin both schooland homeenvironments.This was followed by observation work in a numberof case-studyclassesand focus group discussionsbasedmainly on existing friendship groups - which covered children's experiencesof Information Technology(IT) within the schoolenvironment. All the pupils in selectedcase-studyclasseswere askedto fill out a time-space diary designedto help us find out how importantICT was relative to other activities (such as schoolwork, sport, etc.). Semi-structuredinterviewswith the IT and Headteachersfrom theseschoolswere also carried out.3 On the basisof this stageof datacollection, ten children from each school and their families were askedto participatein a further stageof the research (along with anotherten householdswherechildren were deemedto be 'highend' users). These forty householdsincluded not only traditional nuclear families, but also lone parent householdsand reconstitutedfamilies. This work involved separatein-depth interviews with the parent(s)lcarersand the children in the household.Thesefocusedon: the purchaseof home PCs and Internet connection,use of computersand the Internet by different householdmembers,different competencelevels, issuesof unity and/orconflict aroundshareduse,ownership,location, andcontrol of the domesticPC, as well as whetherbeing on-line had affectedhouseholdrelations. The conduct of our researchwas informed by our understandingsof young people as competentagentsin their own lives. As such, during the courseof the fieldwork we soughtto engagedirectly with the children and to treat them as independentactors, listening to their accountsof their own lives ratherthan just relying on the accountsof adult proxiessuch as teachers and parents.In doing so our researchrelationshipswere also guided by sociologicalcodesof ethics which have attemptedto identify ways that as academicswe might work with, not on or for children (Alderson 1995). This approachis discussedin more detail in Valentine (1999b).

The structure and content of this book In Chapter2 we look at the developmentof the Information Society,particularly the way that this is leading to many 'normal' activities - from shoppingand bankingto political participation- being transferredon-line. We argue that the potential impact of thesechangesis such that at scales from the global to the local there is concernthat technologicallydisenfranchisednationsand individuals, who do not have the equipmentor skills to participate in this new world, will be excluded from the information-led global economy. We go on to examine patterns of global inequalities in termsof accessto ICT. Then, we focus on the nationalscaleof the UK. Here, policies to develop children's technologicalcompetenciesthrough the education systemhaveformed a key plank in the Government'sdrive to promote IT for all. Through our empirical material we show that, contrary to the

Children in the Information Age

17

Government'srhetoric, the provision of ICT (in terms of hardware/software and accessto usethis equipment)in UK schoolsvarieswidely. Somechildren have betteraccessto computersand the Internetthan others.We arguethat thesedifferencesin terms of our three case-studyschoolsrelate to the ways that thesetechnologiesemergedifferently in thesedifferent communitiesof practice according to their individual visions of ICT, and their attitudes towardsthe Government'saim of using technologyto countersocial inequalities. In the final sectionof this chapterwe evaluatewhat this meansfor our understandingof social exclusion. In Chapter3 we developthis understandingfurther, and also maintainour focus on the school, by examining the ways that boys and girls form markedly different relationshipswith ICT in the classroom.We begin the first section with an overview of researchin critical educationalstudies. This body of work highlights the fact that differencesbetweenpupils can be reproducedthroughthe schoolingprocess,a fact clearly in evidencein relation to the genderednatureof children'sICT usagein our three case-study schools.Conventionalexplanationsfor thesedifferencesbetweenchildren, that are evident in our own findings, suggestthat they are likely to result from a mixture of factors including school policy, teacherpractice and pupils' cultures.We arguethat this theorisationof the multi-facetednature of institutional culture is attractive,not leastbecauseit restsimplicitly on the conceptualisationof the schoolas a spatialproject, and on children as active social agents.However,as we show, there is a lack of ethnographicwork to date which assessesthe validity of theseproposedexplanations,or which considersexactly how theseprocessesmight work in practice. In the secondsectionof this chapterwe draw on this theorisationof institutional cultures in a considerationof the different ways that children's relationshipswith ICT are shaped,played out and (re)producedwithin the classroomenvironmentof our case-studyschools.We begin this sectionby analysinghow teachers'classroompracticescan meandiversepupil cultures come to dominatein the classroom.We then move on to examinehow the relationshipsof four different groupsof children- the technoboys, the lads, the luddettesand the computer-competent girls - emergewithin theseinstitutional cultures.In the processwe pay specialattentionto genderdifferences betweenpupils, both in terms of the relations betweenboys and girls, and differenceswithin thesegroups.Nevertheless,we also draw out differences in pupils' classand ethnic backgroundswhere appropriate,and identify the ways in which the heterosexualeconomyof the classroomshapesthe ICT usageof different groups.This analysisdemonstratesthat despitethe much hailed revolutionarypotentialof ICT, the consequences of introducing such technologiesinto educationare neithersimple nor obvious,as the ways they are understoodand consequentlytaken up or rejectedby different children are mediatedthrough the institutional cultures. In the conclusion to this chapterwe relate this material back to the questionof social exclusionthat

18

Children in the Information Age

we introducedin Chapter2. Here, we demonstratethe needto think about social exclusionfrom the Information Age in termsof questionsof everyday accessto ICT, ratherthan merely focusing on the broad-scaledistribution of resources.We suggestthat this understandingof ICT within a schoolcontext exposesthe needfor the UK Governmentto pay more attentionto what happenswhen children and technologycometogetherby listening to children's accountsof how ICT emergefor them in practice. In Chapters4 and 5 we switch from our emphasison the school to the home. In Chapter4, first we examinethe wider contemporarydiscourses about children's use of ICT in contemporarydebates.Current public and policy understandingsof children's use of ICT, we suggest,contain paradoxical ideasabout childhood and technology.On the one hand 'boosters' celebratechildren's commandof a technologywhich is assumedto be our future; on the other hand, 'debunkers'raise fears that this technology is putting children'semotionalwell-being at risk. In examiningthesediscourses we consider how ideas about childhood in these debatesresonatewith notions of the Apollonian and Dionysian child (outlined above), and the ways that ICT are constructedin a technologicallydeterministframework (i.e. as impactingeither positively or negativelyon society).We thengo on to arguethat thesediscoursesare problematicboth becausethey essentialisethe category'child', denyingchildren'sdiversity and their statusas social actors, and becauseof their techno-determinism.Drawing insteadon researchin the new social studiesof childhood,and the sociologyof scienceand technology (outlined above),we suggestan alternativeagenda.This highlights the need to trace the different understandingsof childhood and technology that emergefor parentsand their offspring as they negotiateand make senseof children's technicaland emotionalcompetencein the domesticsetting. In Chapter5 we retain our interestboth in the home and in moral panics surroundingchildren'suseof ICT. Here,we addresspopularfears aboutchildren's potential addiction to computers,and the consequencesthat this addictionmight havefor family time and unity, and for children'suseof outdoor public space.By looking at the location of the PC within different domesticcommunitiesof practicewe begin to unravelthe complexways that PCs are domesticated,and the processesthroughwhich they transform,and are transformedby, the time-spacesof the home. In doing so we refute many of the debunkers'fears aboutthe consequences of ICT for family life. This chapteralso links the home to the wider spaceof the local neighbourhood. Again, we use our empirical material to challengepopular concerns aboutthe impact the home PC is imaginedto be having on children'suse of local, outdoorspace.Justas we show in Chapters2 and 3 how ICT emerges as a different tool within different educationalcommunitiesof practice,here we also identify the way that thesetechnologiesemergesas different tools within different domesticcommunitiesof practice. Chapter6 marks a clear departurefrom those that have gone before by

Children in the Information Age

19

taking on-line ratherthan off-line spacesas its focus. In this chapterwe consider both the information and communicationaspectsof children'suse of Internet-connectedpes. First, we examinethe ways that young people use the WWW to accessinformation from aroundthe globe and explore what this meansfor the local culturesin which their lives are embedded.Second, we look at someof the many ways that different children use leT to communicatewith both off-line and on-line friends and acquaintances. In doing so we think abouthow they representthe bodiesand placesthat they inhabit to their 'virtual' friends. In the final sectionof this chapterwe look at the role of the Internet in contributing to children'ssenseof place in the world. In doing so we questionpopular representationsof cyberspaceas a placeless social space,and evaluatethe extent to which the WWW might be considered an Americanisedlandscape.The conclusionto this chapteremphasises the extentto which children'son-line and off-line worlds are mutually constituted. In the final chapter of this book we bring children and technology together.Here, we return to think about the popularcommentarieson leT outlined at the beginning of this chapter (and which are also referred to throughoutthe subsequentchapters).Drawing togetherinsightsfrom across the five substantiveempirical chapters(2 to 6) that make up this book, we show how children use leT in balancedand sophisticatedways. We then outline how this understandingof children'suse of leT, which is primarily derived from their own accounts(as well as those of their carers,siblings, teachersand peers)ratherthan just adult narrativesof young people'sactivities, should inform Governmentpolicy. In particular, we observe the different temporaland spatialframeworkswithin which adults and children operate.While adultstend to be future-orientedand to think globally as well as locally, children'sapproachesto leT are more stronglyfocusedon the presentand the everyday,local contextof their own peergroup worlds. This has obvious consequences for the ways that adults (in terms of parents,schools and governments)should introducechildren to leT if they want their own agendasabout the importanceof computer literacy to prevail. We then return to the academicdebates,introducedin this chapter,which frame the whole book, to show how our empirical work informs researchwithin the social studiesof childhood,children'sgeographies,the sociology of science and technology,and geographiesof cyberspace.

Chapter 2

The digital divide? Children, ICT and social exclusion

In this chapterwe begin by thinking about the importanceof the changes that are being wrought by the Information Age and identify why many nationsof the world are trying to get onto the technologybandwagon.Here we view discoursesabout leT and social, economicand political inclusion within the framework of pre-existingglobal inequalities.In the secondsection we adjust our focus to the national scale of the UK. Here we again explorethe contrastbetweenGovernmentrhetoric about the inclusive possibilities of leT and evidencefor the existenceof a digital divide. We thengo on in the third sectionof this chapterto examinethe potentialrole of schools as a bridge over this divide. Drawing on our empirical evidencewe show how the provision of leT in UK schoolsvarieswidely, and explorenot only the differential levels of hardwareand software available to individual schools,but also the diverseways that leT is madeavailableto pupils both inside and outsideof formal lessontimes. In doing so, we also reflect on the way that individual schoolsacceptor ignore the UK Government'svision of using technologyto addresssocial inequalities.In the final section of this chapterwe evaluatewhat all of this meansfor our understandingof social exclusion. The Information Age It is popularly acknowledgedthat the industrial age of the nineteenthand

twentieth centuriesis coming to a close and that a profound shift is taking placein the global economy.Manufacturingis beingreplacedby information as the dominantform of employmentand investmentin the contemporary West. leT are being hailed as the harbingersof widespreadsocial transformation which will leave no aspectof our lives untouched:from the way we live, work and socialise,to the form of politics, education,leisure and relationshipswe engagein (Loader 1998). The potential of leT to improve industrial and commercialcompetitivenessand productivity, and as a resourcein itself, meansthat manycountries are striving to jump on the new technologiesbandwagon.WhereasWestern

The digital divide?

21

nations are motivated by a fear of losing their economic dominanceand influence on the world stage,other countries see it as an opportunity for acceleratedgrowth which might enablethem to close the developmentgap (Abiodun 1994). Baranshamajeet al. (1995: 2) arguethat: In an increasinglyknowledge-based economy,information is becoming at least as important as land and physicalcapital. In the future, the distinction betweendevelopedand non-developedcountrieswill be joined by distinctions betweenfast countries and slow countries,networked nationsand isolatedones. As a result, almost all nations,from those in the developedWest to newly industrialisedcountrieslike South Africa, and developingcountriessuch as Thailand,are pursuingpolicies to extendthe reachof their telecommunications networksto provide universalaccessto leT (Moore 1998). At the nationalscaleleT are often tied to political visions of social inclusion and cohesiveness becausethey are seenas potentially facilitating higher participationlevels in the political processand as producingmore informed democracy(Moore 1998). Many governmentsaround the world now use the Internet to communicatewith at least some of their citizens. In 1998 over forty countrieshad websitesfor 70 per cent or more of their agencies (URL 1). In the USA variousexperimentshave beencarried out using public electronic networks (PENS) to enable citizens to accesslocal politicians and to take part in on-line debatesabout local issues(Schuler1995). Nongovernmentalorganisations,and social and political groups, such as PeaceNet,widely use the Internet to publicise political and human rights abusesand social actionsfor change(Doheny-Farina1996). Supportersof the Zapatistamovementin Mexico are just one exampleof a group who have used the speedand connectivity of the Internet to mobilise international support for a local struggle (Froehling 1999). By facilitating information acquisition, and direct involvement in the political process, somecommentatorssuggestthat leT will changethe nature of politics. In particular,thesetechnologieshavethe potentialto decentralisepower bases, and re-scaleindividuals' political horizons, as we are increasinglyable to recogniseand take on responsibilitiesat the global as well as at local and national political scales. At the scaleof the individual, leT are promotedas empoweringor liberating, particularly for disadvantaged groups.This is becauseof the freedom that they offer usersto accessinformation and communicatewith whom they want, freed from the material and social constraintsof their bodies, identities,communitiesand geographies(Plant 1996; Springer1991; Stone 1992). However, thepotentialfor promotingsocial inclusion that leT are understood to offer needsto be viewed within the framework of existing global

22

The digital divide?

inequalities.There is a digital divide in terms of accessto ICT both between countries/partsof the world, and within them (Dodge and Kitchen 2001). Not everyoneis equally equippedto take advantageof the opportunities which the Information Age is seento offer. Figures from the lTV World TelecommunicationsIndicators Databasefor the number of PCs per 100 inhabitantsin 1994 revealeda very diverse pattern: USA 29.7, Germany 14.4, UK 15.1, Hungary3.4, Israel 2.2, Argentina 1.7, Brazil 0.9, and India 0.1 (Holderness1998). Similar geographicaldisparitiesare evidentin terms of accessto the Internet. Figuresfor thoseon-line in January2000 showed a world-wide total of 242 million connections.Here, Canadaand the USA led the way with over 120 million Internetconnections,followed by Europe with 70 million, AsialPacific with 40 million (the majority of which were in Japan),SouthAmerica with 8 million, Africa with 2.1 million (of which 1.6 million were in South Africa), and finally the Middle East with 1.9 million users on-line (URL 2). Even within the nation-statesof Europe further inequalitiesof accessare evident.NetValue,a panel-basedservicethat measureslevels of Internetactivity in Europe,found that 50 per cent of Danish households,and 30 per cent of British householdswere on-line in the year 2000. Yet, the figures for Franceand Spainshowedthat only 17.5 and 12.7 per cent of householdsrespectivelywere connectedto the Internet (URL 3). As Haywoodpoints out: There may be eight million documentsavailable on the World Wide Web, but 70 per cent of the hostcomputersare in the US and fewer than ten African countriesare connectedto the Internet. A modem in India costsaboutfour times as much as it doesin the US, and Internetaccess can be twelve times more expensivein Indonesiathan the US. (1998: 24) Within most developing countries there are also significant disparities betweenthe levels of accessto ICT in rural and urbanareas.In particular,use of the Internet tends to be centredon major cities, and in the handsof the privileged urban elite. As Kitchin (1998a) points out, cyberspaceis the domainof young, white, educated,middle-class,malesfrom the West. There is also increasingrecognitionthat the global village promotedby ICT enthusiastsis Western-oriented,and in particular US-led in terms of innovation, use and culture (a themewe return to in Chapter6). The dominantlanguage on the Internetis English and most emails are sentfrom the US (Holderness 1993). Sardargoesso far as to claim that: '[c]yberspace... is the "American dream" writ large; it marks the dawn of a new "American civilization" ... Cyberspaceis particularly gearedup towardsthe erasureof all non Western histories' (1995: 780-781). As such the governmentsof countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, China, and Saudi Arabia, who regard the Americanisationof the Internetas a threatto their social and cultural values

The digital divide?

23

or political system,are trying to expandthe use of ICT by the elite, while at the sametime attemptingto restrict accessto the Internetby the rest of the population(Haywood 1998). Given that to sendan email you neednot only a computerand a modem, but also a phone line and a reliable electricity supply, 'talk amongstthe technologically elite of advanced capitalist societies of joining the Information Superhighwayis a discoursewhich has little meaningin many regionsof the globe whereevenintermediatetelecommunicationsare underdeveloped'(Loader 1998: 3). As Haywood (1998: 24-25) observes:'In poorercountriesthe "superhighway"is more often than not a long and tortuous dirt-track miles from a made-uproad which itself is miles from the nearestmedical centre or school.' Not surprisingly, some commentators arguethat money that is being earmarkedfor ICT within somedeveloping countriesmight be better investedin housing,infrastructureand stabilising the economy(Dyrkton 1996). Moving from the global scaleto the nationalscalein the UK it is possible to seesimilar evidenceof discoursesof inclusion in governmentrhetoric, yet digital divides are evidentin practice.

Falling through the net: the case of the UK Personalcomputersfirst came on the market in the 1970s, with home Internet accessnot availablefor over anothertwenty years.The take-off in salesof domesticICT is usually datedto the mid-1990s(URL 1). Despitethe continuedsteepupwardtrajectoryof sales,figures at the turn of the millennium showedthat only one-thirdof UK householdsowneda homePC (URL 4) or had accessto the Internetl (URL 5). Unsurprisingly,Motorola (1998: 2) defines Britain as 'a nation of technologyHaves and Have-Nots'.The 'haves',whetherin termsof PC ownership,Internetusageor accessto training, are more likely to be young, male,well educated,employedandfrom the upper and middle classes.Figures from the National Statistics Omnibus Survey,2which is basedon a random sampleof 1800 adults aged 16 and over, living in private UK households,are particularly telling (URL 5). This data showsthat at the end of the year 2000 only 27 per cent of thoseliving in householdsheadedby an unskilled personhad accessedthe Internet,compared to 78 per cent of those whose householdswere headed by a professional.Therewas a gap of 12 per cent betweenthe numberof men (57 per cent) and the numberof women (45 per cent) who had beenon-line, and a drasticdeclinein usageof the Internetwith age.While 85 per cent of 16-24 year olds had usedthe Net, the samewas true for only 6 per cent of those aged75 and over. Two-thirds of all of the adults surveyedwho had beenonline were agedbetween16 and 44 (URL 5). Other governmentresearchhas reproduceda similar pattern of technological disadvantage.The report by the National Working Party on Social

24

The digital divide?

Inclusion (a group establishedby IBM in collaborationwith the Community DevelopmentFoundation)statesthat: The categoryof peoplemost likely to be marginalisedare peopleon low incomes. Everyone of course can be categorisedin severalways, and many experiencemultiple disadvantage.Threesocial groupsin particular havefrequently beenidentified as being 'at risk' from exclusionin the Information Society, whether or not they experiencepoverty: women, ethnic and racial groups [sic], and older people.In addition, people in rural communitiesmay experienceparticular difficulties, which are relatedto the adequacyof the infrastructureprovided. (INSINC 1997: 3) Ironically, then,while in theorycyberspaceis often hailed for its potentialto liberate disadvantagedgroups, in practice these are the very groups that often do not havethe skills or financial resourcesto accesstheseopportunities (Grahamand Marvin 1996). Our own questionnairesurveyalso identified a familiar patternof inequality. The proportion of children who claimed to have used a computer at homevaried considerablybetweenour threecase-studyschools.Thesewere reportedat 73 per cent for Highfields, which has a predominantly'middleclass'catchmentarea;61 per cent for Westport,which is socially mixed; and 55 per cent for StationRoad,which hasa largely 'working-class'catchment area.When analysedin terms of parents'occupation,our resultsshow that 87 per cent of children with parentsin professionalor managerialemployment haveaccessto a homecomputer,comparedwith 57 per cent of children with parentsin skilled non-manualwork, and 35 per cent of children with parentsin skilled, semi-skilledor unskilled manualwork.3 This pattern is perhapsnot surprising given the gap betweenrich and poor in the UK. Summarisingthe results of a UN Human Development Report,4Haywood (1998) points out that the poorest40 per cent of UK citizens now sharea lower proportion of the national wealth than any other country. The averageincome of the richestfifth of the populationis over ten times that of the poorestfifth. While accessto ICT doesnot correlatedirectly with income,it is certainly true as Golding points out that: Entranceto the new mediaplaygroundis relatively cheapfor the well to do, a small adjustmentin existing spendingpatternsis simply accommodated.For the poor the price is a sharp calculation of opportunity cost, accessto communicationgoods jostling uncomfortablywith the mundanearithmetic of food, housingand clothing. (1990: 112) It is a pattern that is not unique to the UK. The National Technologies

The digital divide?

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Information Administration (NTIA) of the USA (using data from Current PopulationSurveycarried out by the CensusBureau) has identified that the groupswith consistentlylow levels of accessto ICT at home are: black, hispanic,Native Americans,the lesseducated,single female-headed households, and householdsin the south,rural areasor centralcities (URL 6). In 1998 46.6 per centof white Americansowneda homePC, comparedwith only 23.2 per centof black Americans.A persistentdifferencethat the NTIA suggestscannot be explainedby level of incomeand educationalone.While excludedgroups have significantly increasedtheir levels of accessto ICT since 1995, other groupshaveadoptedthesetechnologiesat an evenfasterrate.As such,the digital divide is actuallywidening ratherthan closing (URL 6). Inequalitiesin accessto, and useof, ICT matterbecausethesetechnologies are popularly understoodto be about, if they have not already led to, the transformationof work and the productionof value (Marshall 1997). In the USA, for example,it is estimatedthat 60 per cent of jobs now require technological skills (URL 7). Moreover, the EconomicPolicy Institute estimate that the gap betweenwagesfor skilled workers who can use new technologies and unskilled workersincreasedby 23 per cent between1979 and 1995 (URL 1). Kroker andWeinstein(1994: 163) arguethat computerliteracy will be key to membershipof the emergingfuture 'virtual class'becausethe technologically competentwill be able to convert their intellectual capital into both economicand cultural capital. Indeed,as the use of ICT becomesmore widespread,with more activities suchas shopping,bankingand evenvoting on-line, then the disadvantageof lacking technologicalskills will stretchbeyondthe labourmarket.In this way the technological'have-nots'will suffer wider social exclusionbecausethey will be unableto participatein 'normal' activities. For example,Haywood (1998: 22) observesthat 'without institutions to mediatedigitised information to economicallydeprived groups, their accessto somethingthat was often relatively easyvia a public library, law centreor citizensadvicebureau could be severelyimpaired'. Further, if individuals or groups are unabieto exercisetheir rights and responsibilities,they will also be deniedfull citizenship (Steele1998).This point is madeparticularlyclearly in The Net Result, a report publishedby the National Working Party on Social Inclusion: Whereasfull citizenshiphitherto has beenassociatedwith having a job and somewhereto live, it may be the casethat in the future an additional 'badgeof citizenship'will be accessto the information highway. Just as in today'ssociety, thosewho do not have homesand jobs are at risk of social and political exclusion,so in the future thosewho are unableto make effective use of information resourceswill also risk exclusion unlesssocial, economicand educationalpolicies are introducedto maximise opportunitiesfor participationand contribution. (INSINC 1997: 7)

26

The digital divide!

Loader (1998: 9) warns againstthe consequencesof such technological disenfranchisement, arguingthat '[w]ithout the resourcesfor access,understandingand knowledgeto competein the information marketplacethereis little opportunityor incentivefor the underclassin advancedsocietiesto have a stake'. In the following sectionwe narrow our focus from the national stageto look at how thesepatternsare played out in the local contextsof our three case-studyareas.

'I would sell my soul to get him a PC': the domestic digital divide Given the importancebeing placedon computerliteracy in the Information Age, it is not surprisingthat commercialorganisations,such as PC manufacturers,retailersand Internetproviders,have beenquick to emphasisethe educationalvaluesof ICT in their efforts to promotethe domesticpurchase of thesetechnologies(seealso Chapter5). Advertisementsoften targetparents by stressingthat the soonera child developstechnologicalskills, the bettertheir educationaland subsequentfuture employmentprospectswill be (Haddon1992). As Nixon explains: The family is being constructedas an important entry point for the developmentof new computer-relatedliteracies and social practicesin young people... what is discursivelyproducedwithin the global culture economyas digital fun and gamesfor young people,is simultaneously constructedas seriousbusinessfor parents. (1998: 23) In this discursiveclimate,the blanketimportanceparentsand the majority of children attachto ICT skills, and consequentlyto having a homecomputer, is unsurprising.Parallelingthe attitudesof both governmentand commercial interests,parentsregardICT skills as essentialto their children'sfuture job prospects: They [computers] are a fast growing area.They are becoming a - not becoming, they have become- an essentialcommunication medium, and they also have huge capacityfor usage.David, for example, wants to do something like architecture. Most design is on computers,you know, so it won't be an option, it will be a necessity.If you go into somethingvaguely academicthen computersare a necessity ... We've [society] devotedvast amountsto it (Highfields).

MRS PHELPS:

I mean,we're not stupid. I mean,we can seethe way the world is going now and computersare a thing of the future, I mean, my

MR THYME:

The digital divide?

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personaltheory on it is if you can't use a computeryou aren'tgoing to go anywherein this world, youknow what I mean,the way it's going at the moment(Westport). MRS WEBB: They just, it seemsto be whatevershopyou go in or office they've got one, haven'tthey, do you know what I mean?Everybodyseemsto have got them and every job you seemto go into apart from being a cleanerlike me, at somestageor anotherthey want, they want you to be able to use a computer(Station Road). Marshall (1997: 71) labels parentalconcernsthat the absenceof a home computermight lead children to becomedisconnectedfrom the impending information economyas 'technophobiaof the projectedfuture'. He identifies the rapid expansionof ICT into the spaceof the home in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuriesas one of its primary consequences. Surveys on both sidesof the Atlantic (URL 1 and URL 4) have shown that families with children are more likely to own a home PC or to be connectedto the Internet than single people or coupleswithout children. Marshall (1997), however,suggeststhat technophobiaof the projectedfuture is more or less a middle-classphenomenon,describingthe ways that middle-incomeparents struggle to reproducetheir class advantagesfor their offspring. He writes 'The computer'sintegrationinto the home is connectedto educationdesires so that the family'S children can maintain their class position through a vagueconceptionof computerliteracy' (ibid.: 75). However,our interviewswith working-classparentsshowthat thesemothers and fathers are just as fearful as their middle-classcounterpartsthat their children might end up on the wrong side of a technologicallypolarised world. As a result somego to greatlengthsborrowing moneyor selling possessionsto purchasea PC, while others, despite their best efforts, are frustratedby their inability to provide their childrenwith the opportunityto developtheir technologicalcompetence. I'd give me right arm to get him a PC, I mean,like I say, me husband'sunemployedand we've no moneywhat-so-[ever]and I would sell my soul to get him [my son] a Pc. If there were any way we could get him one, I would get him one, but there'sjust ... no way and it's all he wants. What can we sell, and we ain't got owt to sell to get him one, havewe? I've got nothing. Poor sod (StationRoad).

MRS READ:

Children from acrossthe socio-economicspectrumdraw on similar discourses to their parents,claiming that ICT-relatedskills will be a necessaryrequirement for their entry into diverseareasof the labourmarket.However,a minority of technophobicchildren (seeChapter3) do refuseto entertainthe ideathat in the future they might work in occupationsthat involve using a computer.

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The digital divide!

When you get a job all the financesand everything'sgoing to be done on the computer.If you get askedto do somethinglike write a letter to this personbecausehe'scomplainedabouta staircaseor something [Mal wants to be a joiner] then you've got to write it and be able to useit and if you can't, you'll like, you won't get that job (Highfields).

MAL HIGGENS:

I think nearly every personis going to needto have some knowledge in using computersbecausethe jobs, most of the jobs are turning towardsusing computersnow, more than, say, not using them, 'cos,evenlike on farms now, wherethey've neverusedcomputersat all before, they're using them now, for like doing their financial stuff (Westport).

DARREN BROWN:

I think it is going to becomevery important because... like every job now you've gotta have like a computerso it's gonna be pretty important. Like, computeris the thing now (Station Road).

STEPHANIE PRICE:

Technicalskills are not only seenas a necessaryrequirementfor children's smooth transition into future labour markets. Parentsand children also draw on the educationalmotifs in both governmentand commercial discourses.There is a strong sensein which parentsunderstandaccessto a home computer to be a prerequisitefor academicsuccessin the present (itself also a passportinto the future labour market). This is a view that is often reinforcedby their children: And why did you kind of think of buying one [a home PC]? Basically, we neededone, or Alan felt he neededone for school. Becausehe felt he was missing out. A lot of children had got them. He's in his GCSEyear. They'regetting all this information off the systemand, as good as anyonecan be, you can't hold enoughbooks in your houseto hold the sameinformation that a child can touch a button and get off the system.So that child is at an advantage.And I felt that my child was at a disadvantage'cos we hadn'tgot one. So I've had to go out and buy a second-handcheapestmodel I can get hold of just so he could be one stepon the ladderif you like (Westport).

INTERVIEWER:

MRS GARDNER:

They were, well, they were blackmailing me really. They said they couldn'tdo their work at schoolbecausethey neededa computerto do it on. Homework, they desperatelyneededone for homework 'cos they couldn't finish their homework, 'cos all their friends had one. (Station Road)

MRS WEBB:

Indeed,as thesequotationsindicate,somechildren are feeling the disadvantage of not having a home PC beginningto bite in terms of their academic

The digital divide?

29

attainmentat school. They use this connectionbetweenthese two sociospatialenvironmentsto pressurisetheir parentsinto purchasinga computer. Indeed,Sefton-Greenand Buckingham(1998: 82) claim that 'accessto home computersis possibly as important a part of the distribution of cultural capital as accessto books'.This is of specialconcernto thosechildren producing course-workfor national examinations.They highlight the use of computersto improve the presentationof work, the amountof information available on-line, and the time to develop understandingof ICT through experimentationas threeof the most importantadvantageswhich accrueto thosewho have accessto ICT at home. As thesechildren explain: You just see the work what they've [children with computersat home] producedwith it, and everything,and you just kind of want to be able to do it. Becausein class you don't get to, like, finish everythingoff what you want to do, and then when they do it at home, they do it up in neat, and it looks right good, but whereasmine were just, like, on paper and pen and it doesn'tlook as good as it does by computer(Station Road).

LOUISE LANGTON:

Like [if] you learn somethingin schooland didn't really understand it, you can go home and think, now what was it, and you just fiddle about [on the computer] and teachersdon't say 'finish that now' (Westport).

JOHN BATTY:

However,children'smotives for wanting a home PC are not alwaysthis virtuous. While most children recognise the importance of ICT to their educationaland employmentprospects,they also valorisethesetechnologies for the social and leisure opportunitiesthat they offer them in the present. For example,for somechildren ICT emergeas tools for playing computer games,for othersas information sourcesabout sports,pop and film heroes and heroines,while someprefer to use thesetechnologiesto communicate with friends and family (see Chapter 6). Some children - demonstrating their competenceas social actors- self-consciouslymanipulatewider discoursesabouteducationalsuccessto persuadetheir parentsto buy computers which they primarily want, and intend to use, for fun rather than schoolwork. Well, we [she and her sister] wanted it but we kind of ... connedhim [their father] into getting it becauseit had, we were there going 'Oh look it's got Encarta[an on-line encyclopedia]on it and we'll use it all the time' and he believedus so we got it (Highfields).

HELEN OATS:

In this sensewe can seethat all the parentsand children we interviewedare part of wider national discoursesabout the importance of ICT. The

30

The digital divide!

assessment of home computersas a crucial advantageto children's educational performanceand employmentprospects,as well as their potential as play machines,are held regardlessof class background,and regardlessof whetherthe family in questionactually owns a Pc. However,thesefamilies are also bound into wider setsof classrelationswhich meansthat someare able to purchasea homecomputerfor their children and othersare not. It is these financial, rather than cultural, differencesbetweenmiddle-classand working-classfamilies that meansomechildren cometo benefit from the perceived advantageshome computing can bring while others do not. In the following sectionwe considerthe role that schoolsmight play in bridging the digital divides that we have just described.

School as a potential bridge over the digital divide It is widely recognisedthat in order to prevent the introduction of ICT reproducingexisting social and spatialinequalities,thesetechnologiesneed to be affordable, and intellectually accessibleto everyone (Fernbackand Thompson1995). The UK Governmenthas identified schoolsas important intervention points to provide accessfor all to ICT and to challengeany emergingdomesticor generationalinequalities.Schoolsare not only places where children as workers of the future are educated,they can also be sites for accessingparents.The technologicalskills pupils are taughtat schoolare transmittedinto the home (see Chapter 4) when children show or teach their parentswhat they have learnedin the classroom(Tang 1998). Schools can also provide adult educationcoursesand distancelearningopportunities to benefit the wider community. Kenway (1996: 230) evengoesso far as to suggestthat because'technologicalcompetenceis a new basicfor education, equalaccessand equalcompetence[to ICT] must be a basicconcernfor educators'. In 1997 the UK Governmentpublisheda White Paperon educationstating that:

In the last twenty years,businesshas beentransformedby new technology, particularly computers and communication networks. But educationhasbeenaffectedonly marginally ... We shall thereforecreate a new National Grid for Learning for the Millennium, to unlock the potentialof thesetechnologiesin schoolsand more widely, and to equip pupils and other learnersfor this new world. (Departmentof Employmentand Education1998: 41) The following year the National Grid for Learning(hereafterNGfL) was formally launchedwith a £700minvestmentearmarkedto help usethe Internet to constructa network to which all 30,000UK schoolsare beingconnected, and on which every child will have an email address.At this point the UK

The digital divide?

31

was fifth amongOECD countriesin terms of 'schoolnets' behind the USA, Canada,Australia andJapan(Tang 1998). The UK Government'svision of the role of technologyin educationnot only imaginesthat it will reproducea computer-literatelabour force but also that new technologieswill raise conventional literacy standardsand empowerindividuals. The GovernmentMinister Kim Howells hasclaimed, for examplethat: We believe absolutelythat new technologyin information and communicationscan actually help to drive up standardsin schools.We think it will help people to read and to write and to accessinformation in all kinds of ways and it will also help teachersto monitor more closely the progressof pupils and students. (URL8) Despite such initiatives, and the Government'svision of providing equal accessto ICT for all British children, we found wide variationsin the technological resourcesavailablein different schools.This is becausewhile the UK Governmenthastriggeredinitiatives to install hardwarein schools,manysuch initiatives involve the allocationof resourcesthrough'beautycompetitions'in which schoolsmust competeagainstone another,and much of the momentum and decision-makingto bring this about occurs at the local level. The importanceof technologyin schools'marketinghas beengrowing for some time becausesymbolically (if not materially) it enablesthem to appearto be respondingto a more technical world by becomingmore technical themselves(Bigum 1997; Nixon 1998). A computer-based curriculum is seenas a symbol of the quality of education(Bromley 1997). However, some local authoritieshaveplacedgreateremphasison ICT than others;likewise different schoolshave also takendifferent decisionsaboutthe amountto invest in hardware,reflecting their individual visions of the role of technologyin the schoolcurriculum, budgetarypositionsand educationalpriorities (Valentine and Holloway 1999). Don Bains (Deputy Head and IT co-ordinator) describeshow Westport'scommitmentto developingits ICT resourceshas necessitated making sacrificesin other areas.This prioritisation of technology has not always beenuniversallywell receivedby the other staff. It was hard work, last year was a particularly bad financial year, and trying to absorbsomethinglike £8,000worth of on-goingcosts[of ICT] took a fair bit of creativity. There was a fair bit of oppositionas well at the time, from, well you know what it's like on staffs, and you will have found here that there are those who are pro-IT and equally thereare thosewho are anti putting a lot of IT provisionin schools.And at a time when we made,I think, one teacherredundantlast year there were somestaff who couldn't understandwhy or how we were able at

DON BAINS:

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The digital divide?

that time to be setting aside somethinglike £25,000 to do what we wantedto supportthe project [developmentof ICT] and bring the infrastructureup to scratch.So there are thosearguments(Westport). The choices particular schools such as Westport have made are in turn heavily dependenton the competenceand commitmentof individual teachers to researchand bid for the funding which the Governmentmakes available on a competitive basis for IT provision, and to develop the resourceswhich they have. Bigum (1997) points out that the nature (e.g. keeping track of changesin software and hardware,installing and testing new equipment,technical troubleshooting)and amount of work expected from the designated'computerteacher'often exceedsthe amount of time they are allocatedin this role. As a result, the computingfacilities of schools are commonlydependenton the enthusiasmand unpaidlabour of the teachers concerned. Thus, a very unevenpatternhas beencreatedwhich reflects the attitudes and priorities of different Local EducationAuthorities (LEAs), and especially the teachersand governorsof particularschools.This is evidentboth in the results of our questionnairesurvey of schoolsand in the everydayexperiencesof teachers.As Dave Matthews, the IT Co-ordinator at Highfields explains,his school has beensuccessfulat bidding againstother schoolsfor IT resourcesand this has causedsomeresentmentwithin the LEA: when you look round other schoolsin [his region] it's just unbelievablethe variation of kit ... I mean, the only people,the only placesthat havegot machineslike we haveare peoplewho've appliedfor and made bids. The Head here applied for this bid and got it. I go to meetingsand people [teachersfrom other schools] are looking at you like it's your fault, so like, yeahyou've got all this gearand they haven't (Highfields).

DAVE MATHEWS:

However,the hardwareand softwareavailablein any school alone doesnot explain children's accessto, and use of, the technology. For example,the GovernmentStatistics Service Survey of IT in schools (McKinsey and Company1998) revealedthat while 83 per cent of British secondaryschools are connectedto the Internet,this doesnot necessarilymeanthat the children in theseschoolshave accessto it. Rather,many schoolsseverelyrestrict use of the Internet. This is, first, becauseof the costs involved, which include accessto an Internet provider, routes and servers,upgrading,extendingor installing a network at school,and the needfor relatively powerful computers. Second,becauseof parentalfears (a themewe return to in Chapter4) that children might access unsuitable material on-line (Valentine and Holloway 2001a). While in someschoolsICT is employedcross-curriculain lessonssuch as

The digital divide?

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English, Geography, and so on, in many cases its use is confined to InformationTechnology(IT) lessons.This is not necessarilya consequence of the numberof computersor Internetconnectionsavailable.Rather,it more often reflects the number of teacherswith the training and motivation to utilise theseresourcesin their lessons,at a time when there are many other competingdemandson their energies.Teachersare under pressureto integratenew technologiesacrossthe curriculum, yet many of them are reluctant or ambivalentabout doing so becausethey lack training or the hands-on experienceof how to useICT. In a demandingjob teachershavelittle time to spareto adapttheir teachingto incorporatenew technologies(Bryson and de Castell1994).With minimal technicalor troubleshootingsupportavailable, some are fearful of encounteringproblems using ICT in front of pupils whose technologicalcompetencemay outstrip their own. Mrs Grayson,a teacher,explainswhy she avoids using ICT while Tim Simpkin, a very computer-literatepupil at StationRoad,describeshow his teachersboth draw on his knowledge,but also feel threatenedby his competence. Yeah, well, I don't think, I mean,I mean,when I said to you [the interviewer] I don't use them [computers]at school, if at all possible I will avoid them becausethey createmore hasslefor me than they do anythingelse. [Edit, later shereturnedto this theme] ... you don't actually know what's happeningin this box, that it's happeningand what, and you're getting the result out that you want (Highfields).

MRS GRAYSON:

Usually you're, like, working away at summatand they'll go 'Tim!' [when they needhis technicalhelp]. 'What?'You know you've got to go over there and help them [the teacher],like. Sometimesthe teachers get irritated becausethey'rethere for that, you know. And they take you outside and go, 'Look Tim' [warning him to stop helping other pupils, to which he replies]. 'I'm only trying to help.' [The teachers respond,...] 'But I'm the teacher,I'm in control.' You know, they tell you that (Station Road).

TIM SIMPKIN:

Given the potential threat that ICT may pose to some teachers'identities, professionalstatus,day-to-daypracticesand authority within the classroom, it is not surprisingthat many are accusedof beingcontemporaryLudditesfor resistingits wider incorporationwithin the curriculum. Our emphasishereon usageratherthan provision startsto raiseimportant questionsabout accessto ICT within schools. Different schools structure accessto ICT and their usein different ways. Thesepolicies and their microgeographieshave very importantimpacts-a point clearly demonstratedby our three case-studyschools. At Highfie!ds, thereare 120 PCsor Macs, 28 with full Internetaccess.The computersare concentratedin IT labs, and accessto theseis largely limited

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The digital divide!

to lessontimes. All pupils receiveone lessonper week of IT in years7, 9, 10 and 11 (which sometimesincludesuseof the Internet) and follow a National Curriculum Certificate Coursein the subject (with most pupils enteredfor the national GCSEexamination).Children are allowed accessout of school hours in what is termed 'extendedstudy time'. However, following a complaint from parents about their son and his friends finding unsuitable material on-line, accessto ICT must now be under the supervisionof a teacherand children are usually expectedto do schoolwork. The schoolhas also installed a filter systemin order to try to curb children'sinappropriate usesof the Internet. An IT teacherdoesallow keen pupils (a small group of technologicallycompetentboys whom he trustsas technologicallycompetent and enthusiastic)to use the machinesin his classroomout of hours if they ask. In this way, children who have accessto ICT at home and are already technologically competentare able to maximise their accessto school machineswhich enablesthem to spendmore time developingtheir technological skills. In contrast, technologically poor or technophobicchildren who do not havehome-basedaccessto ICT are not allowed the sameopportunities to explore and develop their confidence with the technology independentlyof formal IT lessons(see also Chapter 3). The fluency gap betweenchildren,which Calvin and Sally describebelow, is potentially exacerbated: I'm not real good at 'em. Thosewho are really good are the one that have got them at home, 'cos that go on 'em all day and everything ... if we have computersat home we'd be as good as the Boffins [a technologicallycompetentgroup of boys] (Highfields).

CALVIN HIGGENS:

You can tell in our classwho's got a computerat home. 'Cos, like, when we haveto do something,evenlike typing a letter, Chloe will be like la, la, la and it's done.And somepeopleare like a, ... b, ... You have more confidenceif you know how to use it. The reasonwe find it easyis that computersare so slow here comparedto the computerswe have at home.We sit theregoing, chat, and it's done (Highfields).

SALLY STONE:

Highfields, then, implictly has a vision of ICT as a privileged tool which has potentially harmful consequences and thus needsto be monitoredand controlled, rather than as an everydayobject which is part and parcel of the schoolenvironment.As suchdespitethe UK Government'srhetoric, the way that Highfields implementsthe use of ICT within the school may actually havethe effect of reproducing,ratherthan challengingdifferencesin levels of home-basedaccessto, and use of, ICT betweenits pupils. Indeed,the Head Teacherdoesnot believethat it is the school'sresponsibilityto countersuch inequalities.He explains:

The digital divide?

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You, you can'tin a school,schools... can't function as, er, sort of social equalisers... We can't do all of that, we're herefundamentally as educatorsand that'swhat our job is to do ... I can'tmakeup for the fact that JohnnyBloggs at homehasa PC and Christinahasn't.Can'tdo that. All I can do is to provide what we've got here ... We give them a taste of something,and that's about as far as I think schoolscan go. They can't be social engineersbeyondall that (Highfields).

BILL JONES:

This attitude towardsthe role of schoolsin tackling social inequalitiescontrastsstronglywith the approachadoptedat StationRoad.StationRoadhas 39 PCs or Macs, almostall of which can supportthe Internet.ICT skills are taughtto all pupils on a separatecoursein year 7 and year 10, and it is used cross-curriculain years8 and 9. Pupils are allowed to usethe computersafter schoolif 'someoneis around'and thereare two weekly computerclubs. One of theseis a girls-only club which was establishedspecificallyto counterthe exclusion of girls from the original male-dominatedclub (see Chapter3). Internet accessat thesetimes is restricted;however,pupils may get permission to use the Internet during break/lunchtimes by booking one of four multi-media PCsthat are locatedin the library. Consequently,while Station Road has significantly fewer PCs than Highfields, its pupils actually have potentially greateraccessto the technology becauseits more formalised systemsecuresmore children better access than the dependenceon informal requestsand 'favours'from the teacherat Highfields. Indeed,Station Road is concernedthat its pupils, who live in a socio-economicallydisadvantagedarea,should not be further marginalised becausethey lack the IT skills that will be requiredin future labourmarkets. The school also recognisesthat its pupils will have broaderusagefor ICT beyond the labour market, envisagingtechnologicalcompetenceas a 'life skill'. Its vision of using ICT to promotesocial inclusion is also evidentin the way that the schoolusestechnologyto draw parentsback into the education systemand to bind the school and local communitytogether.StationRoad, for example,currently offers nine ICT eveningclasseseachweek for parents. The successof this approachis epitomisedby the story of one father who had neverreada book and had no examinationqualifications.As a result of attendingthe ICT classeshe re-discoverededucation,developedhis literacy skills and is now enrolledon a university course.The school'sfuture vision of ICT also includesproviding distancelearningfor pupils who are unableto attend becauseof illness, disability or becausethey are disaffected or excluded. As these initiatives imply, in contrast to the Head Teacherat Highfields, the Head and IT teachersat Station Road believe that their school doeshave a responsibilityto challengeexisting social inequalitiesin accessto ICT, and to preventnew social cleavagesfrom openingup: PETER THOMAS:

It's gonnabe a life skill, it's not gonnabe somethingthat we

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The digital

divide~

developand it's developedin an academicsphereand neverusedout in the larger world ... it's as much of a life skill as learning to read and write ... without that, it's the fastestway to createthe two-tier society, thosewho have accessand thosewho don't (Station Road). I mean,it's almostinevitably to be the casethat someyoungsters come here with some understandingof the world of ICT 'cos they'vegot them at home or their fathersoperatein industry or in commerceand they are usedto seeingthem aroundand using them. But it's also true that if you take them through an entitlementprogramme,I often find that the youngsterswho don'thavethat access[to ICT] prior to arrival very quickly pick up the skills and overtakethoseyoungsters. I think you'd be hard pushedto go into any of the ICT rooms and put your finger on children who are middle class and advantagedin computertermsas opposedto youngsterswho are not ... [Later he returned to a similar theme] What we're trying to build here, we're trying to build StationRoadas the centreof a learningcommunity,that'swhat we would wish it to be in so far that it's located geographically,conveniently for the peoplewho comein and out of the school... What we've actuallygot is a very firm platform to begin to build not only an improving communityin relation to its literacy skills and its numeracyskills and all the other skills that so many or our, so many membersof our community have lost somewherealong the line (Station Road).

JAMES FALIGNO:

Pupils at Westporthave significantly more independentaccessto computers and the Internetthan their counterpartsat either Highfields or StationRoad. There are 79 PCs in the school, all with Internet connections.All pupils in years7 and 8 are providedwith a foundationcoursein ICT. Learningto use the Internetforms a key part of this course,which endswith the children creating their own webpage.Cross-curriculause is also madeof the technology in years 10 and 11. The IT teacherdescribessomeof the usesto which online resourcesare put: I passedsomeof the information to our Economicsteacher,to say that did you know, that BT [British Telecom] I think, were doing a specialthing [on-line] on the run up to the budget... it's had all sortsof, you know, good, all the key industrial indicators,peoplesecondguessing ... you could usethat, couldn't you? (Westport).

JAMES PUNT:

Like Station Road, ICT emergesat Westportschool as an important everyday skill rather than merely a passportto educational qualifications. Westportis spatially isolated,being locatedin a small rural coastaltown. As such, the school envisagesthe Internet as an important tool to enable its pupils to overcomethe tyranny of distance(a point we return to in Chapter

The digital divide?

37

6) by accessinginformation from, and communicatingwith, those in the wider world (Valentine and Holloway, in pressa). The IT teacherobserves that: I meanthere'sjust no other way our children can get accessto researchfacilities at the local library, they might be able to do a 120-mile round trip and go to the University Library, I meanthey just can't do it. There is no accesshere to anything, as you know. I mean,so it is particularly importantthat they can get on-line and the 6th form can look at the university pages... the year 10 and 11 art studentscan have a look at galleriesaroundthe world and seewhat'sgoing [on] (Westport).

JAMES PUNT:

In particular,communicationis at the heartof the school'svision of ICT and how it is usedin practice.The schoolhas an Intranetand all the children at Westport have email addresseswhich they use to communicatewith each other, their families and people whom they have never met face-to-face. Specialprojects (seeChapter6) have also beeninitiated to allow the pupils to developon-line links with their peersin a New Zealandschool(Holloway and Valentine 2000c). The IT teacherexplainshis philosophyof using ICT in ways that appeal to, and have relevancefor, all children rather than merely employingthesetechnologiesfor academicpurposes: My own philosophy,which I think is becomingthe school'sphilosophy ... is that the computersare there, use them ... We'd started our taught course and it was a very formal course ... this is a word processor,this is underlining, this is a database,this is a field. And it becameobvious the children were bored to tears, just typing stuff in, work wasn'trelevantto them ... So I re-wrote our course,told my colleaguesto scrapwhat they were doing, and give the children a magazine to do. [Later he returnedto the sametheme] ... we've always had a schoolview that we shouldput the resourcesinto IT for all, ratherthan focusing on small groups of students,like doing an exam in computer study. We've always shied away from that (Westport).

JAMES PUNT:

At breaktimes and lunch times the pupils are allowed to usePCswhich are situatedin 'clusters'within the school with little restriction. As the Deputy Head Teacherexplains below, the school treats children as competent, responsible,independentsocial actorsand as suchdoesnot encountermany problems with damageto, or inappropriateuse of the machines.This is both a micro-geographyand attitude to children that contraststarkly with Highfields' policy of containmentand control. While there are fewer PCsat Westportthan Highfield and Station Road, the pupils at Westportactually have more accessin terms of the quantity and quality (independentrather than regulateduse) of time that they haveto usethe machinesthan at either

38

The digital divide?

of the other two schools.This accessis also equitablein that eachchild has the samelevel of opportunity. When we first got into this, I mean, I rememberfeeling very fearful, you know, Oh God, we've invested a lot of money in these machines,I couldn't possiblylet children loosewithout supervision,and the funny thing is ... I think what we found is that if you have a cluster or a room full of thesemachinesand you allow pupils access,they will treat . .. the hardware and software in that situation very respectfully.Very rarely do we get problemsin the IT roomsor the clusters. Where we've had problems it's tended to be with the individual machinein the corner of a classroom,which probably doesn'tget used very much anyway, and we can only assumeit's beentargetedby somebody who themselvesare not particularly interestedin IT. Peoplewho go into the IT rooms,in their own time, are by definition convertsanyway (Station Road).

DON BAINS:

Like Station Road, Westport understandsitself to have a role to play in bridging the skills gap betweenthose who have home-basedaccessto ICT and thosewho do not. In contrastto StationRoad,however,Westportdoes not extend this approachto the pupils' parentsor the wider community. Indeed,whereasat Highfields it is teachers'fears aboutthe children'simmaturity which constrainthe way the technologyis mobilised, here it is the school'sfears about the way adults might corrupt the PCs that shapetheir use. The IT and Deputy HeadTeacherexplain the positionsthat the school has adopted: [Describing the advantageswhich accrue to children with a homePC]: Becausethey can use,like a bit of geographyhomework,you know, they can go there, cut and pastea picture from the Internet, put it in [their essay].You know, they do a nice word-processedthing, they spell check it. And of coursethey get very good marks for doing things like that ... perhapsa very good reasonfor having accessin schoolis to counter those advantages... to make sure ... that kids aren't left behind. So I think that the investmentwe make is partly because,you know there'sboundto be a situation,probablywhen you know, let's say, seven,eight, ten yearstime when 80 per cent of the populationwill have this sort of access[at home] but 20 per cent won't ... INTERVIEWER: Sure,so you think it's a very important,that school is a place where children . . . JAMES PUNT: That schoolis a placewhereall children can get accessand have their own email accounts.You know, and not be like disenfranchised from a technologicallyliterate age (Westport).

JAMES PUNT:

The digital divide?

39

What as a school we strugglewith, is getting over the nervousness and allowing the general public to use our facilities ... I'm a community-schoolpersonat heartanyway, so I would like the community to be using our facilities more than they are. I understandthe feelings of the two staff whoseresponsibilityit is to ensurethat the network is not corruptedand keepsrunning. I understandtheir reluctance to allow the community in without a lot of safeguards... we have neverrun ... an adult continuing-educationclassusing our facilities for Information Technology.And that sort of saddensme (Westport).

DON BAINS:

The evidenceof thesethree casestudiesand our survey thereforesuggests that contraryto Governmentrhetoric - which is advancinga policy of universalaccessto ICT as an antidoteto potentialfuture social exclusions- the provision of ICT in UK schools varies widely. Some children have better accessto computersand the Internetthan others.This disparity is evidentin terms of the differential levels of hardwareinstitutions possess,the diverse ways that ICT is employedin the curriculum, and the quantity and quality of accesstime that children are allowed outside the structure of formal lessons.It is also apparentin the different attitudes of schools towards extendingtheir ICT resourcesto the wider community.All thesedifferences in turn are at least a partial reflection of the extent to which individual schoolsembraceor dismissthe Government'svision of using technologyto counter social inequalities.In the final section of this chapterwe evaluate what this meansfor our understandingof social exclusion. Social exclusion as an everyday practice

Social exclusiondiffers from poverty in that it is, accordingto Walker and Walker: [a] more comprehensiveformulation which refersto the dynamicprocess of being shut out, fully or partially, from any of the social, economic, political or cultural systemswhich determinethe social integrationof a personin society.Social exclusionmay, thereforebe seenas the denial (or non realisation)of the civil, political and social rights of citizenship. (1997: 8) The Director of the Centreof Analysis of Social Exclusion,Julian Le Grand, offers a similar definition. He states: A (British) individual is socially excludedif (a) he/sheif geographically residentin the United Kingdom but (b) for reasonsbeyond his or her control, he/shecannot participate in the normal activities of United Kingdom citizens,and (c) he/shewould like to participate. (quotedin Barry 1998: 4)

40

The digital divide?

In this chapterwe haveshownthat at the end of the twentiethand beginning of the twenty-first centuriestechnological developments, and the changesin the global economythat they have wrought, have led to the emergenceof what has been dubbedthe Information Age. In this processmany 'normal' activities - from shoppingand bankingto political participation- are slowly being transferredon-line. The impact of thesechangesis such that at scales from the global to the local thereis concernthat a digital divide is emerging betweenthe technologicallyrich and the technologicallypoor. Nation-states that do not havea strongICT basefear that their ability to participatein the global economywill be eroded.Likewise, there is a fear that thoseindividuals who do not developtechnologicalskills will be unableto participatefully, not only in the workforce, but also in 'normal' activities and as suchwill be deniedfull citizenshiprights. In order to preventtechnologicallydisenfranchisedindividuals or groups from becomingsocially excluded,and nations as a whole from becomingexcludedfrom an information-ledglobal economy, governmentsaroundthe world are instigating policies to developthe technologicalcompetenciesof their citizens. In Britain schoolshave formed a key componentin the Government'sdrive to promoteIT for all. The UK Government'svision of IT in educationemphasisesthe power of technologyand its essentialbenefits (e.g. economicgains, accessto information, lifelong learning,the empowermentof individuals, and so on). The implicit assumptionis that putting a computeron a child's desk, and providing IT teaching,will producea technologicallyliterate adult of tomorrow who will be able to adaptto, and take advantageof, the information society. This vision is technologicallydeterminist(see Chapter1) in that particular outcomesare attributedto technologywhich are presumedto be more or less the same everywhere.When in fact the way that ICT emergein practice varies accordingto the specificities of time and place, who is using it and their intentions,and the other agendasto which the technologymay become attached(Ackrich 1992). In other words, Governmentpolicy does not acknowledgethe mutual implication of the technicaland the social. This is not to suggestthat questionsabout the provision of computer hardware and software are unimportant, far from it. However, understandingsof 'information rich' and 'information poor' that focus only on the provision of equipmentin the classroom,and ignore wider questionsabout social practices are, in the words of Knobel and Lankshear(1998: 3), 'radically incomplete'.As Bruce (1998: 12) points out '[t]he more we examinetechnology, the less we find it useful to focus on its technical attributesper se'. Rather, '[t]o understandwhat technologymeans,we must examinehow its designed,interpreted,employed, constructed,and reconstructedthrough value-ladendaily practices,'(ibid.: 12). Our three casestudiesdemonstratethat ICT emergesas a very different tool in different schools, or what we have termed, after Wenger (1998), 'communitiesof practice'.We can pick out threeclear examplesof thesedif-

The digital divide?

41

ferences.First, in Westport the town's spatial isolation meansthat leT emergesas an importanttool for communication(betweenpupils within the school, betweenthe school and home/local community and betweenthe school and the wider world); whereasat Station Road the socio-economic deprivationof the local communitymeansthat leT emergesas a 'life skill'. Second,while at Highfields leT is anchoredto an agendaof academicattainment for pupils in which social inequalitiesare overlooked,at StationRoad leT is woven into a much broadercommunity-orientedagenda.Here, some parentshave been redefined through their use of leT (as have their relationships with the school, labour market, and so on) - going on to gain higher educationqualifications. In this way, while leT is mobilised at Highfields in a way that servesto channelor stabilise existing social relations, at Station Road leT emergesas a tool which has political strength, changingand redefining actors and the relationshipsbetweenthem. Third, while the accesspolicy at Westportmeansthat twice as many children regularly useleT outsidelessonsthan at StationRoad;adultsin the community are excludedfrom using the technology,presentingan obviouscontrastwith Station Road. In other words, by thinking about social exclusionfrom the Information Age in terms of questionsof everyday accessto leT, rather than merely focusing on the broad-scaledistribution of resources,we have begun to highlight the importanceof the way that technologiesand people/institutions co-develop.This understandingof leT within a schoolcontexthas obvious consequences for governmentpolicies aimedat preventingthe emergenceof a societyin which the technologicallypoor are disenfranchisedfrom 'normal' activities. If the UK Governmentis to pursueits statedaims of providing IT opportunitiesfor all, it needsto pay more attentionto what happenswhen schoolsand technologyare brought together.Rather than focusing on the provision of hardwareand softwarealone,it needsto recognisethe complex ways in which leT emergeas different tools within different communitiesof practice(Valentine et al. 2002). We further developthis focus on social exclusionas somethingproduced througheverydaypracticein the following chapter.Here, in keepingwith our understandingof children as social actorsin their own right, we move first from consideringadult-structuredinstitutional cultures,towardsa focus on children'sown worlds and their own understandingsof technology.

Chapter 3

Peer pressure leT in the classroom

In Chapter2 we beganto cut a way through much of the hype about the inclusionaryand exclusionarypotential of ICT. Looking first at the global level, we showed that the rapid developmentof ICT may well underpin 'globalising' processesand the creation of a networkedsociety but argued that the results are far from global in their impact. Indeed, most of the world's populationdo not have accessto, or in somecaseseven live within easyreachof, suchtechnologies(Kitchin, 1998a).We then examinedBritish policy within this context,to show how the Labour Governmentis attempting to harnessthe wealth-creatingpotential of an ICT-skilled workforce in the global economy,at the sametime as trying to preventthe technologically poor from becomingsocially excludedby providing 'IT for All'. Thesetwin concernsof the needfor future workersto developICT skills, and fears that somemay be left out of thesenew developmentsare articulatedin relation to childrenthrougheducationpolicy debatesand also, in different ways,within our case-studyschools.Thesedifferent agendas,as we showedin the previous chapter,are not only evidentin teacherrhetoric, but also in the ways that the staff organisethe physical distribution of, and social accessto, on-line computersin their buildings. As a result, computerscome to meandifferent things in the different schools,and somechildren benefit from greateraccess to them than others. In sum, the different ways that these schools have incorporatedICT into their institutional agendasand practicesdemonstrate that technologyhas nopre-giveneffects, but that its meaningsand implications emergeas computersand social actors come together in different communitiesof practice(Wenger1998). We want to take this argumentfurther in this chapterby exploring in more detail the importanceof institutional culturesin shapingthe relationshipsdifferent children form with ICT. So far we haveconsideredthe importanceof institutional cultures primary in terms of official school policy, and to a lesserextentteacherpractice.Here, we broadenthis view to considerfurther the importanceof teacherpractice, and the crucial influence of children's own cultures.For it is not simply the casethat the Governmentpresentstechnology to teachersin certain ways, and that teacherspick selectivelyfrom

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 43

this in introducingICT into their schoolin a particularway. Teachers'everyday practicesand differencesbetweenchildren also matter to the ways that pupils understand,value, take up or reject ICT within the school context. Our aim then is to explorehow different children'sclassroomcomputingcultures are shapednot only by official schoolpolicy but also throughteachers' classroompracticesand pupil cultures. In doing so we highlight the ways that thesemulti-layeredinstitutional culturesdraw on wider repertoiresof resources,for example,socially sanctionedideasaboutthe inherentproperties of technologyand acceptablemodesof masculinebehaviour.We also show how they are reproducedwithin the micro-geographiesof the classroom, as this spaceis shapedby and reshapesregulativecodesof behaviour for different social groups.The chapteris organisedinto two main sections. The first draws on critical studiesof educationto place the school, as an institution, in a broadersocial context.The secondsectiondevelopsinsights from this literature to examinethe ways that different groups of children relateto ICT in our case-studyschools.

Computers in the classroom: education, ICT and identity politics To begin to analyse the importance of inclusionary and exclusionary processesin children's school-baseduse of ICT we first need to place this institutional space- the school,and more specifically the ICT classroom- in a broadercontext.Schools,a wide variety of researchers in the social sciences argue,are an arenawherechildren'sidentitiesare shaped,often in ways that reproduceinequalitiesbetweenpupils. In Aitken's words: A major purposeof schoolcontrol is to socializechildrenwith regardto their roles in life and their placesin society.It servesthe larger stratified society by inculcating compliant citizens and productive workers who will be preparedto assumeroles consideredappropriateto the pretension of their race,classand genderidentities. (1994: 90) One of the first concernsto be raised was that working-classpupils were being short-changedby the educationalsystem,and in the terms of Willis's (1977) classicstudy were 'learningto labour' (seealso Corrigan1979). The class biasesthat this genre of investigation exposedwere of considerable importance,and differencesin the quality and form of educationavailableto middle-classand working-classstudentscontinueto be a pressingconcern for researcherstoday. Nevertheless,thesestudiesof 'how working-classkids get working-classjobs' were subjectto feminist critique for their near universalfocus on working-classboys ratherthan girls (seeAcker 1994;Skelton 1998). This neglectof girls was challengedthroughthe 1980sand 1990s.An

44

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom

increasingbody of work addressedthe ways in which the formal and hidden curriculum in schoolscan lead to genderinequality and the reproductionof stereotypically masculineand feminine gender identities (Riddell 1989; Shilling 1991; Clark and Millard 1998; Paechter1998). A similar trend is evidentin respectto racial discrimination,as researchersin this field explore the processesthat close down the choices and potential of studentsfrom ethnic minorities. By the end of the 1990s,however,the debateappearedto havecomefull circle as girls' increasingsuccessin examinationresultsled to considerableacademicand policy concernabout the under-achievement of boys (Spender1997; Skelton 1998). Such researchwhich examineshow differences betweenchildren are (re)inscribedin the schoolcontexthasaddressedpupils' experiencesin a variety of different subject areas,and ICT lessonsare no exceptionsto this. Much of the literatureproducedover the pastten to twenty yearshasexamined genderdifferencesin children'sattitudesto, and use of, ICT, although differencesin class backgroundhave also been considered.Overall, these studieshave demonstratedthat boys tend to like computersmore than girls (Shashaani1993; Reinenand Plomp, 1997; Brosnan1998; Opie 1998) and expressgreaterconfidencein their ability to use them (Comberet al. 1997; Nelson and Cooper1997; Reinenand Plomp 1997). Although somecyberfeminists havearguedthat computer-mediated communicationsmay openup potentially liberatory spacesfor women (Light 1997; Plant, 1996), girls in school are often a little more wary. In what has becomeknown as the 'we canII can't' paradox(Collis 1985),they tend to make a generalargumentfor genderequality by insisting that girls as a whole are as good at computingas boys (a view which not all boys share- Shashaani1993). At the sametime, however,they downplay their own confidenceand abilities by stating that they personallyare not very good at using them (Shashaani1993; Comberet al. 1997; Reinen and Plomp 1997). These differences in attitudes are reflectedin usagepatterns.Theseshow that boys' greateraccessto computers in the home (Durndell and Thomson 1997; Reinen and Plomp 1997; Opie 1998) tends to be compoundedby their school experiences,where they both usecomputersmore than girls, and for a wider rangeof activities (Hickling-Hudson1992; Reinenand Plomp 1997).Sucha patternis also evident where we considerclass inequalities.Middle-class studentsare more likely to have accessto a computer in the home than their working-class counterparts(see Chapter2). This is an advantagecompoundedin many countries where schools serving a middle-classconstituencytend to have better computing provision than schoolswith fewer financial resourcesin more deprivedareas(Hickling-Hudson1992). Thesevariations in the level of provision available in different schools, though significant in Britain, are not the focus of this chapter.Rather, we draw on researchin three schoolswith levels of provision which would be consideredgood when comparedto the national averagein order that we

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 45

might examinehow children use ICT when it is ava'ilableto them, Over 95 per cent of children we surveyedin theseschoolshad used a computerin class, and most enjoyed doing so, reporting that they prefer lessonsthat involve ICT to those that do not (see Table 3.1). Far fewer children have taken advantageof computerfacilities out of class time, but interestingly Westport,which at 52 per cent, alreadyhas the highestlevel of out-of-class usageis also the school where demandfor more accessis greatest.In all schools,pupils use this out-of-classaccessfor a rangeof activities. The two most popularat Highfields and StationRoadare word-processingandgame playing, whereasat Westportemail is the most commonout-of-classactivity, followed by word-processing,However,while differencesin the levels of provision betweenschoolsare not of centralconcernhere,the genderdifferences in pupils' attitudestowardsICT that have beenhighlighted in a numberof previous studiesare of considerableimportancein our case-studyschools (see Table 3.1). More boys than girls in these schools said they preferred lessonsthat utilise computers,and they were also more likely to rate computer skills as very importantin their future. Similarly, more boys than girls in all three schools had used computersout of class time, and with the notableexceptionof Westport,it was boys who were most keenfor further out-of-classaccess.

(Re)producing difference in the classroom Considerableeffort has beenmadewithin critical studiesof education(see, for example,Riddell 1989; Skeggs1991; Epstein 1997; Paechter1998) to identify the mechanismsthroughwhich the school system(re)producesdifferencesbetweenchildren. The hope is that by critiquing current practice, problems might be identified, rectified and a more equitable education systemput into place. Perhapsunsurprisingly,what researchersin this field have found is that the processesthrough which difference is made and remadeare complicated,and thus while some simple policy initiatives can representan importantstep in the right direction, they are unlikely to solve theseenduringproblemsovernight, Particularly important in this has been the insistenceby researchersin this field that the problemsidentified are not simply the 'top down' creationsof school managementpractices,Rather, thesestudiesexplore the importanceof different factors, including school policies, teachers'classroompracticesand pupils' cultures,and the different time and spaceswithin the schoolin which they dominate(e.g. the staffroom, the classroombefore and after the teacherarrives, and the playground),in shapingthe institutional culture throughwhich differenceis (re)produced.In effect, they characterisethe school as an institution that is constituted through multiple cultures, and consist of a series of (overlapping) timespaces(Holloway et al. 2000).

46

Peer pressure:ICT in the classroom

Table 3.1 Children's attitudesto and use of computersin the three case-study schools (%) Questions

Highfjelds All

Attitudes Prefer lessonswith computers 80 Computersskills very important to my future 43 Internet very important to my future 28

Station Road

Boys Girls All

Boys Girls All

85

73

82

87

76 6969

74 6269

50

35

53

58

48

43

48

38

34

21

33

45

16

33

44

21

69

69

95

98

99

97

44 4769

40

52 57 69

47

46

51

40

60

58

61

39 16 14

39 41 19 10 69 16 10 69 2 0 69

47 20 43 51 19 30

53 26 53 43

40 12 30 62 13 24

Access Have used a computer in class 99 99 98 96 96 Have used a computer at school out of class 40 45 35 Want more out-of-class 48 57 37 accessto computers Out-of-classuse Word-process Spreadsheets BrowseWWW E-mail Chat on Internet Play games

57

60 52 26 15 21 24 16 435 18 17 18 30 33 25 22

Westport

2 5

51

72

69

55

43

Boys Girls

22

34

This emphasison the multi-facetednatureof institutional culturescan also be discernedin the range of possible explanationsput forward by educational researcherskeen to accountfor children's varied relationshipswith ICT in the classroom.Someauthorssuggestthat institutionalpolicy might be important in reproducinggenderdifferencesand contrast,for example,the different ways in which schoolsintegratethe teachingof ICT into the curriculum (Hickling-Hudson1992, Reinenand Plomp 1997; Schofield, 1997; Opie 1998). Equally important is the suggestionthat the predominanceof male teachersand their classroompracticesmay serve to make computers more interestingto boys than to girls (Hickling-Hudson 1992; Shashaani 1993; Reinenand Plomp 1997; Schofield1997; Spender1997; Opie 1998). Finally, a numberof authorshave pointed out that pupil culturesare likely to be important. Girls and boys not only learn aboutthe genderingof technology within the classroombut also bring genderedattitudesto computers

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 47

with them to the classroom,attitudesthat have beenshapedthrough their experiencesin other environments(Hickling-Hudson1992; Schofield1997; Spender1997; Opie 1998). We find the emphasisin critical educationon the different aspectsof institutional culturesparticularlycompelling,and researchspecificallyfocusedon children'suse of leT would seemto suggestthis three-fold approachmight havesomeexplanatorypower. However,while educationalistshaveput considerableeffort into identifying differencesin pupils' attitudesto and use of computers,and into suggestingpossible explanationsfor these patterns, there are few detailedethnographicstudiesof computeruse in schoolsthat evaluate the verity of these possible explanations,or analyse how the processesmight operatein practice. Given our insistencein the previous chapter that the introduction of leT into a school does not have any inevitable,pre-definableeffects,we considerit essentialto examineexactly what doeshappenwhen children and computerscometogetherin the classroom context.It is only by examiningin detail the developmentand nature of the relationshipsthat different children form with leT that we can begin to understandwhy the differencesbetweenpupils, suchas thosehighlighted above,are so prevalent. Before we go on to examinethe importanceof schoolpolicy, teacherpractice and pupil culturesin relation to our own research,however,we want to draw out two further elementsof theseargumentsaboutmulti-facetedinstitutional cultureswhich havenot yet beenexaminedin relation to children's computingpractices.First, as geographers,we are interestedin the notions of spatiality with which work in the field of critical educationis imbued. In arguingthat institutional culturesare shapedby a variety of actors,someof whom are more important in sometime-spacesthan others,researchersin this field implicitly theoriseinstitutional culturesas spatial as well as social projects. A few go further and explicitly theorise the ways in which the school is both embeddedwithin wider socio-spatialrelations, and a site through which these,socio-spatialrelations are reproduced(Shilling 1991; Dixon 1997). Shilling, for example,arguesthat: Schoolsand areaswithin them, such as the playgroundareasand the staffroom, are genderedlocalesin which boys and male staff draw on patriarchalrules and resources(rangingfrom violenceto sexisthumour) in attempting to exert dominanceover girls and women teachers.In doing this, they attemptto reproducelocalesas areaswhich both facilitate and symbolisetheir super-ordinateposition. (ibid.: 39) In doing so, he simultaneouslydraws attention to the ways in which the schoolis embeddedwithin wider structures- the individuals within schools draw upon societalrules and resourcesin their everydaysocial interaction-

48

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom

and to the ways spacewithin schoolsis constitutedthrough, and comesto symbolise,social and material relations of control that work to enableand sanctionsomeforms of behaviourand not others.Dixon's study (1997) of identity and sex-play within design and technologylessonsalso illustrates theseprocesseswell. On the one hand, she showshow children'sbehaviour in the classroomdraws on wider social resources,with their behaviourbeing 'tangible at a macro social level, in that they resonatewith global and culturally specific historical forms of masculinity' (ibid.: 89). On the other hand,she also stressesthat the micro-spacesof the classroomare important becausethey are '''overwritten'' in specific ways by regulative codes of gender,class and "race'" (ibid.: 92). Implicitly, and occasionallyexplicitly, this body of work thus draws our attentionto the school as a spatialas well as a social project. Not only are different time-spaceswithin the school constitutedin different ways, the school itself is a porous site, constructed and reconstructedthroughits interconnectivitywith wider society(Holloway et al. 2000). Second,given our interest in the new social studies of childhood (see Chapter1), we are particularly interestedin the attentionpaid to children's culturesin theseanalysesof institutional spaces.Their emphasison multiple culturesand overlappingtime-spaces,ratherthan simply on the importance of top-down managementpractices,usefully illustrates the importanceof children's agency. This is somethingwhich researchersin the new social studies of childhood have also been insisting upon over the past decade (Jamesand Prout, 1990; Mayall 1994; Qvortrup et al. 1994; Jameset al. 1998). Recognitionof the multiple spaceswithin the classroom,for example, points to the importanceof children's resourcefulnessand agency,even in contextswherethey havelittle formal power. Moreover,the attentionpaid to teacherpracticein associationwith pupil culturesreminds us that alliances can be built acrossthe adult-child divide, as well as within thesecategories. In sum, the emphasisin this particularbody of work on multiple culturesand overlappingtime/spacesusefully stresseschildren's agency,their power to both resistand ally themselveswith adults,as well as the ways in which they are controlled by them. This is particularly pertinent as all cultures are reproducedthrough everydaypractice,and this meansthey are not forever fixed, solidified in place, but open to change(Holloway et al. 2000). In the next sectionof this chapterwe go on to examinethe importanceof school policy, teacherpractice and pupil cultures in the way that different children'srelationswith ICT emergein our case-studyschools.As part and parcel of this analysis,we also take ideas about multi-facetedinstitutional culturesone step further, and examinethe importanceof socio-spatialrelations and children'sagencyin shapingchildren'scomputingcultures.

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 49

Children's computing cultures Perhapsone of the most noticeableaspectsof the ICT lessonswe observedin the case-studyschools was their relatively relaxed atmosphere.Schofield (1997: 35), in a review of researchon computersand classroomsocial processes,points to a number of studies (see for example Chaiklin and Lewis, 1988; Davidson and Ritchie 1994; O'Connor and Brie 1994; Schofield 1995) that suggestthat the introduction of computersinto the classroomtends to be associatedwith 'a shift in teachers'roles away from didactic whole class instruction towards more individualized and studentcentred interaction'. Such a shift might have been expectedat Westport wheregreateremphasisis placedon encouragingchildren to learn the skills requiredto useICT, ratherthan on teachingICT as an examinationsubject. However, this atmospherewas equally apparentat Highfields and Station Road where children found ICT lessonsmore relaxed than other classes despitethe fact many would eventuallygain an educationalqualification in the subject.This is becauseof the level of autonomychildren havein relation to their learning. Pupils at Highfields, for example, describedhow their work in other lessonsis strictly controlled by the teachers,and they are requiredto concentratefor long periodsof time, listeningto teachers,taking notesfrom the boardor working from books.In ICT lessonsby contrast,the pupils are taught as a group when a new task that will take severallessons to completeis introduced,but are then allowed to work throughthis at their own pace soliciting help from the teacheras and when required. Fay from Highfields describeswhat her ICT classesare like: FAY BEDFORD: I

think they're like more relaxing than other lessons,because I mean the atmosphereof it - of the lessonslike -I mean it's a warm room to start with -I don't know if that has anythingto do with it ... you're boiling. But it's like, you go in there and it's not like other lessons becausepeopleare just more relaxedaboutit, becauseyou do things at your own pacemore. It's not like a teacherstandingthere doing all the stuff and then you haveto get on with a set piece of work. They let you just come in and do it straightaway(Highfields).

This informality is emphasisedfor those pupils who are good at IT and thereforefind the lessonsless demanding.Though differencesin ability are evident in all classes,they are more emphasisedin those which are not streamedby ability. Here, the brighter pupils can handlethe work with ease and are left with time to themselves.Identified as one of the benefits of learning with computers,the relaxed classroomatmospherethat such student-centredteachingstyles encourage,also have other implications. Most notably, social relations betweenchildren are more evident here than in strictly controlled classroomswhere adult-child power relations are often

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Peer pressure:leT in the classroom

more important. The IT lesson is thus a spacewithin the school where teacherpracticemeanspupil culture can cometo dominate. Perhapsthe most obviousmanifestationof this pupil culture is the highly segregatedpatternof seatingwhich developsin most ICT classes,especially in the younger years of secondaryschooling. Take one year 9 class at Highfields as an example.In the middle of the Highfields IT classroomare several rows of school tables facing the front, and the computersare arrangedon desksfacing both side walls and the end wall of the room. In theory, when enteringthe classroomthe children are supposedto sit at the central tables, but in practicemany competeto appropriatea computerof their own becauseunlessstudentsare away ill, there are not quite enough machinesfor everyoneto have one each. The seating arrangementsthese practicesproduceare highly structuredand reflect wider setsof social relations. Most notably, the seatingarrangementstend to be gendersegregated as boys occupyone side of the classroomand most of the end wall, the girls (of whom thereare slightly fewer in this particularclass)the other side wall. However,within this gender-segregated patternother differencesalso begin to emerge.A group of boys noticeably more keen on computersthan the others occupy the computersnear the front of the classroom,the other 'white' lads use the remainingcomputerson this side wall, while the back wall is primarily occupiedby a small group of Asian lads. The girls' side of the classroomis split into two discerniblegroups,one of which containsgirls who are more studiousthan the others(all the girls in this classare white). Having identified why pupils' cultures are more dominant in the ICT classroomthan other lessons,we want to move on now to considerthe relationshipsdifferent children in our case-studyschoolsdevelopwith ICT. For clarity we divide the children into four groups:the 'technoboys', the 'lads', the 'luddettes'and the 'computercompetentgirls'. We do not want to suggest,however,that thesefour groupsare ever-presentand internally cohesive. In what follows we thereforedraw out tensionswithin thesegroups,their different manifestationswithin different schools, and ways in which the contoursof thesegroupsare transformedas children'srelationswith technology changeover time. The techno boys

At both Highfields and Station Road there is a group of boys in eachclass whoseinterestsrevolve aroundcomputers.The technoboys, as we call them, are generally highly technologically literate. They have mastereda wide range of software applications,have a developing understandingof programming and often the skills to take apart and re-assemblecomputers. Their interest in ICT is an important influence on their social networks becausethey chooseto 'hangout' with other boys who sharetheir interests. CharlesStevenson,a year 11 pupil at Highfields explains:

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 51

Well, one of [my friends], calledJamie ... was in my form all through school. But then a couple of months ago, about the start of this year,we both realisedwe really liked computergames.And that sort of madeus more friends like. Or closerfriends. And then most of my other friends I just made through computergames.Or computers ... that's sort of all we normally talk about. The latest computer gamesor how far we got on a certaingameor whatever(Highfields).

CHARLES STEVENSON:

This enthusiasmfor computergames,in Charles'scase,also carriesover into an enthusiasmfor ICT lessons.In the extractbelow, he describeshow he and his friend rush to the ICT classafter registrationin order to ensurethat they can have sole accessto, and thereforecontrol over, a PC during the lesson: There'sthe odd occasionwhen there are more people and two of us, we have to shareone computer,but it's not that often we normally sort of - 'cos our form room, it's either in the room just below here or in the actual computerroom, so on Friday morningswe can just get in there beforeanyoneelseand get to the computer.Like this morning we were in there- me and Daniel were in there beforeanyone else 'cos we'd just beento haveregistration(Highfields).

CHARLES STEVENSON:

Indeed, this enthusiasmfor the educationaluses of ICT also extendsinto someof the pupils' extra-curricularactivities. Simon Radford and Gregory Hobson, year 10 studentsat Station Road, for example,were more than happy to give up their free time to help their teachersbuild up the school computingresources: SIMON RADFORD:

Yeah, we spenta lot of time after school, beforeschool. We actually camein abouthalf an hour before. [interrupts] 8 o'clock in the morning we came in every

GREGORY HOBSON: SIMON RADFORD:

morning. Yeah, about40 minutesbefore school. SO why were you willing to spendthat time? GREGORY HOBSON: Don't know. SIMON RADFORD: Don't know. It's just - we don't know, its just computers we think. We're just addicted[both laugh]. We are. We're addicted. GREGORY HOBSON: Better than drugs. SIMON RADFORD: I know, we're on drugs- computerdrugs (Station Road). GREGORY HOBSON: INTERVIEWER:

In short, ICT usageis central to theseboys' lives such that it in part shapes their friendship ties, is integratedinto their schoolwork as much as possible and takesup a large amountof their free time. The presenceof this group goessomeway towardsexplainingthe gender differencesin attitudes to and use of computers,especially the greater

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numbersof boys using computersout of class time (see Table 3.1). The techno boys' manifest 'lead' in terms of ICT literacy does not, however, meanthat they 'lead' the way socially, rather they tend to be a rather marginal social group within their school. On the one hand, someof the other boys, who we refer to hereas 'the lads', (seethe following sectionfor further details) arguethat thesetechnoboys excludethemselves,keepingthemselves to themselvesand not wanting to make friends with the rest of the lads. They just sit in one [corner], they stay there, just chat betweenthemselvesand ... MARCUS JONES: They don't try to make friends with anyoneelse. CALVIN HIGGENS: They don't, no. MARCUS JONES: Excepttheir group kind of thing (Highfields). CALVIN HIGGENS:

On the other hand, we can see that the techno boys' skills are not highly valued by the lads who are more interestedin traditionally masculineactivities suchas football. Far from winning them the respectof their colleagues, the technoboys' skills earnthem labelssuchas 'boffin', 'computerfreak' and 'nerd', further compoundingtheir isolation within the classroom. This is particularly clear in one of our case-studyschools,Station Road. Here, widely understoodideas about computer 'nerds' as socially inadequate,rather unmasculinemen informed social attitudeswithin the school leadingto the marginalisationof thoseboys who had an interestin computing. For example,the set of lads quoted below disliked the techno boys in their class partly becausetheseboys preferredcomputer-relatedhobbiesto sporting activities, a choicewhich emasculatedthem in the eyesof the lads, opening them up to insults which imply effeminacy and, consequently, homosexuality.Thus an apparentlyinnocuousquestionabout which boys were best at using computersin their class,producedthe following answer: Giles Chester'sa bit of a girl. He's, he's, he's a girl. INTERVIEWER: Bit of a girl? MATT DOWSON: Yeah, he's a right weirdo [Edit]. DARREN BROWN: He's like, he acts like a girl in classhe's ... SAM COLBY: He's a ponce. MATT DOWSON: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: A ponce? SAM COLBY: Yeah, yeah, he is. He's, he is like a lass, he just ... It's like we, we do our work quick and that, and like boys play football and that. He thinks that he's good at football, can't play football, thinks that he, thinks that he can play cricket, can't play cricket, can't play rugby. DARREN BROWN: Yeah, he's best at trampolining, like girls' sports (Station Road). DARREN BROWN:

SAM COLBY:

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 53

At one level, thesecommentscould simply be readas an extremeresponseto the techno boys, producedas theselads attemptedto show off within the contextof the focus group. However,their choiceof target, and the logic of their insults is instructive. The link they make from computernerd, to girl, to ponceis not original. Mac an Ghaill (1996) points out that involvement in sport is often read as a cultural index of what it meansto be a 'real boy', and lack of participationin suchactivities and their associatedlad culture is to be a bit of a 'poof'. Thus the lads at StationRoad are drawing on wider ideasaboutgenderand sexualityin their derision of the technoboys. What we get from this is a senseof the porosity of the school-it is not a bounded site, rather, it is constructedand reconstructedthrough its interconnectivity with wider society. This group of techno boys are also disliked, or privately disparaged,by most of the girls in their class.This dislike doesnot stem from their intelligence or ability, indeed the girls draw a distinction betweenthese techno boys and those boys who have all-round ability in a variety of classes.Nor doesit stem from an interpretationof the technoboys' interestin leT as in someway feminised,as was the casewith the lads. Rather,the girls interpret the technoboys' interestsin leT throughwider ideasaboutmarginalheterosexualmasculinities.First, the technoboys' interestin leT is codedas socially unattractiveby the girls throughits associationwith a wider rangeof activities that are broadly definedin popularculturesas 'geekie'.As one group of luddettes- the termswe use to refer to computer-dismissivegirls - explains, theseboys are only interestedin computers,fishing and sciencefiction: You overheartheir conversationsand its all aboutfishing and computers[Edit]. LOTTY KENNISON: What computermagazinethey're gonna buy this week. JULIE JAMES: Yeah, how far I got on ... HANNAH CAMPBELL: Yeah. JULIE JAMES: Whatevercomputergamethey play. HANNAH CAMPBELL: And they all like Star Trek as well (Highfields). HANNAH CAMPBELL:

Second,the technoboys socially marginalinterestsare compoundedby their bodily presentation- including the wearing of work-style trousers and shirts - which is understoodby the girls to be unappealing.They explain: HANNAH CAMPBELL: JULIE JAMES:

Well, they'renot very good-looking.

No.

Not good-looking and they don't care what they look like and they're immature(Highfields).

LOTTY KENNISON:

Ratherthan draw on homophobicdiscourses- which are at their root misogynist becausethey rest on a rejectionof all that is constructedas feminine

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(Epstein1993) - thesegirls continueto constructthe technoboys as heterosexual males. Males, however, whose bodies are inscribed upon and constructedthroughthe computersthey use (Lupton 1995).Notably the girls draw on imaginingsof 'teckies'in popular culture, where computerenthusiastsare commonly representedas being physically unattractive,wearing glasses,having bad skin and poor fashion sense.Theseimagesinform their understandingsof the techno boys' bodies as an unattractiveproduct of spendingtoo much time staringat a screen(ibid.). In sum, the girls interpret the technoboys' interestsand bodily presentationsas socially and physically unattractivethroughreferenceto wider stereotypesabout'geeks'and 'nerds' that they regardas the unacceptable,if neverthelessheterosexual,oppositeof desirablemasculinity. Both these examplesserve to illustrate how wider ideas can shapethe school, and thus reproducethe ICT classroomas a spacein which certain forms of behaviourare codedas marginal and henceare policed. We do not want to suggest,however,that this is the only way in which an intenseinterest in ICT may be understoodby children. At a generallevel the picture with respectto the genderingand sexingof ICT is subtly different at Westport(an issue we discussin the following section). On a more specific level, some children, evenwithin schoolswhereboys' interestin ICT is derided,can perform their technologicalcompetencein socially acceptableways. One boy, Joshua,is a particularly pertinentexampleof this becausehis overt performanceof ICT competenceat Highfields lead, to his social inclusion rather than marginalisation.Joshuais a loner and the only Afro-Caribbeanpupil in the classeswe studiedat Highfields. He is highly technologicallycompetent and is taking extra IT lessonsas part of an attemptby the schoolto curb his 'behaviouralproblems',in particular his poor attendancerate. His enthusiasm for ICT might be expectedto contributeto his marginalisationwithin the class.However,other aspectsof his behaviourearnhim the respectof the girls in particular.In one sense,his lack of respectfor school authority leads to him being seenratherapprovinglyas a 'bad boy', whereasoccasionalpoor behaviour by the techno boys is constructedas annoying and immature. Moreover,Joshuadoesnot compoundan interestin ICT with a bodily performance akin to the other techno boys. Rather he performs his bodily identity in ways that are consideredfashionableby pupils in general,and attractiveby the girls in particular.In this way, Joshuamanagesto changethe meaningof ICT competence,at least for himself if not at a more general level, by combining it with hegemonicperformanceof attractiveheterosexual masculinity. The lads

This generally negativeconstructionof ICT competenceat Highfields and Station Road meansthat the other 'lads', as we call them here, take great

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 55

care about how they presentthemselves,lest they be considered'computer freaks'. The label 'boffin' is somethingthat theselads actively contestwhen appliedto themselves,and useas an insult with which to teasetheir friends, as this extractfrom a Highfields focus group discussionillustrates: I don't know everything, I mean, you couldn't ask me a questionon computersand I'd be able to answerit straightaway. DAVID GOULD: You could. SAM BOWDON: I don't know everythingaboutcomputers. LlAM HENDERSON: You do. DAVID GOULD: You do. SAM BOWDON: That'snot fair, I don't know how to do everything,thereare somethings I don't know how to do (Highfields). SAM BOWDON:

Neverthelesstheselads are generallyable to, and do, usecomputersin a variety of ways and contexts.The culture of gameplaying is more widespread and much less 'feminised' than the techno boys' interest in computersas machinesand thus providesone way in which the lads gain positive associationswith computers.Equally, someof the lads like using the WWW, often searchingfor stereotypicallymasculinethings, for example,their favourite football teams or bands. These activities are ways in which boys, while downplayingtheir technicalcompetence,can neverthelessmake use of the potentialof ICT and reinforcetheir statusas lads. A particularly pertinentexampleof this is the use a group of year 9 lads from Highfields makesof the Internetduring their IT lessons.To encourage them to work, the teacherallows the pupils to play on the Internetafter finishing their allotted tasks.Consequently,the lads rush throughtheir work in order to havetime to play on the Internet,and sometimesabusethe system by playing on it beforefinishing their work. Their useof the Internetis both stereotypicallymasculine,and within normativemodelsof heterosexuality, involving as it doessearchingfor sportingheroes,popularbandsand pictures of semi-nakedwomen,particularly actresses,pop starsand supermodels(see Figure 3.1), as theseboys describe: You type in a nameand it gives you a list. It's got different websiteson. SAM BOWDON: It gives 10 on a pageand it'll say one pageout of 2743. DAVID GOULD: SO, say, you're searchingfor JenniferAnniston [a very attractive actress],it'll sayJenniferAniston's official homepage. PAUL ROWLAND: Yes, it might bring up information on her. DAVID GOULD: And then it'll say exclusivepicturesof JenniferAnniston. SAM BOWDON: Nude pics XXX or somethinglike that. It'll havethat on, and obviously you don't go to that site, you go to the official homepage[in an insinceretone. All laughing]. SAM BOWDON: DAVID GOULD:

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Jacky Flaming girls hehind gging la _ s t y o c b ubje ery s t_ c in ev e j b y su r e v in e

too ludy accedding too ludy accedding

Figure 3.1 Surfing for pornographyon-line reinforces boys' understandingsof

themselvesas heterosexualyoung men.© Jacky Fleming.

Meaning you ignore the official homepageand go the nude XXX site? SAM BOWDON: Non, non, no [in a mocking tone]. DAVID GOULD: Yes. PAUL ROWLAND: Yes. LlAM HENDERSON: Yes [All laughing] (Highfields). INTERVIEWER:

This particularuse of the WWW allows boys to demonstratean interestin, and aptitude for, computerswhile also reinforcing their understandingof themselvesas heterosexualyoung men. In searchingfor websitesthey bond with each other, sharing pictures and jokes between themselves.The resourcesthey draw upon, both ideologicallyin termsof ideasaboutacceptable heterosexualmasculinity,and materially, in terms of the websitesthey visit, extendbeyondthe classroom.Theseallow themto reproducethis form of masculinity for themselveswithin the micro-geographiesof the classroom. The boys (correctly) assumethat the other lads with whom they are sitting will not 'tell on them' and the male teacherwill turn a blind eye, understandingthat they have a naturalsex drive. SAM BOWDON:

Mr Matthewsisn't actually that bad though,he lets you ...

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 57

He lets you go on somesites. He doesn'tencourageit but ... LlAM HENDERSON: When he finds us he threatensto [switch the connection to the Internet off] ... SAM BOWDON: I think he understands that we are going to look at it. DAVID GOULD: If it's there,then we are gonnalook at it (Highfields). DAVID GOULD:

SAM BOWDON:

In this context, the relaxedatmospherethat non-didacticstyles of teaching promote (Schofield 1997) allows the lads to reproducethe classroomas a both a genderedand heterosexedspace.For example,the girls describehow the boys try to trick them into looking at picturesthat they regardas pornographic (these might more accuratelybe describedas 'glamour' pictures becausehard-coreporn would both be filtered by the school system,and usually require accessto a credit card): the boys just like put a porn picture on for like ... All the lesson... JASMINE TOWERS: And they, like, sit there, laughingat it. JEMMA DELANEY: Laughingat it or looking at it, and it's really annoying,and they shout out 'Louise, Jemma!'And we, like, turn round and you've just got this picture of a nakedwoman (Highfields). JEMMA DELANEY: ..•

LOUISE WHEATCROFT:

The girls' responseto this type of behaviouris ambivalent.On the one hand, they regardthe lads as 'dirty creeps'(Helen) and 'little perverts'(Louise) who have a poor attitude to women. Interestingly,the girls constructthis behaviour in essentialistterms, regarding it as a product of the boys' biology rather than social relations in the classroomas Chloe Robinsonand Suzy Frearexplain: they're just dirty. It's just naturalfor boys to do that. It's just men isn't it (Highfields).

CHLOE ROBINSON: .•• SUZY FREAR:

On the other hand, the sexualisedclimate in the classroommeans some girls feel pressuredinto appearingattractiveto theselads despitereservations abouttheir attitudesto women. Louise explains: You sort of feel sort of specialif you are [pretty] 'cos they don't sort of hateyou (Highfields).

LOUISE WHEATCROFT:

Contrary to the girls' analysisof the boys' behaviouras natural, we would arguethat teacherpracticein this particularcaseallows boys to reproduce the classroomas a spacein which the low-level sexualharassmentof young women becomespossible.As Dixon (1997: 101) found in her study of a designand technologyclassroom:

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whilst this teacherplaceshimself within a liberal agendaand 'child centred' educationaldiscourse,his abdication from setting the cultural agendain the lessoncreatesthe opportunityfor studentsto rehearseand reconstructmeaningsof genderand power in oppressiveways. Suchpractices,however,are far from inevitable.The responseof Asian boys within the classroomat Highfields, for example,did not follow the samepattern as the 'white' lads discussedabove.Theseboys usedthe technologyto searchfor traditionally masculineinterestssuchas football and cars but not for sexualisedpictures of women. Here, again we see the importanceof children's agency. Like the girls, these Asian boys consideredthe 'white' lads' behaviour to be inappropriatein a classroomand at a basic level arguedthat it was degradingto women. They thereforenegotiatefor themselvesa significantly different relationshipwith technologythat neverresults in their emasculationin the eyesof others,nor to sexualised,hypermasculine performances.(Thesediffering attitudesto genderwere but one of the differencesbetweenthesetwo groupsof young men: considerabletensionalso existedaroundthe issueof 'race',as the Asian boys regardedthe 'white' boys as racist. In turn the 'white' boys arguedthat they were not racist but that it was hard to make friends with the Asian boys becausethey stuck together and were always looking for a fight.) The experienceat Westport- which as we explainedin Chapter2 has an official emphasison computeruse rather than computerstudies- further demonstratesthat societal understandingof the genderingof technology can to an extentbe reworkedwithin the contextof multi-facetedschoolcultures. Though Westport'sclassroomculture has much in common with Highfields and Station Road - pupils, for example,tend to sit in single-sex groups,and both boys and girls are well awareof the stereotypesaboutcomputer nerds- the genderedmeaningsof computersare beginningto change for some pupils. Ratherthan PCs being linked per se with certain types of masculinity,certainInternet-basedactivities - most notably, browsingwebpages- are becomingcodedas things which boys do, and other activities particularly email and chat - are becomingcoded as things which girls do (seealso Chapter6). Theseyear 10 pupils explain: Boys go on all the boring stuff. Yeah, they go on like the Internet[meaningWWW] more don't they and stuff (Westport).

LOUISE BOSWELL:

CAROLINE DENNINGTON:

You do get the girls using it a lot, sendingemails to each other, they love it, yeah. THOMAS WOODWARD: They go on all the chat pagesas well on the Internet. DARREN POTTER: In fact it's like 90 per cent of the girls know how to use thesechat pagesand the boys don't (Westport). DARREN POTTER:

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 59

The genderingof technologypersiststhen at Westport,but on a subtly different terrain. The activities for which the computersare usedare important here. Showing the continuedimportanceof wider ideasabout genderrelations, both boys and girls deploy essentialistexplanationsfor thesepatterns. For example,boys andgirls explaingirls' greaterliking for email in termsof girls' greaterinterestin communication:for girls this is a positive feature,a result of the fact that 'girls talk more'; for boys this is room for disparaging humour, seeingchatting as 'women'swork'. A final point of interestis the way in which this processof (re)codinghas beenpicked up on by the staff and exploitedin a pragmaticway. (IT teacher): Girls will use,have beenbroughtinto the useof the Internet by Internet mail, it's had a dramatic impact in the amount of girls who sit in front of pes (Westport).

JAMES PUNT

Though the introduction of email was not specifically intendedto increase girls' useof computers,the staff havecapitalisedon this resultasa way of realising their aim to get a wider variety of pupils to feel 'at home'with computers. In this example,teacherpracticeencouragesa wider rangeof childrento form positive relationshipswith leT than would otherwisehave beenthe case. Computer-competentgirls

Turning to look specifically at the girls, we can seethat, despitevariationsin their abilities, mostgirls at Highfields and StationRoadare capableof basic computeroperations(including word-processing,settingup databases, transferring files betweenapplications) which to many adults would signify computercompetence.As a group, however,girls at Highfields and Station Road display much less overt interestin computersthan either the techno boys or the lads, and find the boys' classroomcomputingculture unappealing (seealso studiesby Spender1997; Turkle 1995). As Haddon(1992) has also found, even highly technologicallycompetentgirls' classroomconversation is dominatedby non-technicalconcerns,and is more likely to be aboutgeneralschool gossipthan computers.Josy Booth, a year 11 student at Highfields explains: I mean, Sophie is good on computersbut she just -I don't know, she doesn'ttalk aboutit or anything. She just usesthe computer. She'sgot loadsof stuff at home 'cos her Dad works for IBM [a computer company],so that'shandy.So sheknows quite a lot aboutcomputersbut you wouldn't know unlessyou were a close friend becauseshe doesn't say anything about it or talk about it or anything. It's not really a very interestingconversation,unless you like that kind of thing I suppose (Highfields).

JOSY BOOTH:

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The girls' classroomculture, in which they draw lessattentionto themselves than the technoboys, and computertalk remainlessimportantin their lives than other more traditionally feminine interests,puts the 'we canII can't' paradoxidentified by Collis (1985) in a new light. Thesegirls did not claim that girls as a group were good at using computers,but that they individually lacked the appropriateskills. Rather,they arguedthat girls as a whole were as good at computingas boys, that somegirls were better than other girls, but that girls as a whole just were not that interestedin talking about them. For somehighly computer-competent girls this lack of interestin talking about computersis undoubtedlystrategic. As FrancescaLeighton from Highfields explains,girls may keep their interestsquiet as they realise that their technicalcompetenceis not highly valuedby their peersand they do not want their identities to be re-codedas 'nerds': I mean'cos the peoplewho tend to useit in my year, I suppose,at school,there'sa lot of quite stereotypicalgeekytype people who use it and you just get lumped under that so ... I mean, I'm not going to lie aboutit [her computercompetenceand useof the Internetat homel ... but I don't know, I wouldn't broadcastit, I suppose.Stupid really, but you know people my age can be cruel about stuff like that (Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

What thesegirls' performancesof technicalcompetencedisplay then is their sophisticationas social actors.Not only do they possesstechnicalskills that exceedthoseof many adults,they havedevelopedspatially differentiatedperformancesof theseskills, which when usedfreely at home win the pride of their parents(see Chapter4), and when used sparingly at school also win them social popularity as well as the grudgingrespectof their peersfor their technicalskill. Even within Highfields and StationRoad,which the questionnairesurvey showshad fairly 'traditional' genderedpatternsof attitudesto, and use of, computers,there are instancesin which girls are beginningto rework institutional culture. On the one hand,a numberof highly skilled girls are, often inadvertenly,beginningto challengeconventionalunderstandingsthat computersare boys' toys (Spender1997), and that boys are consequentlybetter at using them than girls. As one lad from Highfields explains,new meanings of technologyare thereforebeginningto emerge: I think computersare changingbecauseChloe has obviously proventhat she'sbetterthan a lot of the boys put togetheron a computer and that hassort of changedthat perspective,but it is still thoughtin our classto be, you know, a bloke's thing as a consolereally (Highfields).

DAVID PHELPS:

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 61

The position of Chloe Robinsonis an interestingone. Previousstudieshave pointedout that girls havelessaccessto homecomputingthan boys, and this meansthat they are doubly disadvantagedbecausehomecomputingprovides children with the confidenceto make better use of school resources(see also Chapter2, Opie 1998). Our findings show that there are no significant differencesbetweenmiddle-classboys' and girls' accessto a home PC,1 and that somemiddle-classgirls such as Chloe Robinsonalso have parentswho positively encouragetheir daughter'sICT skills (see Chapter4). This developmentof Chloe'scomputerliteracy at home paysdividendsin termsof her technicalabilities in the classroomwhere sheoutperformsmany of the boys. In this way, experiencesin one socio-spatialenvironment,the home,provide some girls with the resourcesto challenge the socio-spatialrelations in another,the school. On the other hand, some girls are beginning to positively and publicly value computeruse. At Highfields, for example,someof the more schoolcentredgirls use the attraction of Internet use during lesson time both to reject the anti-work ethosof their class,and to perform an overt interestin computers.While they continueto describethe computerclub as 'sad',they neverthelessarguethat computersin this instanceare 'cool' becausethey can usethem during lessonsto searchfor male pop starssuch as the Back Street Boys and Jarvis Cocker, and actors such as LeonardoDiCaprio. Theseare men who in their terms are 'fit' (heterosexuallyattractive).In this way, they negotiatean overt interest in computersthrough their heterosexedgender identities, while attributing different meaningsto computeruse in different time-spaces. Equally, somegirls at StationRoad have startedto contesttheir marginalisationwithin computingculture, and in particularwithin out-of-classaccess spaces,by askingfor girl-only computertime to be provided.The girls' interest in computersbeganwhen they usedthe Internetto find information for a project that they were doing on bullying. They enjoyedsurfing the Net and encouragedtheir friends to join them, as TraceyWilson describes: I'd had a few days off so I decidedto go up to computer room and finish it off [the project on bullying] and that's when Sarah and Ruth startedgoing. I told them about it and then we just started going up from there,looking on the Internetand what we could find and things like that (Station Road).

TRACEY WILSON:

However,the girls becamefrustratedbecausethe boys dominatedthe terminals, and complainedto one of the teachers.He suggestedthat they might like to start a 'girls' computerclub' and announcedit in an assemblyfor them. The club is held in an upstairscomputing room, while the original computer club meets at the sametime in a downstairsroom. Thesegirls explain the social and academicbenefitsof the club to them:

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TRACEY WILSON: JULIE PRENTICE: KAREN MASON:

It's good so you can know computersbetter. Yeah. You can find out about your favourite pop group or any-

thing.

And like when you're in IT club, you can say you've got a new skill in IT club, you can go upstairsand practise. KAREN MASON: Practiseat it. JULIE PRENTICE: And practiseyour thing and so you can get right betteron a computer(Station Road). TRACEY WILSON:

Nevertheless,thesegirls also face an ongoing battle to gain accessto computer games that are currently only available in what they term the 'downstairsclub'. Thuswhile the girls havecreateda spaceof empowerment for themselves,it is a spaceon the margins,the hegemonyof the boys in the 'computerclub' remainslargely undisturbed. The luddettes

A small proportion of the girls we interviewed claimed that they were no good at computing.Julie, Lotty and Hannahare in year 11 at Highfields. Like the adultscited in Chapter2 they are awareof the potentialimportance of ICT in a future information economy,but unlike the adults they do not connectthis vision of the future to their needto developtechnologicalskills in the present. For what? [would PCs be useful for] Well, like all the, most jobs now. HANNAH CAMPBELL: Yeah. LOTTY: Need computersfor ... with all this technologycoming out they'll be useful. That'swhy my Mum wantedme to go on it [the PC]. [Edit] HANNAH CAMPBELL: Yeah there'smore, more jobs to do with computers,but umm, don't know, I don't want to do computerson a job. INTERVIEWER: You don't? HANNAH CAMPBELL: No, not at all. JULIE JAMES: I wouldn't touch [one] with a barge-pole(Highfields).

JULIE JAMES:

LOTTY KENNISON:

Their technophobia,like the techno boys' ICT competenceneedsto be set within a social context. In one sensethesegirls are technophobicbecause they fear the consequences that ICT literacy would have for their lifestyles. Thesegirls seecomputersas 'geeky',and incompatiblewith 'having a life'. In turn this associationof the PC with 'sadgeeks''naturalises'its useas boring and socially undesirableactivity. As a result the girls imagine a binary division betweenon-line and off-line activities and spacesin which on-line

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 63

activities and spacesare regardedas 'dull', 'boring', 'nerdy' andirrelevant,in contrastto off-line activities and spaces,suchas going out clubbing. The girls explain: JULIE JAMES:

[referring to using PCs] It's just I've got betterthings to do with

my life. LOTTY KENNISON:

Yeah.

[Laughter] I wonderwhat they are [laughing]? Yeah, I wonderwhat they are as well [laughs]. JULIE JAMES: Won't get into that. INTERVIEWER: What are thesebetterthings to do, go on? JULIE JAMES: Well, going out. LOTTY KENNISON: Clubbing. Yeah. HANNAH CAMPBELL: Yeah. JULIE JAMES: And other things. LOTTY KENNISON: I mean, I went out last night, I mean, I wouldn't have stayed in to use a computer. If I'd got chanceto go out I'd go out (Highfields). INTERVIEWER:

HANNAH CAMPBELL:

This exampledemonstrates that the interactionbetweentechnology,bodies, identitiesand peergroup relationsis 'complexand continuousand all the elements combined are transforming of, and transformed by each other' (Ormrod 1994: 43). Not surprisingly perhaps,becauseof the way in which the meaningsof PCshaveemergedwithin the girls' peerculture,Hannah,Lotty andJulie are fearful of being seen to take an interest in ICT becauseof the potential threat it posesto their identities and social relationships.If they show an interestin technologytheir embodiedidentities might be re-codedby their peersas undesirable.As they explain below, their participation in the heterosexualculture of the school is at stake. So how comeyou can't be, how comeyou can't be the type of lassthat likes going out and the type ...? [laughs] JULIE JAMES: To use a computer. HANNAH CAMPBELL: You just wouldn't tell anyonethat you were using the computer. INTERVIEWER: Oh right, you wouldn't tell anyone? HANNAH CAMPBELL: No. INTERVIEWER: SO why not? [edit] ... HANNAH CAMPBELL: It's a boffin's thing to do isn't it? JULIE JAMES: I meancomputerboffins, that's what people,well ... [Edit] INTERVIEWER:

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INTERVIEWER:

But you wouldn't want anybodyto think you were a computer

boffin? No. No.

HANNAH CAMPBELL: LOTTY KENNISON:

No. No, why not? HANNAH CAMPBELL: 'Cos, then, don't get, you don't get invited out or anything like that. JULIE JAMES: Yeah. LOTTY KENNISON: You don't pull all thesepeopleat little school discosand all that kind of, I don't know ... (Highfields). JULIE JAMES:

INTERVIEWER:

In this way the girls' fears about the threat ICT posesto their identities demonstratehow intimately and complexly the bits and pieces,suchas computers, that are part of our everyday worlds are involved in our social relations (Wenger1998). Thosechildren who have accessto a PC at home have the opportunityto developtheir technologicalcompetenceand keyboardsskills away from the surveillanceand often ridiculing or hostile gaze of their peers.As a result thesechildren are commonlymore confidentand comfortablewith the technology in the classroomthan those who do not have a home PC (see also Chapter2). Of Hannah,Lotty andJulie, only Hannahhasa PC at home and all threedescribetheir parentsas afraid of new technologies.Julie claims that her father is so technophobicthat he makeshis secretaryuse his computer for him. Perhaps,not surprisingly, given the atmosphereof fear and avoidance which all three girls encounterat home, Hannah,Lotty and Julie are anxious about using computersin IT lessonsbecauseof their lack of keyboard skills and understandingof how the PC works. Lotty and Julie feel particularly disadvantagedboth in IT classesand other lessonstoo because they haveno opportunityto practiseICT skills at home (seealso Chapter2) or to type up their courseworkfor other subjects.Lotty explains: 'Cos no one else gives you a chance..., 'cos if you don't have a computer at home, you can't do your other coursework,then you've got IT [lessons]and then you've got other subjectsthat you have to use a computerfor as well (Highfields).

LOTTY KENNISON:

Their fears abouttheir lack of skills are compoundedby the social contextof the classroomwhere the girls know that they might be laughedat or teased by the boys if they cannotperform at the level and speedof their peers.In this respectthey illustrate Brosnan's(1998) argumentthat the classroomcan reinforce anxieties about performancedifferences.Rather than being stigmatised as the classroom'dunces',the girls resist using the technology altogether,refusingto do the work or finding ways to subvertthe tasksset.

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It is a position that commandsmore social statusand respectamongtheir peers than trying and struggling. According to the girls, it is also a tactic which is to someextentendorsedby the male IT teacher.

I don't even use them. You don't even use them? JULIE JAMES: No, I can't use them. INTERVIEWER: SO, what do you do, just like turn up [at the IT lessons]? JULIE JAMES: And, yeah, do stuff. [Edit] He [teacher] says bring some other work in 'cos I'm not gonna learn how to use computer[laughs], 'cos I don't like them. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, why is that? JULIE JAMES: 'Cos I can't use them [laughs], they bore me (Highfields). JULIE JAMES:

INTERVIEWER:

In this way, the classroomrather than challenging emerging divisions betweenthosewho have a PC and thosewho do not, actually becomespart of the processthrough which a technologicalfluency gap is produced. PCs are supposedto be user-friendly,in other words, to be malleableor controllable.Yet they are often seenas incomprehensible,alien, and a source of anxiety, impotenceand frustration. Lupton (1995) suggeststhat our fear of technology often originates from not being able to understandhow it works or how to fix it. Such fears are evident among Hannah,Lotty and Julie who are all deterredfrom learning computing skills through experimentationbecauseof a fear that they might breakthe machine. because,'cos you're scaredof breakingthe computer most of the time [laughs]. LOTTY KENNISON: Yeah ... know that one [laughs]. JULIE JAMES: That'swhat I'm like anyway (Highfields). HANNAH CAMPBELL: .••

Likewise, Jasmineand Louise, year 9 girls at Highfields, describehow their inability to control the technologymakesthem anxious. I get stressedout with computers. Yeah, I can't work them. JASMINE TOWERS: Yeah, and they don't print when you want them to. LOUISE WHEATCROFT: They don't do anythingyou want them to, they'rejust stupid (Highfields). JASMINE TOWERS:

LOUISE WHEATCROFT:

Fearsabout 'control' run deeper,however,than an anxiety about not being able to work or damagingthe technology. Rather, as Louise Wheatcroft's comment'they don't do anything you want them to' implies, PCs are often credited with the intentionality to deliberately obstruct or frustrate their users.Ross (1991) observesthat noticesare often pinned on office walls by

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computers,photocopiersand other machinesattributing them with the ability to sensethe moodsof usersand to respondto their degreeof urgencyby breakingdown. He writes: the notice assumesa degree of evolved self-consciousnesson the machine'spart. Furthermore,it implies a relation of hostility, as if the machine'sself-consciousness and loyalty to its own kind haveinevitably lead to resentment,conflict and sabotage. (Ross1991: 1-2, in Lupton 1995: 104) Hannah and Julie employ similar sentimentsin this accountof Hannah's work experience. When I was on me work experiencethis girl wiped off everythingaboutthis important casethat was coming up in abouttwo weeks.If I'd, I'd, I'd, I don't know I just wouldn't like that. All she did was just presslike a button with her little finger. I meanthey could ... JULIE JAMES: And it just wiped everything(Highfields). HANNAH CAMPBELL:

Hannah'sexplanationthat all the girl did was 'presslike a button with her little [and thereforemost insignificant] finger' implies the user'sinnocence and lack of responsibilityfor the loss of the document.Julie'scommentthat it just wiped everything clearly attributes blame for the loss on the maliciousnessof the computer. The girls' technophobiais not therefore just about the fact they feel they do not have the knowledge or confidenceto 'control' the computer but also that the technologyitself might have the potential power to underminethem (see also the discussionof anthropomorphismin Chapter5). Lupton (1995) suggeststhat it is the blurring of the boundariesbetweenhumanand machineinherentin ICT that inspiresfeelings of anxiety and fear. Shewrites that: Thereis somethingpotentiallymonstrousaboutcomputertechnologyin its challengingof traditional boundaries.Fearsaboutmonstersrelateto their liminal statusthe elision of one categoryof life and another,particularly if the human is involved, as in the Frankensteinmonster... While there is an increasingmove towards the consumptionof technologies, there is also anxiety around the technologies'capacity to consumeus. (ibid.: 106) To summarisethis section,children'stechnophobiais not a fear of computers per se but a fear of how ICT may transform their individual social identities and relationshipswithin the everydaycontext of the school and their peergroup cultures.Use of technologyis a social act, suchthat the PC

Peer pressure:leT in the classroom 67

plays an important role in changing or stabilising social relations in the classroom.As a consequence,some children are fearful, first, about the social consequences of their performancerelative to the technologicalcompetenciesof their peers. Second,they are anxious about their ability to control the Pc. Third, they are concernedabout the ways in which their identitiesmight be read by their peersif they show an interestin technology. In the concluding sectionwe reflect on what theseunderstandingsof children's identities, peer group cultures and relationships mean for the Governmentpolicies aboutICT and social exclusionthat were discussedin the previouschapter.

Tackling social exclusion: the importance of classroom practices and children's cultures Contrary to much popular and policy discoursewhich assumesthat the computerwill have a number of inevitable impacts upon society, we have argued here that institutional cultures are exceedinglyimportant in children's experiencesof ICT in schools. These institutional cultures are not homogeneousbut multi-layeredas Hickling-Hudson(1992) suggests,reflecting not just official school policy but also informal teacherpracticesand diversepupil cultures.For example,the official approachof equalaccessfor all at Highfields hasled to gender-differentiated experiencesof computeruse becausethe male teacher'snon-didacticapproachallows pupils' gendered culturesto dominateclassroompractices(d. Dixon 1997). Similarly, the official emphasison use (rather than teaching)of technologyat Westport,that has resultedin the provision of email accountsfor students,has led inadvertently to smallergenderdifferencesin out-of-classuse. The girls' already genderedinterestsmeanthat they are attractedinto computingthroughthe potential to communicatewith others,whereastheir counterpartsin other schoolsare not. Moreover,theseculturesnot only vary betweenschools,but also within them (Shilling 1991; Dixon 1997),suchthat the sametechnology can meandifferent things in different time-spaces.For example,one group of girls could arguethat computerswere 'cool' as you were able to surf the Net during lessons,but equally that computerclubs were 'sad', because thesewere associatedpredominatelywith socially marginalisedboys. What all this suggestsis that policy-makersat both the national and school level need to take into accountteachers'classroompracticesand pupil cultures when formulating policies, if they want to promotesocial inclusion. Indeed,theseinstitutional culturesdo haveimportanteffectsbeing both a spacethroughwhich gendereddifferencesin boys' andgirls' attitudesto, and use of, computersare (re)produced,and an arena through which gender and sexualidentitiesare constructedand contested.Looking first at gender differencesin attitudes to, and use of, computers,we can see that boys' greaterliking for and use of computersare reproducedin all three schools

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(thoughtherea numberof importantcaveatsto this statementfor Westport). Confirming the resultsof a numberof other studies(Hickling-Hudson1992; Shashaani1993; Comberet al. 1997; Nelson and Cooper1997; Reinenand Plomp 1997; Brosnan1998), we found that boys like computersmore, are more likely to consider computer skills as being very important to their future, and are more likely than girls to use computersin a rangeof setting for a variety of activities. In contrast,manygirls are alienatedby computing culture (Turkle 1995; Spender1997), and only tend to claim their place within it when the communicationsaspectof ICT are emphasised. However,while our resultsdo confirm the genderdifferenceshighlighted in other studies,they also suggestthat simple boy-girl distinctions in attitudesto, and useof, computersare inappropriatefor two reasons.First, our findings point to the importance of the range of computer functions on offer - for example,whetheror not they are on-line, whetheror not pupils have accessto email accounts- in shapinggenderdifferencesin pupils' attitudesto computers.Computershave a variety of potentials,someof which appearto be more attractiveto girls, othersto boys, and thus the specificsof what is available in particular situationsmust be taken into consideration becausethis in part shapesthe emergenceof genderdifferencesin attitudes and use. Moreover, the study of classroompracticeshighlights the importanceof competingmasculinitiesand femininities, suggestingthat important differencesexist within the male and female categoriesas well as between them. Looking at this secondpoint in more detail we can seethat the different culturesof computingare negotiatedthrough both hegemonicand marginalised understandingsof masculinity and femininity. In all three schools computercompetenceis not socially valueddespitethe considerablenumbers of children who think that computerskills will be importantto their future. Insteadcomputercompetenceis often associatedwith marginali sedforms of masculinity. The techno boys' interestin computersis constructedin 'feminine' terms by the lads, and thus leadsto the policing of such masculinities through homophobia.Equally, in the girls' heterosexualcodesof desirethe technoboys are consideredboth socially and physically unattractive.Despite this, the lads are able to deploy a number of strategiesthat allow them to demonstratean interestin, and aptitudefor, computerswhile also reinforcing their statusas lads. Most notably, they play games,and surf the Net for things of traditionally masculineinterest.Most girls at Highfields and Station Roadmanagetheir technologicalliteracy in a different way. In the classroom they generallydraw less attentionto themselves,and, for many, computers remain less important in their lives than other more traditionally feminine interests.Despitehigh levels of competenceamongsomegirls, they tend to be protective of girl-only spacesin which they can use computerswithout having to competewith boys. However, new associationsbetweenfemininity and technologyalso appearto be emerging,most notably in Westport,

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whereavailability of email iscontributingtothedevelopmentofagirls.computer culture. The bonding of friendship groupsthrough sharedactivities, mutual help and boundary making - what we might term communitiesof practice reinforceschildren'ssenseof who they are, and who they are not. The lads, in using the Web for traditionally masculinethings, reinforcetheir identity as 'lads', while making their difference from the techno boys clear to both themselvesand others. Equally, they reinforce their identities as 'lads' by marking their interestin, but differencefrom, womenthroughthe useof sexualised jokes and harassment.The girls both respondto this on one level, wanting to appearattractiveto theselads despitetheir dislike for them, and resistit by making disparagingremarksabouttheir behaviour,thus simultaneouslyreinforcing their senseof themselvesas more mature.While we can discussthesedifferencesbetweenboys andgirls in termsof the reproduction of genderidentities,it is equally clear that the silenceon sexualityin schools' researchnoted by Epstein (1993, 1997) and Mac an Ghaill (1996) is inappropriate.The genderidentities of the different boys and girls are not only shapedthrough ideas about gender,they are also reproducedthrough the heterosexualeconomyof the classroom.This heterosexualeconomyis evident both in the power that the lads can musterto harassthe young women in their class,and in the pressureyoung women feel to remain attractiveto lads whose harassmentthey sometimesmanageto contest. Equally, it is clear in the attitudesof both the girls and the lads to the techno boys. The girls' reaction to these boys is shapedby their understandingsof desirable heterosexualmasculinity;while someof the lads makejokes that suggestthat the technoboys are gay becausethey do not, in their eyes,behaveas 'proper' boys. Given the importanceof this heterosexualeconomyin structuringpatterns of classroom interaction, the silence on sexuality in schools is untenable.Both genderand sexualidentities are being performedand contestedwithin this institutional space. In thinking about the reproductionof such institutional space,we also want to build upon Philo and Parr's(2000) suggestionthat we might think about institutions as precariousgeographicalachievements.Following the work of feminist geographers(see Laurie et al. 1999 for a summary),we would argue that the school as an institutional spaceis (re)constructed througha seriesof different geographies.At one level, all partsof the multilayeredinstitutional culture are informed by wider setsof ideasembeddedin British society (and beyond), with, for example,teachersdrawing on the jargon of wider educationaldiscoursesaboutthe entitlementcurriculum, and pupils drawing on wider understandingsaboutappropriatemasculinityand femininity. In this sense,the schoolis a porousspace,constructedthroughits links with the wider place, the wider sets of interlocking social relations within which it is embedded.Equally, this chapterhasshownthat the school is an important site through which gender and sexual identities are

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reproduced.The multi-layeredinstitutional culturesof the schoolssanction, throughboth social and materialrelationsof control, certainforms of behaviour, for example,that which conformsto pupils' and teachers'stereotypes of gender-appropriatebehaviour. In doing so these cultures make other choicesless likely (d. Shilling 1991; Dixon 1997). Moreover, our cultural discoursesaboutgenderand sexualitycan shapethe meaningof places,for example,the normalisationof heterosexualitymeansthat schools can be characterisedas asexualspaces(which are neverthelessimplicitly assumedto be populatedby heterosexuals).This can in turn influence behaviour,with the result, for example,that the importanceof sexualityin structuringclassroom interaction is ignored by most teachersand researchersalike. In this way, we can indeedcharacteriseinstitutions as geographicalachievements: they are embeddedwithin wider places; they are important sites for the negotiationof genderand sexual identities; and as spacesthey are in part shapedthroughour notionsof genderand sexuality.This achievementis precarious,however,becausetheseinstitutions are not forever solidified in their currentform. Rather,they are opento change,both inadvertently(for example, in the caseof the introduction of email in Westport),and through the concertedactionsof individuals (for example,when the girls at StationRoad demandedtheir own computingclub). Theseunderstandingshavea numberof consequences for the questionsof social inclusion and exclusion in relation to children's use of ICT that we exploredin the previouschapter.In Chapter2 we showedhow the emphasis within the UK Government'sIT for all policy is on the needto provide accessto hardwareand software for all children (an approachalso mirrored in the USA). The evidenceof this chapter,however,suggeststhat this is a naIve approachbecauseit assumesthat all thosewho have accessto the technologywill take up the opportunitiesthat they have to engagewith it, and that they will develop the competenceto use it. Rather, the children's accountspresentedwithin this chapterdemonstratethat ICT emergesdifferently for different individuals andgroupsof users.While many usersof all agestake to, and becomeadeptat, using Internet-connected PCs, othersare fearful of them and resisttheir incorporationinto their lives. This meansthat those children who currently have accessto ICT, but resist or reject the opportunityto becometechnologicallyliterate, may still be socially excluded in a future Information Society becausewithout these skills they may be unableto participatein 'normal activities'. The understandingof social exclusion that we have developedin this chapterand the previousone - as both aboutthe large-scaledistribution of resourcesand as somethingreshapedthrough everydaypractices- presents radical policy implications.Namely, it is not enoughfor governmentsmerely to provide accessto computerprovision within schools,rather,there is also a needto explicitly addresshow ICT is introducedwithin the schoolcontext. If UK and US governmentsare seriousabouttrying to promotean inclusive

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society in the Information Age, they need to ally their efforts to provide accessto hardwareand software for all with a recognition of the need to tackle technophobia,particularly among the young. Currently, adults' techno-fearsaboutthe projectedfuture meanthat they are presentingICT to children as somethingthat they must becomecompetentat becauseit will be importantto them in a future society.In doing so adults are suggestingthat PCswill impact on children'slives in potentially negativeways. Yet, children are not future oriented,nor concernedaboutthe broadertransformationof society.Rather,they are more worried aboutthe present,and the local context of the peer group social relations within which they have to negotiate and managetheir own identities. Children'stechnophobiasare rarely a fear of machinesper se but rather are fears centredaround their performancein the classroomand how the technologymight transform their social identities and relationshipsin the context of their highly genderedand heterosexedpeer group cultures. In order to encouragechildren to take up the opportunitiesthat they have to useICT ratherthan to resistit, adultsneedto promotethe useof technology in ways that relate to the social context of children's everyday lives and communitiesof practice.For example,by emphasisingthe educationaluses of ICT for word-processing,spreadsheetsand programming,adults contribute to the technologyemergingas a tool which is consideredto be boring and the preserveof 'boffins' and 'geeks'.In contrast,by encouragingchildren to use email and the Internet- on-line activities which children understand as connectedto their off-line lives and activities - adults can contributeto helping ICT emergeas a 'cool' tool in more children'seyes.This in turn will encouragethem not to seetechnologyas a threatto their social identitiesbut ratheras somethingexciting and relevantto their off-line world. So the fact that technology,identitiesand peergroup relationsare transformingof, and transformedby, eachother will be regardedby children as offering them a rangeof positive possibilitiesrather than presentinga threatto their identities. In the following two chapterswe switch our focus from the schoolto the home.In Chapter4 we addresscontemporarymoral panicsaboutchildren's safety on-line by examiningconstructionsof their technicaland emotional competencewithin 'the family'. In Chapter 5 we focus on how different householdsdomesticatehome PCs, the multiple time-spacesimplicated in theseprocesses,and the consequences of thesepracticesfor 'family' togethernessand children'suse of outdoorpublic space.

Chapter 4

On-line dangers Questions of competence and risk

In Chapters2 and 3 we havefocusedon the Government'spromotionof ICT

as an essential,though potentially divisive, ingredient for Britain's future competitivenessin a global information economy.In doing so, we have concentratednot only on the Government'sagendaof ICT for all, but also on the ways this is translated,transformedand experiencedby different actors,and within different spaces,within individual schools.By combiningthesedifferent levels of analysiswe havehighlightedthe importanceof an overall agenda that promotesinclusion,and of the needto pay attentionto the specificity of social relationsin different learningcontexts.In this chapterwe build upon, but alsoextendour analysisto date,in two ways. First, we broadenour considerationof the discoursessurroundingchildren's use of ICT to look at questionsof children's technologicalcompetence.Second,we introduce anotherspatialcontextto the debateby focusingon the home(a themewhich continuesin Chapter5). This not only gives us a more roundedunderstanding of children'severydaylives, it also allows us to considerthe views and practicesof their parents.To date,children'suseof ICT at homehasattracted relatively little attention (though see Livingstone et al. 1997), especiallyin comparisonwith the volume of work undertakenby educationalresearchers on children and computersin the schoolcontext(seeChapters2 and 3). In this chapterwe show how currentpublic and policy understandingsof children'suse of ICT contain paradoxicalideasabout childhood and technology. On the one hand, 'boosters'celebratechildren's command of technology;on the other hand,'debunkers'raisefearsthat this technologyis putting children'sphysical and emotionalwell-being at risk. In examining these discourseswe consider both how ideas about childhood in these debatesresonatewith understandingsof the child that have a much longer history in Westernthought, and the ways that technologyis constructedas impacting eitherpositively or negativelyon society(seealso Chapter1). We go on to argue that these discoursesare problematic both becausethey essentialisethe child category,denying children'sdiversity and their status as social actors, and becausethey rest on technologically determinist understandingsof ICT. Drawing insteadon researchin the new socialstudies

On-line dangers:competenceand risk

73

of childhoodand the sociologyof scienceand technology,that inform much of our theoreticalperspectivein this book (see Chapter1), we suggestan alternative agenda.This highlights the need to trace the different understandingsof childhood and technologythat emergefor parentsand their offspring as they negotiateand make senseof not only children'stechnical, but also their emotionalcompetence,in the domesticsetting.

The discursive construction of children and technology Contemporarypublic and policy debatesabout children's use of ICT are mobilising 'traditional',often paradoxicalsetsof ideasaboutboth childhood and technology in new ways (Buckingham 1998; Bingham et al. 1999; Holloway and Valentine2001a).On the one hand, boostersare celebrating children'scommandof a technologythat is assumedto be our future. This celebrationrelies on essentialistassumptionsaboutchildren's'natural'ability to learn technicalskills as thesequotationsdemonstrate: Sit your averageadult today in front of a computerscreenand tell him or her to start navigating, and the personwill look at you like you're nuts. But sit a kid -a really young kid, 2 or 3 - in front of a computer screenfilled with colourful graphics,and sheor he will immediatelygrab the mouseand cruise. (Kornblum 1998: 1) BecauseN-Gen [net generation]children are born with technology,they assimilateit ... they soak it up along with everything else. For many kids, using new technologyis as natural as breathing. (Tapscott1998: 40) As a consequenceof children's so-called'natural' learning abilities, 'traditional' setsof power relationsthat constructchildren as less developed,less able and less competentthan adults (Waksler 1991) are, accordingto the media hype, reversed: The usual order is upside down. When my wife can't figure out something on the computer,she'll ask 6-year-oldAlison if she knows - and she often does.Teachersget taught the Internet by students.Managers defer to just-graduatednew hires abouttechnology. (Maney 1997: 1-2) This reversalis assumedto be truly transformativebecause,in this booster discourse,the societyof the future is a digital one:

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Children in the digital age are neitherunseennor unheard;in fact, they are seenand heardmore than ever. They occupya new kind of cultural space.They're the citizens of a new order, founders of the Digital Nation. (Katz 1998: 1) On the other hand,debunkerscountersuchboosteristviews by arguingthat children'svery competenceat using ICT is placing them in potentialdanger. Notably, somecommentators(e.g. Sardar1995; Squire1996) arguethat the relatively unregulatednatureof cyberspacemeansthat sexuallyexplicit discussions,soft and hard core pornography,racial and ethnic hatred,Neo-Nazi groupsand paedophilescan all be found in the spacedubbedby someon the moral right an 'electronicSodom'.A cover story in the 3 July issueof the US magazineTime (Elmer-DeWitt 1995) headlined'Cyberporn!' claimed that 83.5 per cent of the pictures on newsgroupswere sexually explicitl (Cate 1996). The Australian magazineNew Women's Weekly took a similar approachin an article titled 'Virtual Nightmare' (Evansand Butkus 1997). While on 25 August 1996 the British broadsheetnewspaperThe Observer ran a series of articles on 'child abuse'which collapseda range of issues including child pornographyon the Internet,child-sextourism and child-sex abuseinto a single panic about 'child protection' (Oswell 1998). Although, someof theseconcernsappearto be more aboutprotectingchildren's'innocence'by attemptingto stop them from gaining accessto information about sexualpracticesand alternativemodelsof sexuality(Lumby 1997) than they are about on-line 'stranger-dangers'. In other words, they are fears about knowledge(and implicitly the leaky and unstableboundarybetweenchildhood and adulthood)as well as violence. Lumby points out that: Concernsabout children and the Internet point to broad cultural anxieties aboutthe way the labile world of the Internet and the possibilities of virtual life are changingtraditional social hierarchies,including the boundariesbetweenadults, adolescentsand children ... Access to power is dependenton accessto information in contemporarysociety. Children learn this early - to move up a class in school is to move anotherstep up the ladder of statusand power. It's for this reasonthat kids often harassadultsto give them accessto books,gamesor television programsconsidered'too old' for them. But the flood of new mediaformats ... has made the job of filtering information increasingly difficult ... The Internet representsthe apotheosisof this undermining of the graduatedand hierarchicalworld of print media.The proliferation of information is renderingthe social body and its competingidentities incre.asinglyunstable. (Lumby 1997: 45)

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For thesereasonsWilkinson (1995: 21) arguesthat: We are all having to face up to the fact that our children's familiarity with technologyis bringing a new set of risks, especiallyif we want them to take full advantageof computersas tools of empowermentand education. The subtly different understandingsof childhoodand technologythat these debunkersdraw upon are evident in debatesabout the regulation of the Internet.Oswell (1998: 138) examineshow two figures, the 'child in danger' and the 'dangerouschild' (seeChapter1), that havea much longergenealogy in Westernthought(seeJenks1996;Valentine 1996a),are beingmobilisedin thesedebates.The first figure is that of the angelicchild. This draws on historical imaginings of children as innocent beings who are gradually corruptedas they becomeinculcatedinto the adult world (see Chapter1). The vulnerablefigure of the innocentchild plays a central role in the moral panic aboutchildren and the Internet that has developedin the Australian, UK, and US media. Here, the innocentchild is representedas being at risk from dangerousstrangersand paedophilegroups using chat rooms and email (McMurdo 1997; Evansand Butkus 1997).As Rubins (1992: 271) has observed,'no tactic for stirring up erotic hysteriahas beenas reliable as the appealto protectchildren'. This is a fear that is being fuelled by someacademic commentatorstoo. Durkin and Bryant (1995) for example,claim that cyberspaceallows paedophilesto feed their fantasiesand helpsthem to identify and get togetherwith other like-minded people, and in so doing also contributesto their opportunitiesto actualisetheir fantasies.While Lamb's (1998) study of individuals who visit on-line chatroomsputativelyfor youth found that less than 10 per cent of those browsing the sites appearedto be young people and two-thirds were adults passingas children to engagein cybersexfantasies.In these discursive constructionsof children and the Internetit is not only individual children who might be at risk but the state of childhood itself. The secondfigure is that of a little devil (seeChapter1). In contrastto the angelic child who is regardedas passiveand weak, the 'dangerouschild' drawsupon imaginingsof children as delinquent,innately sinful and in need of control and discipline (Valentine1996a).The troublesomechild is evident in popularanxietiesaboutthe way that children can use their technological skills to intentionally seek out pornographyon-line and to commit crimes such as fraud or hacking into securedatabases.The US Governmenthas noted for example,that'... the Internet threatensto give every child with accessto a connectedcomputera free passinto the equivalentof every adult bookstoreand video store in the country (Levendosky1997, cited in Evans and Butkus 1997).' These fears are sharedby Spender(1995: 214) who arguesthat:

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whereasparentscan keep a check on Penthouseor Playboy (or the even worsepublicationsthat appearin print), and can insist that certainprogrammeson television be switchedoff, there is no ready way they can implementan 'appropriate-use'policy on the superhighway. In using both thesefigures, debunkersconcur with boosteristviews about children'sgreatertechnicalcompetence.However,they mix thesewith older ideas about children's lack of emotional maturity (whether that be in the guiseof innocenceor lack of moral control) to arguethat theseskills merely placethem at risk in cyberspace.Here they representvirtual space,not as the spaceof our future, but as a dangerousspacewhich risks all our futures (Holloway and Valentine 2001a). Thesecontrastinginterpretationsof children'srelationshipto ICT - that children can commanda technologythat is our future, and that children's emotional well-being is placed at risk by their ability to use such technology - are problematic. First, both interpretationsrest on essentialist understandingsof childhood identities which ground children'sabilities (or lack of them) in their biology (see Chapter1). For example,both interpretations see children as 'naturally' technically skilled (or at the very least better able than adults to learn new skills), while the debunkersalso constructchildren as lacking the emotionalcompetenceof adults.As we argued in the introductionto this volume, suchbiological essentialismis not new to debatesaboutchildren'srelation to ICT. It is inherentin the constructionof childhoodthat hasdominatedsincethe Enlightenment,a constructionupon which both boostersand debunkersdraw. Researchwhich shows that this constructionis both historically and spatially specific (Aries, 1962; Jenks, 1996; Holloway and Valentine2000a)- becausechildren'ssupposedly'natural' qualitiesvary over time and betweenplaces- demonstratesthat 'child', far from being a biological category,is a socially constructedidentity. Indeed, to follow Connell's (1987: 78) argumentsabout gender, age is 'radically unnatural',being inscriptedon the body througha lengthy historical process (Holloway and Valentine 2000a). As with many other (biologically or strategically)essentialistunderstandings of identity (Rutherford1990;W.G.S.G. 1997),this marking of children's difference from adults results in an implied homogeneityof experiences betweenchildren, who, for example, are all presumedto have the same capabilitieswith, and relationshipto, technology.This homogeneityis not borneout in practice,as we saw in Chapter3, not leastbecausethe category child is also fractured by other social differencessuch as gender,'race' and class.Moreover,the assumptionthat children are humanbecomings,whose behaviourstemsfrom naturaltendenciesuntil shapedby adultsthrough the forces of socialisation,deniesthem the statusof social actors.Rather,as highlighted in Chapter1, we follow researchersin social studiesof childhoodin understandingchildren to be 'activein the constructionand determinationof

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their own social lives, the lives of those around them and of societiesin which they live' (Prout and James1990: 8). A secondproblemis that theseinterpretationsof children'srelation to ICT are technologically determinist, assumingtechnology to be a stable entity that will impact upon and changesocietyin predefinablypositive,or negative, ways. Again, as outlined in Chapter1 we are influencedby work within the sociologyof scienceand technology(CalIon 1987; Latour 1993; Star 1995). Writers within this field haveshownthat computersare not invariant objects with a predictableset of effects, but rather are 'things' that materialisefor peoplein diversesocial situationsand which may, therefore,vary as much as the contextsin which they are used(Law 1994; Binghamet al. 2001). In the following sectionswe thereforeexaminehow children and technologycome togetherin different householdsto explore the different ways in which children'sICT competenceis constructed.In this way, our empirical work both stems from a critique of essentialising,technologicallydeterminist'stories' about children's relation to ICT, and involves an analysis of the ways in which these discoursesare both mobilised and reworked by children and adultsthroughtheir everydaypractices(Holloway and Valentine 2001a).

Role reversal?: 'adults are toast', children are the net generation In many households,whereparentsare willing, and able, to buy a PC, children's technologicalcompetenceexceedsthat of adult family members.In discussingthis, parentscommonlydraw upon and re-articulatethe wider discoursesoutlined aboveaboutthe supposednaturalnessof children'stechnical competence.Children, adults assume,are curious and fearlessbeings who automaticallydevelopskills throughexperimentalplayasthesethree parents describe:

If somethingnew comesout, obviously kids are first to know about it (Station Road).

MR LAW:

It comesautomaticallyto them, they're not frightened of it (Highfields).

MRS LEIGHTON:

Kids aren't [frightenedof it] by their very nature,they'll just dig in and experiment(Highfields).

MR BAINES:

Adults, however,are not assumedto sharetheseskills. This is evidentin Mr Wilcox's explanationof his son's superior computer skills. His son, he explains,is good with computersbecausehe hasgrown up with them; however, thereis no sensein which the time Mr Wilcox hasspentsurroundedby computersas an adult shouldlead to the same'automatic'skill development:

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Chris has actually been brought up with them from, from young, so that'swhy he's alright with it now, you know. But we've just, I mean,I still shied away from them even, even though they've beenin the house(Station Road).

MR WILCOX:

For most of these parents,their children's technologicalproficiency is a sourceof great pride. They appreciatetheir child's skill both as an abstract achievement,and becauseas we describedin Chapter2, they assumethat it will be important in their children's future. We have a sense,then, of how homes are spaceswhere 'communitiesof practice' that are very positive about children'stechnicalskills develop. On an everydaybasis,however,it can leave a competencedivide within households-a computerchasmto use Maney's (1997) terminology - as some parentsare unable or unwilling to sharetheir children'sinterest: But I think in, in those of us who are sort of over 40, it's just unknownterritory to us, urn, dependingon, I mean,obviously some adults,older people,I mean,go work in offices wherethey, they seestuff or use it. But I think for the, the vast majority of us, it's absolutely unknownterritory (Highfields).

MRS STEVENSON:

Baz goes into too much detail, what programmeshe's using, completelylosesyou and ... READ: And just loosesyou. And so you just switch off and just let him rabbit on like ... and then say, 'Oh right, Baz.' (Station Road).

MRS READ: MR

Mum doesn'treally like the computerand so I don't normally talk to her about that. Other things though. Mum doesn't normally like me talking about computersor anything in front of her (Highfields).

CHARLES STEVENSON:

More often, however,parentsdraw on their children'stechnologicalcompetenceto their own advantage,for example,by askingchildren to undertake particular tasks for them or to provide supportfor their own learning. As Sibley (1995) reminds us, however,the family is a locus of power relations and such 'role reversal' situationswhere children help teach their parents, rather than learn from them, can involve reinterpretationsof 'traditional' power relationswithin the household. Children ... do know a lot more about the Internet and different things like that than adults do at the moment.Even thoughit's the adults that designmost of the things that go on the Internet. [Later he returnsto the sametheme] DARREN BROWN: I was just showinghim [his Dad] just someof the basicsDARREN BROWN:

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I was showing him like the encyclopediaand how you basically use it, like searchfor anythingyou wantedand I was showinghim someof the screensaversI've got - he was quite impressedwith them. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: How do you feel about kind of knowing something- you obviously know quite a lot more about computersthan your Dad, say, how doesthat make you feel? [Edit] DARREN BROWN: I suppose,it makes you feel a little bit, erm, older in a way - more experienced- more like an adult really (Westport). Somechildren clearly enjoy their position of power as knowledgeholder, and usethis to teasetheir parents.This is particularly the casewhereparentsare unable to admit they need the child's help. SistersRachel and Helen Oats describetheir father'sstruggles: Well, he doesn't[ask for help], often he hasa big panic attack, and he has a big stressand he says 'Urr, can't do it. Stupid computer', and then you say, 'It's only as stupid as you are', and then he says,'Oh shut up' and things like this and then he doesn't,he won't ask for help straightaway like if he can't do it, he'll, you know ... HELEN OATS: He'll kind of sit there going ... RACHEL OATS: ..• he'll progressuntil he just can't go any further and then he'll say, 'I needsomehelp', and you go, 'Pardon?'and he says,'Help.' 'What was that?' [laughs] and makehim feel really guilty and really bad and he'll just go ... HELEN OATS: And then he's there going, 'Help me!' RACHEL OATS: 'I needsomehelp.' 'Oh help.' HELEN OArS: And you kinda go, 'Well, if you pressthat', ... and he's like 'I knew that. I was just testing you.' It's like, 'Yeah, right' [in a disbelieving tone of voice] (Highfields). RACHEL OATS:

Papert(1997) seeksto cautionchildren againstsuch an approach,and it is clear that other children are more sympatheticin thesecircumstancesand underplay their own competencein order to help their parentsmore discreetly, as FrancescaLeighton explains: You kind of haveto do it surreptitiously,like pretend, you just go 'Oh well, what would happenif you did that?' when you know exactly what would happenif you did that! (Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

In somecases,parentsseekmore structuredhelp from their children, asking them to introduce them to new applications rather than simply troubleshootingproblemsthat occur in everydayuse. In this way, children are

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helping their parents respond to the changing demandsof the labour market, thus improving the overall socio-economicposition of the household. Such help was more often given to mothersthan fathers, though in somehouseholdsmen were also benefitingfrom their children'stechnological skills. For example,Anthony Harvey who attendsStationRoadschool has beenteachinghis father how to usethe word-processing,desktoppubpackagesthat his father needsto know how to use lishing and spreadsheet for work: I usedto work for the Council, but we havebeencontractedout so I now work for a companycalled CTD. And computersare pretty important to us. But the training we have, actually had from the Council, has been terrible. So Anthony has spent that much time on computersthat he can teachme things I needto know. I mean,someof the applicationshe doesn'tknow how to apply them to the job. But basic computerwork he can teach me. And I am supposedto do so many lessonswith him every week (Station Road).

MR HARVEY:

These occasionscan be both beneficial and frustrating for both parties. Children are often irritated at their parents'slownessto pick things up, but this is combinedwith a senseof superiority and pleasurein the power that they hold over them, as Anthony Harvey describes: I tend to show off about it really ... that I know more than them 'cause- well - well, sometimes-I don't know, I just - you know, it just tendsto be like if they needany help it tendsto be me they cometo (Station Road).

ANTHONY HARVEY:

Parents,while sometimescritical of their children'spoor teachingskills, feeling that the trial and error learningprocesshasnot equippedthem with the overview and patiencenecessaryto teach,are neverthelessgenerallygrateful for the help they receive.This is both in termsof the improvementthey experiencein their own skill levels and the tasksthat children undertakeon their behalf, suchas typing up letters and searchingthe Web for information. For Mrs Newton, the help that her children provide is a sign of their growing competenceand maturity: I'm very into the fact that as soon as they can start 'giving back', they do [laughs]. Yes, they can't do anything themselves[when they are born], you teach them well and they will then teach you (Highfields).

MRS NEWTON:

Similarly, Mr Akram in askinghis son for technicalassistancesaw a change in their relationship.He describeshow he cannotgive ordersto his son like

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a 'sergeantmajor' in the sameway that he seesother fathersissuecommands to their children, becausehis son might refuseto give him the technicalsupport upon which he depends.Instead,he regardsnegotiatingthis help as an opportunityto maintaina good, if subtly different, relationshipwith his son. One that is predicatedon mutual respectratherthan on an adultist assumption that as the father he is automatically more knowledgeableand in control: You're maintaininga good relationshipbetweenyourselves- it may not be a father and son relationship, but it may be a friend to friend relationship, in order for, to get that work done. [Edit] But I don't mind beingtaughtby somebodyyoungerthan me becauseI mean, I respecthim all the more for it (Highfields).

MR AKRAM:

Nevertheless,though many children do have greatertechnical competence than their parentsthis is not always the case,belying the myth that 'adults are toast' (Maney 1997: 1) and that children are 'the Net generation' (Tapscott1998: 1). In somefamilies, parents'and children'scompetenciesare in different fields, allowing for the possibility of knowledge sharing that has echoesof Papert's(1997) recommendationsfor a positive family learning culture: I mean,David was teachingme how to cut and pastestuff off the Internet.I showhim how to turn a table into a graph,different kinds of graphs(Highfields).

MR GOULD:

Equally, some children have helped to develop their parents'skills to the degreethat their parentshavenow becomeable to offer help in return: I help Dad with, like, his quotes.He'll say, like, you know, 'How do I get [this in the centre] - 'cos he is still a bit like funny with how do you get this in the centreor this, you know, 'I want this down a bit' and that'swhat I help him with mainly. [She continueslater] But he's got better now so I don't have to show him so much, and sometimesit like, it's quite bad when he ... has to show me stuff, and that feels like, you know, I've beendoing this longer than you! So he's picked up a lot of stuff and he's quite good now (Westport).

LUCY THOMAS:

In othercases,parents'competenciesfar exceedthoseof their children, and this is particularlythe casewhereparentshavejobs involving significant useof leT. Given the monetaryrewardsassociatedwith high-level leT skills in Britain, thesehouseholdsare all middle class.The parentsare also keenfor their children to developtechnicalcompetenceso that they too can usecomputersas a future work tool evenif they do not want to go into dedicatedleT work. To

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this end they provide themwith ICT supportat the home (seeChapter2 for a commentaryon the importanceof thesedomesticcultures of support). For example,Mr Robinsondescribeshimself as working at the 'bleedingedge'of ICT innovation,andencourageshis childrento developtheir skills. He hasprovided them with computersfrom a pre-schoolage, bought them educational gamesand continuesto provide them with technicalsupportwhererequired. His practicesare important not only in the home, but in the ways that they shapehis daughter'srelation to technologyat school.As we sawin Chapter3, Chloe Robinson'sevident technicalability is beginningto challengethe idea held by many of her peersthat computersare simply boys' toys. In doing so, Mr Robinson is encouraginghis children to develop economicallyvaluable skills, and is thus reproducingthem as future membersof the middle class (Holloway and Valentine,2001a;seealso Chapter2).

Trust and trouble-makers: questions of children's emotional competence Children'stechnicalskills are not, however,the only skills at issuein these domesticcommunitiesof practice. Equally important to many parentsare questionsaboutchildren'semotionalcompetenceor vulnerability, and their ability to deal with the 'risks' of corruptionor abusethat, as we outlined earlier (seeChapter1), are sometimesassociatedwith children'suse of ICT. Thoseparentswho are highly computercompetentrarely take the panics about children's use of ICT seriously. Mr Robinson,discussedabove, was perhapsthe most vociferousin counteringthe idea that the useof technology brings 'new' dangersfor children. His argumentis basedon a banal rather than an exoticisedunderstandingof technology.Ratherthan imagining online space to be a new realm that threatensto provide a gateway for dangerousstrangersand pornographyto pollute the home,he constructsonline and off-line spacesin the sameterms.For example,he recognisesthat his children are just as able to access printed pornography in the local newsagentsas they are by downloadingit from the Internet. He is also dismissive of fears that spendingtime on-line isolateschildren from the 'real' world and turns them into 'zombies'. Fears about on-line dangersin his mind are media hype: There'speoplethat've workedall their lives with computers and they'renot sort of, you know, zombie,you know. They'reperfectly capableof holding a conversationwith you, and I think that kind of view [of the threatscomputersposeto children] tendsto be, comefrom a sort of, you know what, I call it the gutter [press] element,doesn'tit? I meanit comes,it comesfrom the typical Sun [a tabloid newspaperwith a reputationfor sensationalstories] readerwho is looking for another one-linerto latch onto. So it's rubbish (Highfields).

MR ROBINSON:

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83

Otherparentsare lessquick to rejectpopularfears aboutchildren'suseof the Internet out of hand, acceptingthat there are dangerson-line. However, while they recognisethat children as a whole may be at risk, they arguethat their own offspring will not come to any harm becausethey have the emotional competenceto deal with what they might encounteron-line. In terms of pornographythis understandingof children'scompetenceis playedout in two ways (Holloway and Valentine2001a).On the one hand,someparents regard their children as mature and emotionally competentenoughnot to want to access,or take any opportunitiesthat they might haveto accessinappropriatematerial.Mrs Stevenson,for example,who lacks confidencewhen it comesto her own computeruse,truststhat her son will not accesspornographicimagesbecausehe knows that his parentswould disapprove.In this instance,her trust in her son seemsto be well founded,becausein a separate interview he describedhow he 'nuked' (crashed)the computerof someone who was offering porn in a chatroom that he visits. Mrs Stevenson's approachis also sharedby Mrs Jackson.As the quote from her daughter Teresa(which follows Mrs Jackson'swords) testifies, this trust is respected becauseof the high regardin which Teresaholds her parentsand becauseshe acknowledgestheir statusas adults. Well, we have this thing where we try and say to her, it's a two-way thing. We needto give you enoughresponsibilityand you must showus that we can trust you so if you want us to, you know, let you do more, then you haveto keepwithin thoseboundariesthat we've set for you (Westport).

MRS JACKSON:

I have, have a lot of laws set down and I daren't break them. I have a lot of respectfor my parentsand they said I'm allowed, that I havea certaintime to be back- I'm alwaysback by that time. [Edit] I love Mike [her step-father]andI havea lot of respectfor him. I love my Mum and I have a lot of respectfor her and I know they are a lot wiser than me, they've beenon this planet a lot longer than I have and I just havea lot of respectfor them and I think it's, it's wrong all thesekids that back chat their parents,that break the rules that are set down and you, you know. One, I know I'm gonnabe in a lot of trouble if I do break,and two, it's just respect(Westport).

TERESA JACKSON:

On the other hand,someparentsrecognisethat their childrenwill encounter unsuitablematerial on-line but believe that their offspring have the emotional competenceto cope with the images that they might find and are sensibleenoughnot to get drawn into anything serious.Indeed,someeven suggestthat a little experimentationis 'natural'for teenageboys. Mr Thyme explains:

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I mean,to be quite honest,we don't watch them, we trust them, I mean- and we can go into the history folder [a file on the PC which records all the sites accessed]and see where they've been anyway. So well, I mean they're clever enoughto know how to delete that if they wantedto anyway so you probablycan't win. But I meanit's all about trust, isn't it [Edit]. I mean,I think the worst thing that Andy and his mateshave downloadedis somePamelaAndersonpictures,so, I mean, that's 13-year-oldboys for you, isn't it? I mean,we've all beenthere. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: It's trust and a broaderpicture as well. MR THYME: That'sright and, to be honest,I think we're quite lucky in the fact that our children are quite sensibleyou know. I mean, Lorna is old enoughnow to know about things like that but I mean she'ssensible enoughnot to worry aboutthem, not to want to get involved with it, I think -I hope. That's all you can do, isn't it, with children, let's be honest... you can guide your children as much as you want but you can only hope that they'll turn out like you want them to (Westport).

MR THYME:

Such perceptionsof trust are facilitated for some parentsby their understandingof on-line spaceas less 'real' than off-line space.As Mr and Mrs Stevensonexplain below, this is becausetheir son Charlesis spatially distancedfrom strangersthat he might talk to ('they are not in your house')and becausedisembodiedsocial relationshipsare somehowless authenticthan face-to-faceencounters('they are not real people').They also appearto conceptualiseviolence as a physical act, somethingthat's done body-to-body ('there'sno physical interactionover a machine'),rather than an emotional act that might be done mind-to-mind. I haven'tcome acrossit yet [my child talking to strangers via email or chat functions], of course,but I haven'tgot a problemwith it. 'Cos, like I say, at the end of the day it's somebodyon the end of a phoneline, they'renot in your house,they'renot invading your privacy. There'sno physicalinteractionover a machineso, at the end of the day, I haven'tgot a problemwith it. MR STEVENSON: I don't think I'd haveany worries aboutthat because,when all is said and done,they'renot, they'renot real people.It's all very well chatting, I mean he does it at school. [Edit, continueslater] And then again,Charlesis old enough-I think he could probablytell if questions were leadingthe wrong way and also it's not as if he would actually meet anyonelike that. MRS STEVENSON: Yeah. You've got far more danger,I think, answeringan advert in the local paper,you know, and the lonely heartscolumn or whatever(Highfields).

MRS STEVENSON:

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85

Indeed, for some the Internet PC actually emergesas a tool that can both protectthe 'innocentchild' and 'the dangerouschild' from potentialsources of harm in outdoor public space.By keeping children indoors to use the screen,the computerprotectsvulnerablechildren from embodiedassault, and keepschildren whoseimmaturity and lack of trustworthinessmeanthat they get into trouble on the streets,out of temptation(we return to the relationship betweenon-line and off-line spaceand indoor and outdoorspacein Chapter5). Ms Lake explainsthe role that the homePC plays in keepingher sonsout of trouble: I think to meself, yeah, in one sense,they're there [at home using the PC], they're not on the streets,they're indoors. They're not causing problems on the streets,they're not. I haven't got the police coming round the door thinking 'your son'sdonethis, your son'sdonethat'. At least they're indoors and they're keeping out of trouble. If they're indoors they're on the computer, yeah, fine. I don't worry so much. .. (Westport).

MS LAKE:

As Ms Lake'scommentsuggests,not all parentssharethe ability to trust their offspring enjoyedby Mrs Stevensonand Mr Thyme who were quotedearlier. However,while Ms Lake is lessfearful abouther children'son-line activities than their off-line activities, for other parentstheir lack of trust of their offspring spills over from the off-line world to the on-line world. Tim Simpkin explainsthe reasonwhy his father will not let him usethe PC unsupervised: I think he's a little distrustful at the moment. I were in some trouble with the law in Year 8. INTERVIEWER: Oh right. What kind of trouble? TIM SIMPKIN: I got arrestedfor shoplifting, and that put his trust right up his head,you know. Won't let me go out at all for abouta year. And he'sstill a bit wary I think from that (StationRoad). TIM SIMPKIN:

The anxieties of some parents about what their children might do, or encounteron-line, are exacerbatedby their own lack of ICT skills which mean that they neitherknow, in the words of Mr Price, 'wherethey go' or 'what is out there'.As such,the fears this group articulatemostoften echothoseraised in the media.Having little technicalknowledge,the Internetemergesfor these parentsas a potentially dangeroustechnologythat is out of their control. I mean,like with the TV, you can go and turn it off or I can take the TV out of the room or whateverso there'sa certain amountof control. I think with that, that would worry me slightly becauseI think with that [the Internet which they don't have] your control is maybe gone a little. It would be harderto control maybe (Westport).

MRS JACKSON:

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On-line dangers: competence and risk

You've the files on like casesin America, aren'tthere,wherethey've gone to meet somebodyand it's endedup being a bloke or something like that. It'd happenturn out to be a kid [if my children went to meet someone]but like you don't know (Station Road).

MR LAW:

I've also heardthat young kids now are very, very streetwise,they can go throughone programmeonto the adult version,shall we say, and I'm a little bit reluctant,althoughSohail has mentionedthat he would like to join the Internet and I have made initial enquiry that it doesn't cost all that much. But it's just the amount of information he'll be exposedto which I feel a little bit will be detrimental at this stage (Highfields).

MRAKRAM:

In Mrs Jackson's,Mr Law's and Mr Akram's cases,their fears are sufficient to stop them signing up with an Internetprovider. It is only by refusingto go on-line that they feel they can protecttheir children from a new set of risks that would otherwiseinvade the home: a spacethat wider social discourses suggestoughtto be a havenof safetyfor their children,protectingthem from the dangersof the outsideworld (Holloway and Valentine2000a;Valentine and Holloway 2001a). Papert(1997: 7) arguesthat this group need a 'Dr Spockfor the computergeneration',a manualwhich would explain how to raisetheir children in the 'digital age' (seeFigure 4.1). This needis something

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On-line dangers:competenceand risk

87

the UK Government,which as we discussedin Chapter2 is keento encourage the developmentof ICT skills, plans to meetthroughthe productionof a new guide for parents(Smithers1999). It is evidentfrom the rangeof attitudesand practicesdiscussedin this section that parentsdo not sharethe unanimity of view on children'semotional ability to managethe potentialor imagineddangerson-line that were in evidencewhen they discussedthe benefitsof technicalskills. For someparents the Internet-connectedPC emergesas a potential gateway to harm. For others,children are creditedwith the emotionalcompetenceto deal with any potentialdangers.For anothergroup still, on-line and off-line environments are not imaginedin binary terms leading parentsto reject the terms of this debatealtogether.The diversity of the ways that ICT emergesfor parents within our study highlights someparents'complicity with, and others'rejection of, binary understandingsof children as little angels (Apollonian) or little devils (Dionysian).It also demonstratesthat the Internet-connected PC doesnot have any inevitableimpact on children within families. Rather,the meaningsof ICT are negotiatedas children, parentsand technologycome together in markedly different householdformations or communitiesof practice(seealso Chapter5). Notably, as our diverseexamplesdemonstrate, while parents'understandingsof the children's technologicalcompetence can shapesocial relations in the family (especiallythe adult-child relationship/boundary),the children's social competencealso shapesthe way, and extent, to which their technologicalcompetenceis allowed to develop. In other words, social and technologicalcompetenciesco-develop.We pursue these points further in the following section where we explore parents' attemptsto control and restrict their children'son-line activities.

Negotiating on-line temporal and spatial boundaries Temporalrestrictionsare one meansthroughwhich someparentslimit their children'splay in off-line public space(Christensenet al. 2000). Both parents who regardICT as a potential sourceof dangerand thosewho understand it to be a refuge from the dangersand temptationsof outdoor public space employ similar methodsto control their children's virtual activities. These take the form of limits on the length of time children are allowed to be online or using a screen,insisting on being informed of where children are going in cyberspace,and establishinga time by which machinesmust be switchedoff. Thesetime-spaceboundariesare also supplementedby domestic geographiesof surveillancethat againbearstriking similarities with some of the tactics that parentsuse to control their children'sindependentuse of outdoor space.For example, in some homes computersare deliberately locatedin a particularroom to enablethe parentsto maintaina Foucauldian gaze over the children's use of the Internet (a point that we return to in

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Chapter5). Some parentseven go so far as directly supervisethe Internet sites where their children visit. These range of supervisory tactics are describedin the following quotations: Dad's not the strictestpersonin the world but he doestry and make, set rules that I have to follow. INTERVIEWER: How doesthat work, can you give me an example? DARREN BROWN: Well, usually I'm not allowed on the computermore than a couple of hours a night, I usually do what he says(Westport). DARREN BROWN:

During the weekdaysI'm not allowed to watch TV and play computer games or anything after ten o'clock. But then at the weekendsthey don't mind so much. But I think that, that,the rules any screensafter 10 o'clock. 'Cos if I'm still doing work they'll say 'you've got to stop now' (Highfields).

CHARLES STEVENSON:

Yeah, sometimesDad is - he's not you know - if I say I'm gonnago on a page,then he trustsme and lets me go on the page.Like, say I wanna go on a chat page,he saysall right, and I show him what I'm going on first and then he just goes- but most of the time he'sthere sitting, you know, and then I get off and Dad has a go and I just watch him as well (Westport).

MARTIN JONES:

While parents'temporaland spatialtacticsto control children'sactivities in cyberspacebearsomesimilarities with the practicesthat they adoptin public space,they are also constitutedsomewhatdifferently becauseof the way that ICT emergesin the context of their specific householdand parent-child relationships.Notably, technologyitself offers possibilitiesfor policing children's activities. As Ackrich (1997: 205, 206) points out: technical objects 'simultaneouslyembodyand measurea set of relationshipsbetweenheterogeneouselements',in other words, 'technicalobjectscan constrainactantsin the way they relate both to the object and one another'.For example,filter systems,such as the one advertisedin Figure 4.2 can restrict accessto particular websites,computerisedrecordsof the websitesthat have beenvisited can map children's on-line geographiesand the telephonebill can uncover irregularitiesin, or excessiveuseof, the Internet.In this way, the technology itself can establishnorms and exposethosewho transgressthem (Valentine and Holloway 2001a).Parentalrules aboutchildren'suse of the Internetare not just social but are also technicalas thesequotationsdemonstrate: Oh yeah,I had a look at the porn sitesmyself and, er, but there is a history [a computerrecord of the sites accessed].I can if I want to put a block on it but I wouldn't do that unlessI saw evidencethat you know, if Petelooked at somethingonce just out of curiosity then I'd let

MR GROVES:

On-line dangers: compet ence and risk

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Figure 4.2 'Net nanny' filter systemsprovide one curb on chllden's on-line excesses.

it go like that but if the history file [on the PC] showedthat he was doing it all the time I'd put a block on it. I tend not to try and accessthe history file tOO much, once in a blue moon juSt to double check, but you know there's gotta be somesort of trust I think, but then again you've gotta balancethe responsibilitiesof parent.It's a bit, you know, yeah,I do check the history file occasionallyto make sure he's not doing anything stupid and from what 1 seeit's the normal sort of BMX bikes and mountainbikes you know the usual ... (Westport). MRS GRAYSON: But they know that when the [telephone]bill comesthrough. IN TERVIEWER: Then you, they'll be found out [local call s in the UK are not

free].

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Yeah, they will be found out and we're not likely to say to them 'oh well, you pay for this, this and this', but we will say, 'well, that's it, you've had your chance'. MR GRAYSON: I'll disconnectit [the PC from the Internet] 'cos I don't make much use of it. MRS GRAYSON: You've abusedit and we don't needit, it's not a servicethat we needso you're not gonnabe able to have it (Highfields). MRS GRAYSON:

In the processICT can also allocate parenting roles and responsibilities within the household.As Pringle (1989) points out, men and women (andwe might add parents and children) are not automatically and passively inscribedinto existing power relations. Rather,to take the exampleof the PC, genderrelationsand adult-child relationsmust be negotiated,accepted, createdand recreatedas part of the processof the organisationand incorporationof the technologywithin the home. For example,in severalhomes wherethe father usescomputerslInternetat work and considershimself to be technologicallycompetentand the motherdefinesherselfas technologically incompetentor technophobic,the children are not allowed to use the Internet-connected PC when their father is not at home. In this way, differential levels of technologicalcompetencecan define the parentingroles of mother and father and their individual relationshipswith their children. In otherwords, Internet-connected PCs and peopleare broughtinto being in a processof reciprocal definition (Ackrich 1997) in which the technologyis defined by parents'social rules about its use, while the parents'policing strategiesand own roles are definedby the technology.Mr and Mrs Simpkin explain their householdrules and roles: Tim ... don't go on it if his Dad'snot here. He's not allowed on it unlessI'm actually in the house. INTERVIEWER: Right. MR SIMPKIN: No. If I'm at work he's not allowed to use it unless he's had pnor permlsslOn. INTERVIEWER: Right. MR SIMPKIN: But it's got to be importantfor schoolwork, he'snot allowed to use it for chatting on Internet or 'owt [anything] like that, he knows that - he wouldn't do 'owt [anything] like that. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: SO why is that, why do you like to be in the housewhen he's using it? MRS SIMPKIN: 'Cos he's liable to messabout [as Tim explainedearlier in this chapter,his parentsdo not trust him becausehe has beenin trouble for shop-lifting]. INTERVIEWER: Right. [Edit] MRS SIMPKIN:

MR SIMPKIN:

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But if Tim goes on it whilst his Dad's out but I'm in, I don't know what he's doing [becauseshe doesnot know how to use a PC or surf the Net]. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. MRS SIMPKIN: SO he could be messingabout for all I know (Station Road). MRS SIMPKIN:

DespiteMr and Mrs Simpkin's efforts Tim still managesto dodgehis parents' attemptsto control his on-line activities. He has several different strategiesfor doing so. The most subtle is to exploit differencesin his mother'sand his father'sapproachto parenting.Echoingotherresearchthat has shown that mothers tend to apply a more flexible interpretationof householdrules than fathers,who are usually the disciplinarians(Valentine 1997a,1999c),Tim enlists his mother'ssupportto (re)negotiatehis cyberboundarieswith his father. When thesesort of tactics fail he adoptsa more straightforwardapproach,waiting until his parentsare out of the houseto go on the PC, using his technologicalcompetenceto cover his cyber-tracks: Me Mum's alright. Me Mum's easy.She'salright. I can usually get around her. Sweettalking and charm and all. Me Dad's a little bit more hard, like you know, puts his foot down. So usually I try and get me Mum to talk him round. [Later the interviewerasks] INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Do you ever sneakon it behindhis back? [Edit] TIM SIMPKIN: Well, on like school holidays and me Dad's on afternoons[his father works shifts] and Mum's working, sometimesI'll sneakon [the Internet-connectedPC] and put a game on. I make sure to cover me tracks. INTERVIEWER: How do you do that then? TIM SIMPKIN: Well, if I've viewedany text things they show up on documenton the Start menu bar, so you deletethat. And one time it was pretty close. They both went out -a night job, and all of a suddenI heardthis car and I went, oh my God! I had this CD on this gameandI turnedit off straightawaywith the CD in andI thought,oh well. And I satdown [hums] - the TV's not on! Turnedthe TV on ... Whoosh! [as the CD comesout of the PC]. And they just camein and I went, 'Hi!' (StationRoad). TIM SIMPKIN:

As Tim's story demonstrates,althoughchildren'sposition is weak relative to that of adults, children do not passivelyabide by parental rules (Solberg 1990). Ratherthey often resist, opposeand find gapsin adult restrictions. Geographicalstudies (Katz 1991; Valentine 1997b; Breitbart 1998) have drawn attentionto young people'sability to subvertand resistthe production of public spaceand rules surroundingits use. This work particularly highlights young people'sability to win extensionsto the spatial restrictions

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imposedon them by their parentsand their successat resistingadult-oriented urbanspacethroughneighbourhoodenvironmentalactivism. Similar struggles over parentalrules take place within the home in relation to the use of ICT. FrancescaLeighton and Andrew Noble describesomeof the methods that they employ to get round restrictionsabout when, and for how long they can use computers: And do you have any ways of getting round your parents' restrictions? FRANCESCA LEIGHTON: Well just staying on and not telling them usually. I meanthey don't have an itemisedbill or anything ... They just get the bill and becauseit's a fax modem,you know, my Dad usesthe phoneon it for work so they can't tell [whether call times relate to his use or Francesca's],they haven'ta clue (Highfields).

INTERVIEWER:

She [his mother] only tells me off if shehearsme. I haveto be very quiet, 'cos she's like, she'sa very very light sleeperand I haveto like type the keyboardreally lightly like that [gesturing,to indicate he tries not to makea noise]. And I just haveto make sureI don't wake her up ... (Highfields).

ANDREW NOBLE:

Children not only duck and dive in order to useavoid time restrictionson the useof ICT, they also go to sitesthat are forbidden. Andrew Noble and Andy Gardenerdescribewebpageswherethey have been: I had one thing. It's called the Anarchist'sCook Book, it's basically just, just a text plan, haven'tgot it anymore.I just got to see what was in it. All sorts how to make things, don't know if you know what it is called,thermite [??], things like just that, you can burn through steel and stuff. INTERVIEWER: Oh God, soundslethal. ANDREW NOBLE: Yeah, doesthings like that. You have to try and like make really good smoke bombs, that sort of thing. Nothing that bad. Well, there is if you look for it but you can look for how to make dynamite equipment,explosivesand stuff if you wanted(Highfields). ANDREW NOBLE:

INTERVIEWER:

Have you ever beenon pageswhere you are not meantto be

on? [laughs] Yeah. What's that, what sort of things? ANDY GARDENER: [laughs] INTERVIEWER: Don't worry, you're not going to ... ANDY GARDENER: I've beenon porno ones[in very embarrassed laugh]. INTERVIEWER: What at your friend's house? ANDY GARDENER: INTERVIEWER:

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Yeah. Is it easyto find? ANDY GARDENER: Well, it is quite hard, 'cos it keepssaying'are you 18?' ... INTERVIEWER: And how do you feel when you're on it? ANDY GARDENER: Well, it's a laugh really (Westport). ANDY GARDENER: INTERVIEWER:

This behaviouris very gendered.Many of the boys brag about seekingout unsuitablewebsites(especiallypornography).As we describedin Chapter3, using the technologyin this way is for someboys an importantway of negotiating their masculinity within the heterosexualeconomy of peer group social relations (Holloway et ai. 2000). No girls admitted to using the Internetto accessinappropriatematerial. Rather,they describetheir brothers' and their male peers'on-line activities either as 'natural' (as indeedMr Thyme did above)or as evidenceof their immaturity. Instead,girls are most likely to break parentalrules by talking to strangers,reflecting their preferencefor using computertechnologiesfor communication(seeChapter3). Girls - thoughfew of the boys - recognisethe needto be alert to potential stranger-dangers in cyberspace.Yet, while acknowledgingthe possibility that they might encounterwhat they frequentlycharacteriseas 'dirty old men' online, the girls also arguethat they are not at risk becausethey are competent and matureenoughto take sensibleprecautionswhen talking to strangers(a view sharedby someof the parentscited above).The girls havea strongsense of invulnerability which researchin psychology suggestsis a product of having a senseof control or self-efficacy (Perloff 1983). Here, the girls often draw on eachother for support.Indeed,severalchildren appearto conceal potentially 'dangerous'experiencesfrom their parentsin order to maintain their parents'innocenceand protectthem from worry. Thesetactics of nondisclosuremight also be underlainby an awarenessthat parentsmight impose tighter restrictions on their on-line activities if they realised the extent of their daughters'on-line/off-line encounters.Thesegirls describetheir ability to managetheir own safety.While HannahCampbelland her friends explainthe sort of precautionsit is sensibleto adoptin cyberspace,CarolineMason and her friends outline their role in protectinganotherfriend, Jenny,who wanted to meet an on-line acquaintanceface-to-face, and FrancescaLeighton describesher self-efficacyat handlingunwantedon-line attention. I mean,you don't know who you could be talking to, you could be talking to a rapist or anything like that and you wouldn't know and if you met him then you would be putting yourselfat risk. It's all right to talk to him on the thingy [the Internet] and on the phone. LOTTY KENNISON: Just don't tell him anything personal. JULIE JAMES: Yeah. LOTTY KENNISON: Don't tell him the address or anything like that (Highfields). HANNAH CAMPBELL:

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Jenny... she,shemet someoneon the chat line and she met them in Portsmouthnot long ago. INTERVIEWER: Is that right? CATHERINE MASON: And she startedgoing out with him. REBECCA STILES: He's really funny. LUCY HOPWELL: We all went [the first time shemet him] in casehe was a mass murdereror something.We'd thoughtwe'd all bettergo and scarehim. CATHERINE MASON: SO we all went and met him. INTERVIEWER: And he was alright, he was who he said he was? LUCY HOPWELL: Oh yeah, he was a normal person,not strange. INTERVIEWER: He lived in, he was at school at Portsmouth? CATHERINE MASON: No, he lives in Norwich but he was like stayingwith his matesin Portsmouth(Westport). CATHERINE MASON:

Yeah it's worse [than going into an off-line bar or pub], it's worse, 'cos people just go for it. I mean, that's what they've goneon therefor, somepeopleyou know, the kind of peoplewho go on porno pagesand stuff, sometimesthey think, oh well, I'll go in the chat room and seeif I can pick someoneup and they, they'll like come onto you and stuff and say a load of rubbish. But I mean,normally if you tell them to go away they do and then that's it (Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

As we outlined above,someparentsrepresenton-line and off-line spaceas two distinct worlds. Here, the off-line world - particularly the home - is imaginedto be a spaceof childhood innocencewhere children are assumed not to have accessto pornographyor other forms of sexual knowledge. Indeed,sexualityis constructedas an adult and potentially dangerousactivity and thereforeas the anthesisof childhooditself (Jacksonand Scott 1999). Rather,materialssuch as pornographyare imaginedto be containedwithin virtual space.This is a world that somecommentatorsand parents(though not all as we explainedabove)believethreatensto contaminatethe so-called 'real world' by invading and polluting the homewith sexuallyexplicit images and 'dangerousinformation'. However,it is an imagining of both 'childhood' and on-line and off-line spacewhich children themselvesregardas naIve and misplaced. As the quotes below illustrate, several children challenged parentalassumptionsabouttheir innocence,pointing out that they are sexually well informed. Ratherthan assumingan artificial distinction between the corruptionof on-line spaceand the sanctuaryof the home,thesechildren argue that there is nothing available on-line that they have not found in pornographicmagazines,seen on television or videos or heard discussed within their own peergroups.Justas someparentsdescribetheir children as naIve and in needof protectionfrom the adult world, many children use a similar languageof nalviety to describeadults. They are dismissiveof their parents'lack of recognitionof their own sexualknowledgeand the extentto

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which sexually explicit material is part of their off-line as well as on-line worlds. JONATHON CARLOW:

yeah ...

I mean at our age you've probably seen everything

Uhm, so it's not so ... In scienceand there'sfilms like Basic Instinct just watch em, just learn. INTERVIEWER: SO it's no challengeto go out and find it? ALL: No. DAN ABRAMS: I mean,your parentscan't and the schoolcan'treally keep you undertheir wing all the time. You just go round your matesand they've got Sky TV and you just watch porn ... [Edit] JONATHON CARLOW: You seea lot of it on TV now anyway (Westport). INTERVIEWER: DAN ABRAMS:

I think when you're with your friends, say [addressingher brother], I think and like, they're,if they go to a pagethat'snot actually that good [referring to pageswith unsuitablematerial] ... they [her brotherand his friends] could get that from other sourcesanyway,it isn't exactly like that's the only placeyou can get it (Westport).

JUSTINE LONG:

In other words, as the examplesin this section demonstrate,children are often actually more knowledgeableand competentat managingtheir own lives (in particularpotentially dangeroussituations)than they are assumedto be by some adults. The so-calledhallmarks of adulthood: maturity, rationality, social competence,knowledgeand so on are just as readily performed by a child as a grown-up. Likewise, adults can sometimesdemonstrate naivety,gullibility and other lessreasonedresponsesthat are usually ascribed to children. Emotional and social competenceis not therefore a stable perforattribute of a particularage but rather is a fluid, context-dependent mancethat can be stagedby children and adults alike (Valentine 1997b). In the conclusionto this chapterwe draw togetherthe discussionof adults' and children'snegotiationsof competence,risks and boundariesto evaluate the boosters'and debunkers'discoursesthat we outlined in the introduction.

Challenging boosterist and debunkers' discourses Currentpopularand policy debatestend to portray children'srelation with ICT in either highly positive or very negative terms. Both these mirrorimaged interpretationsare problematic, resting as they do on essentialist ideasabout children, and overt technologicaldeterminism(seeChapter1). Drawing insteadon work within the new social studiesof childhood(Prout and James1990; Brannen and O'Brien 1995; Jameset al. 1998), and

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researchin the sociology of scienceand technology (Law 1994; Wenger 1998),we have soughtin this chapterto examinewhat happenswhen children, parents and computerscome together in diverse communities of practice.Specifically focusingon the homeenvironment,we havetracedthe spatiality of children'sperformancesof ICT competence,and the way other children and adults influence and respond to these performances.In so doing, our aim has been both to highlight the different ways that children perform competencein this socio-spatialenvironment,and to explore the ways in which this spaceof everydaylife is constructedthrough interconnectinggeographies(Holloway and Valentine 2000a). Our empiricalwork showsthat different communitiesof practice(Wenger 1998) developin different off-line spaces.In the home,parentsand children are generallyvery positive aboutchildren'stechnicalabilities. Thoughsocioeconomic differencesmean not all children can gain accessto ICT in the home, in householdswhere it is availableparentsencouragetheir children's technicalabilities, and children feel free to perform theseskills openly in an environmentwhere they are socially valorised.Thesepracticesrepresenta stark contrastto many children'sexperiencesof using computersin school. As we saw in Chapter3, many children draw on gendereddiscoursesabout technologyin the schoolenvironmentthat constructtechnicalcompetencein negative terms. As such, all children have to take care about the ways in which they perform their technical abilities or else risk marginalisationby their peers.The picture regardingparents'assessment of children'semotional competenceis more mixed: while someparentsreject the idea that technology brings new dangers,and others emphasisetheir children's emotional competence,a smaller minority of parentsfear for their children'ssafety in cyberspace(Holloway and Valentine 2001a; Valentine and Holloway 2001a). While at first glance moral panics about the threats posedto children's safety and innocencein outdoor public spaceappearto map neatly onto cyberspace,on closer inspection,parentalfears about off-line spaceare not completelyreplicatedin on-line space.Rather,ICT emergein different ways in different householdsdependingon differential levels of technologicaland emotionalcompetenciesbetweenhouseholdmembersand differential understandingsof technologyand conceptionsof off-line and on-line space.In this way, parents,children and Internet-connected PCsmutually enrol, constitute and order each other. When individuals and objects such as InternetconnectedPCs are broughttogetherin practice,they themselvescan undergo transformation.For example,parents'roles and responsibilities,or the extent to which a child is regardedas matureor socially competent,may be transformed by the incorporation of the PC into the home. Likewise, the propertiesof the Internet-connected PC may also be changedin interaction (e.g. from dangeroustool, to sourceof entertainment,to refereeor sourceof conflict in familial relationships).

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The varying relationshipsthat children and adultsdevelopwith technology havea very interestingconnectionto contemporarypublic and policy debates aboutchildren'suseof the Internet.As we arguedearlier, thesecontemporary discoursesare both essentialistand technologicallydeterminist,providing an unsatisfactoryunderstandingof children'srelationswith ICT. Nevertheless, we cannotsimply dismissthese'stories'about children and technologyout of hand as they continue to have considerablepower in practice, and are sometimesreworkedthroughthe everydayactivities of adults and children. Looking first at childhood, we can see that essentialistideas about children's natural technical abilities underlie many parents'understandingsof their children'sabilities in the home (it is interestingto note that children do not mobilise similar understandingsat school, and insteadconstructthemselves as a diverse social group with varied relations to technology). In contrast,some,though not all, parentsdo rework 'traditional' understandings of children'semotionalincompetence,stressingtheir ability to manage everydaydangers. Similarly, when looking at the meaningsof technologywhich emergein thesediversecommunitiesof practice,we can see both links with powerful technologically determinist discourses,as well as times and places when theseare reworked. For example,understandingsof the positive, transformative impacts ICT will have on future society underlie children's and parent'senthusiasmfor ICT skill developmentin the home. However, the same technological determinism that debunkers employ to suggest cyberspaceis an inherentlyrisky placeis rejectedby someparentswho constructtechnologyin banalways, emphasisingthe similarities betweenon-line and off-line spaces.What this analysis suggestsis, first of all, a need to deconstructthe storiessurroundingchildren'suseof technologyin public and policy discussion(Buckingham 1998; Bingham et al. 2001), and, second, empirical work that can tracethe enduringand changingpower of thesediscoursesas they are mobilised and occasionallyreworked by children and adultsin different communitiesof practice(Holloway and Valentine2001a). Finally, this chapteralso shows the need for geographicalanalysesthat explore how these communitiesof practice develop in different off-line spaces.At one level, the contrast betweenour descriptionsof children's negotiationsof technicalcompetenceat school in Chapter3 and at home in this chapterremindsus that off-line spacesmatter. While studiesof on-line socio-spatialrelations are essential(e.g. Turkle 1995; Stone 1992, seealso Chapter6), so too are analyseswhich explore off-line communitiesof practice because,to makea simple but often overlookedpoint, on-line worlds are accessedfrom off-line spaces.At anotherlevel, sucha geographicalanalysis allows us to show that these spatialisedideas and performancesare not simply rooted in particular spaces,but are constitutedthrough the sociospatial relationswhich shapethe off-line spacesof home and school. For example,the home and the school are in part shapedthrough wider

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social processes.This can be seenin the influence of ideasdisseminatedby nationalgovernmentand commercialinterests- aboutthe educationalbenefits and future economicimportanceof ICT (seeChapter2) - have on the value parentsplacedon ICT skills in the home, and in the effect socio-economic differenceshave on levels of home-PCownership.Equally, the ideas about computernerdswhich children use to teaseeachother in the school reflect the wider developmentof microcomputeruse in this country, which was initially the preserveof hobbyists (Murdock et al. 1992). Moreover, theseoff-line environmentsare also shapedby others,as individual actors move betweendifferent spaces.Somechildren, for example,use the greater ICT skills that they have developedat schoolto renegotiatepower relations within the home. At the same time, these off-line environmentsare also shaped (and reshaped)as children and adults work through ideas about the behaviour appropriatefor different social actors in different spaces.The home and schoolexperiencesof highly technicallycompetentgirls, for example,reflect the different ideasaboutgender-appropriate behaviourin thesespaces.While many girls are encouragedto developtechnicalskills at home by their parents,the regulativecodesof genderare different amongtheir peersat school, wheresuchbehaviouris seenas 'uncool'.The different performanceof technical competencethese girls manageat home and school illustrate their competenceas social actorsand their sophisticationin managingtheir own life worlds. They not only develop the ability to read and work within the social structuresof different environments,but in some casesalso deploy their agency, in understatedways, to changethese rules (Alanen 1990; Mayall, 1994). Equally important are the ways in which ideasaboutchildhood spacesshapethe meaningand use of different off-line environments. The attempts by some parents,for example, to protect their children by refusing to go on-line at home is shapedby the discursiveconstructionof home as a sanctuary. In summary,what this chaptershowsis that children'sand adults' understandingsand performancesof technicaland emotionalICT competenceare both spatialisedin themselves,and are shapedby (and reshape)the sociospatialrelationsinvolved in the productionof the different sites of everyday life. This demonstrates the importanceof studyingoff-line, as well as on-line, communitiesof practice if we want to understandchildren's use of ICT. Moreover, it makesclear that to fully grasp the dynamicsof theseoff-line communitiesof practicewe needboth to considerthe changingimportance of discoursesabout childhood and ICT within them, and to include an analysisof the socio-spatialprocessesshapingthe off-line spacesin which children and technology come together. In the next chapterwe therefore focus on the role of the PC in the family home in more detail by looking at how this object is domesticatedwithin different households.

Chapter 5

Life around the screen The place of leT in the 'family' home

As we arguedin Chapter1: [H]umans stand apart from other animal speciesnot only becauseof their upright posture,the size of their brains, their use of languageand the opposition betweenthumb and forefinger, but also becauseof the way they create,use and live with a wide variety of material objects. (Dant 1999: 1). Theseobjectswith which we shareour lives haveagency.They can makeand transformmeaningsas well as articulatinghumansubjectivity (CalIon 1991; Latour 1993). In Chapter3 we looked at someof the ways that children and computerscometogetherin the contextof the schoolto show how technology, classroompractices,pupils' identities and peer group cultures are transformingof, and transformedby, each other. Here we adopt a similar approachto explore what happenswhen children, parentsand computers come together in the context of the home. While the previous chapter focusedon how parentsand children negotiateand makesenseof children's technicaland emotionalcompetencein a domesticsetting,in this chapterwe broadenour interestto think aboutthe way that the PC is incorporatedinto 'the family' as a whole. Our concernin Chapter4 with moral panicsabout children'ssafetyon-line is mirrored herein our examinationof contemporary popularfears aboutchildren'spotentialaddictionto homePCsand the consequencesthat this addiction might have for family time and unity, and for children'suse of outdoorpublic space. The chapteris structuredinto four sections.We begin by outlining previous researchthat has identified a fourfold classification of the way that peopleabsorbobjects into their households.We then go on to use the evidenceof our own researchto arguethat this typology artificially separates out processesthat are in practice mutually constituted.Specifically, we explore the complex ways that PCs are both absorbedinto, and transform the time-spacesof the home.In the third sectionwe connectthe hometo the wider spaceof the local neighbourhood.Here we evaluatepopularconcerns

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aboutthe perceivedimpact of the homePC - an indoor technology- on children'suseof 'public' outdoorspace.In the concludingsectionof this chapter we reflect on the notion of everydaypracticeand its role in shapingthe way that ICT emergesfor different households.

And the PC makes five: the domestication of ICT The homePC marketemergedin the late 1970s.At the time, assemble-yourself micros were aimed at hobbyists who had the technical competenceto cope with their user unfriendliness(Murdock et al. 1992). Murdock argues that they were 'self-referring' inthat the pleasureof using them lay in the challengeof making them work and solving technicalproblemsratherthan what you could do with them in terms of their applicationsor uses.In the 1980s and 1990s,discoursesaboutthe dawningof an InformationAge that accompanied Governmentpolicies to put a computer in every classroom(see Chapter2) motivated computercompaniesto try to conquerthe domestic consumermarket.Advertising campaignstargetedat adults played upon the fact that parenthoodhas becomean increasinglyresponsibletask, with parents expectedto give their children every opportunityto make the best start in life (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995), by emphasisingthe educational value of home PCs (see Chapter2). At sametime, they also highlighted the creativepossibilitiesof the Net as a new more fun way of learningthan traditional educationalmethods.The sub-textbeing,you may not haveenjoyed your own school days but you will enjoy this (Nixon 1998). In contrast, advertisementsaimed at children promoted computersessentiallyas toys. Indeedmany retail storessuchas Toys R Us now include family multi-media computercentres.A new genre of magazinesand books for inexperienced convertsto the digital age, including titles such as Parentsand Computers, and Family PC, also beganto appearon bookshelves(Nixon 1998). What thesemarketingtacticssharedin commonwas a representationof computers as part of the family, in which the PC was positionedwithin the homeamong 'naturalised'domesticitems such as furniture, books and toys (ibid.). When objects,such as computers,are purchasedand introducedinto the homethey crossa boundaryfrom the 'public' world wherethey are designed, madeand distributedinto the homewherethey are absorbedinto the life of the household(Silverstoneet al. 1992). Through the everydaypracticesof the household,objects becomepart of a personalworld of meaningsin which the public meaningsassociatedwith them may be re-negotiatedand transformed(Kopytoff 1986). At the sametime, as we alludedto in Chapter 4, objects themselvesalso have the potential to changehouseholdsocial relations.Thesecomplexmutually constitutiverelationshipsbetweenpeople and things are never static but rather changeover time. Notably, for example, thereis often a transitionfrom the novelty period when an object is first brought into the home to when it becomestaken for granted.Silverstoneet

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al. (1992) suggestthat the domesticationof technologiesinvolves four distinct processes:appropriation, objectification,incorporation and conversion. An object is appropriatedwhen it is taken possessionof or owned by an individual or household.Through this processan item becomesinvested with the traces of its owner, taking on autobiographicalmeaningsand in Kopytoff's (1986: 65) terms becomingeffectively 'decommodified'.Objects can be usedto define and distinguishboth individuals, and householdsfrom eachother (Silverstoneet at. 1992). In otherwords, Nippert-Eng(1996) suggeststhat when an object is appropriatedit can becomean extensionof the self in wider space. The processof objectification refers to the ways that an item is usedand displayedin the home. Here the focus is on the way that domesticspaceis constructedand arrangedto facilitate this, and the way that objectscan be used to mark out spaceas belonging to particular individuals or to create more comfortablesocial environments(Nippert-Eng1996). While objectification is about spatialities, the processof incorporation emphasisesdomestictemporalities.This is the processthroughwhich objects are incorporatedinto the domesticroutines and schedulesof everydaylife. Different patternsof usemay result in time saving,time shifting or the maintenanceof householdrhythms. Finally, conversioncapturesthe processthroughwhich objectsboth facilitate and becomethe subjectof conversation.By talking aboutthings we can turn our knowledgeabout them into social and cultural capital (a point we havealreadyidentified in Chapter3 in relation to children'suseof computers at school,and will return to againin Chapter6). In otherwords, objectsplay a role in embeddingindividuals and householdsinto the wider environment. This classificationof the ways that objectsbecomedomesticatedinto four distinct processeshas beenadoptedas a valuableframework for many studies of consumption.Yet our researchon the way that computersare absorbed into householdswith children suggeststhat this classificationartificially separatesout processesthat are complexlyinterwoven.For example,as we show in the following section, the spatial organisationof the PC within the home (objectification) is intimately boundup with issuesof how and by whom the computeris taken possessionof (appropriation).This in turn is intertwined with questions of conversion. Perhapsmore significantly, however, the distinction betweenobjectification and incorporation artificially separates out spatiality from temporality.It is a commonfailing. May andThrift (2001) observethat geographicalresearchhas often set up this unhelpful dualism, see-sawingat different times betweenprioritising either spaceor time. For Massey(1994) this dualism constrainsgeographers'understandingof space and place,but May and Thrift (2001) point out that social theory on time is equally guilty of overlookingthe way that the temporalpatternsof social life are inseparablefrom the spatial.They arguethat we needto think aboutthe way we both make/live multiple time-spacesand imaginethem.

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In the next sectionwe thereforeexplore the complex ways that PCs are both absorbedinto and transformthe time-spacesof the home. In doing so we continue our focus on children's agency. For while Silverstoneet al. (1992) do point out that individuals within householdsmay engagein processesof appropriation,incorporation,objectificationand conversionin differential ways, the power of children'svoices within the home is at best implicit and certainly never spelt out in their thesis.Following on from our considerationof technophobia(see Chapter 3), and differential levels of technicalcompetencies(seeChapter4), we also draw attentionin this chapter to the way that someindividuals resistthe domesticationof the computer. Although Silverstoneet al. (1992) observethat individuals within a household may have different levels of identification with domestictechnologies they are perhapsguilty of focusing primarily on positive relationships betweenpeopleand things, notably the way peopletame technologies,and make them their own. In doing so they fail to acknowledgethe ways that technophobescan regardthe home PC as an object of fear and dread, one which they try to limit the influence of, or expel from the home.

Living with objects: domestic time-spaces Enhancingtheir children's educational(and future employmentprospects) opportunitiesis, as arguedin Chapter2, one of main factorswhich motivates parentsto purchasea homePc. For the samereasonsparentsoften invest in children's bedroomsin order to provide an appropriatespacefor them to 'work'. Dixon and Allatt (2001) point out, it is not just what young people study but where they study that is important to independentlearning outcomes.As such,and given the fact that figures for the amountof time spent using domesticcomputerssuggestthat they are used more intensively (i.e. more often and for longer) by children than adults (Riccobono1986), it is perhapsnot surprisingthat thesetechnologiesare often locatedin children's bedrooms. The ability of families to do so, however,is in part shapedby wider socioeconomic processes.Preliminary findings from a pan-Europeanstudy of children'smedia use (Livingstone 1998) indicate that more boys than girls, and children from higher compared to lower socio-economic status households,have accessto a PC in their own bedrooms(Livingstone et al. 1997;Johnsson-Smaragdi et al. 1998;van der Voort et al. 1998).This pattern is also evidentin our research(Holloway and Valentine2001c).Many of the middle-classhouseholdsown multiple computers,allowing children to have accessto their own machinesindependentlyof the equipmentthat is reserved for parents'own work or for generaluse.This proliferation of domestictechnologiesis often a result of householdsupgradingtheir machinesin response to technical advancesallowing older machinesto be passeddown to each child in turn, with the oldesthaving priority. In suchcaseswhile the children

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usually do not own a PC either in the sensethat they purchasedit or in the sensethat it is permanently'theirs' to keep, they do own it in the sensethat they 'possessit'. This relationshipis constitutedand articulatedthroughthe location of the computerin the boundedspaceof the child's bedroom.In turn becausechildren are often allowed to have some control over the 'private space'of their own room, they are then able to restrict the time (when and for how long) other membersof the householdare able to access'their' machine which further reproducestheir statusas its 'owner'. In other words,appropriation and objectificationare mutually constitutedprocesses: Chloe'sgot a computerin her room ... Ashley, our lad, has got a computerin his room. Sort of, they get passeddown, so mine is the newest-I've got, I've got like a 22, 233 megahertzPentium jobby ... Chloe's is a slightly older one which is 166 megahertzPentium and Ashley'Sis a bit older again, it's a 90 megahertzPentiumbut they'veall got the set 32 megamemory and mine'sgot 64, I think ... And, again, hard disks - you can, you can seethe geographyof, you know, of computing sort of going backwards[laughing]. Mine's got a 4-gig hard disk and Chloe'sgot a I-gig hard disk and Ashley's is probably a I-gig now as well ... It was half, half a gig before (Highfields).

MR ROBINSON:

If Mal's [his brother] beenon for a length of time and then it kind of, I get a bit itchy sort of thing, like, I don't mind him being on it but I think, I don't sort of like him being on it for any length of time and I guessthat causesa bit of friction, it has done befor (Highfields).

BOB HIGGENS:

Boys who are techno-enthusiasts (see Chapter3) are more likely to have a computerin their bedroom.Thesechildren haveoften contributedto the initial purchasefinancially or in kind (for example,by doing chores)or have spent money that they earn outside the home (for example, by delivering newspapers)on regularly upgradingthe machine.In this way they 'own' the machinein a more conventionalway than children such as the Robinsons. Alex Newton, for example,was active in persuadinghis mother to buy a secondcomputerthat is locatedin his bedroomfor his sole use,contributing to the cost of its purchase. Livingstoneet al. (1997) arguethat the increasingavailability of mediain children's bedrooms,primarily television, but also videos, PCs, and games machinesare part of the developmentof a bedroomculture. For somecommentators,this raisesfears that children may be withdrawing (spatially and temporally) from the household,thus abdicating from family life. These concernsaboutthe location and useof ICT within the homealso link to general anxietiesabout the decline of 'the family'. The home is supposedto be a site of togetherness(both physically and metaphorically)where its memberscan spenddedicatedtime with eachother to the exclusionof non-family

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members(Christensenet al. 2001). Particulartime-spaceroutinessuchas the sharedfamily meal havetraditionally played an importantrole in constituting these moments of togethernessand consequentlyin producing 'the family' (Charlesand Kerr 1988; Valentine 1999a). However,at the end of the twentiethand beginningof the twenty-first centuries a loss of 'family time' is, accordingto somecommentators,threatening family life (Mellman et al. 1990). This 'time famine' (Zeldin 1994: 352) is a productof factors such as: the growth of dual incomehouseholds,the extension of working hours,the introductionof more flexible working patterns,and teleworking.All of theseare claimedto be erodingthe ability of family membersto createand maintain a spatial and temporaldivide betweenwork time and hometime (Shaw2001). Mr Davies,for example,describeshow a home PC hasmadethe boundarybetweenhis homelife and work life more porous: The computerthat's here actually belongsto my company,I purchasedit with the company. On the justification that I, you know, I boughtit primarily so that I could be in contact.We do a lot of work in different time zones.You don't alwayswant to be getting up, you know, at the moment we're working in Australia and in America. You don't really want to be getting up to go to the office at the crack of dawn and staying late at night and doing the normal working day, so it makes sense[to have one] somewhereat home (Westport).

MR DAVIES:

Middle-classchildren'slives are also becomingmore institutionalisedin that their out-of-schooltime is increasinglybeing taken up by adult-organised formal activities such as after-schoolclubs, sports training, music lessons, and so on (Valentine and McKendrick 1997; Smith and Barker 2000). This is a trend which further reflects the extent to which in an individualised world contemporaryparentsare being held responsiblefor their children reachingtheir full potentialeducationally,emotionallyand evenaestheically (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995). As a result of suchprocessesGillis (1996: 4) arguesthat the temporalities(thoughwe would term thesetime-spaces)of individuals have becomeboth less standardisedand less synchronouswith thoseof other family members.Shewrites: Families have beenthe losers in the competitionfor scarcedays, hours and minutes. Even though the time spentby Americanson housework beganto fall in 1970 after a steadyrise over the previouscentury, parentscomplainthey do not haveenoughtime for their children, much less for one another.Mornings and afternoonshave long since beenlost to school and work, and now the eveningis endangered,as both parentsin two-earnerfamilies arrive home late, with only minutesto sparebefore the children'sbedtime. (Gillis 1996: 5)

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This is an argumentthat is supportedby a surveythat showsthat a quarter of all fathersin Britain with young children work over fifty hours per week (Smith and Ferri 1996,in Shaw2001). Suchis the importanceplacedon parents and children spendingtime togetherat home that some people argue that families who do not, for example,sharemealstogetherare not 'proper' families (Charlesand Kerr 1988). For a minority of children in our study, having sole accessto a computer in their bedroom does indeed mean that they spend less time with their family. Anthony's descriptionof his computeruse,for example,would seem to confirm fears that computer use can isolate children from their family within their own homes.He explainsthat he spendsmost of his time using the PC in his bedroomrather than anothercomputerthat is located in a living room becausethe presenceof other householdmembersand the television interfereswith his concentration.Freefrom familial distractionsin his own room, Anthony is able to spendconsiderablylonger on his computer. Although Anthony doesusethe PC for school-work,it primarily emergesfor him as a leisure tool. He regards his homework merely as somethinghe must 'get out of the way' before he can continuethe more pleasurablepursuit of exploring the computer'sseeminglyendlesspossibilities. Anthony'S enthusiasmfor spendingleisure time on the computeris sharedby other techno-addictssuchas sistersVron and TeresaJacksonand brothersPaul and Doug Brady. .'cos you look at the clock when you start and it's like half pastone and then by the time you've finished it's half pastsevenand you're like, 'Oh my back. Oh, I feel sick' [Edit]. They [her parents]control the time [Edit] becausethey know I make myself ill becauseI keep going and going and going until I just flop down on the floor (Westport).

TERESA JACKSON: .•

I mean, I live in my room practically now with my stereoand TV. I've got most of my main things upstairsbut I meanI'm very arty. I get lots of -I do tons of poetry and I'm constantlygetting like things in my headand everythingand I'll have to write them down but I'd be just straight on the computer- I'd be designingthis, doing that, doing stories, doing coursework all the time. I just wouldn't be off it (Westport).

VRON JACKSON: ••.

So when do you use yours, what sort of time do you tend to use yours ...? PAUL BRADY: Internetat the weekendswhen phonecalls are cheaper,but otherwise,erm, it's after schoolmainly for, like, schoolwork - homework. It's basically from about 4.30pm till probably 10. But we don't use it constantly'cos it hurts my eyes... [Edit] INTERVIEWER:

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Yeah, like, I go almost every night to have a coupleof games on my football [computer] game. INTERVIEWER: Right. DOUG BRADY: Becauseyou can havea league[on the computer]and you get like 48, 50 gamesin a league,if you play one a night it'll last you about 50 (Highfields).

DOUG BRADY:

As thesequotationshint, ICT are shapingthe use and understandingof time within the home. The Jacksonsisters'descriptionsof forgetting about clock time when they are on the computersupportthe findings of studiesof teleworking that suggestthat computerusersfind it hard to establishtemporal routinesand constructlimits to their working day. Indeed,Lee and Liebenau (2000) arguethat the Internet-connected PC is robbing us of importanttemporal anchorsin the routinesand rhythmsof our daily life. This is becauseit allows individuals to find information and engagein work, leisureand social activities that have traditionally been defined and restricted by school and office hours, playing times, and shop/libraryopeningand closing times, any time of the day or night. They claim that 'both the seven-dayweek and the currently patternedday are weakenedby the Internet' (Lee and Liebenau 2000: 49). As such,when individual householdmembersgive precedenceto spendingtime on the computerover spendingtime with other family members,it cancausedomestictensions(Failla and Bagnara1992,Steward2000). My Mum's alwayscomplainingaboutit, but I'm not bothered,'cos my Dad'ssometimeson it [the PC] for like all day or something and she'll get mardy becausehe doesn'ttalk to her (StationRoad).

LOUISE LANGTON:

SometimesI think that if David's up there all evening [in his room using the computer],which he can be, er, if I go out, I meanthere might be a meetingor we may just have dinner togetheror something, well, that's it, we just have a ten minute chat, he's in bed, next morning we're up and off to school-so it can be like that [they neverspendtime together].Erm, it can do that, I think (Highfields).

MRS PHELPS:

Womentraditionally havemadetime for family and spenttime on it. In contrast, men's time is more often their own and rather than spendtime on producingand sustainingthe family they tend insteadto spendtime with it (Leccardi 1996). Women also tend to make up the greatestpercentageof non-ICT users acrossall age groups (Riccobono 1986). Not surprisingly, thereforeit is motherswho are most often (though not exclusively) hostile towards the computerregardingit as an interruption to family life. In this regard, their fears echo the attitudesof a previous generationtowards the television. Spiegel(1992; 47) describeshow in the 1950sthe televisionwas regardedas a 'monsterthat threatenedto wreak havoc on the family' by

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seducingchildren to watch it at the expenseof engagingin family activities. Veneeredwoodencasingand doorsover the screenwere employedto conceal the television as an item of furniture. Similar expressionsof fear or hatredof 'it' [the PC] were evident among somewomen (seealso the discussionof technophobicchildren at school in Chapter3). Peopleoften deny that they havean emotionalrelationshipwith objectsand yet the way they think or talk aboutthem often betraysthe fact that we all do indeedanthropomorphise them (Lupton 1998) as thesequotes illustrate: Your Dad was saying that your [PC] is broken down at the momentand that'squite frustrating for you as well as him, how important do you think the computeris in your life now? DARREN BROWN: It is important 'cos you definitely miss it when it's not working and ready- it's somethingthat I do miss (Westport).

INTERVIEWER:

Say if it crashes,you get, you can get really annoyed... In the middle of a piece of work. TODD GARRETT: Yeah, or it hasn'tsavedsomethingfor you. Then you can get annoyed.When I'm playing the football gameas well, if I lose I sort of get annoyedwith it. But it's not its fault (Highfields). TODD GARRETT:

KAREN GARRETT:

CalIon (1991: 137) observesthat objects'order humansaroundby playing with their bodies,their feelings or their moral reflexes'.This ability of things to influence our emotions(bringing comfort, confidence,sensualpleasure, evoking memories,etc.) is after all, the basisof most consumeradvertising and the reasonwe keep or carry aroundobjectslong after they haveceased to be functional (Campbell 1995; Nippert-Eng 1996). The emotionscomputers often evoke, however, are not of pleasurebut of fear, anxiety, frustration, angerand impotence(Lupton 1998). As we observedin Chapter 2 in relation to teachersand Chapter4 in relation to parents,adults often haveless technicalcompetencethan children. Someare anxiousabouttheir ability to control PCs and the consequences that this lack of skill will have for their identity and statusas an adult, and their authority over their pupils or children. They also often attributethe computerwith the agencyto transform household relations in a negative way. These feelings are often expressedin terms of technophobia:a fear and dread of the computers themselves(Valentine and Holloway 2001b). These fears of 'it', and the way 'it' might disrupt family time-spacesare commonly articulated in a desire to banish the computerfrom the central time-spacesof family life. Suchemotionsare evidentin thesequotations: Mum ... they frighten her, she said, she'sfrightened of computers(Westport).

TERESA JACKSON:

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We thought about having it [the PC] down here [in a living room] - there'slike an alcove in the lounge which is quite a nice little placefor it - but then the amountof time we'd useit - that'slike a social area and I thought it's going to impinge ... and I thought well, no thanks (Westport).

MR BROWN:

I felt very strongly and I still do, that it won't ever come in a living room. I like it out of the way. [Later she returns to the same theme: her dislike of ICT] And it's unsociable,which meansyou can carryonwith your work all the time if you want to, or do somethingon it, just becauseit's readily available.And I don't like that. I don't like it. I think you needto use it and shut it down and then have anothertime for using it ... It kills the art of conversationcompletely, I think (Highfields).

MRS GARRETT:

Tapscott(1998) suggeststhat talk of children'saddictionto computers,and the threatthey poseto family life is evidenceof an anti-technologybias. He points out that peopledo not talk aboutbook addictionbut ratherusemore positive terms such as voracious readersto describechildren who spend time on this hobby. Gillis (1996) also cautions against setting too much store by reports of contemporarythreats to family time. She arguesthat moral panicsabout 'time famine' have a long history that pre-datethe computer, and that in any event families may well have exaggeratedtheir togetherness,reportingmore sharedmomentsthan were actually the case. For other children, however, a computerin their bedroommeanssomething quite different and does not promote a withdrawal from family life within the home. Chloe Robinson,for example,has a much more instrumentalrelationshipwith her computer.She likes having a PC becauseit can improve the presentationof her homeworkand will retreatto her bedroom to useit to study but sherarely usesit for fun, preferringto spendher spare time at dancinglessonsand going to the local youth club. For children such as Chloe,then, the computeris not a leisuremachinebut insteademergesas an educationaltool. It is also importantto rememberthat the time children spendalonein their bedroomsplaying, rather than working, on computersis not necessarily negative. Children spend most of the weekday in a very time-disciplined environmentat schoolwhereall their activities from arrival, registrationand lessons,throughto eating and playing, are governedby the daily rhythm of timetablesand bells which signal the choreographedmass movementsof pupils within the school (Adam 1995; Valentine 1999d). Young peopleare commonly under a lot of pressureto' perform well at school and in their leisurepursuits.Like adults they, too, often feel that they do not have much sparetime (Dixon and Allatt 2001). Solberg's(1990) study of Norwegian children found, for example,that they valued the time they spent at home

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after school before their parentsarrived back from work as time to themselves.Using a computerin the privacy of their own bedroomis anotherway that somechildren make a time-spacefor themselvesto escapeor block out the negativeaspectsof family life such as: marital conflicts, squabbleswith siblings, naggingparentsand domesticchores. Academicand popularcommentariesoften representon-line life as a poor substitutefor the sociality of the so-called'real world'. Yet, children'soff-line lives are not necessarilypositive social environments.Rather, individuals particularly those who are different in some way - are often bullied and excluded by their peers (James1993; Valentine 1999d). Indeed, as we explorein the following chapter,on-line pescan enablechildren to develop global social relationships.Mrs Richardsonexplains how computershave provided an antidoteto her son'soff-line social isolation. He's always been terrible, always been a loner on his own. He's one of them kids, who are always sat in cornerof playground on his own, all the otherkids will be running aroundbut Ben would just, always sat on his own ... [later she returnedto the samething] ... it's donewhat I hopedit would do, he'snot, he'snot so lonely when he'son a computer,you get what I mean... I've always known that Ben is one of them people,as he gets to an adult I think he'll be completelydifferent, he's an adult-orientedchild. He prefersadult company,and I think as he gets to an adult he'll find it a lot easier.And computershave just given him somethingto do, take his mind off things and he just, that keepshim occupieddon't it. So he doesn'tfeel that he's getting left out as much now (Station Road).

MRS RICHARDSON:

The micro-geographyof computerlocation revealsdifferent setsof ideasand practicesat work in thosehomeswhere the computeris locatedin a family room, such as the sitting room, dining room, kitchen or studyl. For some poorer households,this decision to place the computerin a family room reflectsa lack of spacefor a deskin children'sor parents'bedrooms.Equally important, however, is the need to place computersin a room that is accessibleto all. The appropriationand bounding of bedroomsby both adults and children (Sibley 1995) make them an unsuitablespacefor computers that are regardedas owned in terms of access/usage (even if they were not purchased)by the whole family as thesequotationsillustrate: Well, we couldn't put it in a bedroom becauseme and Vron [her sister] don't, it's like a war zone upstairsso we wouldn't dare put it in anyone'sroom, not in Mum and Mike's [their step-father] room. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: Do you think, I mean,if it was in your or Vron's room? [Edit]

TERESA JACKSON:

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If Vron crossesover into my room, which is like a bomb site, I'd freak 'cos we can't stand each other in each other's rooms (Westport).

TERESA JACKSON:

INTERVIEWER:

Where would you put it [discussingthe family'S plans to buy

a PC]?

I'll put it in the kitchen. In the kitchen? STEVE LAKE: Yeah, becausemy Mum might use it as well to do her projects and things. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: SO you think it's importantthat it was somewherethat other peoplecould use it? STEVE LAKE: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Not just you, you wouldn't want to have it in your room? STEVE LAKE: No, becauseit would be unfair on my parents,so they won't be able to seeit and that (Westport). STEVE LAKE:

INTERVIEWER:

It's a problemwhereto put it actually becauseit doestake up a big cornerand it is a problemwhereto put it. We wouldn't haveit in anybody's bedroombecauseso many people- it's got to be in a place that's accessiblebecauseso many peopleuseit. I mean,if it was in our bedroom we don't want all Abe's and Lucy's friends messingaround in our bedroom. The children are a little bit possessiveof their bedrooms,aren't they? Lucy doesn'tlike Abe in her bedroomand Abe doesn'tlike Lucy in his bedroomso it's got to be somewhereeveryonecan go (Westport).

MR THOMAS:

Indeed, the location of the PC in a sharedfamily spacerather than in the individualizedtime-spaceof a bedroomalso encouragesthe computerto act as a gatheringpoint for membersof the family (see Figures 5.1 and 5.2). Gillis (1996) suggeststhat sharedactivities suchas family mealsand Sunday drives first became important in instantiating the family during the nineteenthcentury.It was in this period of industrialisationthat family members beganto live separatelives in that men were divided from women, and children from adults,by the emergenceof the time-spacessuchas work and school that were distinct from the household'sliving space.It was also during this period that the home first becamea sacredspacefor close kin. Shewrites: One could say that family was put into cultural production,representing itself to itself in a seriesof daily weekly and annual performances that substitutedfor the working relationshipthat had previously constitutedthe everydayexperienceof family life. (Gillis 1996: 13)

The place of le T in t he 'family' home

III

Figure 5. 1 Th e com puter is implicated in the development of chil dr en 's bedroom culture.

Figure 5.2 Th e location of the PC in a shared space can provide a gathering point for members of the family.

Through such activities households not only beganto come togetheras a family but also imagine themselvesas a family. In contemporary times the television set (seeSpiegel 1992), and now also the computer have become part of the glue that binds somefamilies together. Mitchell writes: When attachedto a display device (lik e a televisionset or personal computer monitor), such an appli ancepresentsitself as a hearth that radiates information insteadof heat.Just as the fireplace with its chimney and mantel was the focus of the traditional living room, and later became

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the pivot point for Frank Lloyd Wright's box-bustinghouseplans,so the display - the source of data, news and entertainment- now bids to becomethe most powerful organiserof domesticspacesand activities. In most rooms,it's what most eye-ballsare most likely to lock onto most of the time. (1995: 99) Indeed,the PC is such a part of the Simpkin's family life that they not only use it togetherin the eveningsbut they even take it on holiday with them. We're planningto take computerdown thereto the coastin the boot. It just aboutfits in the caravan.[Edit] She'll [his mother] watch us [he and his father] ... she'll watch us but shewon't go on it [the PC] ... Sometimeswhen I'm playing with the dog outsideor somethinglike that she'll be in here watching me Dad go on Internet. She doesn'tknow what's going off like, but she'll watch. And you know, me Dad will try and bring things up for her. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Do you want to take it on holiday with you? TIM SIMPKIN: Yeah. Becauselike if it's raining and I can't go out then there's nowt to do, only watch TV, and if there'snowt on there then that's the only thing to turn to. Me Dad will be on it all the times when I'm outside. I know him. 'Cos I'll be outsidewith matesthat go down as well, you know, 'cos I've got a coupleof matesthat go down. That'swhy I like going down there (Station Road).

TIM SIMPKIN:

It [using the PC together] pleasesthem and their Dad and it's somethingthat they can, all three, becausethey're all that way inclined, you know, it's an interestthat they can have separatefrom me, which is important, that goes with their Dad [from whom she is separated].So yeah, fine. [Edit] MRS ZISEK: It actually broughtthe boys [her two sons], 'cos thesetwo boys, you know, have had a little bit of, becausethey're so different in personality and it actually broughtthem commonground where they, one would know one bit and one would know another bit, becauseone's more practical and one's more academic.So it actually brought them togetherquite a lot, so I was quite pleasedaboutit. [Edit, later shecontinued on the sametheme] . . . for the boys as a brother and brother relationshipI think that it [the PC] madethem communicatemore with each other and learn to respectthe different ways that people learn things, insteadof you know beforehandif one would get the grasp of somethingpractical and the other would say 'Oh God!', you know 'Don't be so stupid, it's done like this' and do it for them. Whereasthis, for somereason,this seemsto have beena connectionwhere they can MRS ZISEK:

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appreciatethat different peoplelearn at different levels in different ways, 'cos there'smore than one way to do it, you know (Westport). .

As the quotefrom Tim Simpkin aboveabouthis mother'srelationshipto his use of ICT with his father implies, families do not haveto usethe computer togetherfor it to bring them together.In a study of children'sexperiencesof time Christensenet at. (2001) found that young people aged ten to twelve defined quality time as being in the housetogetherwith other family members.This they arguecontrastswith adults' understandingof quality time as a perceivedset of sharedactivities designedto promotetogetherness,suchas playing games or going to the park together. In children's terms being togetherin the sameroom with the computeris just as constitutive of the family as doing computer-relatedactivities together.Sebastiandescribesthe importanceof family life aroundthe screen: It's [the PC] in the kitchen as well so that if anyone's cooking you can talk to them . . . [Edit] [comparingit with TV which disruptsfamily exchanges]becauseyou know you can stop the computer half-way through but if you want to watch the television,you can pause a computerbut you can't pausethe telly (Westport).

SEBASTIAN BAKER:

Indeed,in somehomes,parentsactively place the computerin the centreof a family activity spacein order to promoteits use and thesesorts of family relations. Mr and Mrs Oats, for example, moved the computer from an upstairs box room into the dining room (which is next to the kitchen and linked to the sitting room by glassdoors) to encouragetheir daughtersto use the computermore frequently and for longer periodsof time. Their daughters' interestin the homecomputeris limited becausetheir parentsconstruct the computeras an educationaltool, for example,through the purchase.of learninggamesand resources.Thoughthe girls are very keento convertthe computerinto a leisuremachineby connectingit to the Internetand thus the wider world, their parents are unwilling to bend to their wishes. Nevertheless,the placing of the computerin the dining room ratherthan the box room hasincreasedthe girls' computeruse by transformingthe machine into a more social tool. Ratherthan feeling 'stupid' sat by themselvesin a 'diddy room' with an 'electric thing' (Helen Oats),they regardcomputeruse in a family room as lessindividualisedand more social and,consequently,as more socially acceptable.Moreover, the computerhas agencytoo. Its very physical presencein the midst of the family encouragesthe girls to use it, onceagaindemonstratingthe mutual constitutionof processesof appropriation, objectificationand incorporation. It was next door to my bedroomand I, we didn't really go on it very much at all 'cos it was sort of away and we could just shut the

RACHEL OATS:

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door and say, 'I don't wan go on it', or 'I've got somethingelseto do' but when it's downstairsthen ... HELEN OATS: Staringyou in the face. RACHEL OATS: You just, it sort of calls you and says,'Come on'. HELEN OATS: 'You know you want to.' HELEN OATS: But it's easierfor, like, when it's, like, work and stuff 'cos, say, 'cos Mum's usually in the kitchen or downstairsand you can just shout through 'How do you do this?' or whatever.Not like computerstuff but like spellingsand things like that (Highfields). The differencebetweenMr and Mrs Oats' attitudeto the appropriateuseof the home PC and that of their daughtersreflects common differences betweenadults and children in terms of their understandingof time. Time after all is not just linear or cyclical, nor objective and universal, rather there can be multiple social, biological and physical meaningsof time. For parentswhoselives are governedby the dominanttime economy,clock time is often regardedas a resourceto be budgeted,allocated, sold and controlled (Adam 1995).They view time on the computeras time that shouldbe spent productively in educationalpursuits rather than being 'wasted' on computergamesand on-line chat. In other words, times are hierarchically orderedwith leisure time subordinatedto work time (Leccardi 1996). Here parents'fears about technology and waste (see also Chapter 2) resonate with other moral panicsaboutmale youth sub-cultures(e.g. Cohen1967) in public space(Marshall 1997).Mrs Thyme'sattitudeto the Internetis reproducedin DarrenBrown's anxietiesaboutthe needto justify the time that he spendson the computerby supplementingits use with other activities. I mean, I just got intrigued and in the end I must say much to Sheila's[his wife] disapprovalI got it [the Internet]. MRS THYME: Yeah, I don't agreewith the Internetreally. INTERVIEWER: Why is that? MRS THYME: Well, becausethey [the children] spendhours on there,in these chat rooms and I think that's a wasteof time (Westport). MR THYME:

Your Dad sayssometimesyou have the TV on and using the computerat the sametime - is that right? DARREN BROWN: Well, I like to, er, listen 'cos the thing that I feel when I'm using my PC is that time seemsto go very quickly and I feel like I'm wastingsometime for somereason- and just by turning on the TV I, it somehowallows me to listen to what's happeningelsewhereas well as doing somethingon the PC (Westport).

INTERVIEWER:

Children, it is assumed,should learn to postponepleasurenow for success and rewardsin the future (Adam 1990). Yet a senseof the future as a reality

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is slow to develop in children (a point we also noted in Chapter 2, and return to in Chapter6). Ratherthan using the computeras an educational tool, many children prefer to use it for messingaround (Giacquintaet al. 1993; Sefton-Greenand Buckingham1998). Most notably it is a good way of killing or filling in time as thesequotationsillustrate: Like, if you're, like, waiting for a programme[on TV] to come on and you're just waiting for something,you just sit down and you get theselittle games, thesesimple gamesthat you just like, yeah, you just sit down for those (Westport).

LORNA THYME:

nothing to do, then you just go and play on the computer, go on the computer(Westport).

COLIN BOWNESS: •••

Murdock arguesthat: [I]n contradistinctionto the diffusion of innovationsmodel which presentsthe home computeras a simple technologicalcommodity with a stable identity defined by its applications... [it is] a site of struggle betweencontendingdiscourses,notably thoseemanatingfrom government and the education system on the one hand and from the entertainmentindustry on the other. This struggleis regularly playedout in conflicts betweenparentsand children as to the proper use of the machine. (1989: 233) As we arguedin Chapter4, some parentsoften do not yet considertheir children to be competentenoughto be responsiblefor their own time and so limit or supervisetheir on-line activities. Here placing the computer in a family room also servesto reducethe risks of improper use either by their children, or in the actionsof otherson-line towardstheir children. Contrary to Livingstoneet al.'s (1997) suggestion,theseparents'fears of outsidedangersare not leadingto the developmentof a bedroomculture amongchildren encouragedto spend their leisure time indoors rather than on the street. Rather,someparentsalso seethe bedroom,linked to the wider world by an Internet connection,as a potentially risky space,and thus try to encourage use in family rooms. In comparisonto other parentsdiscussedabove (who allow children to haveInternet-connected PCsin their bedrooms),theseparentshavelessconfidencein their children'sability to manageeverydayrisks, and intervenemore often to influenceand protectthem (seealso Chapter4). I mean,you say you use the Internetsometimesat home? Yeah, well, Mum and Dad usually, like, superviseme on it to make sureI'm not wastingtoo much time or anything.I mean,I've

INTERVIEWER:

SEBASTIAN BAKER:

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got, I go on a few websitesof like drum companiesand music places,so it's mostly music but I've gone on to find a few, you known fact things for projectsand stuff at school. [Edit] INTERVIEWER: Do you feel constrainedabout what you can do? SEBASTIAN BAKER: Well, if they weren'tthere [parents] I mean,becauseI go, I usedto go on [the Internet] and Dad usedto always be over me so that if anything happenedor I wantedto do anything, he'd do it, so I felt a bit, you know, constrainedas you say, but it's really so that I don't do anythingwrong and so I don't wastetoo much time (Westport). And it's like, like, we haveit down here [PC in dining room] so that if they'redown herewe can seewhat they're doing, if it's up in their bedroomyou don't know what they're doing. INTERVIEWER: No, no. So it's ... [trails off]. MR LYNDON: They, they could be doing anything,couldn't they? Anything on it. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So you'd rather have a bit of control over what they're doing? MR LYNDON: Yeah. No, I, you know, 'Oh well, what you doing on there?'. You can seewhat they're doing (Westport). MR LYNDON:

Though the primary distinction we have madein this discussionis between homeswith computersin the children'sbedroomsand thosewhere they are kept in family rooms, somehouseholdsencapsulateboth patterns.Charles Stevenson,for example,hasaccessto a PC in his bedroomand one in the sitting room. As Sibley (1995: 134) argues,thoughsomemiddle-classchildren such as Charleshave a degreeof autonomyin their bedrooms: Elsewherein the home,children may still constitutea polluting presence, requiring regulationor exclusion.Parentscommonlydeterminewhat are adult spacesand adult times, creatinga mixed regime with elementsof separationand little concernaboutthe control of the child's space,combined with regulation and strong boundary maintenance[in family rooms]. Charles'descriptionof when, and for what, he usesthe two machinesis illuminating, revealing intersectinghierarchiesof use. Specifically, Charles' educationalusecomesfirst, followed by his father'scomputeruse, and parents' leisure use of the family room, with Charles' leisure use of the computersrelegatedto time-spacesnot otherwiserequiredby adults:

If Mum and Dad are in the sitting room reading or doing tapestryor whatever,then I won't, I probably won't use it [the

CHARLES STEVENSON:

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family PC] as if I want to playa gameor whatever,they don't want the volume on. I'll probablystay in my bedroom,play games[on the PC] in there. But then if Mum and Dad are outside,or in bed, or somethingI'll come in here [the dining room] and play it. Or at the weekendwhen Mum and Dad go out, I usually usethat. But if I'm just doing work, I'll just useit whenever,as long as my Dad, well, if it's schoolwork, my Dad will move and clear off. But if it's just to play gameshe'll say go away and play on your own [PC] 'cos he wants to use it (Highfields). Suchexamples,where computersare availablein a variety of rooms within the household,neatly illustrate the power relationsin operationwithin the family home.Although the home is often imaginedas a spacewherepeople havecontrol over their own spaceand time (in contrastto work and school), in practice time and space are scarce resourcesand so the different time-spacerequirementsof individuals have to be juggled and reconciled (Glucksman1998). As CharlesStevenson'squoteillustrates,theseallocations are not necessarilyequal. Family rooms are far from equally availableto all family members:rather, adults' use is favouredover that of children, unless children's learning is at stake. In this example,only when Charles'educational developmentwas a considerationcould he control the use of 'family' spacewithin the home on his own terms. CharlesStevensondoesnot haveany brothersor sistersand so only hashis parentsto contendwith when negotiatingwhen and wherehe can usea computer. In larger families, however, children also have to enter into negotiationsabouttheir everydayuseof particulartime-spaceswith siblings. What is at stake is often not only who has the right to use the computer, when and for how long, but also their right to havethe spaceto useit in privacy without interruption from other household members. These are domestic disputesthat parents,usually mothers, are often called upon to arbitrate by establishingpriority uses(which are once again usually educational) or rationing individual's accessto time-spacesin the form of householdrotas. Although family times tend to be anticipatedand fondly remembered,they are often in practicestressfuland conflictual, with generational and gendertensionsparticularly apparent.Gillis (1996: 14) observes that 'modernfamily time is perverselydialectical,dividing even as it unites, creatingthe very discontinuitiesit is meantto resolve'.Thesechildren illustrate the sort of disputesthat fracture family unity:

If she's[her sister] doing her homework,I needto get mine done. We alwaysfight over it [the computer]and say it's not fair, someoneelse is always on it all the time, that we neverget a go (StationRoad).

LISA WEBB:

And he [her brother Todd] usedto take that time up [the time he was allocatedin the family rota] with like computer,with his

KAREN GARRETT:

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games,and then he'd say 'Oh, but I've got homeworkto do'. And then he was surprisedwhen Mum would say 'Tough, get off and go hand write it or something.'And then he'd come out with this argument 'Yeah, but you said homeworkwas more importantthan games,I've got to do it now.' [Edit, later she continues...] Sometimeswe [she and her younger brotherJason]can't even get on that computer'cos he does it deliberately.He'll go out up the scouthut and leavethe football [a computer game] on so that nobody else can get on the computer.'Cos you can'tcloseit without finishing all the stuff off. And nobodyknows how to do that excepthim. And he doesit on purposeso that nobodyelsecan play on it (Highfields). So whereaboutsis the PC in the house? In the kitchen.

INTERVIEWER: MIKE KING:

[Edit] My brother[Phil] hatesit [being in the kitchen]. Not him [referring to Mike], he's [his other brother Phil] at work at the minute, Phil. 'Cos he used to do college work and he hatespeople looking over his shoulderat his work and so he screamsat everyoneto go (StationRoad).

RICKY KING:

Though sometimesquite fraught, these contestationsover the use of time-spaceswithin the home are important ways through which children's understandingsof the family and their contribution to it are realised.The family is not a pre-existingstructurebut rather is a 'doing" somethingthat is producedthrough everyday practices (Morgan 1999). In other words, negotiationssuchas thosedescribedaboveare not an effect of the computer in the family home, but are constitutiveof it. To summarise,we have arguedthat aspectsof appropriation,objectification and incorporationare all evident in the way families - as communities of practice- domesticatecomputers.However,contraryto Silverstoneet al. (1992) we do not regardtheseas distinct and clearly identifiable processes. Rather, the evidenceof this researchis that ownership,and domesticspatialities and temporalitiesare actually mutually constitutive. For example, ownershipof the PC is not necessarilydefined in terms of who contributed financially to its purchase,ratherit is somethingthat is claimedthroughspatial possessionand time occupancy.Likewise, where the PC is located'(for example,in a bedroomor sharedfamily room) can shapewhetherit is used by individuals or collectively and for how long and how frequently, and thereforewho is deemedto own it. Finally, the amount of time household membersspend using the computer for different purposescan determine whetherit emergesas a family tool or individual tool, an educationaltool, work tool or play tool and thereforeits most appropriatelocation. Through these examplesit is also evident that while householdnegotiationsover time-spacescan transformthe meaningsof the PC, the PC itself can also help

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to produce time-spacedifferently. For example, it can be used to create sharedfamily time-space,to bound personalor private time-spaceor to reproducetime-spacehierarchies. Indoor and outdoor worlds

Taking a lead from feminist and otherwork (Hansonand Pratt 1988; Moss, 1997) that arguesthe need to expandour notions of home outwards,our secondreadingof children'suse of ICT in the home comesfrom an examination of the position of the homein the neighbourhood.Early academicand popularcommentarieson ICT suggestedthat becausehouseholdscan connect directly with the wider world through the Internet, their memberswill no longer need to engagewith their local communities,becoming'homecentred' (Graham and Marvin 1996: 206). This processin turn is also claimed to potentially undermine the nature of off-line 'public' space. Gumpertand Drucker (1998: 429) observethat: 'In our mediatedhome,we extend our ability to communicatebeyond place, and simultaneously,we becomedisconnectedfrom our surroundings.'Likewise, McCellan (1994: 10) predictsthat: rather than providing a replacementfor the crumbling public realm, virtual communitiesare actually contributing to its decline. They're anotherthing keepingpeopleindoorsand off the streets.Justas TV producescouchpotatoes,so on-line culture createsmousepotatoes,people who hide from real life and spendtheir whole life goofing off in cyberspace. Indeed,somecommentatorshavegone so far as to suggestthat on-line simulations might erode face-to-face relations with personal appearances becomingpreciousand rare. Theseanxietiesreplicatepanicsaboutprevious 'new' technologiessuch as the telephone,which was onceseenas an exotic depersonalisingform of contactand is now regardedas important for sustaining face-to-facerelationsand get-togethers(Fischer1994). Theseanxietiesare often articulatedin relation to children in terms of a concernaboutthe potentialimpact of computerson their useof 'public' outdoor space (Valentine et at. 2000). Like television before it, the PC -a sedentaryindoor activity - is accusedof displacingthe time children usedto spend gettingexerciseplaying outdoors. As a consequencetechnology is being blamedfor underminingchildren'sphysicalwell-being and friendships within the local community,as well as robbing them of the capacityto enjoy the sort of imaginative outdoor play which adults recall from their own childhood. Yet, the time budgetdiaries (see Figure 5.3) children completed show that they spendonly just over half (54 per cent) their non-schooltime at home. Computerusetakesup a small fraction of this time (around5 per

120 The place of leT in the 'family' home

out evening 5% shopping 3% playing 3%

other 3% tv 26%

hangingout 3%

musk 3% visit friends 3% visit friends 3%

visit friends 3%

visit friends 3% visit friends 3%

visit friends 3% visit friends 3% getting ready visit friends 3% visit friends 3%5%

Figure 5.3 How the PC 'fits' into children's everydaylives: a Westport after. school time-budgetdiary.

cent overall comparedto 25 per cent of time watchingTV). Most of the chil· dren we interviewedarguedthat they would prefer to be outdoors:hanging on street corners,shopping,at the movies, or playing sport than indoors using the computer. Indeed, use of the PC is very seasonal,being largely determinedby the weatherand numberof daylight hours. On dark winter eveningschildren prefer to stay indoors and enjoy the freedom the Internet gives them to communicatewith friends and escapeother members of the family without getting cold and wet. When it is warm and light most of the children- with the exceptionof the most enthusiasticPC users- are usually outdoorsin public spaceswith their friends (Valentine et al. 2000). PAUL BRADY : Well, I've always been up for every single sport there is, so I prefer to be playing football or basketball'cos we've got a basketball

ring at home, playing at home. go down to the park to play football, tennisor stay here and play basketballratherthan play on the computer 'cos the computerI can lose! (Station Road).

I don't usually use the computermuch during the summer, I'm outsideall the time, but in the winter when it's like, you know, miserableweather.you comein and put the computeron or watch a video somethinglike that. INTERVIEWER: It's somethingyou can do when it's ... COLIN BOWNESS: Yeah, somethingextra to do, but in the summer I'm always COLIN BOWNESS:

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working or down the beach.I'd rather spendmy time down the beach than in front of the TV or computer(Westport). And how doesthings that you do on the Net or the computer comparewith the things you do in real life, in termsof what fun you get out of it? ALEX NEWTON: Say if I was on the Internettalking to somebody[an on-line friend] and then somebody[an off-line friend] phoned up and said 'D'you wannago to the cinema?'I'd go to the cinema.So it's not like it prioritises or anything (Highfields). INTERVIEWER:

When children do use computersit is often to find out information about their off-line hobbiesand so enhance,rather than to act as a substitutefor, their off-line activities (this is a point that we return to in Chapter6). Thus although Karen Garrett thinks that her brother Todd leads a very narrow life, this is becausehis on line interestreplicatesratherthan replacesthe focus of his off-line world. It's boring [to her brotherTodd]. Your life hasshrivelledto this amount[indicating a small gap betweenher fingers]. TODD GARRETT: I hate ... KAREN: Two little levels. Football games [on the computer] and football outside. TODD GARRETT: Yeah but I hate you, I hate you talking to your friends on the phone saying what, what you're going to wear and what you're going to buy and everything(Highfields). KAREN GARRETT:

Ironically, one of the very few instanceswhere we found householdswithdrawing from previous activities in the locale was through 'proper' (Murdock et at. 1992;Johnsson-Smaragdi et at. 1998), that is to say educational, usesof the machine.Whereastrips to the local library, particularly amongchildren from Westport,had previously beenpart of the household routine, the purchaseof a home computerwith an encyclopaediaCD and accessto the Internetrenderedthesevisits unnecessary.The presenceof a PC in the home mediatesfamily activities, reducingthe intensity of their use of neighbourhoodresources.Yet, parentsarguethat this doesnot changefamily dynamics:they still assisttheir children with their homework,it is only the information sourcesthat have changed. I don't think it's noticeablychangedthe dynamicsof the family. I think it's a caseof possibly ... looking at the computerrather than wading throughtext booksor going down the library, but it's a different technique,but I don't think it's altered[the family dynamics] (Westport).

MR DOYLE:

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The activity that is most likely to be cut back to allow childrento spendtime on the computeris an indoor, not an outdoor activity: watching television. A surveyby JupiterCommunicationsand KidsCom Companyfound that 40 per cent of their respondentsclaimed that the amount of time they spent watching television had declined becauseof their Internet use (Tapscott 1998). Likewise, the American Internet User Survey conductedby Cyber Dialogue revealedthat one-third of Internet-userhouseholdsreportedthat they watched less television (URL 1). While some of the children in our study did claim that the computerwas reducing(thoughnot replacing)their televisionviewing, generallyit did not appearto be displacingother indoor activities. Again this finding mirrors the resultsof other studiesthat suggest that peoplewho use new technologyare more, not less, likely to use print mediaand othertechnologies(Robinsonet ai. 1997).This is becausebooks, magazinesand the telephoneare often used in tandem with a computer, while radios,stereosystemsor eventelevisionsare commonlyusedas background accompaniments to working or playing on ICT. He tends to have the TV on at the sametime so he's fiddling aroundin therewith a matchon - so he'sinto two or threethings - but, er, I don't know, I think it's not too bad (Westport).

MR BROWN:

So, do you think using the Internetis like replacingmagazines [the questionis in responseto Paul stating that he looks up basketball scoresand matchreportson-line ratherthan waiting for them to appear in magazines 1? PAUL BRADY: Use them both becauseI like the picturesfrom magazinesto put on my wall 'cos it takesa long time to print the picturesout from computersbecausethey're quite big [trails off]. INTERVIEWER: SO there'snot much point in it? PAUL BRADY: Yeah, it's slow loading up some of the good pages-like they have lots of graphics on. I mean, I prefer the Internet to magazines becauseyou can get, you don't insteadof having to buy like five magazines,you can just visit five websites(Station Road).

INTERVIEWER:

Indeedsomechildren arguedthat their use of the PC doesnot displaceany of their regularactivities becausethey are able to carvenew 'special'times in which to use ICT out of previously marginal times when they were 'doing nothing' or out of gaps betweenother activities. TeresaJacksonand Pete Grovesdescribethe ways that computerscan be fitted into existing personal schedules: find a specialtime to fit into my schedulewhereI'd be on the computerbecauseI can't miss the TV for anything. [Later she returns to this theme1 ... find that hour, that I've got spacebetween

TERESA JACKSON: .••

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when I start watchingTV, which you can'tget me out off, I'll probably find that,1 might not be on it for the whole hour but probablyschedule off half an hour and then I'd probably just go and listen to music or go to sleep 'cos if I'm not watching TV or doing homework or at school, I'm sleeping,readingor watchingtelly (Westport). We usually like to go out and play football and stuff like that, and then like, about 6 o'clock which is like teatime,watch TV and then play on the computerfor a bit andgo out againat about8 or something (Westport).

PETE GROVES:

Overall, then, most children use ICT in a balancedway. The technologyis fitted into their lives rather than displacing other activities; as such it does not make them narrowly home centred, nor erode their use of outdoor space.Rather,its useis takenfor grantedas an unremarkablepart of everyday life -a finding replicatedby other research.Katz and Aspden(2000) for example,found no statisticaldifferencesbetweenthosewho useInternetand those who do not in terms of their membershipof a range of community organisations.FrancescaLeighton and Mr Grovesdescribetheseconceptsof 'fitting in' and 'balance': I mean,it's [the computer]not, like it's not like doing that has stoppedme from doing anything else so, I mean, people see using computersas this intrusive force and it's gonna wipe everything out but it's just somethingI do like snowboardingand somethingthat I do or play the drums or something(Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

It's a bit like what the TV usedto be to us as kids, you could say, I mean, they used to say it about our generation'you're watching too much TV'. Well, I think everybodygoesthroughspellswhereyou watch it, and then one day you'll get up and turn it off and think, well, I'm going for a gameof football, you know. But both my children are physically active, I mean,so it's a balance,you know, I'm quite happywith the balance(Westport).

MR GROVES:

The local also continuesto remainimportantin children'slives becausetheir domesticuseof ICT is often a highly social activity (d. Susset al. 1998).This is not only in terms of the way that it is used togetherwith other family membersas we outlined in the previoussection but also the way it is used with friends drawn from school and the local neighbourhood(see also Chapter6). Even most of the techno-enthusiasts who havePCsin their bedrooms,and might thereforebe expectedto fit the stereotypeof rathersolitary computerusersmediatetheir activities through local friendship networks. Anthony Harvey, who, as we outlined above, spendsmany hours in his

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room working on his PC, taking less part in his family life than previously, has a friend to visit most weekdayeveningsduring which time they use the PC together: [My friend comesround] nearlyevery day. Well, [he] usually popsin after school.We usuallywalk homeand he comesin for a bit and then goesdown t'papers[to do an eveningpaperround]. [Anthony continueslater]: [We] mainly talk aboutcomputers,like we do all time at school,things like that. As I said, mainly it is to put softwareon or if we've beentalking aboutsomethingto try somethingout or something (Station Road).

ANTHONY HARVEY:

Computers,ratherthan isolating childrenwithin the home,can then play an important role as the common link around which friendship groups can form. Indeed,somepreviouslyisolatedchildren have found their interestin computersprovidesa way of making connectionswith others,reducingtheir social isolation. Alex Newton, for example,was previouslya ratherisolated child, not getting on well with his peerswhose interestshe did not share. However, he has now developeda circle of friends also interestedin computers who visit each other to play games and work with computers. Children suchas Alex not only constructcomputersas leisuretools; PCs are also important in shaping these children's childhoods, in Alex's case by changinghim from a socially marginalchild into a more sociablechild with a network of friends with common interests(see also Mrs Richardson,p. 109). For the most part thesefriendshipsare performedin off-line environments;however,wherechildren also have accessto the Internet,they can be reinforcedon-line with children emailing eachother, visiting the samechatrooms and playing computergamesagainsteachother while sitting in their respectivehomes (see also Chapter 6). Communitiessuch as these,where children's technology use is embeddedwithin local social networks, are rarely, if ever, the focus of cyberspatialstudiesof 'community' (seeKitchen 1998b,for a review). However,as Kitchin (1998a:402) arguesin a different context,'life on-line is not divorcedfrom non-virtual life but highly situated within it', and such unremarkablecommunitiesof practice are as (if not more) importantas thosemore seeminglyrevolutionaryvirtual communities that operateonly in on-line spaces(Holloway and Valentine 2001c). Computersplaya lesspivotal role in the lives of most children than they do for the relatively small group of techno-enthusiastusers. Nevertheless, even less 'techy' children's computeruse is often negotiatedthrough local social networks(a point we will return to in Chapter6). Somechildren, more often thosefrom less affluent backgrounds,who have accessto a home PC explainedthat they allow schoolfriends who do sharethis privilege to useit to write up specialassignments.In this way they make use of the computer as a social machine,not simply as a social activity. Similarly, a wide variety

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of children usetheir computerfor leisureas well as work when their friends cameround to visit. It's good fun [chat rooms on-line] when all your matesare around and you're on it but when you're on your own, it's just a bit boring. But when you're talking to your friends as well, it's funny (Westport). SARA PURDUE: It depends- if we're doing a subject, urn, project at school, then we'll choosethe Encarta for referencesand stuff, but we're in a bandand we tend to do our songson the word processorand do ballads and songsand stuff like that, graphicsand stuff (Westport).

JASON BOWNESS:

Fearsabout anti-social 'digital junkies' (see Fenton 1998; Wynn and Katz 1998) who are connectedto otherson-line but are disconnectedfrom off-line local placesare thus far from the practiceswe observed.Children's use of computersis at one and the same time a highly social and a highly local activity, becausemuch computeruse is negotiatedthrough local social networks. This doesnot, however,imply homogeneityin children'sexperiences. The mutual constitutionof the technicaland the social meansthat computers emergeas different tools in different communitiesof practice,for some children being seenas educationaltools, for othersas leisure machines(and for others as a mixture of the two). Moreover, the place of the PC in children's social networks is diverse, with computers sometimesbringing children together,and on other occasionsbeing an incidentalpart of existing relationships(Holloway and Valentine 2001c). In counteringthe idea that domesticuse of ICT simply dislocateshomes from the local environment,and isolatesusersfrom off-line friendship networks, we do not, however, want to suggestthat the accessto the wider world providedby the Internetis of no relevanceto thosechildren able to use this technology at home. In the following chapterwe therefore go on to examinechildren'son-line identities and social relationships.

Everyday practices In this chapterwe haveexploredthe complexrelationshipsbetweenICT use and domesticlife around the screen.Contrary to previousstudieswe have arguedthat the processesof appropriation,objectificationand incorporation, through which it is arguedtechnologiesbecomedomesticated,are not distinct. Rather, we have shown that they are mutually constituted. In particular, by exploring PC use in terms of domestictime-spaceswe have challengedthe way that time and spaceare often dichotomised. In this chapterwe have also further reinforced our critique of technodeterminism(seepreviouschapters,particularly Chapter1). By showingthe variety of ways that ICT is madesenseof in everydaylife we haveimplicitly

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illustrated that computeruse does not follow the pre-definedlogic or prescriptions of designers,manufacturersand retailers. Nor do computers impact on domesticlife in particular ways, for exampleby eroding family relationsor underminingchildren'suse of outdoorspace.Rather,this chapter emphasisesthe importanceof everyday practices,defined in terms of 'repetitionand invention' (Horning et al. 1999: 297) in shapingthe ways that computersemergeor comeinto being for different households.This process is relationalin that while computersmay reconfigurethe time-spacesof the family (for example,by creatingboundedpersonaltime-spaceor collective time-spacesand shapingwhetherthe home is understoodas a havenfrom externalthreatsor a spacethat needsprotectingfrom pentrationby outside dangers),householdmembers'definition of time-spacescan also transform and redefinethe meaningof the technology(for example,from work tool to social tool etc.). In this chapterwe also refute populardiscoursesaboutthe allegedimpact of ICT on children'shome lives and use of outdoor space.We have shown that on-line activities are not displacing off-line activities, the home is not becomingdislocatedfrom the locale and computerusersare not becoming more home-centredin a narrow sense.Rather, children's on-line activities complementand enhancetheir off-line interests;their useof ICT is mediated by the local social networks within which their lives are embedded;and their computeractivities fit into ratherthan displacetheir regulartime-space activities. Insteadof becomingincreasinglymonochronic(pursuingone activity at a time), young people'suseof computersis often polychronicin that it is somethingdonewith othersor while watchingtelevision, listening to the radio or talking to other householdmembers. In the following chapterwe move on from our focus on the off-line space of the hometo considerchildren'son-line activities in more detail.

Chapter 6

Cybergeographies Children's on-line worlds

While the previouschapterfocusedon children's off-line lives - what happensaroundthe screen- in this chapterwe turn our attentionto children's on-line activities: what happenson the screen.We begin by looking at how children can extend the scope of their knowledge by using the WWW to accessinformation from aroundthe globe and explore what this meansfor the local culturesin which their lives are embedded.In the following section we move on to explorethe ways that children useICT to communicatewith both off-line and on-line friends/acquaintances, and to considerhow they representtheir own embodiedidentitiesin the process.In the third sectionwe think about how these connectionsmight be shaping children's senseof placein the world, and questionpopularrepresentations of cyberspaceas a placelesssocial space.The conclusionto this chapterreflects on the cybergeographiesthat are evident in children'son-line activities, and emphasises the extentto which children'son-line and off-line worlds are mutually constituted.

The Information Age: accessingthe wider world Janelle (1973) uses the concept of extensibility to measurethe way that peoplecan usetransportationand communicationtechnologiesto overcome the tyranny of distance.The WWW is one suchtechnology,enablingpupils to extend the scope of their sensoryaccessand knowledge acquisition beyondthe boundariesof the place where they live. This form of extension is regardedby both parentsand teachersfrom Westport as a particularly importantway of helping rural children to reachtheir educationalpotential. The town's rural location, and its lack of quality researchlibrary resources, meanthat children from Westportare more isolatedfrom wider sourcesof off-line information than their urbanpeers(Valentineand Holloway 2001c). Mr Thyme describeshow the Internetfacilitates his children'sschool work (a point also touchedon in Chapter2). Although, in Lorna Thyme'scasethis advantageappearsto be vicarious,being achievedthroughthe on-line activities of her father.

128 Cybergeographies

I mean,the reasonwe boughtit [Internet-connected PC] is for the information. I mean, Lorna's doing a history project at school on Strattonand I spenthours in there [on the Internet] one night getting, I mean,you wouldn't believe that there was even information on a little place like this on there, you know what I mean. And I actually [edit] emaileda chapwho was doing a book on King Alfred becauseI couldn't find the quotethat was mentionedin the will aboutStrattonand I actually emailedthis chapwho was doing it and he emailedme backwith the quote that was in the book that mentionedStrattonwhich has helped her [his daughter]with her project (Westport).

MR THYME:

Indeed,severalparentsarguethat the Internetis importantnot only because it allows children to extendtheir knowledgeacquisitionbut also becauseof the opportunitiesit offers young peopleto extendtheir personalhorizonsas social actors. Again this is regardedas particularly important in Westport becauseit is a rural town. The rural environmentis often imaginedto be an ideal setting to raise a family. It is regardedas safer spacethan the city to bring up children and a spacewhere children can have more freedom and independencethan their urban peers (Little and Austin 1996; Valentine 1997c).The countrysideis also attractiveto parentsbecauseit is assumedto be devoid of the commercial pressuresof the fashion industry and peer group pressuresto engagein activities suchas drugs,underagesex, bullying and violent crime that are evident in urban environments.As suchthe rural is imaginedto provide a more innocent,lessworldly, and purer experienceof childhood than that offered by the city (Jones 1997; Valentine 1997c). However,someWestportparentsrecognisethat as children grow into young adults thesebenefitscan rapidly becomedisadvantageous. In particular,the close-knitnatureof rural 'communities'can encouragechildren to be inward rather than outward looking, which can meanthat they lack awarenessof possible education,employmentor travel opportunitieselsewhereand as such set their personalhorizonstoo low. The Internet overcomestheselimitations by enablingrural children to benefit from the advantagesof living in a small communitywhile also allowing them to extendthemselvesin space and time.

If it's [the Internet] going to widen a child's view of what is happeningout there,acrossthe sea,you know up the country, whatever, it's got to be a good thing. It's no good living in this little compactenvironmentyou know ... [edit] there'sgot to be a placefor it when it gives children with limited, erm, funds to travel and seedifferent ways people live, etc. It's got to be, there'sdefinitely a place for it (Westport).

MRS GARDENER:

I think it's [the Internet] very positive becauseI think the trouble like, especiallyhere in Westport,peoplehere in Westportdon't even

MR GROVES:

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know what's going on down the road, thirty miles down the road [edit] ... they [children using the Internet] get exposure[on-line] to a different way of life, thereis more to, thereare more ways of living a life than just the way that we were broughtup you know (Westport). As the quotation from Mr Thyme above hinted at, many of the children themselvesprefer to use the Internet to extend the scopeof their everyday knowledgeand social activities ratherthan in the pursuit of the sort of educationalenlightenmentfavoured by their parents.Popularon-line activities amongchildren from all threeschoolsinclude: surfing the Internetfor information about celebrities from the worlds of film, sport and music, using shoppingsites in order to find out about fashionsand designerlabels, and looking up information about off-line hobbies and leisure activities. For example,SarahGould enjoysplaying netball and usesthe Internetto look up the All EnglandNetball Association(AENA) news, resultsof international matches,and world rankings.Her local teamhasalso takenadvantageof online tacticspages,and has copiedthe AENA emblemfrom its webpageto use as a letterheadin correspondence with other rival teams.Information gathered on-line in suchways can be usedas social capital to enhancechildren's off-line social status(a point we return to in the third sectionof this chapter) as SebastianBaker explains below. In this sense,children'shorizonsare set in terms of their presentposition within their contemporarypeer group social relations-a perspectivewhich contrastsstarkly with their more forward-lookingteachersand parents. Well, we, peopletalk a lot aboutPC gamesand stuff like that and we've swappeda few of them within eachother and I, I've given a few websitesto peoplewho like play the guitar or somethingif I can get them or any decentonesthat I give to my friends (Westport).

SEBASTIAN BAKER:

The information resources,in termsof the picturesof pop stars,movie stars, and international footballers etc., that the children draw on in this way, while given significanceby the framework of their local peergroup relations (see Chapters3 and 5), are not purely rooted in the place where they live. Rather,they are part of a globalisedyouth culture (Masseyand Jess1995; Massey1998). Patrick Redwoodfollowed up his off-line interestin Oasis online, in order to follow their global activities and internationalreleasesbut in doing so he also found out aboutupcomingtour datesand consequentlywas able to get tickets to seethem at a local venue: I go on the Oasiswebpageto find out tour datesand album releasesand things like that. 'Cos they don't tell you they released Stand by Me as a single but only in Japan- it was for an aid thing, a charity sort of thing. And you get pictures,I get picturesfrom concerts

PATRICK REDWOOD:

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and like tour dates.'Cos that was what I used,'cos I went to seeOasis when they cameto [local venue],so I got the tour datesoff the Internet (Highfields). In otherwords,the children'son-line activities clearly demonstratethat their worlds of meaningare simultaneouslyglobal and local. They are global in terms of their interconnectionswith the youth cultures in the wider world upon which they draw, but theseglobal culturesare also interpretedthrough the lens of local social relations and as such are re-madein the process (Holloway and Valentine 2000b; Holloway and Valentine 2001c). This is also evident in the following sectionwhere we considerthe ways that children communicatewith others on-line and make senseof these global relationshipsin the local contextof their everydayoff-line lives.

Making connections: friendship on-line

identity, sociality and

It is ironic that despitethe fact that one of the main usesof ICT is for communication, these technologiesare often imagined to be anti-social. The computeris often deridedas the refugeof geeksand loners.Yet, as shownin Chapter5, on-line activities can be both social and 'public', binding domestic users together in off-line spacethrough their shareduse of ICT. This sociality is also evident in on-line. As Curtis (1992) observes:

If someoneis spendinga large portion of their time being social with peoplewho live thousandsof miles away, you can't say they've turned inward. They aren'tshunningsociety.They'reactively seekingit. They're probablydoing it more actively than anyonearoundthem. Indeed,one of the most heraldedaspectsof ICT is the opportunitythat they offer to extendourselvesin spaceand time by connectingwith othersacross the globe. While other meansof communicationsuch as the telephoneand postal service offer similar possibilities, ICT have the advantageof being cheaperto use than the telephoneand being a quicker and more informal meansof contacting others than writing a letter. Further, in contrastto mediasuchas the televisionand radio, which are one-to-manyforms of communication, the Internet is a many-to-manyform of communicationthat links over 40 million people in a global network (Elmer-DeWitt 1995). As such,it blurs the boundariesbetweeninterpersonaland masscommunication (Parks and Floyd 1996). Holderness(1998) arguesthat becausethere is little differencein terms of the costsand convenienceof communicatingonline with people locally and those globally, everyonewho is on-line at the sametime is effectively in the sameplace. Children in our study, for example,useemail to keepin touch with distant

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relatives.In particular, ICT providesan important meansof binding dislocatedfamilies together. I email my Dad a lot 'cos he's in Kettering at the moment but he'sjust movedhouse,he normally lives in Warwickshireso I haven't got his new phonenumberyet. INTERVIEWER: But you do know his ... LOUISE NEWSON: His email address. INTERVIEWER: SO that's at work? LOUISE NEWSON: Yeah. But he really likes getting emails at work, he thinks it's really funny (Westport). LOUISE NEWSON:

As highlighted in the previouschapter,the networkedPC also emergesfor someyoung peopleas an important meansof connectingwith friends who live locally. In manycasesit hasbecomea substitutefor the telephone,being usedto arrangeget-togethers.For thesechildren their on-line relationships are effectively a virtual manifestationof their off-line social relationshipsin much the way that Beamish(1996) envisionedthat ICT might be employed. At Westportchildren even use email to contacttheir friends in other classes (both at breakand in the middle of lessons)or thosesitting on the opposite side of the sameroom. Indeed,as a disembodiedand asynchronisticmeans of communication,girls find email a useful way of talking to boys in the to approachface-to-face.Steve schoolwhom they would be too embarrassed Lake and his friends also usedthe anonymityof an email to senda message to a school bully telling him to stop picking on other children, a requestto which he responded. Why, why do you sayit's easierto talk to people,kind of, send them a messageratherthan going up to them? RACHEL BONNINGTON: You're not there when they read it. LOUISE NEWSON: You can tell them more how you like feel. INTERVIEWER: Right, is that people you know quite well or would like to know? LOUISE NEWSON: Yeah. CAROLINE DURRANT: Both really. LOUISE NEWSON: If you want to get to know someone,just send them an email and seeif they write back (Westport). INTERVIEWER:

My best friend Jasonsendsme a lot of messages'cos I'm on the Frenchside and he's on the Spanishside [sectionsof the school] and we, I've beenwith him all my life [in primary school] and we got split up when we went to Westport[the secondaryschool] and we don't like it so we try to communicateas much as we can (Westport).

TERESA JACKSON:

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You can get accessto information on the other side of the world, or other peoplein Westport.If you know their email addresses then you can just email peopleall round, all round Westportand everything, and you know, it's good that way (Westport).

COLIN BOWNESS:

While ICT emergefor somechildren as tools to facilitate or extendexisting local off-line social networks,othersusecommunicationmediasuchas email and chatroomsto developnew forms of interactionon-line and new kinds of social relationships(Thompson1995).The Internetis one of the technologies that allows people'ssocial activities to extend or spill over into distant spaces.A friend of brothersPaul and Doug Brady supportsthe Italian football team Sampadoria.The boys often use the Web to follow the club and check on its progress.Paul explains how ICT has enabledhis friend to develop new internationalrelationshipswith other football fans. Likewise, Alan, a keen sea surfer, has befriendedan American surfer with whom he exchangessurfing techniquesand product tips and, through talking about her off-line hobby, drumming,Francescahas also madenew friends on-line whom shehas subsequentlymet face to face. One of the playersSampadoriabought camefrom the, one of the Spanishteams.And therewas someonehe [the friend who supports Sampadoria]found who - he was in the sports room [a chat room for sportsfans] and he found someonewho supportedthat Spanishteam. So they were having an argumentabouthow good this playerwas, and the Spanishone [the on-line contact] didn't like him becausehe'd gone [left the Spanishclub] and my friend liked him becausehe'd come [had joined Sampadoria]and he was really good. Things like that, so if, if you both, if you like a common theme then you can have a good conversation (Station Road).

PAUL BRADY:

ICT not only enableyoung peopleto makethosewho are physically distant present,thesetechnologiesalso offer opportunitiesto bring those who are socially distant closer too. Colin Bowness'sbrother Jason, and Teresa Jackson,are just two of thosewho useemail to try to contacttheir celebrity heroesand heroines. Like Jason[his brother] talking to Phil Mitchell, he'sa pro body boarder,he's beentalking to him for aboutfour monthsnow, you know, on and off like every week. INTERVIEWER: They actually reply, do they? COLIN BOWNESS: Yeah, they reply, like he's got replies off the best body boarderin the world, and ... a few other people, you know that he admiresand he talks about- and they give him tips on body boarding. INTERVIEWER: SO it makeshim feel quite closeto his heroesin a way?

COLIN BOWNESS:

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Yeah, you know, a bit closerand it's also on the other side of the world as well, so it makesit look like they're just like, like in the next room really, 'cos it's that quick (Westport).

COLIN BOWNESS:

I've got my Oasis CD, it gives you the Internet address which you can email them on and sometimesI sendmessagesand I ask information on, Aqua and Will Smith are my favourite ones.(Westport)

TERESA JACKSON:

Theseexamplesof football fans, body boardersand music lovers further support the point we madein the previoussectionaboutthe glocalisednatureof children'scultures(seealso Holloway and Valentine 2000b; 2001c). Computer-mediated communicationsare often celebratedas disembodied forms of communicationthat enableparticipantsto escapefrom the limitations of their bodiesand to connectwith othersmind-to-mind (Stone1992; Heim 1993). Bodiescan get in the way of social relationshipsbecauseof the meaningsthat are read off from them, or the judgementswhich are made about particular physical characteristicssuch as age, attractivenessand gender(Van Gelder 1996). SteveLake who is insecureabouthis appearance describesthe advantagesof on-line versusface-to-facecommunication: Yeah, becauseone girl, if a girl comesup to you and they think you're ugly, they just carryonwalking, so if you speakto them on the Internet,they don't know what you look like so they just carryontalking to you which makesit easier(Westport).

STEVE LAKE:

As thesequotessuggest,the anonymityafforded by ICT allows on-line users to construct'alternative'identities,positioningthemselvesdifferently in online spacethan off-line space.Theseidentities- which are often playedwith and then abandoned(Plant 1993; Turkle 1995) - open up liquid and multiple associationsbetweenpeople and create spacesof concealmentand masquerade(Benedikt1991; Plant 1993).Perhapsthe most famousexample of this identity play is that of a middle-agedmale psychiatristwho in the courseof beingmistakenas a womanon-line discoveredthat he was privy to more intimate, richer conversationswith othersas a womanthan as a man. He thereforeset about creatingthe on-line personaof 'Julie' a totally disabled,single womanand over a period of time 'she' developeda wide circle of virtual friends. When 'Julie' was eventually exposedas an able-bodied man 'her' on-line friends, who had confidedintimate details of their lives to 'her', said that they felt 'raped'by the deceit (Stone1992). Despite salutary stories such as that of 'Julie', playing with identity is often promotedas a fun thing to do. Numerouswriters have describedthe 'thrill of escap[ing] from the confines of the body' (Springer 1991: 306) while Plant (1993: 14) claims that cyberspaceis 'a grid of referencefor free experimentation,an atmospherein which there are no barriers,restrictions

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on how far it is possible to go'. Children from all three of our schools describedvariousplayful and often spontaneous casualon-line exchangesin which they have misrepresentedtheir off-line identities in order to make themselvesappearmore interestingor attractive to other users. The most popularways to do this are to claim to be older, and to live somewheremore interesting than their own home town. JasonBownessdescribeshow he likes to 'be someonedifferent', masqueradingas older than he is, while Paul Brady plays with his geographicallocation: JASON BOWNESS: Well, about 15, 16 sometimes. INTERVIEWER: SO, like, two or three yearsolder than you are.

[Edit] I don't know why it is, it's just easier really - just you don't haveto worry aboutwhat you look like or anythinglike that, and you don't have to worry aboutyour speechor say you makemistakes. INTERVIEWER: You just create. JASON BOWNESS: Yeah, you just - you can pretendyou're somebodyelse, can't you, an' sayyou're from Japanor somethinglike that - you can be somebodydifferent (Westport). JASON BOWNESS:

If you seethere'ssomeonewho's, er, say 18 and they live in a really exotic place then, er, you'll think oh, well, I can hardly say I'm from here, so you'll say, you'll say somewhere.If ... you say about London then you've got more of a talking point. London's the capital city, er, so we, you've got things like saying oh, all the big shops,go to Harrods[a famousdepartmentstore] and, er, everythinglike that so -I don't know you can, you can normally tend, er, pick a city if you know a bit aboutit then- er, the only problemis if they say that they also live there [laughs] (Station Road).

PAUL BRADY:

Thu Nguyenand Alexander(1996) suggestthat disembodiedforms of communicationare particularly appealingto young peoplebecausein the adultist world of off-line spacethey are commonlytreatedas lessknowledgeable,less seriousand as less competentthan adults.As the quotesabovefrom Donny Wade and SteveLake imply, teenagersin particular are often self-conscious aboutwhat other peoplethink of them, and about how their bodily identities are read.Indeedthe body is a crucial markerof samenessand difference in young people'speer group relationships(James1993; Valentine 1999d). According to some of our interviewees,ICT gives them more control over their identities than spontaneousface-to-faceencountersbecausethey have time to think aboutwhat they want to say and how they want to represent themselves.There are also fewer consequences of making a fool of yourself in virtual spaceswhere no one can see you blush. Clive Stone,Helen Oats and her sister Rachelexplain that they find it easierto take risks with their

Cybergeographies 135

self-presentationon-line becauseof the anonymity and privacy afforded by leT ('no one knows who you really are', 'you are not really seeingthem', 'they can't really judge you ... 'cos they don't really know you'). It is also easierto disconnectfrom uncomfortabledisembodiedon-line encounters than it is from thosewhich take placeface-to-face,in off-line space. becauseyou don't, sort of, have to introduceyourself [to peoplein on-line spaces],you, you're not really shy 'cos peoplecan'tsee you and you just talk to them anon, anonymously,so, yeah, I think it makesit a bit easier. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah, you haven'tgot thosesamebarriers. CLIVE STONE: Urn. You just go on and start talking. Anyone who listens might reply but if they don't, it's not that embarrassing,'cos no one can seeyou. No one can be thereto laugh at you if you say somethingreally stupid. So you can just disconnectand sulk away without anyoneseeing you. It makesit a bit easierand less embarrassing(Highfields). CLIVE STONE: •••

often when you meet new people you're really, sort of, you're nervousand you, you don't really know what to say. But you can,when, when you're on the Net you don't haveto say, oh, you, you can be somebody who you're not really and you can be all outgoing and everything becauseyou're not really seeingthem. Like sometimeswhen you look at peoplein the face and you've never met them before then you're quiet and you're sort of. [laughs] RACHEL OATS: Yeah. HELEN OATS: No one knows really what to say but if it's somebody,if it's just a computerthen it's not gonnatalk really. RACHEL OATS: Yeah. HELEN OATS: You're nevergonnaseethe face unlessyou decideto meetthem or somethingand then you probably feel you know 'em 'cos you've beentalking to them for days and days. RACHEL OATS: Yeah. But, like, whateveryou say, they don't, they can't really judge you on it 'cos they don't really know you, so it's really good (Highfields). HELEN OATS

While young people'son-line sociality is often fleeting and casual,someof those we interviewed have establishednational and international virtual friendships(seeFigure 6.1, p. 151), someof which have beenconsummated by face-to-facemeetings.Theserelationshipsrepresentthe possible beginnings of a re-scalingof young people'ssocial networks. Advocatesof leT arguethat thesetechnologiesenableusersto meet others with whom they sharethe sameinterests.As a consequence, on-line friendshipsare arguedto be potentially stronger than off-line friendships which are often formed through the coincidenceof proximity rather than mutuality (Bruckman

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1992; Rheingold 1993, Turkle 1997). The Internet is particularly useful to thosewho are socially or physically isolated,suchas lesbiansand gay men or disabledpeople,becauseit offers them the opportunityto locate otherswho share their identity (Correll 1995; Valentine and Skelton 2001). Indeed, Turkle (1997) suggeststhat some people use the medium of ICT to work throughidentity issues.Lorna Thyme describesthe way ICT enablesusersto seek out 'sameness'which she illustrates through referenceto her musical taste (a point we will return to in the next section): Well, you can find out more, like, you can talk to peoplethat are into the samethings. Like, with your [off-line] friends they're into somesimilar stuff but they've got their own kind of, you know, music that they like and everything. But on the Internet you can pick up like people that actually like almost the exactly the samekind of stuff you like so you're talking to like somebodywho is, you know, knows what you're talking about on different things. INTERVIEWER: SO is that quite - do you think that's an advantage? LORNA THYME: Yeah, like, 'cos, like, I like a lot of American artists and like you know ... in America they've heard of them and they're like, oh yeah,you know, she'sgood, she is good and everythingand they know, you know, what he'sreleasedor she'sreleasedand it's like they'retelling me stuff. INTERVIEWER: Sure,so are many of your mates[off-line] into the samesort of music? LORNA THYME: No they're into like pop things like the Back Street Boys (Westport).

LORNA THYME:

On-line relationshipsare creditedwith sharingall the characteristicsusually associatedwith close face-to-faceties, they are: frequent, companionable, voluntary, reciprocaland supportsocial and emotionalneeds.Their placelessnessis even consideredan advantagebecausewhile geographical mobility can threatenor destroyface-to-facefriendships,on-line relationships can always be maintained(Wellman and Gulia 1996). All of these qualitiesare evidentin FrancescaLeighton'sdescriptionof her on-line relationships (which include regular and close contactsas well as fleeting exchanges).She claims that her virtual friendships are basedon genuine sharedinterestsratherthan the accidentof geographyor the coincidenceof age and gender. In contrast to the close-knit and incestuousnature of Francesca'slocal face-to-facefriendships,shecharacterisesher on-line relationships as more particular (and some are also very transient),and thus more discretethan her off-line relationships.This is becausethe information she shareswith people on-line is socially and spatially distancedfrom her off-line everydaylife. In other words, Francesca'son-line world effectively constitutesa 'private' space,a spaceof separationor escapefrom the inten-

Cybergeographies 137

sity and gossipy nature of her locally basedeverydaysocial relationships. Sheexplains: I mean, people [on-line] tend to go straight for the jugular you know, they talk about all this deepstuff [e.g. music, philosophical theory] on there which you don't chat about everydayover a cup of tea or whatever.Yeah, so I mean a lot of my [off-line] friends, they'renot interestedin exactly the samestuff as I am, so I can go there [Internet] and just find someonewho is and have a chat about it and stuff [Edit] ... people listen to you more. I'm not saying it's [ICT] a replacement[for face-to-facefriends] or anything but it's quite good to be able to go on and do that. [Edit ... later she continued on this theme] ... I don't know, like, my [off-line] friends are all my own age, whereas thepeople I write to [on email and in chatrooms]tend to be older and, I don't know, it's definitely a different thing, the kind of things you talk aboutand stuff, I mean,it's kind of good to have someone that'snot that close [in the senseof physicalproximity] and you can tell them something,you know it doesn'tmeananythingto them it's just what you've written, whereasyou know if you discusskind of personal stuff with other people [i.e. local face-to-facefriends], it gets out of hand and it gets round (Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

Taken at face value, the quotesfrom children in this section (for example, from Steve Lake, FrancescaLeighton, Clive Stone and Helen and Rachel Oats) all seemto suggestthat there is a clear divide betweenchildren'soffand on-line spacesin which the virtual is conceptualisedas a spaceof separation, an escapefrom the social and bodily constraintsof the 'real' world (a construction we also identified being drawn upon by some parents in Chapter4). However, while young people may position themselvesdifferently in on-line spacesfrom how they representthemselvesin off-line spaces, the alternative(often banal) on-line identitiesthat they constructare still usually situatedand contingentupon their off-line identities and everydaypeer group social relations. As such, their virtual activities do incorporatethe 'real'. First, for somechildren the siteswhich they chooseto go to, the nicknamesthey give themselvesand the things they chooseto talk abouton-line are a product of their off-line lives. Myers (1987), for example,describes how the 'Professor'was chosenas a nicknameby a user becauseit was his favourite comic book character.Likewise, FrancescaLeighton describes below how her on-line personasreflect her off-line interestsand bodily identity, while Paul Brady explainshow he initiates on-line friendshipsby talking abouthis everydayoff-line activities: So, do you createan identity for yourself?How do you sort of representyourselfwhen you go on-line?

INTERVIEWER:

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I just havea coupleof handlesthat I use from books that I've readthat I like, people'snamesand stuff. I think it's kind of fun, but I don't have an alter ego or anything, you know, I just go on there and talk aboutstuff that I'm, I, me actually I'm interestedin. I know you get peopleon therewho pretendthey'remodelsor whateverbut I don't really seeit like that (Highfields).

FRANCESCA LEIGHTON:

It's, like, oh, we had a really great weekendand I played basketball and what the scorewas and, like, tennisI'll be two setsto one how do you like tennis?What's the weatherlike there?You just sort of developa theme(Station Road).

PAUL BRADY:

Second,as the quotesfrom SteveLake and Donny Wadeaboveimply, on-line identities are constructedwithin the off-line context of the heterosexual economyof the classroom(Holloway et al. 2000). As we demonstratedin Chapter3, heterosexualityis importantin a whole repertoireof pupil-pupil and pupil-teacheroff-line interactionsincluding: name calling, flirting, sexual harassment,homophobicabuse,playgroundconversation,graffiti, dresscodes,and so on. Through these rel