Confirmations and contradictions: Investigating the part that digital technologies play in students' everyday and school lives

Abstract

Widespread change at the technological level brings a dimension into students' everyday life scarcely imagined in earlier times. This paper investigates the role that digitally mediated forms of activity play in the lives of young people. Using data drawn from a national survey, complemented with interviews undertaken with two students, the paper exposes confirmatory and contradictory practices at work, in relation to technology use in two different fields. Bourdieu's insightful analyses of social practice provide a means to reveal the ways in which a student's habitus, formed by the technology available in everyday life, is fostered, shaped and negotiated in schools.