Digital disconnect or digital difference? A socio-ecological perspective on young children’s technology use in the home and the early childhood centre

Susan Edwards, Michael Henderson, Donna Gronn, Anne Scott, Moska Mirkhil

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

    55 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A digital disconnect perspective is founded on an assumption that technology use in the home is frequent, creative and generative, and that technology use in the early childhood centre should be the same as that found in the home. However, such arguments divert our attention from understanding the nature of the setting and thereby from an understanding of the role of technologies in education and at home. This study adopts a socio-ecological approach to explore the influence of setting, in particular the elements of activity, time, place and role on young children’s use of digital technologies. It concludes that technology use is characterised by different imperatives in each setting so that thinking about digital differences may be more productive than continuing to focus on the concept of disconnect.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-17
    Number of pages17
    JournalTechnology, Pedagogy and Education
    Volume26
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

    Keywords

    • digital disconnect
    • early childhood
    • technologies

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