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Teenage technological experts : Bourdieu and the performance of expertise

Johnson, Nicola F. 2007, Teenage technological experts : Bourdieu and the performance of expertise, Ph.D. thesis, School of Education, Deakin University.

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Title Teenage technological experts : Bourdieu and the performance of expertise
Author Johnson, Nicola F.
Institution Deakin University
School School of Education
Faculty Faculty of Education
Degree name Ph.D.
Thesis note Thesis (Ph.D.)--Deakin University, Victoria, 2007.
Date submitted 2007
Keyword(s) Expertise
Computers and children - New Zealand
Internet and teenagers
Computer games
Internet - Social aspects
Microcomputers - Social aspects
Language eng
Summary This thesis explores the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers, specifically regarding their home computer use, which for many of them is their primary site of leisure. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's socio-cultural theories, the capital, habitus and field of the teenagers are described.
Detailed abstract This thesis explores the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers, specifically in regard to their home computer use, which for many of them is their primary site of leisure. This thesis explores the field in which these teenagers are positioned, and explains the practice constituting that field. In this field, the trajectories towards expertise are explained including the time, experimentation, and pleasure evident in their praxis. The qualitative study involved observations and interviews with eight teenagers aged 13 – 17. Five boys and three girls participated and each attended one of various secondary schools located within a provincial city in New Zealand. All of the participants considered themselves to be technological experts, and their peers and/or their family supported this comprehension. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural theories, the capital (cultural, economic, social) and habitus of the teenagers are described (habitus being what makes them who they are, and continues to define who they are in the future). Chapter five centres on explaining the field the teenagers have positioned themselves in, namely the field of out-of-school leisure and home computer use. It also explores the construction and performance of technological expertise within the field. Chapter six examines traditional views of schooling and expertise, and contrasts these views with what the teenagers think about their learning and expertise. This gap is specifically explained with regard to differences between the concepts and value of learning, expertise, and technology, and how they are recognised and valued differently between generations. Chapter seven explores the praxis that the participants exhibit, which is arguably misrecognized by those whose interests are in the established order (e.g. institutional, societal structures). The field they are placed in is arguably part of the broader field of education, yet the findings suggest their capital is misrecognized by digital newcomers, and therefore not legitimated. This thesis concludes that the gap between teenager and adult understandings of expertise is exacerbated in the digital world in which the teenagers position themselves. Their schooling is mainly positioned in the print culture of previous generations and consequently, in the lives of these teenagers, schooling has had little influence on the development of their technological expertise. Additionally, gender has had little impact in their development of expertise; therefore stereotypical notions of female underachievement as computer experts are contested.
Notes Degree conferred 2008.
Description of original viii, 215 leaves ; 30 cm.
Dewey Decimal Classification 306.487
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30023294
 
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