Mobile media practices of young people in «safely digital», «enthusiastically digital», and «postdigital» schools

Abstract

How do schools today engage with mobile media? Drawing on ethnographically oriented research at German Schools Abroad, this paper teases out three sets of practices regarding young people’s mobile media use: «safe», «enthusiastic», and «postdigital». Presenting vignettes from three schools to illustrate each set of practices, the paper demonstrates how students are differently controlled, guided, and given space to shape their worlds through the practices. The paper highlights that these practices exist simultaneously. They enact different (not better or worse) institutional priorities and different (not better or worse) understandings of young people’s mobile use. The paper also highlights the tensions when schools aim to control young people’s mobile use, arguing that each set of practices undermines itself. It ends by reflecting on the implications for future research and practice if we see increased mobile media use in schools not, as often assumed, as a mark of «progress», «improvement» or «modernity», but instead as emerging from different understandings of school and young people.