Young people, new technologies and learning at home: taking context seriously

The paper presents findings from a large-scale mixed methods study of young people’s uses of new technologies at home to address a number of key conceptual issues in understanding the home as context for learning. First it is argued that young people’s engagement with new technologies is fundamentally bound up with their own identity. It then goes on to explore the nature of learning in the home, arguing that simply to characterise it as ‘informal’ is simplistic and misleading. By the application of Bernstein’s ideas on the classification and framing of knowledge, the paper argues that using ICTs at home can support learning that may be formal, informal, quasi-formal or incidental. The final part of the paper identifies some of the ‘informal learning practices’ that are available to young people when learning enters the home in this way. These informal learning practices, it is argued, increase their sense of agency in relation to their learning and therefore potentially make learning a richer and more fulfilling experience.