An intimate look at how children network, identify, learn and grow in
a connected world.
Read Online at connectedyouth.nyupress.org
Do today's youth have more opportunities than their parents? As they
build their own social and digital networks, does that offer new routes
to learning and friendship? How do they navigate the meaning of
education in a digitally connected but fiercely competitive, highly
individualized world?
Based upon fieldwork at an ordinary London school, The Class examines
young people's experiences of growing up and learning in a digital
world. In this original and engaging study, Livingstone and Sefton-Green
explore youth values, teenagers' perspectives on their futures, and
their tactics for facing the opportunities and challenges that lie
ahead. The authors follow the students as they move across their
different social worlds--in school, at home, and with their friends,
engaging in a range of activities from video games to drama clubs and
music lessons. By portraying the texture of the students' everyday
lives, The Class seeks to understand how the structures of social class
and cultural capital shape the development of personal interests,
relationships and autonomy. Providing insights into how young people's
social, digital, and learning networks enable or disempower them,
Livingstone and Sefton-Green reveal that the experience of
disconnections and blocked pathways is often more common than that of
connections and new opportunities.
