Updated version of presentation delivered at HEA Social Sciences annual conference 2014. These slides form part of a blog post, which can be accessed via: http://bit.ly/1sqOwEa

1. The digitalised spaces and
cultures of schooling
HEA conference, Birmingham 22-23 May 2014
Sara Bragg
Education Research Centre
University of Brighton

2. Think about these …
• Should teachers confiscate students’ mobile phones
while they are in school?
• Can iPads improve the quality of learning?
• Should teachers accept friend requests from students
on Facebook?
• Does what young people do with social media out of
school help with what they need to learn in school?
• Should schools actively monitor students’ social media
activities while they are using school wifi or hardware?
• Should senior managers look at applicants’ social
media profiles when appointing teaching staff?

3. We need to talk about digital
cultures….
• Exploring the distinctive contribution of HE to ITE
• Background =
• Research-practice nexus in UoB SoE: ideas of
thinking from / through practice (Shove et al 2012);
identifying how our ‘styles of thinking’ do not just
explain things but equally shape and establish those
objects of explanation – and how we might ‘think and
act otherwise’ – not least through theory / research
(Loveless & Williamson 2013)
• Research base in (amongst others) Face 2 Face:
tracing the real and the mediated in children’s cultural
worlds (09/2013 – 08/2014), ESRC National Centre for
Research Methodology: noticeable fear / exclusion of
youth digital cultures – contrast with youth-centric
accounts such as danah boyd It’s Complicated

4. We need to talk about digital
cultures….
Aims
• To bridge cultures of research and practice and
generate genuine “research middlework” (Thomson
2013)….
• … by bringing together researchers, lecturers and
student teachers
• … specifically around an under-explored but cross-
sector/subject/curriculum issue, of ‘digitalised cultures
and spaces’
• … where ‘research’ perspectives differ markedly from
practitioner-oriented ones.
Methods
• A series of workshops / discussions => vignettes/
materials

5. Preliminary findings
• The topic is rich, complex, and perhaps under-
explored in some existing ITE provision
• The project demonstrates strengths of HEIs – student
teachers collectively provide a striking range of views,
experiences and practices
‘Meeting up was great. I think that is what professionals
need - a space where you can talk and laugh and be critical
…. We need to get out of the slightly myopic 'my school
does it like this' way and into the 'hey look what we just did
over here' kinda way - imho. Meeting up with peers and
discussing what's working and what isn't, for each of us, is so
valuable, and its often only in these situations that we have
to defend our decisions and can share solutions and ideas as
freely. And cross-curricular is so useful too - that was one of
the best things about the course at Brighton - meeting people
from all areas’.

6. Preliminary findings
• Challenges include practical (meeting); ethical /
political (relationships with schools);
• Need to address tendency to adopt a ‘front of
classroom’ approach / deficit discourse where
students’ digital lives are perceived negatively or in
terms of risky / at risk
• This isn’t about ‘accessing and applying research’ in
any simple way – in fact, it’s about trying to escape
from conventional approaches to ‘technology
enhanced learning’ and claims about what ‘is’ in our
‘cybernetic’ age
• Next stages will focus on generating teaching
materials that enable these issues to be raised and
discussed…
• Over to you…

7. References
• boyd, d. (2014). It's Complicated: The Social Lives of
Networked Teens. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press
• Hope, A. (2014). ‘Schoolchildren, Governmentality and
National E-safety Policy Discourse’. Discourse:
Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.
• Loveless, A., & Williamson, B. (2013). Learning
identities in a digital age: rethinking creativity,
education and technology. London: Routledge.
• Shove, E., Pantzar, M., & Watson, M. (2012). The
dynamics of social practice: Everyday life and how it
changes. London: Sage.

8. Sara Bragg
Education Research Centre
University of Brighton
s.bragg@brighton.ac.uk