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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
                                                                                   Ponte et al.

Integration and audience research: digital participation in the face of social semi-
exclusion

cristina.ponte@fcsh.unl.pt
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
– Av. Berna, 26C / 1069-061 Lisboa – PORTUGAL
Co-authors: José Alberto Simões, Ana Jorge, Ricardo Campos, Luciana Fernandes1



Abstract
This paper presents results from a research on digital inclusion and participation amongst
deprived children in Portugal. Thanks to the national program to distribute laptops and
mobile internet access, several of these children already have access to the internet, but
the time spent online and the activities they conduct are limited by the type of access and
usually by a lack of digitally competent parents.
In the scope of a funded international project on Digital Inclusion and Participation
(http://digital_inclusion.up.pt) focused on socially disadvantaged groups, we adapted part
of the EU Kids Online survey to study 9 to 16-year-olds that use the Digital Inclusion
Centres in the Escolhas [Choices] Program, which is part of a public policy for social
inclusion. A selected group of questions on access, frequency, activities, skills and
mediations were adapted and asked to these children.
After discussing the concept of poverty and deprivation amongst children and presenting
a brief portrait of the national context, this paper discusses results from the interviews
(N294) focusing on the resources, activities and skills the deprived children and young
people in this study revealed.




Deprived children and their media experience


In contemporary societies, besides the relative social invisibility of children as a social
group, information and research on the most vulnerable groups of children are
particularly missing, namely on children living in poverty or in alternative care, from
ethnic minorities or migrant children, thus being ignored their particular life experiences
facing the mainstream reference of “being a child”. Fewer children but more children in
poverty were pointed out by Qvortrup (1994: xii) as an emerging social trend in European

1 This research was conducted in the scope of Digital Inclusion and Participation project
(UTAustin/CD/0016/2008), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and
coordinated by Cristina Ponte (FCSH-UNL), Joseph Straubhaar (University of Texas at Austin) and
José Azevedo (FL-UP).
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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
                                                                                   Ponte et al.

countries at the beginning of the 1990s that continues to be a reality: one in five children
in the EU were at risk of poverty before the current economic crisis struck –
approximately 20 million children, according to Eurostat (2010).


There are many ways of defining poverty, ranging from absolute or relative definitions
based on income to indicators of social inequality and deprivation. As far as children are
concerned, a move to indicators of child well-being has been recognized as particularly
relevant for measuring their social inclusion (Bradshaw, 2007: 106). Among those
indicators is their material, educational and subjective well-being, already explored in
recent UNICEF reports (UNICEF 2007, 2010). In fact, if children cannot function as
"normal" members of society because they do not have access to the material goods that
others deem necessary, then this indicator of deprivation is a useful one, points
Montgomery (2009: 166). Under this perspective, for European low-income children
internet represents “not a new opportunity but potentially a new danger, a new form of
difference and exclusion”, as Ridge (2007: 174) reports: “as children’s social lives are
increasingly developed, explored and negotiated in the world of virtual time and space,
new sites of social exclusion are emerging”, namely through “unsustainable consumption
demands of high-tech accessories”.


Even if disadvantaged children gain more internet access, they may remain relatively
disadvantaged both in terms of the quality of internet access they enjoy and because one
form of this disadvantage is generally correlated with others, e.g. parents’ available time,
parental education and expertise, educational values at home, calm places to study in and
so forth (Livingstone, 2009).


As noted above, for socially marginalized children and young people, poverty is not only
the scarcity of material or educational resources: it is also an internal construction of a self
that makes certain choices unthinkable, from reading a book from the library in their
leisure times to considering an ambitious career in their future. As Montgomery (2009:
170) points out, Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus (considering individual, familiar and
societal dispositions) and social and cultural capitals (Bourdieu, 1979, 1993) are here
particularly productive, taking the debate about poverty away from economics and the
lack of material possessions and back to issues of deprivation and inequality, making
visible the lack of various forms of cultural and social capital. On cultural capital one can
distinct: institutional cultural capital (such as academic qualifications), embodied cultural
capital (the ways in which people use language, present themselves, display social

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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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competence or confidence and so on) and objectified cultural capital (their ownership or
use of material goods such as books or paintings). The social capital involves networks and
connections and how these networks are sustained.


Based on her ethnographic research among children in the US, Ellen Seiter (2005) argues
that, far from leveling class differences, the internet has deepened social divisions along
the lines of class, race and ethnicity, both within and between countries. Middle-class
children are not only likely to have better quality computers and software; they also are
likely to have much more informed support in using them from parents and other adults,
and a greater access to social networks which will provide them with a sense of
motivation and purpose in using such technology in the first place. By contrast, poorer
children simply have less access to cultural goods and services: “they live not just in
different social worlds, but in different media worlds as well” (Buckingham, 2007: 84).


These different media worlds might be contrasted in the types of access to two levels of
digital divide (Hargittai, 2002): a first level of digital divide means having access to digital
technologies, considering ownership and use; and a second level is related to the user
profiles, assuming that more advanced users will develop a more functional rather than an
entertainment-oriented user profile. The differentiation hypothesis considering that
sociological variables continue to be important predictors including for the digital
generation (Peter and Valkenburg, 2006; Livingstone and Helsper, 2007) also confirms
that idea. The exploration of how far the digital experience of particularly deprived
children goes nowadays is the aim of the current ongoing research. Preceding others that
will focus on the second level of the digital divide, this paper is focused on the first level,
also providing a contextualization of the participant children and youth.


The Portuguese context and the Program Escolhas
Living the economic and cultural globalization from a semi-peripheral situation, Portugal
still experiences an “unfinished modernity” (Almeida & Costa, 1998). In the last two
decades, large transformations occurred in its demographic and structural composition
and in lifestyles, both having impacts on children’s and young people’s experiences: a
decrease in birth rate among native families, one of the most accentuated in Europe; the
increase of recomposed families, which create more complex parental relations; the
differences in the attainment levels of education among generations (low literate grand-
parents; a majority of parents who attained only compulsory school; adolescents that that

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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
                                                                                   Ponte et al.

have already surpassed their parents’ schooling); the income gap among families, with
25% of children living in poverty (INE, 2010).

Being for decades a relatively closed and ethnically homogenous society, Portugal also
faces the consolidation of a broader cultural and ethnical heterogeneity. Besides gipsy
families spread throughout the country, there is an increase of immigrant families, and
their second generations, mostly concentrated in the capital area and in Algarve, and
having more children than the Portuguese ones. Therefore, there is now a bigger diversity
of children’s social and cultural backgrounds, as well as different paths and trajectories in
their families, both conditions placing relevant questions on social identities and social
inclusion and participation.


As for the lifestyle changes, it could be mentioned the late arrival to consumption patterns
compared to other contemporary societies, which have had an increasing expression
within the leisure cultures: the changes in the TV panorama (multiplicity of private
channels entertainment-oriented) and in other mass media; an explosion of shopping
centres attracting family outings; the embellishment of the households with individualized
technology, amongst them the digital technologies oriented to entertainment,
communication and information à la carte (gaming consoles, DVD players, plasma TV,
laptops, digital cameras, mobile phones and so on). These postmodern scenarios contrast
with low levels of informational literacy amongst adult generations. Among older
generations, shared childhood memories of poverty are combined with the willingness of
providing their children with all the material comfort that they themselves had the lack of.
This potpourri of pre-modern, modern and postmodern structures and values is marked
by a high social inequality: amongst the 25 countries that participated in the EU Kids
Online survey, Portugal occupies the second highest position in the social inequality index
(ratio of share of income or expenditure of the richest 10% to the poorest 10% of the
population), after Turkey and followed by the UK.

In recent years, public policies have tried to change the educational scenarios, investing
both in adults and children, around Programs such as Novas Oportunidades [New
Opportunities], targeted at adults with low school attainment, the upgrade of school
equipments (e.g. broadband access, digital boards) and stimulus to the industries to
produce and sell low cost laptops to students since the early years of schooling (Programs
Magalhães and E-Escolas). By 2010, more than 800 thousand families had already
answered positively to these Programs, considered as references for digital inclusion.

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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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Combining social and educational aims, Escolhas is a nationwide program aiming to
promote social inclusion of children and young people (6-24 years old) from the most
vulnerable socio-economic contexts, particularly descendants of immigrants and ethnic
minorities. Digital inclusion is one of its five priority areas of intervention, crosscutting
and cumulative with the others: school education, vocational training, community
participation and citizenship, and entrepreneurship. Its 132 centres are mostly placed in
the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Oporto, created by local NGOs and working in the
inner of vulnerable contexts, these being social housing, old buildings in the city center or
slums in the suburbs. Each center is equipped with a minimum package of six PCs,
broadband access and a printer. Digital activities include guidance, free activities, those
aimed at developing skills and school success, and more formal ICT courses. Local teams
are composed by 3-4 technicians and include a young person living in the community and
who acts as mediator.




Adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire, collecting data


These Escolhas centres were the scenario for our interviews with deprived children and
young people, from 9 to 16, the same age range of EU Kids Online study. Our initial aim
was to compare as far as possible the national results of 1000 respondents, which are
representative, on access, uses, activities, skills and mediations with those from a
purposive sample of children and young people attending those centres. Therefore, 23
questions from the EU Kids Online face-to-face questionnaire were selected following, as
much as possible, the protocols and guidelines for application and interviewing. However,
a discussion with Escolhas local coordinators and animators made clear that even the 14+
year-olds would be unable to answer many questions by themselves, therefore implying
the reduction of sentences to a minimum of information as well as the number of
questions. Issues such as the family composition - potentially sensitive for most children
interviewed - were identified in those local meetings. Since many children did not seem to
live in structured families composed by both parents, the solution was starting the
questionnaire by asking the child: Who do you live with?, and adapting the questions on
parental mediation to the adults which he/she lives with2.




2The process of adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire to this group of children and young
people is more developed in Ponte, Simões and Jorge (2011).
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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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At the end, the questionnaire was divided into two versions, one for the younger (9-13)
and another for the older (14-16). The version for the 9-13 was designed as a structured
interview of 30 questions, some of them open-ended questions: From this list of activities,
what do you prefer? Why?; What are you forbidden to do on the internet?, and ending with a
sensitive question: And tell me what is for you using the internet in a safe way? How do you
do it? The version for the 14-16 was a self-completion questionnaire of 29 questions that
included a broader question on cultural interests and practices as well as three open-
ended questions: From this list of activities, which do you prefer?; What is your blog about?,
for those who declared having a blog, and the final one: We have asked you some questions
about good and bad things that can happen on the internet. Is there anything you would like
to warn people of your own age about?


The interviews were conducted between March and May 2011, in 19 Escolhas centres in
the urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto, where most of the centres were located. Children
and young people were informed of the aims of the interview/questionnaire (e.g. examine
their habits and uses of the internet). After being invited to fill the questionnaire and
answer the questions, they were told they would receive a gift at the end (a T-shirt with a
safety message on the internet). While some refused to participate, others accepted the
invitation by answering with different levels of personal involvement. Among the 284
respondents in this convenience sampling, all with internet access, age groups are
relatively balanced; still, differences among female and male participants express the
reality of Escolhas: there are much more boys than girls attending the centres (Table 1).



Table 1: Distribution of respondents per gender and age groups
                      Indicator                  Frequency                     %
              Gender
                Female                               96                       34%
                Male                                 188                      66%
              Age
                < 14                                 162                      57%
                >= 14                                122                      43%
                Source: Escolhas questionnaire; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011



Families, media environments and the first level of the digital divide


Although the different nature of the samplings imposes cautiousness and only partially
some questions might be compared due to the complex process of length reduction and
wording, it is interesting to look at the patterns of differences and similarities that emerge
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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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from the samples when they are side by side. Let’s start with the background of the
families and the conditions (Table 2).




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Table 2: Results from the EU Kids Online survey and from the Escolhas centres
                                                  EU Kids Online Portugal           Centros Escolhas
 Household composition
    Living with one adult                                    8%                           7%
    Living with two adults                                  65%                          20%
    Living with three adults                                21%                          25%
    Living with 4+ adults                                    5%                          48%
 Family type
    Single parent                                           20%                          31%
    Two parents                                             79%                          52%
    Other                                                    1%                           6%
 Education and cultural among parents
    Primary education (9 years) or less                     47%                          92%
 Internet access at home
    No internet access                                       7%                          29%
    At least one parent use the internet                    60%                          46%
 Devices for accessing the internet
    Personal laptop                                         65%                          46%
    Personal PC                                             33%                          17%
    Shared laptop                                           35%                          37%
    Shared PC                                               35%                          25%
    Game console                                            25%                          12%
    Mobile devices                                           7%                           3%
    TV                                                      28%                           8%
    Mobile phone                                            31%                          25%
 Places of Access
    At home                                                 87%                          56%
    At school                                               72%                          59%
    In a public library                                     25%
    In the Digital Inclusion Centre                                                      79%
 Frequency of access
    Everyday or almost everyday                             54%                          56%
    Once or twice a week                                    39%                          36%
    Once or twice a month                                    4%                           6%
    Less than once or twice a month                          3%                           2%
                    Source: Escolhas questionnaire; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011



In terms of family structure, the results highlight the differences in the households’
composition: nuclear family is dominant in the national sample, while about half of
Escolhas children live in extended families with more than four adults in the household:
grandparents (especially grandmothers), aunts, uncles and brothers and sisters-in law are
relatives that cohabit with the child and take care of him/her. This picture confirms the
sensitivity of the family issues, and the need to avoid the implicit frame of the nuclear
family model when asking questions on family mediation.

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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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School attainment and educational capital are one of the key sensitive points in Portugal
due to its socio-cultural history, with implications at all levels of social life, including
digital inclusion. Nowadays adolescents might easily have more school attendance than
their parents and grandparents, the latter frequently illiterate (35% of illiterate people in
1960). Table 2 shows that nationwide almost half of households still have a parent that
didn't reach the Secondary level (12 years of school), while among
the Escolhas participants the percentage of parents having the Elementary level (9 years of
school) or less almost reached the total sample (92%).


While all children declared themselves as internet users the contexts of access clearly
diverge: whereas in the national sample only 7% don’t have internet access at home, in the
Escolhas sample almost one in three children (29%) don’t have this access. The percentage
of parents that are internet users is also below the national average: less than half (46%)
of these children and youth have at least one member of the family that knows how to use
the internet, in particular the mother (49%) or father (44%), against 60% in the EU Kids
Online sample, both depicting families where children lead the use of the internet.


With the exception of shared laptops, for Escolhas sample the devices for accessing the
internet are below the national average: less than half have a personal laptop, the device
that is owned by about two in three children accessing the internet in Portugal.
Furthermore, the comparison on the places of access shows that they find them real
spaces for their internet access: almost all declare accessing the internet at CID centers
while declaring a lower use of the internet at school and at home (four out of ten don’t
refer neither the school nor the household as a place of access). Finally they don´t diverge
so much from the EU Kids Online answers on the frequency of use, both being one of the
lowest values in the European landscape.


Hence, in spite of the democratization of the internet access among Portuguese children,
there is scarcity of access and resources among deprived children and the first level of
digital divide is real among young people. Furthermore, for a large part of those children,
schools don’t seem to be realizing the inclusive work of facilitating the internet access and
use, and almost all live in families with very low levels of educational capital.
Consequences of these constraints, either at home or at school, are visible in the activities.



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Comparing activities: from the homework gap to shared interests


In the national EU Kids Online results, Doing school work was the most reported activity
(90%), even higher than the European trend (85%), suggesting that Portuguese children
are aware of the dominant discourse that associates internet with learning and
educational purposes, reinforcing its use for school work where internet plays a key role
as a search tool, a discourse also reproduced by families. However, this picture doesn’t fit
so well among children and youth from Escolhas sample, where one in four ignore the use
of internet for homework purposes. In addition, sending/receiving e-mails or instant
messaging, activities that involve writing skills, are also less common, and another activity
related with informative contents, reading/watching the news, is at the bottom of the list.
Playing games, watching videos on Youtube and visiting SNS sites (mainly Facebook) are
the main reported activities, highlighting a culture directed to entertainment. Among the
less important activities we found downloading music or movies probably due to the
scarcity of personal resources (Table 3).

                                      Table 3: Activities on the internet

                                                            EU Kids Online   Centros Escolhas
% Who have…
                                                               Portugal
Used the internet for school work                                90                59
Watched videoclips                                                82               72
Used instant messaging                                            78               66
Sent/received email                                               73               54
Visited a social networking profile                               63               69
Played games                                                      60               74
Download music or films                                           49               13
Read/watched the news                                             38               10
         Source: Answers from EU Kids Online Portugal and Escolhas; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011




Younger children (9-13) report gaming – including educational/school games such as
those provided by Escola Virtual, a partner of Escolhas - as their main online activity
(96%), followed by listening to music (92%), watching videos (89%) and searching
information for school homework (79%). Therefore, among this age group, school related
activities seem to be still important and they continue to access and use the internet for
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Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011
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educational purposes. The change in practices occurs among those who are aged 14 to16,
whose educational background is very different from their parents’ path, as they have
generally more education than their parents, thus having lack of cultural and educational
capital and the related informational skills, and frequently they face school failure. These
gaps might be one of the explanations for a smaller use of the internet as a tool to search
information for school work (34%). Turning to their interests, main reported activities are
those related to listening to music (64%), video watching (50%) uploading (48%) and
gaming (47%). While we were conducting the fieldwork, we could also see how the social
networking sites were also taking on in young people’s interests, even among younger
children. In fact, they surpass the national result, but that can also be related to the time
gap between the EU Kids Online survey (2010) and the Escolhas study (2011).



Digital skills

In the country, among youngsters from 14 to 16, most digital skills were declared by about
three quarters of the respondents of EU Kids Online survey. The same question, included
in our survey to youngsters of the same age in Escolhas centres, showed identical values in
several skills, like blocking unwanted messages, delete records, change privacy settings,
finding information on internet safety, but less in skills connected with informational uses
and managing received information, such as bookmarks, blocking spam and comparing
websites to decide if information is true, with less than half declaring the latter. Also
changing of filter preferences, which is related to managing the information, appears
remarkably less among young people attending Escolhas (Table 4).

                      Table 4: Children’s digital literacy and safety skills (age 14+)
    Internet skills                                                   EU Kids Online       Centros
                                                                       Portugal (%)      Escolhas (%)

    Bookmark a website                                                      86               77
    Block messages from someone you don’t want to hear from                 77               77
    Delete the record of which sites you have visited                       77               79
    Change privacy settings on a SNS                                        75               72
    Find information on how to use the internet safely                      77               74
    Block unwanted adverts or junk mail/spam                                73               55
    Compare websites to decide if information is true                       67               46
    Change filter preferences                                               60               39
        Source: Answers from EU Kids Online Portugal and Escolhas; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011




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An active group of bloggers?


Due to the adaptation of questions, the one on blogging is not exactly the same as far as
time and asked actions are concerned. In the EU Kids Online, respondents were asked
whether in the past month they had written a blog or online diary, in the Escolhas they
were asked whether they had ever created a blog or a site (alone or with friends). These
textual differences might lead to different understandings, recalls and judgments, certainly
influencing the results. Keeping also in mind that the two samples are not equivalent and
comparisons should be read carefully, while in the EU Kids Online national survey only
10% of youth with 13-16 years old answered they had written a blog or a online diary in
the last month (this activity being the less reported and following the European average),
in the Escolhas sample about one in three 14-16 respondents declared having already
created a blog, this being more declared by male (30 in 86) than by female (9 in 35).
Creating a blog in the classroom is part of the ICT national curriculum at Elementary level,
therefore being a relatively common practice at schools. As all the Escolhas respondents
were students, it was expectable that a high number answered positively. In fact, 38 out of
the 122 recall this scholar activity, thus suggesting that for the majority this ICT content
didn’t constitute a relevant memory.
Taking into account their home environments (Table 3), it is worth to look at the internet
access of these 38 adolescents and see how they differ from the others. In fact, this group
present differences on their conditions for accessing the internet, activities and literacy:
29 use their own computer to go to the internet (26 having laptops), 27 also refer to the
computer at school and 23 use relatives’ computers, suggesting a will for being online
using multiple access if needed; 25 go to the internet daily and 10 once or twice a week; on
a school day only seven declare spending more than two hours online but this value
duplicates on the non school days (ten declare spending more than four hours). Besides
their blogs, the most reported activities are listening to music, instant messaging, watching
videos and playing games, following the overall pattern. The gap is that all declare using
the internet for purposes such as school home work, download music and films,
watching/reading the news and send and receive emails, evidencing a more proactive
profile of users, for instance on searching information for learning purposes.
They also seem to be more aware of protecting their privacy, almost all declaring they
block unwanted messages (36) and delete the records of the visited sites (34).
Furthermore, they present comparatively higher values on informational skills: 32 know
how to bookmark a website and 25 report comparing websites.

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On the other hand, their parents continue reproducing the main pattern on internet: only
18 fathers and 18 mothers were internet users. Although their educational capital is also
low (only five have post Elementary degrees), they seem to be more aware on providing
cultural resources to their children: in fact, almost all (35) declare having shelves with
non-scholar books at home, while only 71% respondents from the Escolhas sample declare
the same.
Among the 30 young people that answered the respective open question, the influence of
school and ICT curriculum is visible, indicating both how in some educational contexts the
ICT activity allows a more participatory experience in the school life, and how its
compulsory nature and too focused scholar topics risk to lead to a distant experience and
eventually its abandon and forgiveness.


I have a site with my class where we discuss ideas about school and how we can improve
something. (Male, 14)

How was school 100 years ago. (Male, 14)

My blog is about my course (school trips, etc.). (Male, 14)

I created [a blog], just for doing it, but I’ve dropped it. (Male, 15).

I created on for school (a site) -> was evaluated; and a blog -> [for] a IT course. (Male, 16)



Out of the school context and besides shared blogs related to sports and leisure/
entertainment, the main picture is provided by using blogs as a platform for self-
disclosure and expression of their personal choices, musical taste and games activities.
Expressed by 13 adolescents, their less school-framed and more individualized practice
suggests also a more regular writing, approaching the values (13 in 122) to the ones from
the national survey. Besides the ‘I’ discourse, another difference is the reduction on gender
gap.


It’s about what I do and it talks about some things about me. (Female, 14);

It’s about me, it has all my favorite music. (Female, 14);

It’s a site about the games I create. (Male, 14);

What I like the most is to make [create the blogs]. (Male, 14)

My blog is a page with the friends I know. (Male 14)
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My blog or page/site talks a bit about myself and has a space for fun and people can
comment on the website and send messages. (Male, 14)

Just put on my blog my own texts, to whom I dedicate or even texts that reflect my life
experiences and events. (Female, 15)

It’s where I share information or videos and any other stuff with friends friends (sic) (Male,
15)

It depends, I have many but the main (blog) is about the things I like to do. (Male, 15)

It’s about myself, I have the books I like to read, the musics, videos and photos. (Male, 16)

It talks about myself. (Female, 16)



Synthesis and next steps
At the end of this glance at the family contexts and digital experiences of those attending
the Digital Inclusion Centres of Escolhas, several methodological remarks and comparative
observations need to be made:
Firstly, the importance of considering family compositions and access to the media in the
households that don’t fit the mainstream model of middle-class, high educated parents
and well equipped households, thus the importance of avoiding wording questions that
might be insensitive to such contexts.
Secondly, the similarities that emerge between this sensitive group of less privileged
children and the national trend, expressed in the enthusiasm of the families to adhere to
campaigns such as “one laptop per child”, had two important consequences: on one hand,
at a basic level, made those families move from exclusion to ownership; on the other hand,
it apparently had no outstanding affect on the amount of use, since this tends to coincide
with the relatively low level of frequent internet access.
Thirdly, the high value of informal public spaces with relatively low level of adult
mediation among both groups, which we could see during our interviews at the Digital
Inclusion centres, as happens in the public libraries, suggests the unexplored potential of
these places for other kind of uses and opportunities, this being particularly relevant when
considering the cultural capital and educational level among the low SES families.
Finally, and not forgetting the particularities of each sample, we should note the
differences between the national representative sample and this group attending Escolhas
as far as more informational and learning activities (as it is the case of the school

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homework) and declared digital skills are concerned. These differences might be related
to the differences on ownership of other digital equipments, on the household resources
(including the lack of digital and educational capital by parents and relatives) and on the
school environments, less present in the Escolhas samples, hence broadening the gap on
opportunities for exploring and using the digital media in different activities and for the
digital literacy.
Both levels of digital divide pointed by Hargittai (2002), being the first focused on
ownership and use and the second on user profiles, are visible when we look at the
particular profile of active bloggers in the Escolhas sample: in spite of their contextual
difficulties, compared with their colleagues that attend those centers, they emerge as a
minority group of activists exploring the internet potential for creativity and self-
expression in a particularly lively way. Their enthusiasm and declared competencies could
be regarded as incentive to empowering them on the informational and communicational
skills and contributing to place them as positive examples and trusty digital experts
among the peer groups and as agents within the family and community.




References
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Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature.
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                                                                                               15
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                                                                                                  16

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Integration and audience research: digital participation in the face of social semiexclusion

  • 1. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. Integration and audience research: digital participation in the face of social semi- exclusion cristina.ponte@fcsh.unl.pt Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa – Av. Berna, 26C / 1069-061 Lisboa – PORTUGAL Co-authors: José Alberto Simões, Ana Jorge, Ricardo Campos, Luciana Fernandes1 Abstract This paper presents results from a research on digital inclusion and participation amongst deprived children in Portugal. Thanks to the national program to distribute laptops and mobile internet access, several of these children already have access to the internet, but the time spent online and the activities they conduct are limited by the type of access and usually by a lack of digitally competent parents. In the scope of a funded international project on Digital Inclusion and Participation (http://digital_inclusion.up.pt) focused on socially disadvantaged groups, we adapted part of the EU Kids Online survey to study 9 to 16-year-olds that use the Digital Inclusion Centres in the Escolhas [Choices] Program, which is part of a public policy for social inclusion. A selected group of questions on access, frequency, activities, skills and mediations were adapted and asked to these children. After discussing the concept of poverty and deprivation amongst children and presenting a brief portrait of the national context, this paper discusses results from the interviews (N294) focusing on the resources, activities and skills the deprived children and young people in this study revealed. Deprived children and their media experience In contemporary societies, besides the relative social invisibility of children as a social group, information and research on the most vulnerable groups of children are particularly missing, namely on children living in poverty or in alternative care, from ethnic minorities or migrant children, thus being ignored their particular life experiences facing the mainstream reference of “being a child”. Fewer children but more children in poverty were pointed out by Qvortrup (1994: xii) as an emerging social trend in European 1 This research was conducted in the scope of Digital Inclusion and Participation project (UTAustin/CD/0016/2008), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and coordinated by Cristina Ponte (FCSH-UNL), Joseph Straubhaar (University of Texas at Austin) and José Azevedo (FL-UP). 1
  • 2. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. countries at the beginning of the 1990s that continues to be a reality: one in five children in the EU were at risk of poverty before the current economic crisis struck – approximately 20 million children, according to Eurostat (2010). There are many ways of defining poverty, ranging from absolute or relative definitions based on income to indicators of social inequality and deprivation. As far as children are concerned, a move to indicators of child well-being has been recognized as particularly relevant for measuring their social inclusion (Bradshaw, 2007: 106). Among those indicators is their material, educational and subjective well-being, already explored in recent UNICEF reports (UNICEF 2007, 2010). In fact, if children cannot function as "normal" members of society because they do not have access to the material goods that others deem necessary, then this indicator of deprivation is a useful one, points Montgomery (2009: 166). Under this perspective, for European low-income children internet represents “not a new opportunity but potentially a new danger, a new form of difference and exclusion”, as Ridge (2007: 174) reports: “as children’s social lives are increasingly developed, explored and negotiated in the world of virtual time and space, new sites of social exclusion are emerging”, namely through “unsustainable consumption demands of high-tech accessories”. Even if disadvantaged children gain more internet access, they may remain relatively disadvantaged both in terms of the quality of internet access they enjoy and because one form of this disadvantage is generally correlated with others, e.g. parents’ available time, parental education and expertise, educational values at home, calm places to study in and so forth (Livingstone, 2009). As noted above, for socially marginalized children and young people, poverty is not only the scarcity of material or educational resources: it is also an internal construction of a self that makes certain choices unthinkable, from reading a book from the library in their leisure times to considering an ambitious career in their future. As Montgomery (2009: 170) points out, Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus (considering individual, familiar and societal dispositions) and social and cultural capitals (Bourdieu, 1979, 1993) are here particularly productive, taking the debate about poverty away from economics and the lack of material possessions and back to issues of deprivation and inequality, making visible the lack of various forms of cultural and social capital. On cultural capital one can distinct: institutional cultural capital (such as academic qualifications), embodied cultural capital (the ways in which people use language, present themselves, display social 2
  • 3. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. competence or confidence and so on) and objectified cultural capital (their ownership or use of material goods such as books or paintings). The social capital involves networks and connections and how these networks are sustained. Based on her ethnographic research among children in the US, Ellen Seiter (2005) argues that, far from leveling class differences, the internet has deepened social divisions along the lines of class, race and ethnicity, both within and between countries. Middle-class children are not only likely to have better quality computers and software; they also are likely to have much more informed support in using them from parents and other adults, and a greater access to social networks which will provide them with a sense of motivation and purpose in using such technology in the first place. By contrast, poorer children simply have less access to cultural goods and services: “they live not just in different social worlds, but in different media worlds as well” (Buckingham, 2007: 84). These different media worlds might be contrasted in the types of access to two levels of digital divide (Hargittai, 2002): a first level of digital divide means having access to digital technologies, considering ownership and use; and a second level is related to the user profiles, assuming that more advanced users will develop a more functional rather than an entertainment-oriented user profile. The differentiation hypothesis considering that sociological variables continue to be important predictors including for the digital generation (Peter and Valkenburg, 2006; Livingstone and Helsper, 2007) also confirms that idea. The exploration of how far the digital experience of particularly deprived children goes nowadays is the aim of the current ongoing research. Preceding others that will focus on the second level of the digital divide, this paper is focused on the first level, also providing a contextualization of the participant children and youth. The Portuguese context and the Program Escolhas Living the economic and cultural globalization from a semi-peripheral situation, Portugal still experiences an “unfinished modernity” (Almeida & Costa, 1998). In the last two decades, large transformations occurred in its demographic and structural composition and in lifestyles, both having impacts on children’s and young people’s experiences: a decrease in birth rate among native families, one of the most accentuated in Europe; the increase of recomposed families, which create more complex parental relations; the differences in the attainment levels of education among generations (low literate grand- parents; a majority of parents who attained only compulsory school; adolescents that that 3
  • 4. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. have already surpassed their parents’ schooling); the income gap among families, with 25% of children living in poverty (INE, 2010). Being for decades a relatively closed and ethnically homogenous society, Portugal also faces the consolidation of a broader cultural and ethnical heterogeneity. Besides gipsy families spread throughout the country, there is an increase of immigrant families, and their second generations, mostly concentrated in the capital area and in Algarve, and having more children than the Portuguese ones. Therefore, there is now a bigger diversity of children’s social and cultural backgrounds, as well as different paths and trajectories in their families, both conditions placing relevant questions on social identities and social inclusion and participation. As for the lifestyle changes, it could be mentioned the late arrival to consumption patterns compared to other contemporary societies, which have had an increasing expression within the leisure cultures: the changes in the TV panorama (multiplicity of private channels entertainment-oriented) and in other mass media; an explosion of shopping centres attracting family outings; the embellishment of the households with individualized technology, amongst them the digital technologies oriented to entertainment, communication and information à la carte (gaming consoles, DVD players, plasma TV, laptops, digital cameras, mobile phones and so on). These postmodern scenarios contrast with low levels of informational literacy amongst adult generations. Among older generations, shared childhood memories of poverty are combined with the willingness of providing their children with all the material comfort that they themselves had the lack of. This potpourri of pre-modern, modern and postmodern structures and values is marked by a high social inequality: amongst the 25 countries that participated in the EU Kids Online survey, Portugal occupies the second highest position in the social inequality index (ratio of share of income or expenditure of the richest 10% to the poorest 10% of the population), after Turkey and followed by the UK. In recent years, public policies have tried to change the educational scenarios, investing both in adults and children, around Programs such as Novas Oportunidades [New Opportunities], targeted at adults with low school attainment, the upgrade of school equipments (e.g. broadband access, digital boards) and stimulus to the industries to produce and sell low cost laptops to students since the early years of schooling (Programs Magalhães and E-Escolas). By 2010, more than 800 thousand families had already answered positively to these Programs, considered as references for digital inclusion. 4
  • 5. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. Combining social and educational aims, Escolhas is a nationwide program aiming to promote social inclusion of children and young people (6-24 years old) from the most vulnerable socio-economic contexts, particularly descendants of immigrants and ethnic minorities. Digital inclusion is one of its five priority areas of intervention, crosscutting and cumulative with the others: school education, vocational training, community participation and citizenship, and entrepreneurship. Its 132 centres are mostly placed in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Oporto, created by local NGOs and working in the inner of vulnerable contexts, these being social housing, old buildings in the city center or slums in the suburbs. Each center is equipped with a minimum package of six PCs, broadband access and a printer. Digital activities include guidance, free activities, those aimed at developing skills and school success, and more formal ICT courses. Local teams are composed by 3-4 technicians and include a young person living in the community and who acts as mediator. Adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire, collecting data These Escolhas centres were the scenario for our interviews with deprived children and young people, from 9 to 16, the same age range of EU Kids Online study. Our initial aim was to compare as far as possible the national results of 1000 respondents, which are representative, on access, uses, activities, skills and mediations with those from a purposive sample of children and young people attending those centres. Therefore, 23 questions from the EU Kids Online face-to-face questionnaire were selected following, as much as possible, the protocols and guidelines for application and interviewing. However, a discussion with Escolhas local coordinators and animators made clear that even the 14+ year-olds would be unable to answer many questions by themselves, therefore implying the reduction of sentences to a minimum of information as well as the number of questions. Issues such as the family composition - potentially sensitive for most children interviewed - were identified in those local meetings. Since many children did not seem to live in structured families composed by both parents, the solution was starting the questionnaire by asking the child: Who do you live with?, and adapting the questions on parental mediation to the adults which he/she lives with2. 2The process of adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire to this group of children and young people is more developed in Ponte, Simões and Jorge (2011). 5
  • 6. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. At the end, the questionnaire was divided into two versions, one for the younger (9-13) and another for the older (14-16). The version for the 9-13 was designed as a structured interview of 30 questions, some of them open-ended questions: From this list of activities, what do you prefer? Why?; What are you forbidden to do on the internet?, and ending with a sensitive question: And tell me what is for you using the internet in a safe way? How do you do it? The version for the 14-16 was a self-completion questionnaire of 29 questions that included a broader question on cultural interests and practices as well as three open- ended questions: From this list of activities, which do you prefer?; What is your blog about?, for those who declared having a blog, and the final one: We have asked you some questions about good and bad things that can happen on the internet. Is there anything you would like to warn people of your own age about? The interviews were conducted between March and May 2011, in 19 Escolhas centres in the urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto, where most of the centres were located. Children and young people were informed of the aims of the interview/questionnaire (e.g. examine their habits and uses of the internet). After being invited to fill the questionnaire and answer the questions, they were told they would receive a gift at the end (a T-shirt with a safety message on the internet). While some refused to participate, others accepted the invitation by answering with different levels of personal involvement. Among the 284 respondents in this convenience sampling, all with internet access, age groups are relatively balanced; still, differences among female and male participants express the reality of Escolhas: there are much more boys than girls attending the centres (Table 1). Table 1: Distribution of respondents per gender and age groups Indicator Frequency % Gender Female 96 34% Male 188 66% Age < 14 162 57% >= 14 122 43% Source: Escolhas questionnaire; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011 Families, media environments and the first level of the digital divide Although the different nature of the samplings imposes cautiousness and only partially some questions might be compared due to the complex process of length reduction and wording, it is interesting to look at the patterns of differences and similarities that emerge 6
  • 7. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. from the samples when they are side by side. Let’s start with the background of the families and the conditions (Table 2). 7
  • 8. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. Table 2: Results from the EU Kids Online survey and from the Escolhas centres EU Kids Online Portugal Centros Escolhas Household composition Living with one adult 8% 7% Living with two adults 65% 20% Living with three adults 21% 25% Living with 4+ adults 5% 48% Family type Single parent 20% 31% Two parents 79% 52% Other 1% 6% Education and cultural among parents Primary education (9 years) or less 47% 92% Internet access at home No internet access 7% 29% At least one parent use the internet 60% 46% Devices for accessing the internet Personal laptop 65% 46% Personal PC 33% 17% Shared laptop 35% 37% Shared PC 35% 25% Game console 25% 12% Mobile devices 7% 3% TV 28% 8% Mobile phone 31% 25% Places of Access At home 87% 56% At school 72% 59% In a public library 25% In the Digital Inclusion Centre 79% Frequency of access Everyday or almost everyday 54% 56% Once or twice a week 39% 36% Once or twice a month 4% 6% Less than once or twice a month 3% 2% Source: Escolhas questionnaire; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011 In terms of family structure, the results highlight the differences in the households’ composition: nuclear family is dominant in the national sample, while about half of Escolhas children live in extended families with more than four adults in the household: grandparents (especially grandmothers), aunts, uncles and brothers and sisters-in law are relatives that cohabit with the child and take care of him/her. This picture confirms the sensitivity of the family issues, and the need to avoid the implicit frame of the nuclear family model when asking questions on family mediation. 8
  • 9. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. School attainment and educational capital are one of the key sensitive points in Portugal due to its socio-cultural history, with implications at all levels of social life, including digital inclusion. Nowadays adolescents might easily have more school attendance than their parents and grandparents, the latter frequently illiterate (35% of illiterate people in 1960). Table 2 shows that nationwide almost half of households still have a parent that didn't reach the Secondary level (12 years of school), while among the Escolhas participants the percentage of parents having the Elementary level (9 years of school) or less almost reached the total sample (92%). While all children declared themselves as internet users the contexts of access clearly diverge: whereas in the national sample only 7% don’t have internet access at home, in the Escolhas sample almost one in three children (29%) don’t have this access. The percentage of parents that are internet users is also below the national average: less than half (46%) of these children and youth have at least one member of the family that knows how to use the internet, in particular the mother (49%) or father (44%), against 60% in the EU Kids Online sample, both depicting families where children lead the use of the internet. With the exception of shared laptops, for Escolhas sample the devices for accessing the internet are below the national average: less than half have a personal laptop, the device that is owned by about two in three children accessing the internet in Portugal. Furthermore, the comparison on the places of access shows that they find them real spaces for their internet access: almost all declare accessing the internet at CID centers while declaring a lower use of the internet at school and at home (four out of ten don’t refer neither the school nor the household as a place of access). Finally they don´t diverge so much from the EU Kids Online answers on the frequency of use, both being one of the lowest values in the European landscape. Hence, in spite of the democratization of the internet access among Portuguese children, there is scarcity of access and resources among deprived children and the first level of digital divide is real among young people. Furthermore, for a large part of those children, schools don’t seem to be realizing the inclusive work of facilitating the internet access and use, and almost all live in families with very low levels of educational capital. Consequences of these constraints, either at home or at school, are visible in the activities. 9
  • 10. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. Comparing activities: from the homework gap to shared interests In the national EU Kids Online results, Doing school work was the most reported activity (90%), even higher than the European trend (85%), suggesting that Portuguese children are aware of the dominant discourse that associates internet with learning and educational purposes, reinforcing its use for school work where internet plays a key role as a search tool, a discourse also reproduced by families. However, this picture doesn’t fit so well among children and youth from Escolhas sample, where one in four ignore the use of internet for homework purposes. In addition, sending/receiving e-mails or instant messaging, activities that involve writing skills, are also less common, and another activity related with informative contents, reading/watching the news, is at the bottom of the list. Playing games, watching videos on Youtube and visiting SNS sites (mainly Facebook) are the main reported activities, highlighting a culture directed to entertainment. Among the less important activities we found downloading music or movies probably due to the scarcity of personal resources (Table 3). Table 3: Activities on the internet EU Kids Online Centros Escolhas % Who have… Portugal Used the internet for school work 90 59 Watched videoclips 82 72 Used instant messaging 78 66 Sent/received email 73 54 Visited a social networking profile 63 69 Played games 60 74 Download music or films 49 13 Read/watched the news 38 10 Source: Answers from EU Kids Online Portugal and Escolhas; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011 Younger children (9-13) report gaming – including educational/school games such as those provided by Escola Virtual, a partner of Escolhas - as their main online activity (96%), followed by listening to music (92%), watching videos (89%) and searching information for school homework (79%). Therefore, among this age group, school related activities seem to be still important and they continue to access and use the internet for 10
  • 11. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. educational purposes. The change in practices occurs among those who are aged 14 to16, whose educational background is very different from their parents’ path, as they have generally more education than their parents, thus having lack of cultural and educational capital and the related informational skills, and frequently they face school failure. These gaps might be one of the explanations for a smaller use of the internet as a tool to search information for school work (34%). Turning to their interests, main reported activities are those related to listening to music (64%), video watching (50%) uploading (48%) and gaming (47%). While we were conducting the fieldwork, we could also see how the social networking sites were also taking on in young people’s interests, even among younger children. In fact, they surpass the national result, but that can also be related to the time gap between the EU Kids Online survey (2010) and the Escolhas study (2011). Digital skills In the country, among youngsters from 14 to 16, most digital skills were declared by about three quarters of the respondents of EU Kids Online survey. The same question, included in our survey to youngsters of the same age in Escolhas centres, showed identical values in several skills, like blocking unwanted messages, delete records, change privacy settings, finding information on internet safety, but less in skills connected with informational uses and managing received information, such as bookmarks, blocking spam and comparing websites to decide if information is true, with less than half declaring the latter. Also changing of filter preferences, which is related to managing the information, appears remarkably less among young people attending Escolhas (Table 4). Table 4: Children’s digital literacy and safety skills (age 14+) Internet skills EU Kids Online Centros Portugal (%) Escolhas (%) Bookmark a website 86 77 Block messages from someone you don’t want to hear from 77 77 Delete the record of which sites you have visited 77 79 Change privacy settings on a SNS 75 72 Find information on how to use the internet safely 77 74 Block unwanted adverts or junk mail/spam 73 55 Compare websites to decide if information is true 67 46 Change filter preferences 60 39 Source: Answers from EU Kids Online Portugal and Escolhas; Ponte, Simões and Jorge, 2011 11
  • 12. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. An active group of bloggers? Due to the adaptation of questions, the one on blogging is not exactly the same as far as time and asked actions are concerned. In the EU Kids Online, respondents were asked whether in the past month they had written a blog or online diary, in the Escolhas they were asked whether they had ever created a blog or a site (alone or with friends). These textual differences might lead to different understandings, recalls and judgments, certainly influencing the results. Keeping also in mind that the two samples are not equivalent and comparisons should be read carefully, while in the EU Kids Online national survey only 10% of youth with 13-16 years old answered they had written a blog or a online diary in the last month (this activity being the less reported and following the European average), in the Escolhas sample about one in three 14-16 respondents declared having already created a blog, this being more declared by male (30 in 86) than by female (9 in 35). Creating a blog in the classroom is part of the ICT national curriculum at Elementary level, therefore being a relatively common practice at schools. As all the Escolhas respondents were students, it was expectable that a high number answered positively. In fact, 38 out of the 122 recall this scholar activity, thus suggesting that for the majority this ICT content didn’t constitute a relevant memory. Taking into account their home environments (Table 3), it is worth to look at the internet access of these 38 adolescents and see how they differ from the others. In fact, this group present differences on their conditions for accessing the internet, activities and literacy: 29 use their own computer to go to the internet (26 having laptops), 27 also refer to the computer at school and 23 use relatives’ computers, suggesting a will for being online using multiple access if needed; 25 go to the internet daily and 10 once or twice a week; on a school day only seven declare spending more than two hours online but this value duplicates on the non school days (ten declare spending more than four hours). Besides their blogs, the most reported activities are listening to music, instant messaging, watching videos and playing games, following the overall pattern. The gap is that all declare using the internet for purposes such as school home work, download music and films, watching/reading the news and send and receive emails, evidencing a more proactive profile of users, for instance on searching information for learning purposes. They also seem to be more aware of protecting their privacy, almost all declaring they block unwanted messages (36) and delete the records of the visited sites (34). Furthermore, they present comparatively higher values on informational skills: 32 know how to bookmark a website and 25 report comparing websites. 12
  • 13. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. On the other hand, their parents continue reproducing the main pattern on internet: only 18 fathers and 18 mothers were internet users. Although their educational capital is also low (only five have post Elementary degrees), they seem to be more aware on providing cultural resources to their children: in fact, almost all (35) declare having shelves with non-scholar books at home, while only 71% respondents from the Escolhas sample declare the same. Among the 30 young people that answered the respective open question, the influence of school and ICT curriculum is visible, indicating both how in some educational contexts the ICT activity allows a more participatory experience in the school life, and how its compulsory nature and too focused scholar topics risk to lead to a distant experience and eventually its abandon and forgiveness. I have a site with my class where we discuss ideas about school and how we can improve something. (Male, 14) How was school 100 years ago. (Male, 14) My blog is about my course (school trips, etc.). (Male, 14) I created [a blog], just for doing it, but I’ve dropped it. (Male, 15). I created on for school (a site) -> was evaluated; and a blog -> [for] a IT course. (Male, 16) Out of the school context and besides shared blogs related to sports and leisure/ entertainment, the main picture is provided by using blogs as a platform for self- disclosure and expression of their personal choices, musical taste and games activities. Expressed by 13 adolescents, their less school-framed and more individualized practice suggests also a more regular writing, approaching the values (13 in 122) to the ones from the national survey. Besides the ‘I’ discourse, another difference is the reduction on gender gap. It’s about what I do and it talks about some things about me. (Female, 14); It’s about me, it has all my favorite music. (Female, 14); It’s a site about the games I create. (Male, 14); What I like the most is to make [create the blogs]. (Male, 14) My blog is a page with the friends I know. (Male 14) 13
  • 14. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. My blog or page/site talks a bit about myself and has a space for fun and people can comment on the website and send messages. (Male, 14) Just put on my blog my own texts, to whom I dedicate or even texts that reflect my life experiences and events. (Female, 15) It’s where I share information or videos and any other stuff with friends friends (sic) (Male, 15) It depends, I have many but the main (blog) is about the things I like to do. (Male, 15) It’s about myself, I have the books I like to read, the musics, videos and photos. (Male, 16) It talks about myself. (Female, 16) Synthesis and next steps At the end of this glance at the family contexts and digital experiences of those attending the Digital Inclusion Centres of Escolhas, several methodological remarks and comparative observations need to be made: Firstly, the importance of considering family compositions and access to the media in the households that don’t fit the mainstream model of middle-class, high educated parents and well equipped households, thus the importance of avoiding wording questions that might be insensitive to such contexts. Secondly, the similarities that emerge between this sensitive group of less privileged children and the national trend, expressed in the enthusiasm of the families to adhere to campaigns such as “one laptop per child”, had two important consequences: on one hand, at a basic level, made those families move from exclusion to ownership; on the other hand, it apparently had no outstanding affect on the amount of use, since this tends to coincide with the relatively low level of frequent internet access. Thirdly, the high value of informal public spaces with relatively low level of adult mediation among both groups, which we could see during our interviews at the Digital Inclusion centres, as happens in the public libraries, suggests the unexplored potential of these places for other kind of uses and opportunities, this being particularly relevant when considering the cultural capital and educational level among the low SES families. Finally, and not forgetting the particularities of each sample, we should note the differences between the national representative sample and this group attending Escolhas as far as more informational and learning activities (as it is the case of the school 14
  • 15. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. homework) and declared digital skills are concerned. These differences might be related to the differences on ownership of other digital equipments, on the household resources (including the lack of digital and educational capital by parents and relatives) and on the school environments, less present in the Escolhas samples, hence broadening the gap on opportunities for exploring and using the digital media in different activities and for the digital literacy. Both levels of digital divide pointed by Hargittai (2002), being the first focused on ownership and use and the second on user profiles, are visible when we look at the particular profile of active bloggers in the Escolhas sample: in spite of their contextual difficulties, compared with their colleagues that attend those centers, they emerge as a minority group of activists exploring the internet potential for creativity and self- expression in a particularly lively way. Their enthusiasm and declared competencies could be regarded as incentive to empowering them on the informational and communicational skills and contributing to place them as positive examples and trusty digital experts among the peer groups and as agents within the family and community. References Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. La distinction: critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Londres: Polity Press. Bradshaw, J. (2007). Child benefit packages in 22 countries. Childhood, generational order and the welfare state: exploring children's social and economic welfare. H. Wintersberger, T. Olk and J. Qvortrup. Odense, COST: 141-160. Buckingham, D. (2007). Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cidade, editor. Hargittai, E. (2002). "Second-level digital divide: difference in people's online skills." First Monday 7(4): http://webuse.org/pdf/Hargittai-SecondLevelFM02.pdf. INE, Instituto Nacional de Estatística. (2010). Indicadores Sociais 2009. Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Estatística, I.P. Retrieved from the Internet June 1, 2011. http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_publicacoes&PUBLICACOESpub_ boui=105186688&PUBLICACOEStema=55445&PUBLICACOESmodo=2 Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the internet. London, Polity Press. 15
  • 16. Conference Paper “Transforming Audiences 3”, London 1-2 September 2011 Ponte et al. Livingstone, S. and Helsper, E. (2007). “Gradations in digital inclusion: children, young people and the digital divide”. New Media & Society, 9 (4): 671-696. Montgomery, H. (2009). Children, young peple and poverty. Children and Young People's Worlds. H. Montgomery and M. Kellett. Milton Keynes, The Open University: 165-180. Peter, J. and Valkenburg, P. M. (2006). “Adolescents’ internet use: Testing the ‘disappearing digital divide’ versus the ‘emerging digital differentiation’ approach”. Poetics, 34: 293-305. Ponte, C., J. A. Simões, et al. (2011). Digital inclusion in the face of social semi-exclusion: adapting the EU Kids Online questionnaire. IAMCR 2011. Istambul, 13-17 July. Qvortrup, J. (1994). Childhood matters: an introduction. Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics. J. Qvortrup, M. Bardy, G. Sgritta and H. Wintersberger. Vienna, European Centre: 1-24. Ridge, T. (2007). Negotiating childhood poverty: children's subjective experiences of life on a low income. Chidhood. Generational Order and the Welfare State: Exploring Children's Social and Economic Welfare. H. Wintersberger, L. Alanen, T. Olk and J. Qvortrup. Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark: 161-180. Seiter, E. (2005). The Internet Playground. Chilkdren's access, entertainment, and miss- education. New York, Peter Lang. UNICEF (2010). Humanitarian Action Report: partnering for children in emergencies. New York: UNICEF. Retrieved from the Internet June 1, 2011. http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_HAR_2010_Full_Report_EN_020410.pd f UNICEF. (2007). Annual Report: covering 1 January 2007 through 31 December 2007. New York: UNICEF. Retrieved from the Internet June 1, 2011. http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Annual_Report_2007.pdf 16