Learning to participate?

An ethnographic study of students' participation practices in cyber space

Abstract

Digital information technologies have been discussed since the beginning of the 2000s in terms of new possibilities for participation and democratisation. To this end, current education policy defines competencies and skills that are considered prerequisites for participation in the digital space. However, institutionally guided participation practices that students are supposed to learn in the subject of media education do not include the diverse digital participation processes that young people already shape on their own. Against this background, this article discusses the complexity and heterogeneity of digital participation and shows how young people each develop an educational component regarding digital participation in the institutional space and through their individual and social practices with digital media. In doing so, the young people are made visible beyond their role as pupils as already participating subjects and non-institutional participation practices are discussed as a constitutive part of the learning process of digital participation.