Constructing the child computer user: from public policy to private practices

Universal access to the 'new capital' of information and knowledge via Info rmation and Communications Technologies (ICT) has become a central goal of education reform under the New Labour Government. Public policy and media d iscourses, however, currently construct young children in a paradoxical rel ationship wit new technologies, as both at the vanguard of the digital revo lution 'effortlessly grasping the tools' of the new technologies, and at th e rear, requiring educational policy interventions to ensure their acquisit ion of 'key skills' in ICT. While this meta-level discourse in policy state ments, television coverage and advertising permeates reporting of young peo ple's use of computers, however, both children and their parents are negoti ating competing definitions of the function and uses of these new technolog ies in the home. Drawing on data gathered from 16 case-study families over a 12-month period, this paper therefore explores the subject positions cons tructed for young people by these discourses, the ways in which educational policy-makers are beginning to appeal to young people as consumers of digi tal technologies, and the responses of young people and their parents to th ese often conflicting images of 'the child computer user'.