Background

Today, the daily lives of children and young people is interwoven with digital technologies, in their school, family life, and leisure time. These technologies offer opportunities as well as potential threats with regards to health, lifestyle, social relations, safety, and education. In many ways, technology can support or drive innovations and transformations in children and young people’s way of learning, communicating, expressing themselves, using media etc. However, there are also many challenges; e.g. that the access to and quality of digital technologies vary greatly across social backgrounds, presenting a risk of further widening educational and cultural divides between different social groups.

This workshop will bring together transdisciplinary and international scholars studying childhood and youth with a particular interest in the transformative role of digital technologies. We seek to encourage a broad discussion about the ways in which digital technologies may facilitate skill development and learning, but at the same time potentially deepen inequalities between social groups. To achieve this goal, we want to invite contributions from a wide spectrum of perspectives.

The workshop will be structured in discussion themes to reflect a diversity of scholarly approaches to childhood, youth and digital technologies. Possible research areas might include (but are not limited to):

?      Surveillance and tracking.

?      Safety, security and privacy.

?      Children and young people’s digital practices.

?      Impact on physical and mental health.

?      Communication, self-expression, and gender.

?      Ethics and well-being.

?      Inequalities and opportunities.

?      Potentials of digital technologies for learning, social life and leisure.

?      Methods to study childhood, youth and digital technologies.

Confirmed keynote lectures will be given by:

?      Minna Ruckenstein (University of Helsinki, Finland)

?      Ana Jorge (Catholic University of Portugal)

?      Giovanna Mascheroni (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy)

Goal

The overall goal of the workshop is to explore and cultivate new collaborations and working relations. A future ambition is to establish a consortium which will develop an application for the upcoming EU H2020 call “DT-TRANSFORMATIONS-07-2019: The impact of technological transformations on children and youth”.

Submission details

Potential participants should submit:

1. An abstract of maximum 400 words discussing how your current and/or future research fits with the proposed workshop theme “Childhood, youth and digital technologies”.
2. A one-page CV.

A limited number of participants will be chosen to provide a balanced representation of both junior and senior scholars, disciplinary background, and international perspectives.

Travel stipends, food, and lodging will be provided for all participants.

Deadline:  February 5, 2018.

Submit materials to: stineliv@cc.au.dk & alb@cc.au.dk  

The workshop is a collaboration between Center for Children’s Literature and Media and Center for Surveillance Studies. It is supported by the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University.