Abstract:

Digitization of the school has increased internationally with large-scale investments, and Nordic countries has come a long way in this development. Since the 1970s, Sweden has implemented multiple national initiatives aimed at developing IT use, often initiated by the state with relatively "top-down" thinking as a control over the projects.

Blomgren identifies three digital gaps that are problematic when it comes to students' opportunities for equivalent education:
1) access to digital resources,
2) differences in digital skills, and
3) absence of digital activities in teaching practices (compared to their everyday life).

Blomgren furthermore points out that access, availability and use of digital resources in school work are important factors for students' motivation, knowledge development and study situation but research findings investigating these gaps are lacking from a school and/or student perspective. In this work we take as a departure point that these factors also have a relation with students’ participation in school work.

Thus, the research question in this article focuses on students' perception of the use of digital tools in terms of student participation. The intention is to contribute to increase current understandings of student's view on how students use digital media in influence-processes in general, and in school activities specifically.

This study is part of a collaboration with a primary school, where fifteen students (age 16) participated as co-researchers (for more details see 7). Four follow-up interviews were conducted over three years after the initial research collaboration was completed. The collected data consists of five semi-structured focus group interviews, where thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings obtained show patterns of the students using social media (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook) in their participation in influence-processes of interest. Factors such as status and many followers are identified to give weight.
This – as expressed by them - in contrast to their view of adults in the digital world (which are not represented in their social media flows to a large extent), who communicates through more "serious" channels, like email.

When it comes to the use of digital tools for participation in the school/classroom, the students mention that these tools aren’t considered of particular significance in this specific context. That the role of digital tools as means of participation is not mentioned as contributing factors in enabling student participation. Future research will be focused on further examining learners and teachers specific views on how digital tools can enable student participation.

References:
[1] Riksdag, S. (2016). Digitaliseringen I skolan–dess påverkan på kvalitet, likvärdighet och resultat i utbildningen. Riksdagstryckeriet, Stockholm.
[2] Blomgren, J. (2016). Den svårfångade motivationen: elever i en digitaliserad lärmiljö.
3[] Söderlund, A. (2000). Det långa mötet-IT och skolan: om spridning och anammande av IT i den svenska skolan (Doctoral dissertation, Luleå tekniska universitet).
[4] Hansson, K. (2014). Staten, skolan och digitala medier. P.-O. Erixon, Skolämnen i digital förändring, 35-74.Lund. Studentlitteratur AB
[5] Bomgren, J. (2016). Den svårfångade motivationen: elever i en digitaliserad lärmiljö.
[6] Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. sage.
[7] Author (2018)

Keywords:

Student participation, digital tools, thematic analysis.