Conference

I have been accepted to do a poster presentation at the 18th Annual Ethnographic and Qualitative Research in Education (EQRE), June 9 & 10, 2006 in Cedarville, Ohio (near Dayton and Columbus).

http://www.cedarville.edu/academics/education/eqre/

My paper is titled, 'Fish in Water' – the Field and Habitus of Teenage Computer Experts

The abstract is:
Although contemporary education literature regularly gestures towards the fact of teenagers’ (and children’s) ever increasing technological competency, there appears to be little research focused on the ways in which teenagers themselves conceptualize the idea of expert performance and the multiple ways they acquire expert status.

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus, this paper outlines research focused on a heterogeneous group of teenagers in semi-urban New Zealand settings and identifies the participants’ multiple (and contradictory) understandings of expertise and the ways they have attained expertise and performed as experts in out-of-school settings. Discussion focuses on how most of the teenagers gained their expertise independently with minimal input from their schooling, which raises questions regarding the relevance of schooling.