The Story of My Thesis

Dave said it's not very exciting! :-)

Ch. 1 - Intro

Wish to examine the phenomenon of teenagers gaining expertise in their home setting. Previous studies have focused on that girls need to change in order to ‘keep up’ or ‘be the same’ as boys.

Ch. 2 – Lit Rev

What others say. Why this research is needed.
Gendering of technology and schooling and expertise.
Changes in popular culture. Info about generations.
Psychological understandings of expertise.

Ch. 3 – Methodology and Methods

Bourdieu’s theory of practice offers insights and understandings not readily visible in other approaches (Grenfell & James, 2004).
Bourdieu’s approach and therefore what I have employed is qualitative, sociological (as opposed to psychological and behaviourist), and based on ethnographic approach whereby I have used interviews and observations to explore the field, habitus and capital of this phenomenon.

Ch. 4 – (data 1) Fish in Water – the Field and Habitus of Teenage Computer Experts

Definition of the field. Explanation of their habitus.
What they do, why they do it. The way they view and perform expertise.
Flow, and consequent so-called addiction.

Ch. 5 – (data 2) The Capital and Consequent Expertise of the Participants

How expertise is different from traditional psychological ideas of expertise.
Their capital has contributed to their expertise.
Components of expertise. Gendered elements of expertise.

Ch. 6 – (data 3) The Habitus of Generation ‘M’

Generational differences abound between what teenagers and adults perceive regarding expertise, legitimate praxis, and schooling.
Hard to ascertain the habitus between genders.

Ch. 7 – Conclusion

Curriculum and schooling needs to change to encourage females to choose pathways that go towards careers in computing. They continue to see it as irrelevant. Females can be competent computer experts. As popular culture and the habitus of youth is changing, does this mean that schooling is no longer the site where the most learning occurs?
Ascertaining the habitus between genders regarding computer expertise could be an area for further research.

Papers in Progress

Re: Data Ch. 3

‘Fish in Water’ – the Field and Habitus of Teenage Computer Experts (poster presentation this week)

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 especially in out-of-school settings. Attention is also drawn to the differences between the ways individual teenagers and their families/adults make sense of particular behaviours and activities.


Flow, Addiction, and Components of Computer Expertise (paper in progress)

In this qualitative study, the research focused on teenagers’ acquisition of computer expertise, and explored the field of home computer use by teenage experts, whose practice includes schoolwork, leisure, personal development, and personal expression. Previous studies focused on steps taken to acquire expertise, conducted from psychological perspectives. This study aligned itself with a sociological focus on education and explored the praxis and motivation behind obtaining expertise in this field.

This paper suggests that in the lives of these teenage computer experts, key components that make up their computer expertise are time, experimentation, and motivation. Discussion particularly focuses on the performance of expertise according to Glaser and Chi (1988). I also describe flow (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi, 1988) and the computer addiction of some participants, arguing that the so-called addiction that sometimes and consequently results from flow is an acceptable and doxic form of praxis within this field.


Re: Data Ch. 5

New Definitions of Expertise: The Importance of Capital in the Trajectory towards Technological Expertise for Contemporary Youth (this abstract has been submitted for a special issue journal)

The apparent technological ‘expertise’ of contemporary western teenagers has attracted significant attention over the past decade. This qualitative, ethnographic study focused on a heterogeneous group of teenagers in semi-urban New Zealand settings and explored the trajectory of teenagers towards their level of technological expertise. As almost all of the experts in this study gained their expertise through independent means, with minimal input from their schooling, discussion focuses on the pathways to expertise, and the implications regarding the relevance of schooling.

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field and habitus, this paper presents new definitions of expert and expertise in light of the study’s focus on the trajectory of these teenage experts, and attention will be given to the notions that economic capital and a certain type of habitus is required in order for expertise to be obtained and performed.


Re: Data Ch. 6

Title Only: Technology, Social Change, and the Habitus of Generation ‘M’: Implications for Schooling Policy and Practice.


A Previous Study

Transforming the Curriculum: Computers, Practice and Frameworks (soon to be submitted)

In 2002, Peter Twining introduced the Computer Practice Framework (CPF) as a means to conceptualise educational practice encompassing classroom computer use. Through a small scale, exploratory study that employed and critiqued the CPF, I explain how the CPF can be positively used as a step-by-step framework for beginning teachers to plan the integration of computers into their primary classroom programme. This paper also draws on a narrative of personal teaching experience and proposes that in order for the school curriculum to be transformed by computing and communication technologies, one must go beyond the categories of the CPF. The paper ends by suggesting that the practice of Knowledge-Producing Schools (Bigum, 2002; 2003) may be one way to transform the curriculum, a category that Twining privileges in his framework.

Epiphany? Revelation?

I don't have to finish my thesis this year.

I don't have to submit until March 2008. My scholarship will continue with no questions asked until then.

I have all the time in the world to read, assimilate, write, revise, create, experiment, modify, and analyze.

Don't stress that your every day progress is not notable!