ABSTRACT

As Tony Blair has said, "Technology has revolutionised the way we work and is now set to transform education. Children cannot be effective in tomorrow's world if they are trained in yesterday's skills."
Cyberkids draws together research in the sociology of childhood and social studies of technology to explore children's experiences in the Information Age. The book addresses key policy debates about social inclusion and exclusion, children's identities and friendships in on-line and off-line worlds and their relationships with families and teachers. It counters contemporary moral panics about children's risk from dangerous strangers on-line, about corruption and lost innocence from adult-centred material on the web and about the addiction to life on the screen. Instead, by showing how children use ICT in balanced and sophisticated ways, the book draws out the importance of everyday uses of technology and the ways in which children's local experiences are embedded within, and in part, constitute the global.

chapter 1|19 pages

Cyberworlds

Children in the Information Age

chapter 2|22 pages

The digital divide?

Children, ICT and social exclusion

chapter 3|30 pages

Peer pressure

ICT in the classroom

chapter 4|27 pages

On-line dangers

Questions of competence and risk

chapter 5|28 pages

Life around the screen

The place of ICT in the ‘family' home As

chapter 6|26 pages

Cybergeographies

Children's on-line worlds

chapter 7|7 pages

Bringing children and technology together