ABSTRACT
Developing digitally literate children with the knowledge and skills required to function optimally in the 21st century is crucial, but the reality is that achieving this aim in the developing world is complex. This chapter presents a case study of a rural school in Limpopo Province, South Africa, that, against the norm, has integrated digital technology into their teaching practice. The research considers what the digital divide means in this context of poverty, the challenges faced by the school, and the learning trajectories of teachers and students. This research draws together perspectives on the digital divide, reading them through the work of Bourdieu (1986), particularly his theory of capital. Data comprised of classroom observations, interviews, drawings documenting children’s learning experiences, and videos of children working with tablets. I show how an analysis of social space which takes account of the impact of competing fields, adaptions to habitus, and the constitution of various forms of capital provide a far more complex view of the digital divide and raise questions about access and literacy learning. The data reveals how the combination of specific social and financial capital enables an integration of technology into teaching and learning, the subsequent impact on the field, and changes in teacher habitus. While on the surface positive, the significance of these findings lies in showing the ways in which infrastructural constraints limit access, thus resulting in a recursive navigation of the digital divide that keeps children at the level of digital consumers, not producers (Rowsell, Morrell, & Alvermann, 2017).
