WERA TASK FORCE Global Research in Extended Education Conference

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The rhythms of rules: Navigating children and young people’s social media practices in extended education

Abstract

Children’s and young people’s social media practices are a growing concern for adults worldwide. As a result, various regulations and policies are proposed, contested, and implemented in different ways. In Denmark mobile phones - and by extension social media - are often partially allowed in leisure clubs (for 10-12-year-olds) and fully permitted in youth clubs (for 12-18-year-olds). Yet only 2% of children and young people report being asked about their social media use by social educators (Børns Vilkår, 2019, s. 108). In an ongoing research project, we aim to generate new knowledge about social educator’s engagement with children and young people’s social media practices in extended educational settings, and to explore pedagogical approaches to working with social media in these contexts.
The research question guiding the project is: How do children and young
people’s social media practices shape their everyday lives in leisure clubs
and youth clubs, and how do these practices influence the work of social
educators in these settings?

Methodologically, the project is based on a qualitative approach, inspired by
participatory action research. Children, young people, and social educators
act as co-researchers, contributing to data production through snaplogs and
digital logbooks (Sauzet et al., 2024). Four clubs (two leisure clubs and two
youth clubs) participate in the project through three phases:
- Fieldwork (observations, snaplogs, digital logbooks and interviews)
- Analytical workshops
- Experiments with approaches and reflections on their implementation.
Our data suggests that children, young people and social educators actively
reflect on rules about social media practices in the clubs, both in terms of
when and if mobile phones should be allowed and how they should be used.
In various ways, the rules influence the relationship between children,
young people and social educators. In leisure clubs, with younger children,
rules tend to be explicit, setting clear spatial and temporal boundaries for
the use of mobile phones. In youth clubs, on the contrary, rules are often
implicit, shaped by social norms and pedagogical values rather than formal
rules.

Theoretically, we are inspired by Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 2004), Michel
Foucault (Foucault, 1995) and media practice theory (Larsen & Johansen,
2024), when we examine how explicit and implicit rules in extended
education create rhythms that structure the social media practices of
children, young people and social educators. In doing so, we depart from an
understanding of practices as a nexus of sayings and doings in context,
which allows us to focus on what children, young people and social
educators do with social media, rather than what social media does to them
(Larsen & Johansen, 2024, s. 31).

In the presentation we will unfold the social educators’ sayings and doings
on rules and compare these to the children and young people’s social media
practices. This will heed way for a discussion on the complexity of rules in
social media practices, not least the delicate balance between adult-driven
decisions and the perspectives of children and youth.

Periode	25 sep. 2025
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Norrköping, SverigeVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International