“Everything’s technology now”: the role of technology in home- and school-based summer learning activities in Canada

ABSTRACT

Though summer learning loss has been widely documented across both the United States and Canada, there is little knowledge on how parents and teachers view the use of technology in the context of summer vacation, and what the role of digital tools are in potentially alleviating achievement gaps due to summer learning loss. Drawing on 71 parent and 37 teacher interviews from a large-scale Canadian study examining summer learning loss in Ontario through summer literacy and numeracy programs for students (grades 1–3), this study highlights the complexities associated with using digital tool in both home and school life in the summer. Through extensions of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, we suggest that digital tools are becoming a new type of valued skillset that parents and educators are acknowledging. In specific, our main findings center around three interrelated themes: i) comfort with technology; ii) home-school connections; and iii) perception of children as digital natives. Results may be fruitful for parents, educators, and policymakers to understand the larger role that digital technology plays amongst Canadian families and teachers during the summer months and school year. Capturing these discussions can maximize both school and home use of digital tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital technology
• summer learning
• children
• families
• parent engagement
• social class

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Armstrong and Hamilton’s (2013) ethnography on college students, for example, the authors list five categories of social class among the college women in their study, and even these categories overlapped depending on one’s social upbringing.

2. Fifteen teacher interviews were conducted in 2012, and 22 teacher interviews in 2013. In 2014, we had no interviews with teachers since the focus of our study shifted to include children in the research process.

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (A Multi-Method Examination of Summer Learning Inequality);Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant [435-2013-0730];

Notes on contributors

Jessica Rizk

Jessica Rizk, PhD is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology and Legal Studies Department at the University of Waterloo. She completed her PhD in Sociology from McMaster University. Her research interests centre around the sociology of education, digital technologies, student engagement and inequality. She also has a Master of Education from York University, and is a certified teacher.

Cathlene Hillier

Cathlene Hillier, PhD is a postdoctoral research fellow at Nipissing University where she researches life course transitions among young people from Northern and rural communities. As a former elementary school teacher, she is interested in family-school dynamics and how parents and students engage in schooling. Her recent articles on these topics can be found in Qualitative Research Journal and Canadian Public Policy.