In 2022, 24.7% of children aged less than 18 in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (Eurostat, 2023). This compared with 20.9% of adults (aged 18 or more). At the same time, the increasing datafication of societies and education systems (Erstad et al, 2023) means that emphasis, familiar for decades, on a ‘digital divide’ relating to variations in individuals’ digital access, caused by differences in their motivation, physical access, skills and usage opportunities (van Dijk 2006), has now extended to a ‘data divide’ (Andrejevic 2014), where data-driven technologies are not experienced equally. In turn, these have exacerbated existing levels of disadvantage. While only 5.4% of school-aged children in Europe are digitally deprived, the differences across countries are considerable, ranging from 0.7% in Estonia to 23.1% in Romania (Ayllon, Holmarsdottir & Lado, 2023). These forms of disadvantage are interdependent and have been magnified and highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent cost of living crisis (Hayes et al, 2023).

This paper aims to explore the interactions between social and digital deprivation by examining the experiences of both disadvantaged young people and those who support them. To do this it brings together two theoretical perspectives. The first situates constructions of vulnerability, risk and disadvantage and their effects in a range of social, economic and political contexts, seeing them as constituent elements of being human rather than deficits located in the individual (Beckett, 2006; McLeod, 2012; Jopling & Zimmermann, 2023). The second is postdigital theory, a critical perspective which takes as a starting point the increasing ubiquity and indivisibility of digital technologies in our lives (Jandrić, MacKenzie & Knox, 2022). As such, it is deliberately hybrid, hard to define and unpredictable, representing “both a rupture in our existing theories and their continuation (Jandrić et al, 2018: 894).  It is hoped that bringing these perspectives will offer new perspectives on how disadvantage is constructed and understood.  The research questions for this study are:

• To what extent has digital disadvantage affected disadvantaged young people?
• How can disadvantaged young people be supported more effectively to develop the skills and capacities they need to overcome disadvantage and flourish in the future? 

This paper brings together data and findings from two overlapping projects. The first brought together cross-sector stakeholders from agencies, companies and consortia who worked with disadvantaged young people, as well as academic researchers in four collaborative dialogues held online during 2021 and 2022. Most participants were based in the West Midlands of England but the online location allowed their reach to extend nationally. The workshops were designed to facilitate debate on human data interaction (Mortier et al, 2014) and inclusive approaches to training and support for disadvantaged young people, especially in relation to areas such as developing skills in digital technologies and improving how young people understand data. Summaries of the workshops were shared with participants, but rather than using these as the basis for reporting on the study, participants were invited to contribute to an edited book (reference withheld) which allowed academic and non-academic contributors to extend the dialogue begun online. Chapters from the book have been used as data to be further analysed for this paper. The second project is ongoing at the time of submission and also uses a postdigital perspective to explore digital policy and practice in four schools (three secondary and one primary) in two highly deprived areas in the South-East of England. It explores issues such as the extent to which schools take into account children and young people’s digital lives and levels of access outside of school; how they are helping children and young people prepare for the (post)digital future in areas such as skills development; and the ways in which schools attempt to compensate for and overcome digital and data disadvantage among young people. The research is based on semi-structured individual and group interviews, held both online and in school, with school leaders, teachers, and technology leads in the schools. Data analysis is thematic (Braun & Clarke, 2021), informed by the theoretical frameworks already outlined.

Conclusions and expected outcomes are likely to focus on identifying the extent and effects of digital and data disadvantage among young people. They will also address the challenges schools, social services and other agencies face in attempting to support them and how they overcome these challenges. Indications for the first project were that disadvantage is both more various and deeper than stakeholders had anticipated, findings which will be explored in more detail in the presentation. Although the research is located in England, some of the dialogue participants drew on research undertaken in other countries and the presentation of conclusions will be careful to draw out the implications for other European contexts.

Andrejevic, M. (2014) Big data, big questions| the big data divide, International Journal of Communication, 8(17). Ayllón, S. Holmarsdottir, H. and Lado, S. (2023) Digitally Deprived Children in Europe. Child Indicators Research, 16, 1315-1339. Beckett, A. E. (2006) Citizenship and Vulnerability: Disability and Issues of Social Engagement. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke (2020): One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328–352 Erstad, O. et al (2023) Datafication in and of Education – a literature review. http://agile-edu.eun.org/documents/9709807/9862864/Updated+D2.1+Datafication+in+and+of+Education_090623.pdf Eurostat (2023) Children at risk of poverty or social exclusion. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Children_at_risk_of_poverty_or_social_exclusion Jandrić, P., Knox, J., Besley, T., Ryberg, T., Suoranta, J., & Hayes, S. (2018). Postdigital Science and Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(10), 893-899. Hayes, S., Jopling, M., Connor, S. and Johnson, M. (2023) Human Data Interaction, Disadvantage and Skills in the Community: Enabling Cross-Sector Environments for Postdigital Inclusion. Cham: Springer. Jandrić, P., MacKenzie, A. & Knox, J. (2022) Postdigital Research: Genealogies, Challenges, and Future Perspectives. Cham: Springer. Jopling, M. and Zimmermann, D. (2023) Exploring vulnerability from teachers’ and young people’s perspectives in school contexts in England and Germany, Research Papers in Education, 38(5), 828-845. McLeod, J. (2012) Vulnerability and the neo-liberal Youth Citizen: A view from Australia, Comparative Education, 4(11): 11-26. Mortier, R., Haddadi, H., Henderson, T., McAuley, D., & Crowcroft, J. (2014) Human Data Interaction: The Human Face of the Data-Driven Society. SSRN Electronic Journal. Van Dijk, J. (2020) The Digital Divide. London: John Wiley & Sons.