In this paper we will address the results from a sociological research on the uses and effects, school and social, of the Magalhães computer[1] in an administrative group of schools in Leiria, Portugal. We will focus on its use by children in different contexts (home, school and other places of sociability), by crossing the regard of different social actors: the children themselves, parents and teachers.

One of the challenges facing the information society refers to inequalities and power relations that underlie it, a phenomenon that has assumed different names, such as digital gap, info-exclusion and digital divide. Generally, what seems to be concerned is the gap between two opposing groups: those with and those without access to information technology. Research in recent years has been showing the outlines of these cleavages in other countries (Cruz, 2008) and Portugal (Cardoso et al., 2005) and pointing to an increasingly complex and multifaceted reality. So, on the one hand, Almeida et al. (2008) suggest a rapid spread in the use of computers and the Internet, with some blurring of social inequalities among children and young people; on the other hand, Rodrigues and Mata (2003) note that the use of ICT has a stronger correlation with the level of education than with age, thus, fading the generational effect; in parallel, recent data show that in Portugal the number of children who use computers tends to increase, but the advantage that this group had on the adults regarding the use of the Internet is decreasing, being now both groups almost even (EU Kids Online, 2011).

The unequal relationship between schools and families, depending on social class, gender and ethnicity (Lareau, 1989; David, 1993; Vincent, 1996; Silva, 2003), also draws attention to the possible perverse effects of public policies in this area. To understand that the school-family interaction is a relationship among cultures and, therefore, a power relation (Silva, 2003) - either attenuating or reproducing school and social inequalities - stresses the importance of ICT as playing a mediation role between the "two worlds" (Silva, Coelho, Fernandes and Viana, 2010). These and other questions begin to be considered by several experts, even though there is still a deficit of research in this area, which seems, however, to be a promising one (Pieri, 2005; Wiedemann, 2003, Martinez-Gonzalez et al., 2003, 2005; Diogo & Silva, 2010; Silva et al., 2010).

This research aims to find answers to multiple questions, including: who uses the Magalhães computer? What are its uses? In what contexts? What are the modes of regulation of its uses? By whom? What are the effects, school and social, of its uses by the various social actors and their interactions? In particular, in the classroom and in the school-family relationship?

[1] The Magalhães computer is the result of a government policy that distributed a laptop specially conceived for elementary children, at a national level, for a very low price or even free for poor families. This mediatic and controversial program started in the school year of 2008-2009.

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