Facebook & Co – Tools For Pedagogues? How Youth Workers Perceive Social Network Sites And Integrate Them Into Their Work
Author(s):
Daniela Cornelia Stix (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2013
Network:
21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Poster

Session Information

ERG SES D 06, Poster Session

Poster Session

Time:
2013-09-09
13:30-15:00
Room:
A-205
Chair:
Samuel Gento

Contribution

Social network sites like Facebook are not a trend any more; instead they have become part of children's and adolescent's daily lives. This has led youth workers to use them in their daily work as well. In my doctoral thesis I explore how professional youth workers view social network sites and the way in which they integrate them pedagogically into their day to day professional work.

I am particularly interested in the opinions of youth workers, especially whether they consider social network sites to be a pedagogical tool and how these websites could be useful to promote (social) relationships between youth workers and their clients. Additionally, I anticipate insights on how professional youth workers make use of social network sites and how they involve these into their day to day professional work.

Through my work as a mediaeducator I frequently encounter youth workers who engage with social network sites at work / in their professional lives and who wish to address their uncertainties, questions and speculations. This has convinced me that there is a need to systematically collect more information on the use of social network sites in order to establish a balanced overview of the field.

The central theme of my research is: In how far do youth workers percieve the pedagogical benefits of social network sites, particularly with regards to developing social relationships, and in how far do youth workers manage to utilise these in their professional work.

Method

I decided to use a qualitative study design to gain insight into how professional youth workers interact pedagogically with and within social network sites. The Grounded Theory (Glaser/Strauss, Strauss, Strauss/Corbin) lends itself to the data collection and analysis because of its openness and its circularity towards the data. This provides me with the flexibility to react to unforeseen circumstances and unforeseen interim results which can then be included into further proceedings. The data will be collected through episodical interviews (Flick 2011). This method is an intra-method triangulation. It combines topical interviewing with narration-based interviewing and allows me to survey both episodical-narrative knowledge and conceptual-semantic knowledge. Currently I am analysing five interviews from the first data collection phase. During summer 2013 I intend to collect and analyse the second phase's data, to verify findings from the first phase and to narrow down the focus of my thesis.

Expected Outcomes

Preliminary findings suggest that youth workers do not readily regard social network sites as pedagogically useful or helpful for promoting relationships. Instead, social network sites tend to be mainly seen as a marketing and public relations tool. They also see the social network sites as a source of personal information about the children's or adolescents' topics and problems. At first sight the use of social network sites seems identical with the perception of these sites (Marketing and PR-Tool, and source of personal information about the clients). However it is surprising to discover at second glance – when analysing the narrative and descriptions of what youth workers do – that youth workers do use social network sites unknowingly for their purposes. It is surprising that youth workers do not perceive and utilise the social network sites as a kind of pedagogical tool. Moreover, since there is a nocticable gap between perception and real use I am planning to investigate this further.

References

Ali, J. and Davies, T. (2009): Social Media. Youth Participation in Local Democracy. cns. Bimschas, B. and Schröder, A. (2003): Beziehungen in der Jugendarbeit. Untersuchung zum reflektierten Handeln in Profession und Ehrenamt. Leske + Budrich. Boyd, D.M. and Ellison, N.B. (2007): Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (13)1 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html (17.6.2010). Cloos, P. and Köngeter,S. and Müller, B. and Thole, W. (2007): Die Pädagogik. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Davies, T. and Cranston, P. (2008): Youth Work and Social Networking. http://blog.practicalparticipation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fullYouth-Work-and-Social-Networking-Final-Report.pdf (20.5.2010). Flick, U. (2011): Triangulation. Eine Einführung. 3. akt. Aufl. Glaser, B.G. / Strauss, A.L. (1998): Grounded Theory: Strategien qualitativer Forschung. Strauss, A.L.(1998) Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung. Datenanalyse und Theoriebildung in der empirischen und soziologischen Forschung. 2. Aufl. Strauss, A.L. / Corbin, J. (1996): Grounded Theory: Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung.

Author Information

Daniela Cornelia Stix (presenting / submitting)
Potsdam University
Educational Science
Berlin

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