PhD researcher 'Young people?s learning in digital worlds: the alienation and re-imagining of education? native speaker of Dutch (0,8 - 1,0 FTE)

We are looking for a PhD student who has an interest in developing a study on young people's development and learning in digital worlds.

Digital technology offers young people the possibility to gain control over their own development and learning. In alternative spaces such as online interest communities they can develop expertise and shape their identities, relatively removed from (mainstream) gatekeepers and guardians such as parents and teachers. At the same time there are concerns that these new digital spaces threaten, surveil, control and exploit young people. Consequently, societies struggle to adapt to the long-term impact of digitization and what it means to be educated might be troubling and confusing.

How technology impacts upon young people's perceptions and practices of learning, through its potential to profoundly reshape notions of the self and the social, is an issue that is foregrounded in this project. It starts from the idea that young people are at the forefront of this new imagining of what being educated can or might mean for now and in the future.

From a philosophical analysis of the effects of technology as well as empirical research, the project centres around the question: how are young people re-conceptualizing contemporary cultural narratives of learning? Empirical research will be conducted with young people (14-19) in the last stages of their formal education, focusing on so-called high-end, or high-use, digital "experts" using (digital) ethnography, discourse analysis and social network analysis.

The research project is part of a larger international project in which a collaboration between Utrecht University and Deakin University, Australia is involved. Although the data collection in this PhD project will take place in the Netherlands, the PhD researcher will be part of this international, comparative project and work on cross-comparison across the research sites during this project. At the same time, the project seeks to contribute to policy issues and discussions at a national level on issues such as education in the 21th century or digital citizenship for youth.

The PhD project will be conducted within the larger research program Education and Learning at the Department of Education and Pedagogy, Utrecht University. Project leader of the UU project is Prof Mariëtte de Haan. Project leader of the Deaken University project is Prof Julian Sefton-Green. In the UU project a collaboration is established with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Dr Claudia van Kruistum).

Tasks

The candidate will contribute to the research project 'Young people's learning in digital worlds:  the alienation and re-imagining of education' and further develop this project in collaboration with the team. There is room for the candidate's own ideas and reflections on how to bring this about.

The candidate will contribute to the further design of the study, data collection, analyses and writing and is expected to publish in international scientific journals, write a dissertation and present results at national and international conferences. The candidate will be encouraged to write for national professional journals and fora.

The possibility exists to follow advanced graduate courses as deemed necessary. It is possible to teach at undergraduate level, in accordance to the specific profile of the candidate and the specific needs of our teaching programs.