There’s been a rise of internet usage amongst every demographic group in Sweden the last 20 years. To use internet means that you’re a part of the information society and to be a part of the informatin society means that you’re a part of the democratic society. Even though more people use internet there are still those who does not use it. Within the group senior citizens we can also see a steady rise of internet usage. If we split the group senior citizens into a broader group, one can distinguish people born in the 1940’s as one of the most frequent users of internet. However, within the group there are still individuals who choose not to use internet. The purpose of this study is to help understand the concept of digital divides. Our aim was to do this through applying five different forms of capital: economic, cultural, social, technical and symbolic. With this theoretical framework we want to answer the following the following main question as well as try to answer a more descriptive research question without the use of the theoretical framework. – How can we understand a non-usage of internet through these five forms of capital? – How does individuals born in the 1940’s reason around their non-usage of internet? To answer these questions we did six qualitative interviews with people born in the 1940’s who don’t use internet. The results from the interviews have been analyzed with the previously mentioned capital forms. The result showed that all capital forms have in one way or another helped us understand a non-usage, though some capitals weighed more than others. Overall, the studie gave a greater understanding on how people born in the 1940s reason around their non-usage.

This dissertation investigates how very recent, recent, and established immigrants who use e-government service platforms in Canada experience and circumvent digital inequalities. Employing a Capabilities Approach perspective, this study focuses specifically on the challenges encountered by very recent, recent, and established Nepali immigrants to Canada in using federal-, provincial-, and municipal-level e-government service platforms. To meet this objective, an explanatory sequential design mixed-methods approach involving a survey with 261 respondents and five focus group meetings with 25 Nepali immigrants to Canada was used to gather the requisite data. In contrast with dominant narratives in much digital divide literature, the findings revealed no statistically significant differences in the use of e-government service platforms by very recent, recent, and established Nepali immigrants other than very recent immigrants were found to be using the federal-level e-government service platform more frequently than their recent and established immigrant counterparts. The lack of observable differences between the two groups was found to be linked to the participants' reliance on their social support networks of family and friends who provide the material and immaterial resources needed to mitigate the effects of digital inequalities. The implications of these unexpected findings are important for understanding the evolving on-the-ground dynamics with which immigrants must contend and, specifically, how their lived experiences contrast with stereotypical perceptions and understandings of their encounters with digital inequalities. The findings also contribute to advancing the knowledge both in terms of theory and practice. At the level of theory, the findings suggest the presence of two conversion factors — social support networks, and perceptions of convenience — that up to now have not received much attention in the Capabilities Approach literature. At the level of practice, the findings suggest a need to reconsider the ways in which the ubiquity of ICT devices and the pervasiveness of Internet connections along with changing immigration criteria are contributing to a transformation in how very recent, recent, and established immigrants experience digital inequalities.

The aim of this thesis is to make a contribution to the field of design oriented theory, regarding young children and their way to digital competence. My research question is: How can a preschool with a certain pedagogical ICT-design give the children affordances for media play and for developing a digital competence? The European Parliament points out digital literacy as one of the Key Competences for life long learning. A digital competence is built on basic ICT (Information and Communication technology) skills. Skills you can develop any time during life, weather you are young or old. Recent Swedish research on young children and digital competence points out the preschool teacher’s insecurity regarding the use of ICT in the preschool´s daily activities (Ljung- Djärf, Klerfelt).   There are an amount of new social and cultural gaps in our modern society regarding illiteracies and learning. Fear for the digital gap, or divide, is confirmed by researchers such as Buckingham and Kress. Briefly, if one doesn’t possess digital literacy, the risk of society divides is impending. This could be built on factors such as gender, ethnicity, class, generational and geographical divides, but also about dichotomies in the capacity of learning in a digitalized milieu.   Today’s children are the first generation to grow up in a society characterized by digital media. They are born into it. They are the Digital Natives and they take the new technology for granted. The rest of us are Digital Immigrants and we try to adapt to the new society. Prensky highlights the possibilities of changes in young persons’ brains, or at least in their thinking, as a result of their nursery in the digital world. Where does that leave the teachers of the pre-digital age? The true risk of a digital divide can perhaps be found in the daily melting pot between “the natives” and “the immigrants”.  The act of arranging meaningful communicative meetings could be one education’s most important responsibilities.   From the view of a design orientated perspective, built on a socio-cultural theoretical framework, key words like design, setting and affordance become important in my study. Didactic design is a theoretical perspective which elaborates understanding of learning from semiotic activities. Learning is to be seen as meaning making in social contexts. These contexts are in pedagogical milieus called institutional settings. The teacher and /or the child can be designers of and actors in the setting.   Through the design and settings, the children at the preschool in my study, achieved consistent possibilities for media play and for developing digital competence. They got the opportunity to develop different kinds of literacy. One of the important findings of my study was that the preschool teachers developed digital competence and confidence much in the same way as the children did. Collaborative learning processes, elaboration, curiosity and playfulness stood up as affordances for learning. There have to be milieus designed for flexibility and elaborations and there have to be preschool teachers deliberately setting these kind of designs.   The study confirms previous research at one hand in the area young children and digital competence and on the other hand in research connected to design oriented theories. This study has merged the two fields together.   Further research is to be seen in a wide spread field. An interesting continuation is to study the preschool teachers education. Questions of learning and intertextuality are other important issues.   Key words: Didactic design, digital competence, digital divides, literacy, media play, affordances, settings, tools, preschool, ICT, multimodality, social semiotics, meaningmaking. / Syftet med min uppsats är att bidra till förståelse för hur valet av design och iscensättning i förskolepedagogiska miljöer erbjuder medielek och möjliggör utvecklandet av en digital kompetens. Jag har utgått från frågan: Hur kan en specialdesignad förskolemiljö bidra till utvecklingen av barns medielek och digitala kompetens? En digital kompetens bygger på grundläggande IKT-färdigheter[1]. Det innebär bland annat att man kan hämta fram, bedöma, lagra, producera och kommunicera med och genom digitala medier. Tidigare forskning visar på förskollärares oro för den digitala tekniken. Förutom den rent konkreta osäkerheten vid användningen av de digitala verktygen ges också uttryck för en osäkerhet för hur man balanserar förskoleverksamheten med ny teknologin. Detta kan belysa vad som inom medieforskning beskrivs som digital divides, något som i sin tur kan förstärka klyftor i samhället. Frågan om bruk av IKT i förskolan diskuteras ofta ur ett framåtsyftande nyttoperspektiv. Man talar om inlärningsaspekten, arbetslivsaspekten och demokratiaspekten. Barnen på förskolan i min studie har genom den didaktiska designen möjligheter att få del av dessa tre aspekter.  Men man har dessutom skapat en miljö som erbjuder barnen – och de vuxna – möjligheter för medielek och därigenom utvecklandet av en digital kompetens. I studien blir det tydligt hur vuxna och barn svarar upp mot de förutsättningar som designats och erbjuds. Lärprocesserna sker i en institutionell inramning, där läraren (och barnen) är aktörer och iscensättare. Pedagogen, likväl som barnet, kan aktivt välja vilka teckensystem och vilken gestaltningsform som ska användas.   I den undersökta verksamheten finns även en underliggande kulturell affordance, meningserbjudande, en idé om att IKT är bra för barn, att vuxna kan både leka och lära samtidigt, samt att det är tillåtet att experimentera, för att finna något som man varken vet frågan eller svaret på. Det här skulle ur ett socialsemiotiskt perspektiv, vara tecken på lärande, eftersom en lärandeprocess utmärks av en ökad förmåga att använda skilda teckensystem, eller domäner. Barnen utvecklar sin litteracitet och sin medielitteracitet. De utökar också sin kognitiva, kommunikativa och kulturella och estetiska kompetens. Vi skulle här kunna tala om en multilitteracitet, eftersom de meningsskapande processer som barnen befinner sig i under arbetet med de digitala verktygen, inte bara inbegriper lingvistiska utan också visuella, auditiva och spatiala processer. Min studie visar att design och iscensättning på den undersökta förskolan är betydelsefulla för erbjudandet av medielek och utvecklandet av barnens och de vuxnas digitala kompetens. De vuxna är trygga i sina roller och där fanns en naturlig balansgång mellan de mer traditionella och de digitala verktygen. En avslutande reflektion är att det inte längre är frågan om att diskutera om IKT och medier ska användas i förskolan, det är mer frågan om hur. Det är inte heller längre tid att diskutera om barn och vuxna ska utveckla en digital kompetens i förskolan, snarare hur det ska ske. En fortsatt forskning på området kan handla om en fördjupning i sådant som berör lärande, kommunikativ kompetens, intertextualitet eller textrörlighet. Andra viktiga frågor kan röra sig om hur lärarutbildningen lever upp till kraven på en digital kompetens.

Syftet med studien var att få fördjupad kunskap om teknikämnets möjliggörande inför digitaliseringstillägget 2018/2019. Dessa frågor har besvarats genom ett kvantitativt metodval i form av online-enkäter. Resultatet visade att lärare generellt skattar sin digitala kompetens gällande programmering som lågt. Äldre lärare skattar sin digitala kompetens lägre än yngre lärare, samtidigt som de skattar sitt stödbehov högre.