Digital Practices and Divisions: Out-of-School Technology Engagement and Social Cohesion among Secondary School Students in Pakistan

• In Event: Virtual Roundtable Session 1
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Artificial Intelligence: Insights into Changes in Higher Education

Proposal

In contexts marked by inequality and division, education holds the potential to either reinforce social reproduction or foster transformation (Bourdieu, 1986)(Giroux, 1983). This research explores how secondary school students in Lahore, Pakistan, engage with digital technologies outside formal schooling and the implications of these practices for social cohesion and peace. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice (Bourdieu, 1977), the study examines how students’ digital dispositions are shaped by family backgrounds, school contexts, and broader social environments.
The study employs a qualitative multiple case study design, with data collected through in-depth interviews with students, parents, and teachers, alongside student-maintained technology diaries that document everyday digital routines. This approach captures not only the practices themselves but also the meanings and values attached to them.
Building on existing literature that shows digital engagement can both reproduce inequalities and create opportunities for agency and creativity (Selwyn, 2016)(Livingstone & Sefton-Green, 2016), this research seeks to explore how these dynamics unfold in the everyday lives of Pakistani secondary students. This study does not assume that digital engagement leads to either empowerment or exclusion alone. Instead, it explores the tensions between practices that reproduce existing social divisions and those that create new possibilities for learning, agency, and connection. By situating these practices within broader debates on education, inequality, and social cohesion, the research aims to contribute an empirically grounded perspective from the Global South to ongoing discussions of education and peace in divided contexts.

Author

• Syed Muhammad Salman Mehdi, Deakin University Australua