Mind, Culture, and Activity

ISSN: 1074-9039 (Print) 1532-7884 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmca20

The influence of parents in the discursive

construction of technology-mediated learning
experiences

Anna Engel, Jaime Fauré, Antonio Membrive, Iris Merino & César Coll

To cite this article: Anna Engel, Jaime Fauré, Antonio Membrive, Iris Merino & César Coll
(2019): The influence of parents in the discursive construction of technology-mediated learning
experiences, Mind, Culture, and Activity, DOI: 10.1080/10749039.2019.1685549

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2019.1685549

Published online: 03 Nov 2019.

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MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY
https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2019.1685549

The influence of parents in the discursive construction of

technology-mediated learning experiences
Anna Engel , Jaime Fauré, Antonio Membrive, Iris Merino , and César Coll
Universitat de Barcelona

ABSTRACT
In the new learning ecology, Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs) promote the learning of children and young people in a variety of
contexts and also shape their learning trajectories. However, empirical
studies often ignore how learners construct narratives about their own
learning trajectories and about what it means to learn with ICTs. Thus, we
propose Subjective Learning Experiences (SLEs) as a unit of analysis for
studying personal learning trajectories. SLEs allow us to investigate learning
both across settings and over time. To illustrate our empirical approach, we
present a brief study in which we explore how dominant discursive con-
structions, from parents, about what it means to learn with ICTs influence
the learning experiences of children and young people. For this study, we
conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 Spanish children and their
parents, using thematic analysis to identify their discursive constructions.
Our results provide evidence that discursive constructions about what it
means to learn, present in the contexts of activity in which children and
young people participate, influence their learning experiences. We con-
clude that our empirical approach advances the analysis of personal learn-
ing trajectories by allowing us to capture the fluid and boundless nature of
learning across settings and time.

Introduction
In recent years, a set of social, economic, technological and cultural changes have altered both social
practices and the contexts in which these practices take place (Bauman, 2013; Castells, 1996). Specifically
in the field of education, these changes have led to the emergence of a new learning ecology (Barron,
2006; Coll, 2013). Indeed, the evidence suggests that resources and opportunities for learning have
multiplied and diversified. Therefore, learning is likely to occur in different scenarios throughout
people’s lives (Banks et al., 2007; Barron, Wise, & Martin, 2013; Ito et al., 2013).
In this scenario, we understand learning as a personal trajectory (Arnseth & Silseth, 2013), and personal
learning trajectories as the interrelated learning experiences that people live as they move through different
activity contexts (Erstad, Gilje, & Arnseth, 2013). Some authors have linked these trajectories directly to the
learning interests of the person (Barron, 2006; Ito et al., 2013), their agency (Rajala, Hilppö, Lipponen, &
Kumpulainen, 2013) or their conceptions of what it means to learn and their identities (Erstad et al., 2013;
Erstad & Sefton-Green, 2013; Falsafi & Coll, 2011; Wortham, 2006).
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the increasing expansion of the
Internet play a decisive role in configuring personal learning trajectories (Barron, 2006; Erstad &
Sefton-Green, 2013). Recently, several studies have addressed the ways in which ICTs can shape
and reshape the personal learning trajectories of children and young people and how, by doing so,
they enrich their learning. Specifically, two sets of studies have explored activities in which

CONTACT Anna Engel anna.engel@ub.edu Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology,
Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, 08035, Spain, Tel: +34 93 312 58 43
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 A. ENGEL ET AL.

students use ICTs and how these technologies are used inside and/or outside education centers.
The first set includes numerous quantitative studies based on applying surveys or questionnaires to
large groups of students (e.g., Hinostroza, Matamala, Labbé, Claro, & Cabello, 2015), while the
other set focuses on developing teaching proposals that incorporate ICTs as a way to connect
different activities in which students participate inside and outside schools. These studies analyze
both students’ effective use of ICTs and their learning outcomes (e.g., Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012;
Wong & Looi, 2011).
In both sets of research, the results confirm the great potential of ICTs for offering learning
opportunities in the variety of contexts that shape learners’ personal trajectories. Nevertheless, the
focus is rarely placed on the learners’ perspective of their own learning experiences (i.e., their
experiences in general and those mediated by technology). As we saw in a previous study with
1406 children and young people (Engel, Coll, Membrive, & Oller, 2018), when asked explicitly
whether ICTs favored their learning in a wide range of activities, the respondents felt that outside the
school context this was not always the case. These results echo other outcomes, for example those
obtained by Selwyn, Potter, and Cranmer (2009). This common perception is of particular concern
because it means that although ICTs offer many learning opportunities, people only take full
advantage of them if they are able to identify them as such (Falsafi & Coll, 2011).
Therefore, studies grounded in sociocultural learning theories explore how learners experience their
learning trajectories over time and through different on- and offline spaces (Barron, Gomez, Martin, &
Pinkard, 2014; Erstad & Sefton-Green, 2013; Livingstone & Sefton-Green, 2016). In general, these
studies apply an ethnographic approach, focusing on a limited number of cases and analyzing them in
detail. They are ambitious attempts to study the personal learning trajectories that children and young
people construct from an emic perspective. However, as Kumpulainen and Erstad (2017) point out,
these studies face not only a major methodological challenge as they try to track young people through
their activity contexts, but an important conceptual challenge as well, in the shape of a reformulation of
what has traditionally been understood by learning and teaching. In these studies, one of the most
important challenges is to define “conceptualizations and units of analysis that emphasize the fluid and
boundless character of learning and living across settings and time” (Jornet & Erstad, 2018, p. 1).
In our view, studying learning as a fluid and boundless phenomenon can contribute greatly to
understand the impact that ICTs have on the configuration of the personal learning trajectories of
children and young people. It is necessary to explore learners’ experiences when they participate in
these activities in greater depth, and also the meanings they construct about what it means to learn
with ICTs. An approach of this kind will give us clues for the design of educational strategies for
training competent learners able to derive full benefit from the potential of these technologies.
We initiated a research program in two phases, which correspond to two complementary
approaches to the object of study. The first phase (see Engel et al., 2018), based on quantitative
methods, uses questionnaires to explore the nature of the learning experiences of a wide sample of
children and adolescents. On the other hand, the second phase is based on qualitative methods and
focuses on an analysis of the most relevant and significant learning experiences of the participants
through in-depth interviews in a subsample selected on the basis of their responses to the ques-
tionnaires in the first phase. The study we present here corresponds to the second phase and
investigates what learning with ICTs means for children and young people, and adds to our findings
from the first phase. Our aim is to explore how the meanings they construct affect the ways young
people use these learning tools.
In the next section, we present the theoretical framework of this approach and explain our
rationale for using the subjective learning experience as a unit of analysis. We then present an
empirical study that explores the influence of parents’ discourses about learning on their children’s
constructions of the learning experiences related to technology-mediated activities. The final section
discusses the contributions of the study and our empirical approach, its limitations and its possible
implications for educational research and practice.
 MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY 3

Theoretical background
Subjective learning experiences
In order to reconceptualize human learning and to shed new light on what, how, where, when, and with
whom people learn in the new learning ecology, scholars have recently sought to revive and integrate
classical ideas about the notion of “learning experience” (González-Rey, 2016; Roth & Jornet, 2013; Roth &
Jornet, 2016; Veresov, 2017). Our inspiration comes from Dewey’s (1938) notion of “educational experi-
ence” and Vygotsky’s (1994) notion of “perezhivanie” or “emotional experience”. Specifically, our proposal
is to use Subjective Learning Experiences (SLE) as a unit of analysis to study personal learning trajectories. In
our view, the SLE concept takes into account how children and young people interpret their participation in
these activities.
We understand the SLE as a discursive construction that the learner produces from one or several
activities in which they recognize that they have learned something (Falsafi, 2011; Valdés, Coll, &
Falsafi, 2016). An SLE reflects the characteristics of the activity as well as the learner’s previous
experiences, interests, motives and future expectations.
SLEs thus understood have four important features that should be highlighted. The first is that an SLE is
unique and personal. The experience is constructed at the intersection that occurs at a specific moment
between an activity and the person participating actively in it (Vygotsky, 1994). Some scholars illustrate this
construction by comparing it with a prism, which produces a refraction rather than a mirror-like reflection
(Roth & Jornet, 2016). On the one hand, the experience refracts the elements of the activity and the context
toward the subjects, which implies that they only interpret what is most relevant to them; on the other hand,
the experience refracts personal characteristics toward the situated activity, influencing it and transforming
it (Kozulin, 2016). Consequently, the SLE can be considered as a unique, situated set of links between the
person and their activity, and is thus an unrepeatable history (Veresov, 2017). This unrepeatability means
that two learners who participate in the same activity, with the same characteristics (context, participants,
etc.) can have very different interpretations of what happens, have different learning experiences, and
achieve different degrees of learning (Falsafi & Coll, 2011).
The second feature of SLEs is their complexity – not only intellectual but also practical, emotional, and
volitional (Clarà, 2016; Roth & Jornet, 2016). The discursive resources learners use to re-construct their SLEs
through discourse are in fact connected with multiple psychological events of different kinds.
The third and fourth features relate to the idea that an SLE is a joint re-co-construction rather
than a simple construction. The third characteristic is the prefix re-, which indicates the recursive
nature of the discursive construction of experience. People recall and redefine the meaning they
attribute to their experience over time (Falsafi, 2011). Thus, although an SLE is always associated
with one or more specific activities, its meaning is transformed each time; it is discursively re-
constructed (González-Rey, 2016). This implies that the SLE depends to a large extent on the
repertoire of discursive resources available to the person at a given time and that allow them to
interpret, reinterpret, and give meaning to their present, past or future activity.
The fourth feature is the prefix co-, which reflects the social nature of SLE. The re-co-construction of
a learning experience often emerges in the action that the learner performs with others when they explain or
share something related to the experience, which entails an extension of the repertoire of discursive
resources available. This means that a person can be helped by others, by reflecting or even by living new
experiences, to construct new meanings about their own learning experience and re-construct the meanings
that have already been constructed in the past. In fact, a person’s SLEs have a much greater impact on their
learning processes when they reflect, share, and negotiate with others (Falsafi, 2011).

The role of dominant discourses in the re-co-construction of SLE

These characteristics of SLEs suggest that the semiotic resources people use to re-construct their
experiences depend largely on the dominant discourses of the contexts in which they participate. In
4 A. ENGEL ET AL.

the words of Foucault (1969), these discourses are systems of thought that people use to describe
the world, categorize it, prioritize certain phenomena over others and construct objects of knowl-
edge. In other words, these discourses are symbolic expressions of thought, value, action and
affection, socially constructed and historically situated. In this sense, they resemble what Gee
(2000) called “Discourses with a capital D”, representing a generalization of different discursive
constructions that have been elaborated and reworked in the past and are sustained through their
use over time.
These discourses are distributed in different contexts, artifacts, objects and people that sustain their
existence (Wertsch, 1988). The most widely shared are known as dominant discourses (Foucault, 1969).
People do not appropriate just any dominant discourse, but rather those that are available to them in the
contexts in which they participate. Just as important as the discourses that are spread through the Internet or
television are the discursive repertoires of significant others, such as parents, friends or teachers (Falsafi &
Coll, 2011; Sinha, 1999). The meanings present in these discourses – especially those referring to what it
means to learn and to be a learner – are those that people use to re-construct their SLEs.
Therefore, the experiences anchored in activities mediated by ICTs appear to be modeled by the
discourses constructed by significant others regarding the value of ICTs and their potential to
contribute to personal learning. In other words, dominant discourses related to ICTs and learning,
which build meaningful discourses and are distributed in different activity settings, can strongly
influence the re-co-construction that people make of their significant experiences and of their
potential learning outcomes (Falsafi & Coll, 2011; Hammack, 2008).
In short, we propose the SLE as the most appropriate unit of analysis for studying personal learning
trajectories. SLEs are understood as discursive re-co-constructions that people produce regarding their
participation in activities in which they recognize new learning. In turn, these experiences are mediated by
socially dominant discourses about what it means to learn, how to learn, and what it is to be a good learner
that are present in the contexts through which the person moves.
The guiding hypothesis of our study is that children and adolescents appropriate discursive
constructions about what it means to learn that are present in the activity contexts through which
they move (including family, school, sports clubs, religious institutions, cultural associations) in
order to interpret their experience of learning and to re-construct their subjective learning experi-
ences. Specifically, in this article we explore the influence of parents’ dominant discursive construc-
tions on what it means to learn with ICTs, and the subjective learning experiences of a group of
children and adolescents engaged in technology-mediated activities.

Methodology
A small sample of children and adolescents (aged 10, 13 and 16) was selected from the analysis of
questionnaire responses of a larger sample in a previous phase of the research. The children and
young people were selected according to their age, gender, the number of activity contexts in which
they reported participating habitually and the frequency with which they carried out activities with
ICTs. One or both parents of the children and adolescents selected also entered the study. The final
study sample comprised ten 10-year-olds, ten 13-year-olds and ten 16-year-olds. Twenty-one were
female and nine male. Thirty-four parents were interviewed (22 mothers and 12 fathers).
A semi-structured interview was used as the instrument to collect data for our case study (Yin,
2017). The research team prepared the interview script and a pilot test of questions was conducted to
explain unclear or ambiguous statements.
For the children and young people, the script included questions oriented toward exploring the
following: the activities in which they participate in different contexts; the learning experiences
associated with these activities; their conceptions of learning with and without ICTs; and the vision
they have of themselves as learners. In the interview script for parents, the questions centered on two
topics: how children and young people learn, with and without ICTs; and the conditions and
requirements for learning to take place.
 MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY 5

Interviews with both the young people and their parents were conducted during the 2015–2016
academic year in a selection of primary and secondary schools in Catalonia (Spain). The interviews
lasted an average of 40 minutes. In all cases, the interviews were recorded in audiovisual format and
then the researchers transcribed the interviews. Data were analyzed using specific qualitative analysis
software (Atlas.ti v.8).
A phenomenological interpretative approach was adopted for the analysis. This method prior-
itizes the meanings that the interviewees construct about and give to the subjects under study
(Willig, 2013). Specifically, a thematic analysis was carried out with categories constructed using an
inductive and deductive recursive process including the research objectives, the theoretical frame-
work and the data collected. The interviews were analyzed at two levels: a macro-level of identifica-
tion themes, and a micro-level of detailed analysis of these themes into categories.
To analyze the student interviews we used subjective learning experiences (SLE) as a unit of analysis.
First, we segmented the transcriptions in these SLE. For this study, we selected the subjective learning
experiences in which ICTs played a role. In each SLE, we identified themes, corresponding to discursive
constructions about different topics such as the personal vision of oneself as a learner, the characteristics of
the activity of learning, and the conceptions of learning in general or learning with ICTs. In the interviews
with parents, since there were no questions about their learning experiences, at this first level only the
discursive constructions referring to learning with ICTs were selected.
The second level of analysis was carried out with a set of categories that make it possible to
characterize and contextualize the discursive constructions. We define categories for the character-
istics of the activity of learning related to the socio-institutional context and the actors involved, as
well as others referring to the type of learning (e.g., conceptual, procedural, attitudinal), the
assessment of the learning (e.g., quantity, importance, functionality, others) and the use of ICTs.
For the conceptions about learning with ICTs, categories related to emotions, interest, difficulty and
effort associated with the learning activity were considered.
In order to identify our units of analysis, themes or discursive constructions, and categories, we
constructed a coding protocol, based on reaching a consensus between raters. To guarantee the
reliability of the results obtained through this procedure, the researchers worked in pairs and applied
a previously established coding protocol. The discrepancies between the coders were resolved by
discussion until an agreement was reached. In cases where it was not possible to reach an agreement,
the participation of a third analyst was requested.
Once the discursive constructions had been identified and characterized, the analysis focused on
examining the parents’ influence on their children’s discursive constructions. For this purpose, two
types of comparative analysis were carried out. First, we compared the discursive constructions
identified in the student sample with those identified in the parent sample, aiming to identify the
categories that were present in the two groups or in just one of them. Second, these discursive
constructions were compared for each parent-child pair following a similar approach.

Results
The main results are presented in three sections. In the first section, we present the most frequently recurring
discursive constructions that emerged from the parents’ interviews. In the second section, we present the
discursive constructions that appear in the learning experiences reported by the children and young people
in their interviews. In the last section, we show the relationship established between the two types of
constructions to illustrate how the dominant discourses that appear in family interviews can influence the
re-co-construction of their children’s learning experiences.
Throughout this section, we support our statements with discourse fragments from the inter-
views. We choose excerpts that illustrate the categories or discursive constructions identified in the
parents’ and children’s interviews. To preserve anonymity, the names or initials of the children and
young people that appear next to these speech fragments are invented. The letter “M” corresponds to
mother, the letter “F” corresponds to father and the letter “I” corresponds to the interviewer.
6 A. ENGEL ET AL.

Parents’ discursive constructions about learning with icts

In the parents’ interviews, we found four recurrent categories that corresponded to different
discursive constructions about learning with ICTs: (1) ICTs are only useful for learning if they
mediate activities specifically designed for learning; (2) ICTs are useful for learning regardless of
whether the activities are designed for learning or not; (3) ICTs block learning or distract children
and young people from learning; and (4) ICTs impede learning activities in children and young
people compared to other analogic technologies.
The first construction is found in certain parents who argue that ICTs are only useful for learning
when the activities in which they appear are designed specifically for this purpose. Several discourse
fragments illustrate this: Fragment 1 is an example.

Fragment 1
(Mother of Nestor, a 10-year-old boy)
I: Do you think that people can learn by using technologies?
M: Yes, yes, totally, I don’t know much, I use them … right?, but there are great programs, for languages, for
example, to practice French, to practice English, for people who have dyslexia, for … I mean, I think they are
very interesting tools, as long as the apps, applications or programs are made by education professionals, who
know where to direct children. I think they’re good tools, I mean … combined with all the rest (…), right?

This excerpt shows a type of discursive construction that was very commonly found in our data.
Nestor’s mother thinks that it is possible to learn a great deal from using ICTs, but the only reference
given is to programs or applications for children designed by professionals with a clear educational
goal. Besides, a large number of our interviewees mention language learning with apps and games.
The second discursive construction states that learning with ICTs is possible even when the
activities are not related to school content or are not specifically oriented to learning. These parents
argue, for example, that one can learn about current issues watching television, and interact with
others through social networks. Some parents also attribute a high potential to ICTs for enhancing
learning in general, such as the father from Fragment 2.

Fragment 2
(Father of Pol, a 13-year-old boy)
F: For me, we need to reflect on how technology can help learning. I mean, what has advanced most in recent
years is technology aaaand … and I think that learning, well, has taken some of this on, but, but you have to see
even more, how you can take advantage of the technology so, so that learning is greater.

Like other participants in our study, Pol’s father stresses the potential of ICTs for learning, but adds
that we know little about how to exploit this potential. He notes that passive users are unable to take
advantage of ICT opportunities to learn. Therefore, it is necessary to continue exploring and
exploiting their possibilities. These ideas contrast with other discursive constructions identified,
which reject the capacity of ICT to learn.
The third discursive construction identified maintains that ICTs block learning or distract
children and young people from learning. The parents who express this view consider that when
children and young people spend too much time using technologies they become dependent on
them and stop devoting time to other more effective learning activities. Parental concern about
managing the time that their children spend using ICTs is a recurrent theme, as illustrated in
Fragment 3.

Fragment 3
(Father of Andrés, a 16-year-old boy)
F: I was fighting against that. Two or three years ago he had several videogame consoles and I was always trying
to get him to use them less, you know? I would come home from work and he would be playing videogames,
and I would ask him what he was doing. Schoolwork, schoolwork. On the weekends he plays, but less and less.
Now he doesn’t want to so much. But I had trouble fighting against that. I see it as lost time, I see … my
opinion is that it’s lost time.
 MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY 7

Unlike previous points of view, this fragment is a good example of parents who strongly believe that
ICT not only does not help learning but actually impedes it. Andres’s father states that ICT brought
nothing positive for his son and describes his effort to prevent the child from becoming addicted.
The fourth construction is related to one of the interview questions about the possibilities that people in
general have to learn with ICT. When they are asked this question, most parents spontaneously compare
digital and analogic technologies. Thus, some compare the Internet with books and encyclopedias, while
others compare social networks and online communication with face-to-face interaction. In general,
parents show a clear preference for analogic or paper resources and face-to-face relationships.
Fragment 4
(Mother of Tomoe, a 16-year-old girl)
M: What can you learn? Yes, but I think it’s sometimes … mmmmm, I don’t know. There are other ways to
learn that are not just … with a mobile, I mean, I know. I know that maybe … we have books, we have
encyclopaedias, I mean, they’re there just getting dusty, right?

In Fragment 4 another recurring discursive construction in our set of data emerges. This mother
shows nostalgia for the loss of the use of analogic tools mainly for search information. She considers
that it is possible to do the same things with a computer and with a book, and regrets that only the
first is used nowadays.

Discursive constructions of children and young people about learning with icts
In the perspectives about learning with ICTs and the learning experiences that appear in the interviews
with children and young people, the following five recurrent discursive constructions emerge: (1) ICTs
are useful for learning only if they mediate activities specifically designed for learning; (2) ICTs are useful
for learning regardless of whether or not activities are specifically designed for learning; (3) ICTs are
distracting and make it difficult to learn; (4) ICTs should be used with caution and the abandonment of
the use of analogic technologies should be resisted; and (5) learning with ICTs involves searching for
information, using dictionaries and translating information into other languages.
In relation to the first case, around half of the children and young people interviewed affirm that
ICTs only facilitate learning when they are designed specifically with that objective or mediate
activities specifically directed at learning.
Fragment 5
(Sira, 10-year-old girl)
I: And, what do you use the computer for?
S: Well, to do homework, for English, I need to find information about things, about … translations, and then
I get into the translator program and translate what I need. And sometimes at school they tell us to look for
a painter’s biography, or some information, and then I need it [the computer] to do that, and, and when we
study a painter, Dalí, for example, this year … well yesterday the teacher told us to look for a painting that we
liked and we brought it in.

Asking Sira about how she uses the computer for learning, she only mentions activities related to
language learning, information searches, and other tasks associated with formal educational context.
Same as with some parents, it seems that there is a conception in which learning is seen only as
school learning.
The other half of our participants state that ICTs also facilitate learning in other types of activities
that are more related to leisure and fun.
Fragment 6
(Lara, 16-year-old girl)
I: Do you think you learn by watching these videos? Searching …
L: Yes, I think so, but because I also see them in English or French, then it depends on how you use it, I can
watch fashion videos for example in Spanish, it’s worth it, if you see it, you learn what you like, what you don’t
like and that’s it, but if you see it in English it explains the same thing to you and you learn more, but I tell you,
I’m weird, my classmates don’t, they don’t do it.
8 A. ENGEL ET AL.

Unlike Sira, Lara says that she learns a lot from watching videos about topics of interest to her,
because she can generate her own opinion and identify her interests. She says that she learns even
more watching these videos in English. Cases like Lara are examples of people who recognize that
they can learn in non-school activities that are not designed for learning. Furthermore, the content
of learning in those activities may not only be concepts and procedures, but attitudes as well.
In contrast to this, there is also a recurrent idea that learning does not take place in activities that
do not have an explicit educational purpose.
Fragment 7
(Andrés, 16-year-old boy)
I: For example, when you use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or other social networks (A nods) … do you think
that when you use these social networks, you can also learn things?
A: If you can learn things? (A looks doubtful) Very little, I think hardly anything, because I don’t know how
you would? By looking at other people’s photos of or … ? Or sometimes you can, sometimes people share their
opinions, but opinions of other people that, I don’t know. I don’t think it is very useful.

In Fragment 7, Andrés shows that he never has thought about whether he could learn using social
networks (one of his main activities with ICT), and he reflects on what he might learn in them. He is
not convinced that someone can learn while using social networks, and doubts the usefulness of any
learning acquired in this way. This is a particular example of a case where there is a lack of awareness
of the learning processes with ICT in non-school activities.
Something similar is seen with the third discursive construction identified, in which ICTs can
distract from learning or jeopardize it in some way. This construction appears both in the interviews
with young people and in those with their parents. Thus, some interviewees, like Isaac (see
Fragment 8), consider that the use of digital technologies outside school tasks prevents or hinders
the possibility of learning.
Fragment 8
(Isaac, 13-year-old boy)
I: Do you have a mobile phone?
Is: Yes, I use my mobile phone but, I don’t like to use it a lot, since, mm, it’s not very fast, and apart from that
you get very distracted. And this about using the computer, I don’t think it’s good at school, because … many
of my school friends instead of studying or anything, for example, they play videogames.

In this example, Isaac divorces learning totally from the recreational use of ICT. Learning is equated
with school learning, as we have seen in many of the discursive constructions of our data. On this
view, learning only occurs in school. In fact, in these cases it is common to use the word “studying”
as synonymous to “learning”.
The last recurrent discursive construction is that learning with ICTs entails searching for
information, using dictionaries or translating information into other languages, even when these
activities are not related to school activities. Marta, 16 years old, provides a good example of this, as
illustrated in Fragment 9.
Fragment 9
(Marta, 16-year-old girl)
M: I remember looking for information when I was injured, about my injury, which has nothing to do [with
school] but I was interested. And also music, if there’s a party, if there’s a concert, then I look for it too. Football
matches, like, what was the score …

Some students describe SLEs in the same way as Marta. When they are asked to give examples about
learning with ICTs, they offer answers about seeking for conceptual information, even in out-of-
school contexts. In these outside-school SLEs students also search for information through (virtual)
dictionaries and encyclopedias.
To finalize this section, we highlight two results related to gender and age, since these two
variables were taken into account in selecting the sample. The first is that, in our cases, we did not
find differences according to gender: the recurrent discursive constructions of boys and girls are very
 MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY 9

similar. Nor did we find differences in the diversity of the activity contexts in which respondents
stated that they participated regularly, or the frequency with which they reported using ICTs in these
activities. The second is that we did find differences related to age, although not so much in the
discursive constructions as in the activities with ICTs that they mentioned. While in the discursive
constructions of 10-year-old children there were only references to ICTs in school activities or
related to playing, as the age increased, so did also increase the range of activities with ICTs,
including leisure and entertainment activities such as watching videos or using social networks.
Fragment 9 is a good example of this.

The influence of the parents’ dominant discursive constructions on the construction of the
sles of children and young people
Most of the parents’ recurrent discursive constructions about the meanings of learning with ICTs
coincide with those identified with respect to the meanings and learning experiences of children and
young people. Firstly, in both the parents’ and children’s interviews respondents mention activities
in which ICTs can be used to learn and also they mention how ICTs have the potential to distract
and make learning difficult. The only discursive construction that appears in children and adoles-
cents and not among their parents is that one only learns with ICTs when one uses them for tasks
such as finding information or translating into other languages.
Fragment 10
(Aina, 10-year-old girl)
I: And do you think, thaat … your computer, using your computer, tablet or mobile, do you learn things?
A: On the one hand I learn, and on the other hand I don’t. Because (…) on the one hand I don’t learn because
I’m having fun and I can’t stop having fun to learn, and on the other hand, or games about knowing the human
body, or games of fractions or mathematics. There I can learn but when I’m playing I’m having fun …

Fragment 11
(Aina’s father)
I: Ok, and do you think that doing that … both using the computer to find information and using the mobile
phone or the tablet to play, do you think your children learn?
F: I suppose that at their current level, no. I guess everything has its time and its evolution. Now they’re, well,
discovering a little, only using the computer rarely, and I suppose that over time they will have more time …
and more need to be able to use it with knowledge and reasoning (…) I guess when it’s time it will be useful for
them and it will be an important tool for learning. But hey, now, we don’t think so. (…) For the work they do at
school, and such, for specific things like … searching about earthquakes …

Secondly, in the parent-child pairs in which the topics coincided, the discursive constructions also
coincided, and no significant discrepancies or contradictions were detected between parents and
their children, which can be taken as evidence that parents influence their children’s discourses. The
discursive constructions of Aina and her father in Fragments 10 and 11 illustrate this. Aina says that
when she uses ICTs to play, she cannot learn because she is having fun. This means that from her
perspective having fun and learning are incompatible phenomena. Similarly, her father believes that
using ICTs does not facilitate learning unless its aim is to complete school tasks.
Fragment 12
(Aura, 10-year-old girl)
I: And you say that sometimes you use Wikipedia to learn.
A: Yes, Google for … Yesterday I used it for example … to do homework. Because I didn’t know something and
my mother didn’t either, and then we looked for it on Google.
I: (…) What were you learning yesterday? What were you doing?
A: The first conjugation, the second and the third. (…) It was an exercise about verbs in Catalan. I looked for
the first, the second and the third conjugation. (…) And … I found everything.
10 A. ENGEL ET AL.

Fragment 13
(Parents of Aura, 10-year-old girl)
I: And the computer, for example? Because the tablet is used to play, I understand (P nods). And the computer?
M: We don’t let them use the computer much.
F: The computer, when she has to do some homework she says, says I have to search for something, that I have
to do schoolwork. Then she goes on the computer and looks at Google, for earthquakes and well, we tell her
when she can and when she should ask to use it. But she doesn’t have free use of the computer.
M: We don’t leave her all afternoon with the computer, closed in a room, like other children.
F: No, and sometimes they say, can we go to the computer to watch YouTube. Then they put on a music video
that they like and they start dancing and playing around, but that’s only occasionally.

Thirdly, in a large number of parent-child pairs, we identified the influence of the parents’ discursive
constructions on the SLEs that their children re-construct during their interviews. As can be seen in
Fragment 13, Aura’s parents’ account reveals the following discursive construction: people only learn
with ICTs if there is a pedagogical objective. And when asked about when she learns using ICT, Aura
(in Fragment 12) re-constructed a learning experience in which she uses an Internet search engine to
do her school homework with her mother.

Conclusions
The results of this study confirm our starting hypothesis, namely that the dominant discourses that
parents have developed regarding what it means to learn with ICTs exert an influence on the
subjective learning experiences of their children. However, other aspects of the results obtained
and the approach adopted also deserve to be highlighted.
One striking similarity between the discursive constructions of children and young people and
those of their parents is their relatively critical view of the contexts in which ICTs are used to learn.
The idea that ICTs have the capacity to exponentially multiply the possibilities of learning in
different contexts is a common feature of the specialized literature (Ito et al., 2013; Wong & Looi,
2011). However, in our sample we observed a marked tendency to consider that the activities in
which ICTs are used generate learning only when they are linked to school contexts and/or have to
do with searching for and processing information for academic tasks. In other words, most of the
interviewees – parents, children and adolescents – do not associate learning with activities anchored
in other contexts of an informal nature, such as those oriented toward leisure, social life and fun;
rather, they tend to perceive ICTs as elements of distraction that prevent them from taking
advantage of real learning opportunities.
In our view, the theoretical approach of this study is a useful tool for understanding how
dominant discourses influence the construction of subjective learning experiences. In effect, the
idea that the subjective learning experiences of children and young people depend, to a large extent,
on the dominant discourses that emerge in the discursive constructions of their parents (and
significant others) is an aspect that is not normally addressed in studies of learning with technology
(e.g., Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012).
The emergence of a new ecology of learning, characterized by the multiplication and diversifica-
tion of contexts that offer learning opportunities, is widely accepted in the literature (e.g., Barron,
2006; Coll, 2013). Nonetheless, our results suggest that many people still think that schools are the
only contexts – or, at least, the most important ones – in which children and adolescents learn. In
our view, it is essential to promote alternative discourses that recognize the potential of ICTs as
learning tools and for establishing synergies between the learning processes that are deployed in both
educational and non-educational contexts.
To achieve this objective, various strategies could be devised using the information currently
available on interventions that encourage students at all levels to reflect critically on the relationship
between the ways they use ICTs and their learning, both inside and outside the school setting. For
example, in order to identify opportunities and resources, it would be useful for students to learn from
 MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY 11

others who already have access to ICTs and who can encourage them to think about their personal
learning trajectories, assess their implications, expand them and, eventually, redirect them. Similarly,
activities should be designed that stimulate reflection among students on their school and non-school
learning experiences, enabling them to see themselves as people capable of learning in diverse situations
and circumstances and of building an increasingly rich and flexible learner identity (Falsafi, 2011).
We are aware that certain aspects of our approach need to be assessed in greater depth. Among the
conceptual aspects, for instance, the notion of subjective learning experiences needs to be elaborated
further, including its components, the dynamics of the discursive re-co-construction processes that
characterize them, and the connection and relationship between these experiences and the formation of
personal learning trajectories. Among the methodological aspects, according to the conceptualization
presented here, the subjective learning experiences are transformed and re-co-constructed over time
(Falsafi, 2011), and so a single interview does not seem sufficient to activate reflection processes and to
capture their dynamic nature. Future work should establish different interview times that allow
interviewees and interviewers to re-construct the subjective learning experiences over longer periods.
In addition to time, in this study we have not considered other sources of dominant discourses (not just
parents) that are also present in the contexts in which children and young people participate daily. For
example, the influence of television and the Internet – to name just two obvious examples – in the re-co-
construction of subjective learning experiences was not investigated, and is an aspect that needs to be
examined in future research. Despite these limitations, the theoretical principles and the methodological
options of the study of subjective learning experiences and discourses on learning, either including or
excluding ICTs, represent a promising avenue for understanding what it means for students to learn
with ICTs and the significance they attribute to their technology-mediated learning experiences.
Beyond the educational implications that emerge from the study, from the methodological
perspective, the approach adopted here highlights the value of using a unit of analysis, the
subjective learning experience, to research learning processes over time and in multiple contexts
(Jornet & Erstad, 2018). The proposed approach, based on semi-structured interviews, has
allowed us to explore in depth the various topics of interest for this research, and at the same
time has facilitated the creation of an ideal space for children and adolescents to reconstruct
their learning experiences. Likewise, both the interview script and the category system used to
analyze the interviews have been very useful for identifying the different recurrent discursive
constructions of the participants and their families regarding the role of ICTs in learning. In our
view, the phenomenological interpretative analysis made possible the study of the phenomenon
of learning in terms of personal trajectories in line with the theoretical framework presented and
in close continuity with other previous studies that have addressed the issue inside
a sociocultural framework (e.g., Barron et al., 2014; Erstad & Sefton-Green, 2013; Livingstone
& Sefton-Green, 2016).

Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant EDU2013-40965-R;
and Catalan government under Grant 2014SGR-178.

Availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, Anna Engel.
The data are not publicly available due to the fact that they contain information that could compromise the privacy of
research participants.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
12 A. ENGEL ET AL.

Funding
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the project EDU2013-
40965-R and the Generalitat research group 2014SGR-178.

ORCID
Anna Engel http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1153-2101
Iris Merino http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2920-5248

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