Have Computer – Will Travel: A Discourse Analysis of a 1:1 Initiative in Upper Secondary School.

AbstractThe purpose of the presented study is to investigate how teachers and students renegotiate their positions within a pedagogical discourse where problems and possibilities are manifested through the new artifact, the personal computer. The sample consists of teachers and students at an upper secondary school in Sweden where all students have been provided with a personal laptop by their school. Information has been collected by the use of semi-structured interviews. The analysis mainly draws on Laclau & Mouffe's theories of how subjects create discourses through articulations and then investigate qualitative differences between interviewees. The results indicate that teachers actively include some specific meanings of the computer while others are excluded. A recurring feature of this was the conflict of old and new practices with the introduction such as the perceived conflict between computers and textbooks. This relation remained controversial among teachers. The students had to negotiate the teachers’ definition of the computer because of the power relations, even though they could account for a far wider and more reflexive stance towards the potential of the computer