Social mobility through ICT? Youth with immigrant backgrounds and media use

During the last decade digital divides has been an important catchword in research on the social consequences of information and communication technologies (ICT). The term refers to inequalities of access to these technologies, and indicates concern about an increasing social and economic gap between “information haves” and “information have-nots”. Several studies find that ethnicity can explain why some are on the wrong side of the digital divide. Related to this, studies show that youth with immigrant b ackgrounds achieve more poorly at school compared with other groups of the population. According to Bakken (2003) this is related to low family income, parents’ relative lack of education, fewer books and no PCs at home. It is believed that measures to ensure access to ICT for youth with immigrant backgrounds can prevent that these youth inherit their parents' marginal position in relation to the job market. Lately, however, research has been critical to the one-dimensional focus on access. It can be cl aimed that digital divides will not disappear even if inequalities of access do. An assumption underlying this claim is that some patterns of usage enhance individual competence, whereas other kinds do not. However, the questions of what competence-enhanc ing ICT use means and how such competence relates to social mobility still remain. This project aims at investigating these questions by combining data from the national representative survey "Young in Norway 2002" with ethnographic fieldwork among diffe rent groups of youth with immigrant backgrounds who are extensive users of ICT. The national survey shows that despite less access to ICT, there is less difference between ethnic Norwegian youth and youth with immigrant backgrounds when looking at ICT use . The project aims at explaining this tendency while also investigating whether this relatively high level of use contributes to social mobility for youth with immigrant backgrounds.