Egebæk, Sara Lisa

This project is written as an internship study at the small NGO Læs for Livet, that donates books to institutions for socially marginalized children and youth in an attempt to change their social inheritance for the better. The purpose of this project is to understand how the uses of digital screens prevent the socially marginalized children and youth, who are placed in care, from reading. The hypothesis behind the study places the institutions itself, the culture and the adults who work there, as an important part in talking about the children and youth being able to prioritize reading over the use of different types of digital screens. And so the research question is this: To what extend is the uses of digital screens an issue when talking about socially marginalized children and youth, and what part does the employees and culture at the institution where they live play, in the potential prioritizing of reading over digital screens? To examine this question, first the study seeks to identify the problems to mental health associated with the uses of digital screens by a literature review on the subject. Then comes an analysis of the positive benefits to reading, so that to clarify the reason for wanting to prioritize reading over screen-use at the institution. Both of these situations becomes clear. The study then finds, that the children and youth who live at the institution, that is the main empirical material for the project, spend so much time using digital screens, especially smartphones, that it takes away time and opportunity for reading. By the use of Honneth and his theory of social recognition, the paper concludes, that the scales for which recognition is distributed in the community that the institution is, does not include reading, because the employees do not expect the children and youth to read. And so the use of screens and reading becomes opponents in a competition, where the employees are the referees, and the books are the clear looser – and consequently the children as well. <br/

Roskilde Universitet

What is preventing the reading? - A study of the role of the institution where socially marginalized children and youth live in regards to their ability to prioritize reading over digital screens

What is preventing the reading? - A study of the role of the institution where socially marginalized children and youth live in regards to their ability to prioritize reading over digital screens

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Roskilde Universitet