ERIC Number: EJ1413211
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1068-2341
Normative Becoming in the Digital Sphere: WhatsApp Parent's Group in Chilean Education
Education Policy Analysis Archives, v31 n138 spec iss 2023
Digital communicational technologies, such as WhatsApp, have been part of schools both before and during the pandemic. This article explores the normative emergence of being a student, a parent, and a teacher in the use of parents' WhatsApp groups. In Chile, this digital application is widely used by the population, and it is particularly important for school communities. Based on interviews conducted with teachers and parents, and a theoretical approach based on science and technology studies, the results show that students are constantly labeled as "good" or "bad" without nuance, which produces stereotypes, and parents are also labeled in a binary way, with one group of alarmists and one of relaxed parents, where counter criticisms emerge, while teachers are seen as an extension of the schools and are expected to be constantly present. Digital communication technologies mediate these interactions and open up a new level of interaction, with standards and meanings enabled by the features of the application. We discuss these results, emphasizing that the normativities of these becomings are intertwined in the digital sphere, and using a mapping visualization of the analysis, we show how normativity acts ubiquitously and produces constantly changing expectations of how one should be for those in the group. The mapping exercise shows that the main relationship between the three becomings is emotion, so we conclude that, on the understanding that affect exceeds individuality and represents intensities online, normativities are also incorporated as affective responses in the parents' WhatsApp group.
Descriptors: Computer Software, Foreign Countries, COVID-19, Pandemics, Parent School Relationship, Computer Mediated Communication, Criticism, Parent Teacher Cooperation, Group Membership, Parent Child Relationship, Visual Aids
Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida. c/o Editor, USF EDU162, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620-5650. Tel: 813-974-3400; Fax: 813-974-3826; Web site: https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Chile
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A