Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Today's preschool children are growing up in an 'e-society', where digital connectivity to the internet, mobile phones and other forms of electronic interaction is an essential feature of daily life. To maximise the benefits that digital connectivity offers, avoid disadvantage or marginalisation, and become confident, discriminating and effective members of e-society, children need to become competent users of these new technologies. Despite increasing attention to the ways in which school-aged children learn to exploit them, there has been little research so far into the early experiences of preschool children (aged three to five), or the implications for subsequent educational development. The study of children's entry into e-society aims to address this gap by investigating children's development of early 'e-literacy' in the home. For this project, the concept 'e-literacy' was defined as a set of technical and socio-cultural competences needed to make effective and creative use of digital connectivity opportunities. Use of the term 'e-literacy' implies parallels with print literacy and one of the features of this study was a comparison between young children's developing e-literacy and their early print literacy, about which there is a well-established body of research. The impact of socio-economic disadvantage on the early development of e-literacy was also examined, an aspect of the 'digital divide' which has hitherto received limited attention. This research addressed three interrelated themes: the nature of children's experiences as they enter e-society; factors supporting or hindering the development of early e-literacy; and the emergence of a digital divide between children with extensive and varied experiences of digital connectivity at home and in the community, and those who have not had such opportunities. The role of the survey was to contextualise the case-study data on...