Personal mobile technologies in secondary schools: developing international partnered efforts and participatory methods for debate and decision making

This proposal builds on my PhD "I'd die without it. A study of Chilean teenagers' mobile use in school" (Ruiz, 2019). The study aimed to understand the negotiation process of students' (15-16 years old) use of mobile phone within 2 schools in Chile. The project found that the negotiation was multi-relational in terms of the interconnection of diverse -and commonly contested- interests of school officials, teachers, parents and peers. In this landscape, teenagers rather than just resisting or entertaining themselves, were balancing their relationships (online and offline) with adults and peers, who see in the mobile phone different opportunities as well as undesirable effects. In that sense, adults and students engaged in a negotiation process rather than teenagers imposing their ways. This contradicts commonly views of phone use in school as something individual or a matter of just self-control. A key implication of these findings is that school regulations are needed, not simply to avoid undesired outcomes or to control students' behaviors, but to create optimal conditions for learning, promote safe phone use and development of digital skills. As shown in my research, mobile phone bans in schools did not reduce tensions nor their use. Therefore, regulations developed on dialogue and compromise, and which include students' perspectives, result in co-ownership, more likely to be positively received and sustainable.
The proposal aims, therefore, to provide a multi-relational approach to understand, research and define regulations regarding the use of PMT in school, such as mobile phones, among academics and stakeholders. To achieve this, participatory research methods will be developed with researchers, students, teachers and other stakeholders to identify challenges and concerns relating to PMT at schools, define recommendations, and produce resources for schools, educators and leaders.
This project is needed due to wide concerns on PMT in schools. For instance, research in many countries suggest that despite national PMT bans in schools, students persist in bringing them, resulting in variable and inconsistent approaches to deal with the situation (Khomami, 2017). In this context, support is needed to identify interests at stake, as well to share experiences and good practices among schools. Secondly, a multi-relational approach will provide a novel perspective on the regulations of PMT use and young people's technology use more broadly, which has tended to focus on risk protection and moral panics (Third et al., 2019). This project's approach promotes balancing interconnected interests and needs (institutional, teachers, parents and students), involving different stakeholders, to create educational opportunities and development of skills for responsible use of PMT. This is particularly important in secondary-level education, where the phone use restrictions are less strict (Vandoninck et al., 2018). Finally, the project is of educational value and importance as little is known around schools strategies, struggles and good practices in the use of PMT. With the current worldwide covid19 pandemic and implementation of school closures, the use of PMT will increase in importance with changes in the student-teacher and peer relationships, student engagement and curriculum delivery.
Thus, the proposal is a timely contribution that will help to shift the debate and school practice. By the end of the fellowship, I hope to have: promoted a change in the ways PMT regulations are developed in Chilean and UK schools; provided a multi-relational framework to researchers and educational stakeholders for research and practice; created an international network to support the project's participants, future impact opportunities, and my future academic career plans; and enhanced my knowledge and practice of participatory methods and my knowledge on educational systems, allowing me to identify new research gaps for further research.