Table Of ContentYoung People and Learning Processes in School and
Everyday Life 6
Jiří Zounek
Libor Juhaňák
Klára Záleská
Life and
Learning
of Digital
Teens
Adolescents and digital technology in
the Czech Republic
Young People and Learning Processes in School
and Everyday Life
Volume 6
Series Editors
Emma Sorbring, Centre for Child and Youth Studies, University West
Trollhättan, Sweden
Thomas Johansson , Department of Education, Communication and Learning,
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Editorial Board Members
Suha Al-Hassan, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi,
UAE & Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
Louise Archer, Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
Laura Di Giunta, Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Chris Haywood, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University,
Newcastle-upon–Tyne, UK
Liane Peña Alampay, Psychology Department, Ateneo de Manila University,
Quezon City, Philippines
Lisa Russell, The University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK
David Smahel, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic
Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi, Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and
Professional Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
This book series provides analyses of contemporary issues and questions related to
being young and becoming an adult in a global educational landscape. It examines
education pathways in relation to characteristics of transitional processes that are
part of this transformational and developmental process, as well as sociocultural
aspects. It investigates areas such as education, everyday life, leisure time, family,
subcultural affiliations, medialization, work and intimacy.
The series highlights the following areas:
• Contemporary challenges in education and the educational system.
• Young people’s experiences and varying living conditions and its influence on
academic performance.
• New emerging social and existential identities in relation to education.
• Challenges for education – Inclusion and exclusion in terms of risk behaviours,
psychological distress and social unrest.
• Theoretical renewal and a conceptual adaption to education, and the societal and
cultural challenges of contemporary school systems.
• Digitalisation, technology and media in modern education. Educational path-
ways for specific groups.
• Contextual challenges for educational ambitions, such as poverty, politics, war
and exclusion of groups.
The series introduces ground-breaking interdisciplinary works in the area of
education, challenging the orthodoxies in this field of research, and publishes works
on the globalization of education. Furthermore, it introduces research on youth, thus
advancing current knowledge on education in relation to the young person’s
everyday life, nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds and living conditions. In
addition, it presents new methodological and theoretical approaches to this
research field.
Please contact Astrid Noordermeer at [email protected] if you
wish to discuss a book proposal.
More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15702
Jiří Zounek • Libor Juhaňák • Klára Záleská
Life and Learning of Digital
Teens
Adolescents and digital technology
in the Czech Republic
Jiří Zounek Libor Juhaňák
Department of Educational Sciences Department of Educational Sciences
Masaryk University Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic
Klára Záleská
Department of Educational Sciences
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic
ISSN 2522-5642 ISSN 2522-5650 (electronic)
Young People and Learning Processes in School and Everyday Life
ISBN 978-3-030-90039-7 ISBN 978-3-030-90040-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90040-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
This book is the result of a multi-year research collaboration focused on the role of
digital technologies in the everyday lives and learning of present-day adolescents in
the Czech Republic. The twenty-first century can be referred to as the digital tech-
nology era. Contemporary young people are often referred to as the digital genera-
tion or possibly the Internet generation, the net generation, and digital natives, who,
in contrast to digital immigrants, grew up in the digital age, in which they have had
access to various digital technologies from an early age. This book is focused on
adolescents, specifically on students, who were 15 years in 2019. We do not use any
of the more general terms, such as digital generation or digital natives; we present
specifically digital teens, and we map the various ways in which digital technolo-
gies affect their lives and learning.
The topic of life and learning for young people in the twenty-first century is not
unique. It has been the subject of many research projects, expert studies, and mono-
graphs. Digital technologies have become one of the basic building blocks of
present- day society, culture, and everyday life. Young people today grow up in a
world in which digital technologies represent a regular and natural part of almost
every aspect of their lives. The topic of digital technologies is being increasingly
established in the field of school systems and education. Digital technologies have
influenced the life of schools and of many after-school institutions significantly;
they are part of the “workshops” for teachers, and the problems associated with
using digital technologies in education present a significant challenge in the educa-
tion of future teachers in various types and stages of schools. The topic of digital
technologies also resonates strongly in the field of education policies, both within
individual countries and on the international level.
Digital technologies play an important role in the lives of young people today in
connection to entertainment and leisure time, but also in the context of school, in
learning, and in everyday interactions with classmates and peers. The problems of
digital technologies make up an unbelievably varied mosaic in the lives and learning
of young people, opening countless topics and questions for empirical research. We
hope that our book will contribute some stones to this expanding and vibrant mosaic.
v
vi Preface
In contrast to earlier publications and studies, this book discusses the topics of
adolescent life and learning with digital technologies in several unique ways. The
book presents the results of research aimed at investigating and describing how digi-
tal technologies enter the everyday lives and learning of adolescents across various
contexts and environments. In comparison to other studies focused on one specific
context, typically the school, we used a holistic approach and we focused on various
contexts and on the manner in which they merge and overlap each other’s borders.
We used several sources of empirical data to capture this complexly conceived phe-
nomenon, which can be understood as another innovative element of our research
and this book. We combined both qualitative and quantitative methods of research
to better acquaint ourselves with the daily life of teens. At the same time, we lis-
tened carefully to the opinions of teens. This book is also unique in its focus on the
lives and learning of adolescents with digital technologies in Central Europe, spe-
cifically in the Czech Republic, one of the countries whose modern history was
notably scarred by the totalitarian communist (socialist) regime. One important
topic of our book is thus the problems of post-socialism, especially with regard to
whether and to what extent this history plays a role in the questions and topics
of today.
The goal of this book is to improve the knowledge in the field of digital technolo-
gies in the lives and learning of young people today. Our research was inspired by
many studies from other countries, and we included the results of international stud-
ies so that readers can form an idea of the life of young people in the Czech Republic
and also consider the similarities and differences between our results and the results
of previous studies. Therefore, this book is intended especially for readers who are
interested in considering the topics of digital technologies in wider cultural, social,
political, and economic relations, which we believe can provide new and inspira-
tional insights into the current and future roles of digital technologies in the lives of
adolescents, in school education, in teacher preparation, and in lifelong learning in
the digital era.
Brno, Czech Republic Jiří Zounek
A ugust 2021 Libor Juhaňák
Klára Záleská
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, we would like to thank our families and friends, without whose
support and especially patience we would never have been able to finish this book.
We wish to thank our colleagues and co-workers in the Department of Educational
Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, for their expert and collegial sup-
port. By name, we want to thank our colleagues Kristýna Vlčková and Ondřej Bárta,
who participated in the data collection and worked on the research project that
resulted in this book.
The research project and this book could never have been completed without the
cooperation of several families, particularly the young people, who spent quite a lot
of time with us. They let us peek into their private lives, for which they deserve
great thanks.
Our great thanks go to Ondřej Neumajer for reading the manuscript and provid-
ing expert feedback on the problems of digital technologies in education in the
Czech Republic. At the same time, we wish to thank Jonáš Lasák and Anne Johnson
for their significant assistance with the proofreading and other linguistic aspects of
the text. We also thank Tereza Vengřinová for her help with the final review of the
text of the entire book.
Our thanks go to Prof. David Šmahel from the Interdisciplinary Research Team
on Internet and Society, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, who gave us
the initial impulse to write this book.
Finally, we thank the reviewers who helped us with their comments, views, and
valuable advice.
This publication was created in the course of the research project Digital tech-
nologies in the everyday lives and learning of students, funded by the Grant Agency
of the Czech Republic (project number 17-06152S). We are grateful for this support.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Education, Life, and Digital Technologies in the Czech Republic:
The Story of a Post- Socialist Country in Central Europe . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Czech Republic: A Short Introduction to Its History,
Economy, and Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.2 Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.3 Daily Life and Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.4 Digital Technologies in Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 From a Totalitarian to a Democratic School System . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 The Path of Digital Technologies into the School System . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.1 Technology and Education Behind the Iron Curtain
(Before 1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.2 Post-revolution Waiting (1990s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.3 New Era, New Challenges (2000–2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.4 Strategy vs. Reality (2014–Present) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Part I Digital Teens’ Use of Digital Technologies in the School Contex
3 Teachers and Their Use of Digital Technologies in School . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.2 Level of Equipment of Czech Schools with Digital
Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 Use of Digital Technologies by Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.4 Teachers’ Skills and Abilities in the Use of Digital
Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
ix
x Contents
3.5 Teachers’ Approach to Digital Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 The Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in Relation
to Students’ School Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.2 The Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in School . . . . . . 89
4.3 The Availability and Use of Digital Technologies at Home. . . . . . . 93
4.4 The Role of ICT in Student Life in Relation to School
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Part II D igital Teens’ Use of Digital Technologies in the Family Context
5 Home Use of Digital Technologies by Teens: The Role
of Family, School, and Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.2 Gender and ICT Interest as Predictors of ICT Use
by Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.3 The Effects of Family Background Characteristics
on Student Use of ICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.4 The Effect of ICT Use at School on ICT Use Outside
of School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.5 The Role of Peers in the Use of Digital Technologies
by Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6 Parental Approaches to Digital Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.2 Parentals Idea of Their Children’s Free Time and School
Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.3 Struggle for Generational Domination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.4 Various Forms of Digital Generation Gaps in Families . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.4.1 Deepening the Generation Gap: Mutual
Misunderstanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.4.2 Maintaining Status Quo in the Digital Generation
Gap: Conditional Armistice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.4.3 Crossing the Digital Generation Gap: Active Efforts
for Mutual Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
