@inproceedings{01KH14KEWY21D3YMTF5V9MQVYY,
  abstract     = {{The increased implementation of educational and digital technologies in classrooms, a process accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Kapoor et al., 2017; Williamson et al., 2020), has reshaped existing hierarchical dynamics, power relationships and pedagogical roles within this educational environment. Digital technologies such as adaptive learning platforms, chatbots, screen monitoring software, and educational games are increasingly promoted by policy and industry as solutions to personalize learning and enhance student’s motivation and engagement. These technologies often reconfigure the teacher’s role from authoritative instructor to the more flexible role of facilitator, emphasizing surveillance, task management, and individualized learning trajectories (Starkey, 2017; Stenalt, 2021; Vasanti et al., 2024). While these developments are widely discussed from pedagogical and technological perspectives, the lived conditions of children’s experiences of digital technologies and the agency of children within these digital environments remain underexplored. 
In early childhood education, agency is a crucial component that should offer children meaningful choices. Children’s agency in digital learning contexts is shaped by a complex interplay of personalization, datafication, and adult mediation. Data-driven algorithms personalize content in real time, often leaving little room for children to self-regulate their learning processes (Brod et al., 2023). Agency is never absolute seeing as it is constrained and influenced by social structures such as family, school, policy, and technology (Gill, 2021; Hammond et al., 2022; Lindon, 2011). While personalization can enhance engagement, Billingsley (2019) warns that hyper-personalization may isolate learners and foster competitive tensions when grading becomes individuated. Conversely, digital technology that enable immediate feedback and student response systems have been shown to improve participation and empower learners (Starkey, 2017; Stenalt, 2021). These tensions highlight the need for a balanced approach, one that supports both individualized learning and collaborative, communal experiences. Such a balance between children’s independence and adult-mediated agency is essential for fostering participation, meaning-making, and literacy development (Brod et al., 2023). 
This study focuses on children aged 8 to 12, commonly referred to as "tweens", who are frequently positioned in a transitional phase between childhood innocence and adolescent autonomy, expecting various capabilities of navigating online, yet in a heavily regulated media environment. Positioned within a highly regulated media ecology, tweens are expected to navigate digital tools with increasing independence, even though young media consumers have minimal meaningful input in the implementation of these digital tools. Existing research tends to prioritize technological affordances and learning outcomes, overlooking how children themselves experience, interpret, and respond to digital technologies in their everyday school lives.  
Adopting a child-centric approach, this qualitative study explores how digital technologies are integrated into classroom routines and how these practices are perceived and negotiated by children in Flemish primary schools. Rather than merely describing children’s experiences, we tend to develop a nuanced and deeper understanding of how children make sense of dataveillance and conversational AI in an educational setting. The research design combines systematic classroom observations with age-appropriate, in-depth interviews. Observations will document the communicative use of digital tools - when, where, and by whom - as well as how these tools mediate teacher-student interactions and shape classroom dynamics. These insights will inform the development of interview protocols that explore children’s understandings of digital technologies, their perceived benefits and limitations, and their sense of autonomy, control, and participation. 
By foregrounding children’s voices and situating their perspectives within observed communicative practices, the study aims to generate empirically grounded insights into learner agency in digital educational environments. It builds on and extends existing literature by shifting the analytical lens from pedagogical and technical efficacy to the subjective, communicative experiences of young learners. The findings will contribute to ongoing debates about digital childhoods, agency, and empowerment, and will inform recommendations for equitable and participatory integration of educational technologies. These include design principles that support learner agency, professional development strategies for teachers, and policy considerations for inclusive digital education.}},
  author       = {{Devos, Elodie and De Leyn, Tom and De Wolf, Ralf}},
  booktitle    = {{Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap 2026, Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Arnhem, the Netherlands}},
  title        = {{Digital childhoods in classrooms : exploring young children’s agency in an educational new media environment}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}