Seen through other eyes Cbildren's abilities to find information on the Internet AnnBritt Enochsson
There is a tendency in our culture to systematize individuals in different categories and boxes. Sametimes this can be functional and helpful in describing and understanding. In other cases it works as a barrier to seeing new phenomena and the individuals in the boxes. In this article I will discuss the limitation same perspectives can couse in the area of internet searches. Year 2001 I finished my doctoral dissertation in which I report a number of young students' views on Internet searches at school. Despite my belief that the students could handle Internet searches for information in ane way or another, I was still surprised at their wise refl.ections. In parallel with this I had the privilege to follow the Swedish governmental school development project (ITiS), covering the pre-school class, compulsory school, special school, Sami school, upper secondary school and municipal adult education. Teacher teams developed their own projects, which had to be student centered and problem based. They also had to involve several subjects and information technology. The problem-based approach has led to many projects involving information searching. Same refl.ections occur frequently in the different reports. One of these is expressed as surprise at what the students are able to do when they are given opportunities. From this standpoint I will - in combination with same findings from my dissertation - discus a possible explanation of these reactions: Why are we surprised at the discovery that children are able to do things. My analysis showed that certain categories worked as a barrier when dealing with Internet searches at school. In my dissertation work I could see the categories Men - Women and Adults - Children respectively. Men- Women because technology is traditionally seen as a male sphere and social research on technology aften divides humanity into genders to shed light on differences, but also to show that women and girls have narrowed the gap on men and boys,