Digitalization of Society and Socio-political Issues 1

16Digitalization and Knowledge at University: Study of Collaborative Student Practices

The question I propose to examine here is the following: how do university students’ digital uses transform the knowledge they learn? This question will only be partially addressed, both because of the size constraints of the chapter and because I will approach it using a sociological survey that examines the question of academic knowledge more broadly. I would like to outline here some avenues for reflection that could be discussed and developed. In this short chapter, I will therefore first explain in which general framework I have worked, with which methodology, and then how I have addressed the question of the use of certain digital tools by students in their knowledge work. I will then present some suggestions for analysis based on these observations.

16.1. Knowledge as a result of collective work

This contribution is the result of a research project I conducted between 2011 and 2014 at a university in a major city in western France. My approach was to study, through sociological inquiry, the knowledge that is taught and learned at university. The idea was the following: knowledge at university is often considered as subjects that already exist, as things with an intrinsic existence, independent of what researchers or students do. On the contrary, I proposed to start from the following idea: knowledge is first and foremost the result of the work of several categories of people in universities, ...