Paper Type
Complete
Paper Number
PACIS2026-2092
Description
This study employs Activity Theory (AT) to examine Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) implementation as an activity system within resource-constrained primary schools. Addressing a persistent policy–practice gap and limited research in early schooling, it explores how teachers in resource-constrained settings understand, enact, and are constrained in their DCE work. A qualitative, abductive case study based predominantly on 12 semi-structured interviews amongst primary school teachers in Cape Town South Africa reveals systemic contradictions within the DCE activity system rooted in digital inequality and infrastructural fragility. Teachers hold largely surface-level, safety-oriented conceptions of DCE, leading to informal, reactive practices that depend on personal moral reasoning and self-directed learning. The paper proposes an Adaptive Activity Model (AAM), which provides a diagnostic framework explaining how infrastructural scarcity forces agents into everyday systems design. The AAM offers transferable insights for guiding IS implementation and designing for resilience in public education systems across digitally unequal context.
Recommended Citation
Rademeyer, Rushnie; Brown, Irwin; and Jacobs-Basadien, Mariam M., "An Adaptive Activity Model of DCE: Exploring Educators’ Practices in Resourced-Constrained Primary Schools" (2026). PACIS 2026 Proceedings. 16.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2026/is_education/is_education/16
An Adaptive Activity Model of DCE: Exploring Educators’ Practices in Resourced-Constrained Primary Schools
This study employs Activity Theory (AT) to examine Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) implementation as an activity system within resource-constrained primary schools. Addressing a persistent policy–practice gap and limited research in early schooling, it explores how teachers in resource-constrained settings understand, enact, and are constrained in their DCE work. A qualitative, abductive case study based predominantly on 12 semi-structured interviews amongst primary school teachers in Cape Town South Africa reveals systemic contradictions within the DCE activity system rooted in digital inequality and infrastructural fragility. Teachers hold largely surface-level, safety-oriented conceptions of DCE, leading to informal, reactive practices that depend on personal moral reasoning and self-directed learning. The paper proposes an Adaptive Activity Model (AAM), which provides a diagnostic framework explaining how infrastructural scarcity forces agents into everyday systems design. The AAM offers transferable insights for guiding IS implementation and designing for resilience in public education systems across digitally unequal context.
Comments
04-DigitalLearning