DIGcapabilities: Fostering digital capabilities among youth

Digital technology is now an integral part of our daily lives, especially in highly digitalized societies like Norway. It plays a crucial role in various aspects of working life and accessing welfare services. However, we lack sufficient knowledge about how young people in vulnerable situations, such as those who are not in school, not employed, or not in training (NEET), can harness digital technologies for their benefit.

While Norway has a smaller percentage of NEETs compared to other European countries, this group of youth in Norway tend to experience poorer mental health and have lower levels of education. Among youth without a high school degree, migrants are overrepresented. This increases the likelihood of them remaining in a long-term NEET situation.

The primary goal of DIGcapabilities project is to identify how social background and factors that increase the chance of being disconnected from school and work influence the practices, strategies and difficulties this group of youth face when trying to get favourable results from their digital practices.

The project will investigate these digital practices within and across their social environments. In DIGcapabilities project, we will investigate three key aspects of

how these youths make sense of their daily digital practices;
the digital practices of these youths within the context of their family's daily dynamics;
their interaction with welfare services through digital channels.

Through these steps, we aim to develop a methodological tool that can enhance our understanding of the digital disparities experienced by migrant NEET youth. This tool will then enable us to offer recommendations to public actors and policymakers on how to improve digital inclusion for these youths.