Digital citizenship: student internet access and online learning

Abstract

In her writing of the position of youth in contemporary Africa, Alcinda Honwana (2012) has argued that most of the youth on the continent are structurally excluded from the formal economy and find it extremely difficult to find gainful employment. She describes their condition as one of "waithood", waiting for access to the job market and for the associated social transition to adulthood, which is often dependent of the acquisition of some means of livelihood. This concept has been more generally used to explore the social exclusion of youth (Oldfield and Greyling, 2015). In a recent paper on Niger, for example, Masquelier (2013) looks at the ritualised tea parties held by unemployed Muslim men who construct masculine fraternities to occupy their time. She explores how new bonds of friendship and fraternity emerge in a context of boredom and hopelessness.