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roving to surveil student engagement.
At Cesar Chavez, Rafalow “witnessed how
a shared discourse around teaching ‘basic skills’
with digital technology informed instruction…
Chavez faculty saw the value of technology much
differently—not for creative expression, but to
develop rote digital skills for technical job tracks”
(pp. 39–40). He notes that the school had ample
access to and support for technology, including
1-to-1 access for iPads and Chromebooks in
varied classes, but the use of technology was
“unidirectional” (p. 40) rather than interactive. That
is, the technology was used to “deliver” content;
students were not engaged with each other or
learning through manipulation of content.
In this foundational chapter, Rafalow lays out the
key idea that “teachers determined whether young
people’s digital play was valuable to school or not,
either staving off or enabling play for educational
achievement” (p. 43). The rich details he provides
about the environment and culture of each school
help the reader begin to understand the importance
of social reproduction theory—the idea that schools
maintain and continue existing social relations.
Furthermore, “as a result of class- and race-based
attitudes toward students, schools differently imagine
their students’ potential. These shared beliefs among
teachers are enacted through discipline” (p. 12).

Developing Digital Skills Through Play
In Chapter 2, Rafalow continues his line of reasoning by exploring how students
develop digital skills through play online. Citing a Pew Research fact sheet (2021),
he notes that “as of 2018, a whopping 95% of teens have access to a smartphone and
a gaming console with no difference by family income or race-ethnicity” (p. 45).
He contends that, accordingly, “young people learn digital skills through playful
pursuits with peers” (p. 45), i.e., through the rich digital lives that they share as
they learn new technologies and experiment with same. By extension, such a trend
begs the question of how schools are building upon and maximizing this digital
play. Simply put, by discouraging and disciplining digital play in schools, educators
minimize the critical development of digital skills that will serve students in the
future. By encouraging and incorporating digital play in schools, educators build on
and enhance students’ natural development of digital skills that are critical to their
success in an increasingly digital world. The digital divide thus is no longer one of
differing access to technology “stuff” and support but a gap created and supported
by pedagogical decisions undergirded by school culture:
Schools treat kids’ digital play in different ways, and these different
approaches determine whether or not play is transformed into cultural capital
for achievement. Some schools welcome young people’s digital skills as
valued cultural capital. Others treat play as irrelevant to, and a distraction
from, the real work of learning. (p. 48)
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