The "IT" Girls of Arabia

This dissertation analyzes transformation in early 21st century educational practice through the lens of information technology (IT) use at a private, women's university in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Academic and extracurricular Internet use, which is enabled through ubiquitous mobile devices, students' attitudes toward information and communication technology (ICT), and the nature and purpose of their activities in social network sites (SNS) will be discussed alongside critical analysis of peer-to-peer teaching and learning in relation to knowledge production and educational practice. Richly ethnographic discussion delves into emerging global education paradigms that are (re)configuring the experience of women's higher education in Saudi Arabia and influencing women's participation in public, economic, and political spheres from which they might have been previously excluded. This dissertation also seeks to engage bigger questions about young people's intimate relationships with ICTs and the nuances of the networked spaces in which they experience life online as students and citizens coming of age as members of the digital generation.