Accounting for parental support for children’s learning online – inequalities matter, but so do skills and attitudes

With children growing up in ever-changing conditions in the digital age, digital parenting becomes more crucial than ever before. The predominant focus for parents, policy-makers, and researchers has long been on minimizing the risk of harm. Yet the swift transition to children’s online learning during lockdown caught many off guard. Children from disadvantaged families struggle to get online due to a lack of device or internet connectivity. Safety issues such as online child pornography are also in the spotlight. For www.parenting.digital, Dongmiao Zhang and Sonia Livingstone discuss the difficulties of digital parenting and how to close the digital divide by supporting less-educated parents and those from lower socio-economic status households

Closing the digital divide may require more than just offering devices and connectivity

Digital parenting has become more crucial than ever before. The predominant focus for parents, policy-makers, and researchers has long been on minimising the risk of harm. Yet the swift transition to children’s online learning during lockdown caught many off-guard. Children from disadvantaged families struggle to get online due to a lack of device or internet connectivity. Safety issues such as online child pornography are also in the spotlight. Dongmiao Zhang (Utrecht University) and Sonia Livingstone (LSE) discuss the difficulties of digital parenting and how to close the digital divide by supporting less-educated parents and those from lower socio-economic status households

Experiences of e-safety within primary school education

This research aims to establish what the current e-safety teaching strategies are within primary schools in England in relation to the National Curriculum and current office for standards in education (OFSTED) guidelines. The project focuses on up to three primary schools in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire where relationships have been established to identify how e-safety is approached and where it is adequately addressed and/or taught. During the initial stage of the project teachers will be interviewed and observed at the heart of this environment within their primary school setting. The intention of the initial study is to inform and direct subsequent research involving children within each particular school. The second stage of the project will establish what impact the current teaching strategies have on the children and the messages that are being received, interpreted and understood by them. The results of both studies will establish how effective the current teaching strategies are and their impact on young children to provide the necessary evidence to influence key stakeholders and make recommendations and support for an improved strategy and consistent approach to e-safety in primary schools in England

Technical report and user guide: the 2010 EU kids online survey

This technical report describes the design and implementation of the EU Kids Online survey of 9-16 year old internet using children and their parents in 25 countries European countries

A children’s rights perspective on the responsibility of social network site providers

It is the aim of this paper to analyse this issue from a children’s right perspective and to identify a theoretical, broader basis that can be used by policymakers to persuade social network site providers to enhance their Corporate Social Responsibility efforts to provide young users with a communication and interaction platform that respects and helps realising their fundamental rights.status: publishe

Playing in a virtual bedroom: youth leisure in the Facebook generation

The rapidly changing uses of online social networking sites (SNS) have led to moral panics, most notably framed in terms of 'stranger danger'. However, the risks to young people from access to un-mediated content available via SNS, and most particularly to user-generated content is not generally seen as being dangerous. However, adults would not generally consider many of the activities engaged in via SNS as safe were they conducted in the real world. This paper explores the ways in which young people use SNS to mediate complex issues of social identity in a virtual environment