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nineteen - Effectiveness of teachers’ and peers’ mediation in supporting opportunities and reducing risks online
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science, Anke Görzig, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Children, Risk and Safety on the Internet
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 07 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2012, pp 245-256
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Summary
Introduction
A distinctive feature of the EU Kids Online survey is that it asked children about mediation of internet use practised by parents, teachers and peers (Livingstone et al, 2011). This chapter starts from the assumption that these three agents, by virtue of their different social relationships with children, play distinct roles in influencing children’s online experiences, both positively and negatively. The chapter evaluates the effectiveness of mediation by teachers and peers in supporting online opportunities and in reducing risks and harm.
Teachers’ mediation
Parents often expect teachers to act as coach or facilitator in relation to their children's internet use, in other words to act ‘in loco parentis’ (Wishart, 2004, p 200). There is a quite long tradition of research examining the role of parental mediation of their children's (new) media use. Work on teachers’ mediation, however, is more recent (cf Hasebrink et al, 2009; Inan et al, 2010; Zhao et al, 2011), and most studies (see, for example, Wishart, 2004; Berrier, 2007) do not differentiate between different types of mediation, or ask how teachers’ mediation is related to online risks and harm experienced by children.
Research indicates that teachers are concerned mainly with internet safety. Rather than engaging in active mediation, teachers tend to apply rules that restrict children's internet use, but which also hinder the development of good internet safety practices and reduce the chances for children to explore online opportunities (Wishart, 2004).
Although the support given by teachers has been shown to have a weak influence on children's intrinsic motivation to go online, some of the motivation for children to explore the internet is related to use of this technology for school assignments (Zhao et al, 2011). In relation to more advanced usage than is required for schoolwork, however, teachers’ mediation is the weakest predictor of children's online content creation (Kalmus et al, 2009b).
Peer mediation
The role played by peers may also be important for shaping the online practices of young people (cf Hasebrink et al, 2009; see also Chapter 1 in this volume), although relatively little is known about their influence. Livingstone and Bober (2005) found that compared to parents and teachers, peers may be less important for help related to using the internet, but may have a significant impact on young people’s intrinsic motivations for going online (Zhao et al, 2011).
six - Opportunities and benefits online
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Kids Online
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 15 July 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 September 2009, pp 71-82
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Summary
The internet and other online technologies provide children across Europe with a range of opportunities and benefits. The main opportunities can be classified into four categories: education, learning and digital literacy; participation and civic engagement; creativity and self-expression; and identity and social connection (Livingstone and Haddon, 2009; and see Chapter One, this volume). Research evidence suggests that adults and children agree that children use the internet mostly as an educational resource, for entertainment, games and fun, for searching for global information and for social networking and sharing experiences with distant others (Hasebrink et al, 2009).
The question about children's opportunities and benefits online can be theoretically contextualised by the notions of structure and agency. Structure refers to rules and resources, which are ‘always both enabling and constraining, in virtue of the inherent relation between structure and agency’ (Giddens, 1984: 169). Rules and resources related to children's internet use include parental guidance, rules and restrictions, material resources for using the internet at home and at school (for example broadband connection, a child's own computer), the availability of time to be spent online and so on. Meanwhile, the concept of agency has been associated with a long list of terms including freedom, creativity, self-hood, choice, motivation, will, initiative and so on (see Emirbayer and Mische, 1998), where ‘agency refers not to the intentions people have in doing things but to their capability of doing those things in the first place’ (Giddens, 1984: 9).
Online opportunities are themselves interconnected and they all depend on children's agency and literacies. The significance of the internet for participatory activities lies in the shift from the ‘traditional’ public sphere to everyday active participation in a networked, highly heterogeneous and open public sphere (Burgess, 2007). But making use of any online opportunities connected to participation and civic engagement largely relies on communicative competencies in general and digital skills in particular. Hence, digital literacy can be seen as an essential competency important for democratic practices (Dahlgren, 2006). Digital literacy is also linked to participation through user creativity, that is, through various practices involving online content creation. Moreover, such creativity is essentially social as it needs individuals to be capable of using, transforming and extending information in a way that enables other individuals acting in the social field to recognise and acquire the information (Csíkszentmihályi, 1996).