Children and the Internet: Uses and representations, family and school
Children and the Internet: Uses and representations, family and school
Coordinated by Ana Nunes de Almeida, the project "Children and the Internet: uses and representations, the family and the school" is a study developed by the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Giving children a voice, its objective is to know the uses they do and the representations they build on the internet, in two fundamental contexts of their daily lives: the family and the school.
This project is inspired by research carried out since 2001 by teams of researchers from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya on the information society, coordinated by Manuel Castells. In an attempt to achieve cumulativeness, it is intended to continue certain thematic lines developed, which will allow the fruitful comparison of methodologies and results between countries, but also to enrich them theoretically with the introduction of proposals brought to sociology by the "new paradigm of childhood ". Considering the child as a competent actor, producer and active interpreter of his / her daily life, we seeks (by giving him / her voice) to describe, to characterize and to interpret the uses that children make and the representations that they build on the internet, from two educational scenarios between which children circulate: the family and the school.
The project is developed in three phases. In the first one (2008), an extensive approach was deployed through a questionnaire applied to a sample of students from elementary school (1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles), attending public and private schools in the Continent. In the second (2009-2010) a comprehensive approach was applied through in-depth interviews with a qualitative sample of children (differentiated by age, family origins, gender and ethnicity) as well as their teachers and parents. Taking into account the development and progress of the project in the previous phases, it was decided to design a third and new phase (2011-2012) in which ethnographic work was carried out to observe the use of the Internet by children, combined with group discussions.
The project can inaugurate a promising line of research in Portugal that interweaves (and renews) the contributions of studies on the information society and studies on childhood. The wide dissemination of the results can contribute to a better public knowledge about the uses of the Internet in Portugal, its expansion and appropriation by children in a family and school context.
Childhood, Computers, Games, Social networks
Coordinated by Ana Nunes de Almeida, the project "Children and the Internet: uses and representations, the family and the school" is a study developed by the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Giving children a voice, its objective is to know the uses they do and the representations they build on the internet, in two fundamental contexts of their daily lives: the family and the school.
This project is inspired by research carried out since 2001 by teams of researchers from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya on the information society, coordinated by Manuel Castells. In an attempt to achieve cumulativeness, it is intended to continue certain thematic lines developed, which will allow the fruitful comparison of methodologies and results between countries, but also to enrich them theoretically with the introduction of proposals brought to sociology by the "new paradigm of childhood ". Considering the child as a competent actor, producer and active interpreter of his / her daily life, we seeks (by giving him / her voice) to describe, to characterize and to interpret the uses that children make and the representations that they build on the internet, from two educational scenarios between which children circulate: the family and the school.
The project is developed in three phases. In the first one (2008), an extensive approach was deployed through a questionnaire applied to a sample of students from elementary school (1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles), attending public and private schools in the Continent. In the second (2009-2010) a comprehensive approach was applied through in-depth interviews with a qualitative sample of children (differentiated by age, family origins, gender and ethnicity) as well as their teachers and parents. Taking into account the development and progress of the project in the previous phases, it was decided to design a third and new phase (2011-2012) in which ethnographic work was carried out to observe the use of the Internet by children, combined with group discussions.
The project can inaugurate a promising line of research in Portugal that interweaves (and renews) the contributions of studies on the information society and studies on childhood. The wide dissemination of the results can contribute to a better public knowledge about the uses of the Internet in Portugal, its expansion and appropriation by children in a family and school context.
