Greek Young Children’s Engagement with Media in the Home: Parents’ and Children’s Perspectives

Abstract

Recent developments in literacy studies suggest that everyday media experiences of children should be included and inform school literacy. In light of this, in the present study, we map children’s access and patterns of use, as well as children’s and parents’ stance and views on media. From the analysis of interviews with children and questionnaires with parents, it was made clear that children have rich media experiences in the home, having access to print, screen entertainment and digital media, whereas the presence of video games in Greek homes is more limited compared with other countries. Parents seem to be affected by the ‘moral panics’ often surrounding young children’s use of media. Moreover, our study indicated that families with a more privileged social and educational background seem to be more oriented to print and digital media than families with a lower social status. In contrast, families of lower social and educational background tend to be more oriented to screen entertainment media. On the other hand, some significant differences with respect to the children’s gender were disclosed, which seem to be linked to the social expectations and the distinct social roles of what means to ‘be a girl’ and ‘a boy’. In conclusion, we suggest that a study including both the perspectives of parents and children on the latter’s media activities in the home can better address the limitations of (self)-reporting and complement observational studies of literacy practices.