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.

Young children talk about their popular cartoon and TV heroes' speech styles: media reception and language attitudes

“…On the one hand, children, from a very young age, seem to have rich media experiences in the home (e.g. Marsh et al, 2005;Stamou, Maroniti, & Schizas, 2014). On the other hand, they tend to have some favourite popular cultural hero who is usually a character from the books they read and the television programmes they watch; these media icons are also present in their clothes, shoes, and toys (Marsh & Milliard, 2000;Stamou et al, 2014).…”

'Linguistic Diversity on TV': A Program for Developing Children's Multiliteracies Skills

“…Another point to consider is that such an intervention promotes a different educational culture which impinges on the existing curriculum provision and the existing structures in Greek education, as well as on the established beliefs and perceptions of both teachers and students on issues related to conceptualizing language and adopting certain teaching approaches in the language classroom (Koutsogiannis, 2006). In addition, parents seem to have some reservations about using popular cultural texts in their children's classrooms, which means that there is a need for close collaboration between school and family for the effectiveness of the implementation of such a program (Stamou et al, 2014).…”

“…The program: 'Learning about linguistic diversity on TV'. Before initiating the design of the program, we identified young children's preferences for popular culture, and in particular their preferences for television programs (such as cartoons and TV series) (Stamou et al, 2014), and we mapped teachers' views on the use of popular culture at school . Moreover, through semi-structured interviews, we explored children's perspectives while commenting on the sociolinguistically diverse speech styles of the characters watched in some video clips (animated films, popular Greek TV series) .…”

Promoting Students Critical Literacy through the Use of Popular Culture Texts in the Formal Language Classroom

“…Overall, the above research findings highlight the need for the development of students' critical literacy in terms of the dominant sociolinguistic representations that are constructed in the popular culture texts. However, there is no doubt that the implementation of critical literacy programmes at school is a complex and multidimensional process, as it presupposes the cultivation of an open and exploratory learning environment, teachers' (Chairistanidhs, 2014;Kontovroukh and Iwannidou, 2013;Marwnith and Stamou, 2014) and parents' education (Stamou et al 2014) in terms of critical literacy and the use of popular culture texts in the classroom to support similar teaching practices.…”

“…In addition, the major contribution of the use of popular culture in the school context is that it associates the literacies students use in their social life with the teaching practicesused at school, which is important, especially for students coming from less privileged families. In particular, research has indicated that students stemming from a lower socio-economic and educational background are more familiar with these literacies, such as the popular culture, than those that come from more privileged families and are usually more familiar with the formal literacy practices (e.g., Koutsogiannis, 2011;Livingstone and Bovill, 1999;Marsh et al 2005;Stamou, Maroniti and Schizas, 2014;. Simultaneously, according to research conducted in the context of the research project 'Thalis', it was found that the families that belonged to a higher socio-economic and educational background had greater access to literacies that are close to those emphasized at school, such as reading books and using computers, than the families that had a lower socio-economic and educational background (Stamou et al 2014); on the contrary, it was revealed that less privileged families had greater access to practices that were more oriented to the popular culture, such as increased use of television programmes and videogames) when compared to more privileged families, which also concurred with relevant research (Fterniati, Archakis, Papazachariou and Tsami, 2013;.…”