Using a socio-ecological framework to understand how 8–12-year-olds build and show digital resilience: A multi-perspective and multimethod qualitative study

Abstract

Educationalists’, researchers’, and policy makers’ work on children’s digital resilience has marginalised the role of the broader context within which digital resilience is constituted, experienced and derived. We aimed to address this lacuna by exploring how pre-teen’s digital resilience operates as a dynamic socio-ecological process. Addressing this aim, we employed participatory methods and thematically analysed eight focus groups with children aged 8–12 years (n = 59) and 20 telephone interviews with parents/carers and teachers of 8–12-year-olds and internet safety experts to examine this issue. We used purposive sampling and collected data over three months (January-March 2020). Our analysis constructed a matrix of main themes, constituent, and cross-cutting sub-themes. By placing this within a socio-ecological framework, we illustrate how pre-teens’ digital resilience operates within and across differing four levels (individual, home, community and societal) and four domains (learning, recognising, managing, and recovery). The paper advances the literature by illustrating how children can be supported to build and show digital resilience within and across different levels and domains. It is argued that digital resilience should be re-conceptualised as a collective endeavour involving children at an individual level, parents/carers within home environments, youth workers, civil society, teachers, and schools at a community level, along with governments, policymakers, and the education system and internet corporations at a societal level. We conclude by providing practice and research recommendations guiding those supporting children to facilitate opportunities to thrive online.

Children’s, parents’ and educators’ understandings and experiences of digital resilience: A systematic review and meta-ethnography

“…new media & society 26(5) the conceptual knowledge of digital resilience in relation to this age group is scant (Hammond et al, 2023b). Instead, there is a tendency for first-order constructs to share emotive elements of online risks and second-order constructs to report risk trends.…”

“…Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's (2005) ecological systems theory, a socio-ecological perspective treats digital resilience as a dynamic process embedded within interdependent micro-and macro-level systems in which the macrosystem (community and society levels) shapes the structure of the nested microsystems (individual and home levels), with the process domains (learning, recognising, managing and recovering) cross-cutting these systems in ways that reside within and beyond each micro-and macro-level system (Hammond et al, 2023b). Grounded in work conducted by Masten and colleagues (Masten, 2001(Masten, , 2007Masten et al, 2021), this perspective enables protective factors (i.e.…”

“…a return to pre-risk functioning) or growth (i.e. increased capability and/or capacity to respond to similar risks in future) (Hammond et al, 2023b). This is important because some children are more likely to experience risk exposure than others (El-Asam et al, 2021) and, while risk does not necessarily equate to harm, the need to consider how contextual factors impact on children's resilience when creating educational programmes or interventions is important (Hammond et al, 2023b;Vissenberg et al, 2022).…”

“…. a dynamic process whereby individuals and/or groups learn how to recognise, manage, and recover from online risks within and across individual, home, community, and societal levels’ (Hammond et al, 2023b). Finding roots in cyber security and clinical psychology (Heeks and Ospina, 2019; Prior and Hagmann, 2014; Rutter, 2007), digital resilience may be understood as a cyclical process that can moderate the negative impacts of risky online experiences while promoting opportunities to thrive in connective environments (Hammond et al, 2023b).…”

Rebellious youth and ineffective advice: A study of Vietnamese adolescents’ capability to deal with digital threats

“…For example, a study on Vietnamese high school students shows that digital resilience is positively associated with digital literacy (27). Hammond, Polizzi and Bartholomew (28) use a mixed qualitative methodology to study pre-teens (8-12 years old) and find that digital resilience can be improved through a collective endeavor involving children at an individual level, parents/carers within home environments, youth workers, civil society, teachers, and schools at a community level, along with governments, policymakers, and the education system and Internet corporations at a societal level (28). This finding aligns with Valcke, De Wever, Van Keer and Schellens (9)'s suggestion that parental supervision and school-based approaches are among the main methods promoting adolescents' safe Internet use.…”