The formation of new media preferences among pre-school children in the context of peer culture and home interaction: A pedagogical perspective

Kristi Vinter

doi:10.5817/CP2012-2-2

The formation of new media preferences among pre-school children in the context of peer culture and home interaction: A pedagogical perspective

Vol.6,No.2(2012)
Special issue: Generation and mediated relations

Kristi Vinter

https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2012-2-2

How to Cite:

Vinter, K. (2012). The formation of new media preferences among pre-school children in the context of peer culture and home interaction: A pedagogical perspective. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 6(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2012-2-2

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Abstract

This study examines connections between two main growth environments – home and pre-school – in the formation of young children’s new media preferences in the context of the ecological techno-microsystem and peer culture. The study assembles the results of three focus group based sub-studies with pre-school teachers (N=24), parents (N=20) and children between the ages of 5 and 7 (N=61). Samples were formed in pre-school childcare institutions, which in Estonia is for children aged 1,5 to 7. Research shows that other members of the pre-school group influence children’s preferences in their use of new media. Parents consider the shaping of their children’s preferences to be less connected to the children’s relations with their peers. Teachers, on the other hand, ascribe the children’s preferences to different aspects of the influence that their peers, siblings and parents can have on them.

Keywords:
pre-school children; peer culture; new media preferences; siblings; parents

Author biography

Kristi Vinter

Kristi Vinter is a PhD student in the Institute of Educational Sciences at Tallinn University. Her research interests focus on media education in early childhood institutions and young children’s learning from different forms of media. She is trained as a pre-school teacher and prior to her academic career she worked in pre-school for eight years. Currently she is working as a lecturer at Tallinn University and in the Faculty of Early Childhood Pedagogy at Tallinn Pedagogical College. She is a member of the Estonian Science Foundation grant project entitled “Generations and inter-generational relationships in the emerging information society“. Her role in the research project is to study the youngest group of media consumers – children up to eight years of age.

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