Orig. title: Estrategias online de mediación parental en contextos familiares de España
Engl. transl.: Online parental mediation strategies in family contexts of Spain
Keywords
Mediation
strategies
behavior
family
parents
intervention
Publication details
| Year: | 2020 |
| DOI: | 10.3916/c65-2020-06 |
| Issued: | 2020 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 28 |
| Issue: | 65 |
| Start Page: | 67 |
| End Page: | 76 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Martínez Fernández G.; Casado M.Á.; Garitaonandia Garnacho C. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Comunicar |
| Publisher: | Grupo Comunicar |
| Topics: | Social mediation; Wellbeing |
| Sample: | A representative sample of 3,107 Spanish minors from 9 to 17 years of age. To guarantee representativeness on a national level, the most populated Autonomous Regions were chosen as follows: Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia, Valencia Region, Galicia, Basque Country, and Extremadura. Ten schools, either public or subsidised, were selected in each autonomous region except for Extremadura, where nine centres were chosen. The sample was also stratified by habitat: 80% of the schools were located in capital cities, and 20% were in smaller municipalities. School ownership was also considered, maintaining proportionality between the two predominant models in Spain: in Primary Education, 77.84% of the schools were public and 22.16% were subsidised, and in Secondary Education, 60.37% were public and 39.63% were subsidised. In total, students from 138 classrooms were surveyed using two classes from different courses at each school. Finally, the surveys of minors who had not declared their gender and those who had not indicated their age, or who were more than 17 years of age, were taken out, reducing the final sample to 2,900 children. Just over half of the children surveyed (51%) were boys, and 49% were girls. The figure of 53% of the minors was aged 9-12, and 47% were aged 13-17. |
| Implications For Parents About: | Parental practices / parental mediation; Parental digital literacy ; Parenting guidance / support ; Other |
| Other Parent Implication: | To give education concerning digital skills to both parents and children together. |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Other; Stepping up awareness and empowerment; Creating a safe environment for children online |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | Improving parents digital skills - |
Abstract
This article explores online parental mediation strategies in Spain and their association with sociodemographic and family context factors. The results of a survey conducted at the end of 2018 are presented herein, based on a sample of 2,900 Spanish minors between 9 and 17 years of age who use Internet. The impact of the diverse parental mediation strategies applied to Internet use has been calculated by taking into account the sociodemographic factors of the participating minors (age and gender). Association analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical analysis programme. In this case, an extra analysis was carried out with regard to the relationship of influence between different strategies and the rules of behaviour and family support in the household context as perceived by the minor. Findings suggest that enabling and restrictive mediation strategies are very common in Spanish families, while technical mediation strategies have a very limited presence. It is noteworthy that restrictions and security strategies generally apply more to girls than to boys. Household rules related to the behaviour of minors have a positive correlation with an increase of influence of nearly all strategies. However, there is no relevant association between family support perceived by children and restrictive strategies and techniques applied by parents.
Outcome
Enabling and restrictive mediation strategies are very common in Spanish families, while technical mediation strategies have a very limited presence. The frequency of influence of all the strategies is lower for older minors. Restrictions and security strategies generally apply more to girls than to boys. As far as restrictions are associated with fewer online opportunities, authors stress that 'this can be interpreted as increased parental concern for the online safety of their daughters, which may also imply a digital disadvantage for them' (Martínez, Casado & Garitaonandía, 2020: 71).
There is a link between contextual factors (behaviour rules and family support perceived by the child) in the home and online mediation. If there are more rules in the home, the incidence of all of the strategies is higher. This indicates that those parents who exercise more control offline also do so in the online environment. Specifically, a significant difference has been found between all enabling strategies and households where the child perceives that there are more rules of behaviour and family support. Authors point out that 'these results are relevant in the Spanish context, due to the fact that the child’s feeling of support in the home and his or her perception of the rules imposed is positively linked to those mediation strategies in which there is a communication relationship with the family and taking advantage of online opportunities' (Martínez, Casado & Garitaonandia, 2020: 71).
There is no significant relationship between restrictive and technical mediation and the perception of family support. 'These results are not very encouraging for the Spanish context, because in addition to being detrimental to taking advantage of opportunities, restrictions are more often applied in households where the child feels a lack of family support' (Martínez, Casado & Garitaonandia, 2020: 71). Authors also stress out that 'this demonstrates the importance of homes based on the concept of the democratic family and models of mediation by distance or deference, pointed out by López de Ayala et al. (2019) in which there is a supportive environment for the child together with control of his or her behaviour, as these aspects are related to a more positive online mediation that is better for the child' (Martínez, Casado & Garitaonandia, 2020:71). Finally, authors warn that in the Spanish context 'there is still a need for digital literacy initiatives aimed at parents and children that stress the importance of enabling strategies with special emphasis on girls, hereby avoiding possible digital disadvantages' (Martínez, Casado & Garitaonandia, 2020:71).
[Translated and adaptaded by the coder, based on the original text]