Family as One of the Key Determinants of Media Education of Young School-age Children

The attitude of parents influences formation of children’s attitude to life. It is even more noticeable when speaking about media. The proposed contribution shows partial results of research carried out as a part of VEGA project No. 1/0913/15: Media literacy of young school-age children in the context of family and school cooperation. The character of the empirical research was diagnostic and quantitative-qualitative. The aim of the research was to examine media education performed in formal and non-formal ways among young schoolaged children in Slovakia. 28 schools from all over Slovakia were examined in the presented research. The contribution focuses mainly on findings from questionnaires given to parents and other focus groups, i.e. pupils.

"The study found a significant difference in approach based on the parents’ sex concerning whether to control the child due to the fact that the parents consider their children capable of discerning what programs they are or are not allowed to watch." (Juszczyk, et al, 2017) The findings show mothers tend to control their children more than fathers whether they observe rules. When it comes to computer use, the majority of parents do not allow their children to play computer games with violent content, i.e., killing, drug abuse, etc. "The parents whose children attend church schools were more likely to establish rules. Some children have rules established in relation with content, not time. Some rules were related only to weekdays." (Juszczyk, et al, 2017)