Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2013, Page 182

Þórdís Þórðardóttir
Abstract
Material for children and habitus in families:
The access of 4-5 years old nursery children
to children's books and digital media in their homes
This article addresses the consumption
of, classical children's literature, popular
culture and computer games in young
children homes. The aim was to analyse
the amount and role of above mentioned
material, including reading habits, time
spent watching TV and DVD's and play-
ing computer games, beside parents' eva-
luation of its importance for their child-
ren's education.
The data is drawn from one of three
section of the authors Ph.D. thesis on
preschool children's cultural literacy, from
2012. This part of the research took form
of questionnaire survey of 115 parents of
children aged four and five in four diffe-
rent preschools in Reykjavík. Multicult-
uralism is emphasized in the first school
curriculum, traditional Icelandic storytell-
ing in the second one. The third has gen-
der separated classes and the fourth high
rate of immigrant children. The question-
naire contained questions about children's
consumption of literature and popular
culture at home. The response rate was 70,
4% (N=81).
The theoretical background has its roots
in Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus,
family values and taste. In this study the
lens is centred at parents' choice of lite-
rature and popular culture in their homes
with a purpose to shed a light on the ho-
mes consumption of classical children's
literature, popular culture and computer
games. An attempt was made to deve-
lop concepts of different family habitus,
drawn from the parents' evaluation of the
children's taste of literature, popular cult-
ure and computer games.
The findings indicate children's literat-
ure and popular culture including TV pro-
grams for children, DVDs and computer
games to be common in the homes, and
the parents' choices of these materials ap-
peared to be linked to the children's gen-
der. Time spent on computer games was
less than spent on watching TV and DVD's
and listening to parents read aloud. Most
of the parents described TV programs for
children as informative but some worried
about the violence and ugliness offered to
children through these programs.
The parents considered computers
important for the children's further educa-
tion but a significant gender difference
appeared between parents evaluation
of the children's use of computer on the
boys benefit. Furthermore the findings
supported gender and ethnicity as part of
parents' choices regarding literature and
popular culture. The parent's education
did not emerge as a significant factor un-
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