A role of the family in the media education of the preschool children in Poland: a case study of Lodz Agata Walczak-Niewiadomska Ewelina Makowska University of Lodz My Media Playground 2nd biannual seminar on media education in childhood, 14.– Tampere, Finland

Outline Introduction Research Questions & Methodology Results Conclusions

The research conducted in March/April 2012 by Interactive Research Center showed: - 60,5 % Polish children watch TV few hours a day - 95,1 % watch TV almost everyday - only 20% watch TV with parent's accompany Introduction Source: [ ]

Research Questions How big is the potential influence on the children media literacy development through parental guidance? How Polish kindergartens support media literacy education among children?

Population in Lodz (in 2011) Density (pop. per km²)

Administrative map of Lodz

Methodology

40 Methodology Feedback = 63,3 %

Results Age of the children 3 years old – 15,7% 4 years old – 31% 5 years old – 31% 6 years old – 19,3% 7 years old – 1,6%

Results Children have access at home to: - Television 97% - Radio 88,7% - DVD player 84,7% - desktop computer 62% - laptop/netbook 72,7% - tablet 16% - game console 30% - Internet 94%

Television in childrens lives

How much time children are spending on watching Television? 0,5 h – 4,8% 0,5 – 1 h – 50,2% 2 – 4 h – 39% 5 h > – 2%

Radio in childrens lives

How much time children are spending on listening to radio? 1 h <– 54,7% h–35,4% h – 7,3% 6 h > – 2,6%

Computer in childrens lives

14 % of the children are able to use computer on their own, but almost 80 % of them are using computer always under parental guard.

Computer games in childrens lives Mostly children are playing games on: = 81,8 % = 30,3 % = 18,2 %

= 8,6 % Less popular are: = 0 %

How much time children are spending on playing computer games?

… numbers are growing 30 min. <– 40,4% 0,5 – 1 h–35,7% h – 7% 5 h > – 0,5%

Unfortunately, according to our research, only 18,9% of parents is familiar with PEGI (Pan European Game Information) You know PEGI, right?

But there is something more to know…

Books in childrens lives

Parents believe that reading to children is very important. Almost 62 % of them spend more than 30 minutes to read to their children every single day.

Not only books, but also magazines are very popular among children:

For more information visit: All of Poland Reads to Kids 97 % of the parents is familiar with the social campaign:

Get familiar with Necio.pl – its a great web page for your children (11,2% of the parents know it).

Conclusions Media culture became a big part of childrens lives in Poland. Children at the age of six and under spend an average of 1 hour daily with screen media, mostly TV. Not only parents, but also kindergarten can shape the understanding of the role of media and technology among children. Most of the kindergartens implement the elements of media education through special classes, mostly for the 5-6-year-olds Closer cooperation between kindergarten and parents is needed.

Promotion. Reading still rocks! Great chance and challenge for the Polish libraries Conclusions

Thank you for attention Contact: awniewiadomska[at]uni.lodz.pl evelina.makowska[at]gmail.com