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.–15.2.2013 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: http://wirtualnemedia.pl [21.05.2012]

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) - 725 055

Density (pop. per km²) - 2472

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 children’s 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 children’s lives

How much time children are spending on listening to radio?

1 h < – 54,7%

1 - 3 h – 35,4%

4 - 6 h – 7,3%

6 h > – 2,6%

Computer in children’s 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 children’s 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%

2 - 4 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 children’s 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:http://www.allofpolandreadstokids.org/

„All of Poland Reads to Kids”

97 % of the parents is familiar with the social campaign:

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

Conclusions

Media culture became a big part of children’s 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