Children, digital screens and family: parental mediation practices and gender

The objective of this article is to explore the gendered characteristics of digital parenting and parental mediation through a qualitative study developed with families and children in Argentina. Diverse typologies have recently been elaborated to better understand parental mediation of digital screens. Quantitative studies have correlated different styles of parental mediation with sociodemographic variables and have also assessed their effectiveness in preventing several online risks. In this paper we use qualitative data from a research developed using the technique of technobiographies to construct an in-depth approach to children’s practices and representations with multiple voices involved (parents, teachers, school authorities). As we show, different types of parental mediation are associated to mothers or fathers, following more broader gender ideologies and stereotypes. With insights from different families, we built research questions that state that there is a gendered division of digital parenting.