2134/35962
Lucinda Kerawalla
Lucinda
Kerawalla
Children's use of home computers from a cultural psychological perspective
Loughborough University
2018
untagged
Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified
Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified
2018-11-14 11:45:23
Thesis
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Children_s_use_of_home_computers_from_a_cultural_psychological_perspective/9480416
This thesis adopts a cultural psychological perspective on children's use of computers at
home and, as a contrast, in the classroom. It utilises various methodologies to investigate
the actual uses that children make of computers in these settings and also focuses on how
computing practices are situated within the local ecology, or context. Seventy-six 7-, 9-
and 11-year-old pupils from five socially and ethnically diverse primary schools were
interviewed in their schools. In addition, thirty-three families with children of comparable
ages, from the same five schools, participated in a detailed study of the ecology of home
computing. Findings suggest that, although parents had high educational aspirations for
the ways in which their children would use a new computer, these aspirations were not
met in reality. Entertainment games predominated and educational software was used
comparatively little. This thesis explores why this was the case and finds that it was the
differing ecologies of the home and the classroom that mediated the different uses that
were found in either setting. [Continues.]