Parents' Perceptions of Children, Technology, and Play in a South African Racially Unequal Community

• In Event: Structural Inequalities in Play, Creativity, and Learning With Digital Technologies

Abstract

Objectives
This paper reports on the challenges of designing and conducting a study on digital play in a racially unequal community. The study sought to investigate parents’ perceptions of children aged between 3 and 11 years in South Africa’ Cape Town areas. Over 1200 parents participated in the study and answered questions about one of their children (where a parent had more than one). This paper focuses on perceptions of parents on children’s digital play in the context of racial inequalities.

Methods, techniques or modes of inquiry
In South Africa, the concept of race and ethnicity is central in defining access to resources, infrastructure and general wealth distribution (Marsh et al., 2020). Although there are 11 official languages in South Africa and in Cape Town only English, Afrikaans and IsiXhosa are spoken (Williams & Bekker, 2008). Although 42% of Capetonians are Black Africans, 39% Coloured and 17% White, access to resources is unequal. Phokeer et al., (2016) observe that the wealthier communities, can afford data costs, and have access to Wi-Fi networks, yet township users have no access to Wi-Fi networks, and cannot afford the data costs. Hence, creative ways of conducting the study had to be sought. Parents were given the choice to do the survey manually, or online, sometimes mediated by field researchers.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials
Field researchers were recruited to conduct the survey through face-to-face contact at carefully chosen sites, assisting respondents by explaining the questions and sensitively taken into account parents’ home languages and literacy skills. Each field researcher captured their own data using the same survey link. Also, in consultation with School Principals at the participating schools, survey booklets were given to learners for their parents to complete. The booklet had a URL to the survey which parents could use. If done manually, the booklet was returned to the school via the child, but this approach was not effective.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions
The survey was completed by 1,286 respondents (Ng'ambi and Murris 2020). Of these Black Africans (46%), Coloured (32%), White (15%) and Indian (6%). Each respondent represented one child, thus age and gender of children were as follows: 76% (3-7 years), 44% (8-11 years), girls (43%) and boys (46%). Almost 90% of parents were comfortable using non-digital toys (Marsh et al., 2020). This was corroborated with another question. During weekdays children played with non-digital games for 2 hours and more hours (29%) as opposed to a combined total of 14% spent playing for the same duration with digital games (i.e. electronic toy, game console, handheld, smart toy, media player, smart speaker). The majority of parents (80%) perceive play as essential for children’s learning and development.

Scholarly significance of the study

Despite racial inequalities, there is uniformity in parents’ view that digital play fosters learning and development in children. This is a significant finding and confirms the belief that parents in resource poor communities see education as a way out of poverty. Hence, they are more likely to encourage children to play with digital technologies.

Author

• Dick Ngambi, University of Cape Town