Recently the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop released a series of reports on Latino families’ use of digital media. Taken together, the series sheds light on Latinos’ use of and access to digital technologies, tackles questions of digital equity, and examines what we do (and don’t) know about how these technologies impact children and their families.
As the “digital divide” shrinks, and access to digital technologies expands, it will be essential to investigate how those tools are used to promote Latino child and parent learning. After all, Latinos make up an inordinate share of America’s recent population growth—and will continue to do so in the future. In Aprendiendo en Casa: Media as a Resource for Learning Among Hispanic-Latino Families, June Lee and Brigid Barron present survey data that addresses questions about Latino families’ access to and use of educational media.
For starters, they found that television was the predominant media platform for parents who reported that their child used educational media. Those parents also indicated that educational media had helped their child learn about reading, vocabulary, math, and science. And 81 percent of bilingual parents and 92 percent of Spanish-only speaking parents believe that their child learned English from educational programming. Whether, and how much, young DLLs are actually learning English from television remains an open empirical question.
Educational media also served as a catalyst for further learning for these children and their families. For example, 78 percent of parents reported that media spurred imaginative play activities and 72 percent reported that their child had taught them something new based on information learned from educational media. Lee told me that these media sparked conversation, play and projects — all of which are important for a child’s development.
Lee and Baron also uncovered significant differences in technology access and use within the Hispanic population: “Higher educational attainment, higher family income, being native born, and being English-dominant or bilingual were consistently related to higher rates of technology adoption.” These findings mirror national trends that demonstrate differences in Internet use based on income and educational attainment: the higher your income or education level, the more likely you are to have broadband at home. Turns out the digital divide isn’t closing for everyone.
Read the full story at EdCentral.
Brigid Barron is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and founder of YouthLAB.
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