Somali Children’s and Parents' Views, Attitudes, and Interactions with Technology

• Author / Creator

  Abdi, Mariam J.

• As children are now growing up with and around computers and digital technologies, their experiences using these technologies differ from their parents’. This study examines how young Somali children and their parents experience using technology and computers, while seeking to understand parents’ perceptions and attitudes towards computer technology and how these perceptions are reflected on their children's interaction with these technologies. For this study, seven Somali children between the ages of ten to fifteen were interviewed along with their parents. The results show that parental views on prolonged computer-use were not favourable and that was reflected on their children’s computer use at home, where the great majority of parents interviewed had restrictive rules around the duration of computer-use at home for leisure and gaming. However, these parents were very supportive of their children’s computer-use to work on school-related projects. Further, the study found that despite the children’s appreciation for using computers and digital devices to play video games and surfing the internet, they were active in sports and had other interests outside of technology that played a major role in their lives.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • technology
  • experience
  • digital devices
  • attitudes
  • immigrant
  • computer-use
  • perceptions
  • views

• Graduation date

  Fall 2019

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-q3wj-f248

• License

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