Parental perception of children’s online behaviour: a study on ethnic communities in Australia

Imran, Ahmed ORCID: 0000-0001-8258-3550, Khanom, Nilufa ORCID: 0000-0002-8050-7930 and Rahman, Azizur ORCID: 0000-0002-7670-5192 (2023) Parental perception of children’s online behaviour: a study on ethnic communities in Australia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20 (7). ISSN 1661-7827

Abstract

The overwhelming growth of the Internet in all spheres of life poses new challenges for young children growing up in the digital age, with potential short- and long-term ramifications. Parents have an essential role in the development of the attitudes and behaviour of their children. However, studies indicate that adults are not adequately mitigating the range of cyber risks that children face and that parent-oriented solutions are simply inadequate. This study attempts to fill research gaps in the status and nature of parents’ perceptions of the online use of their children in Australia based on their ethnic background. This study adopted a mixed-method approach, surveying 204 parents from different ethnic communities in Australia followed by 16 in-depth interviews and three focus-group discussions. The results indicate that parents’ perceptions of online risk for children differ based on their ethnicity, cultural adaptation, gender, and age. Parents from multicultural societies are less equipped to deal with cyber threats that their children face and are ill-equipped to monitor and mitigate the risks posed. The results of this study have important policy implications, from deepening our understanding of the nature of the problems to facilitating the development of short- and long-term strategies, appropriate information systems, policy guidelines, and interventions.

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Item type Article
URI https://vuir.vu.edu.au/id/eprint/45928
DOI 10.3390/ijerph20075342
Official URL http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20075342
Subjects Current > FOR (2020) Classification > 4410 Sociology
Current > Division/Research > VU School of Business
Keywords online behavior, ethnic communities, multicultural societies, parenting, qualitative data
Citations in Scopus 0 - View on Scopus
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