Kickoff of the Kids Online study in Chile
Implementation of the pilot survey
The fieldwork of the multidisciplinary research project Kids Online Chile has been initiated. This research project, in which scholars from PUCV, U.CHILE and PUC are participating, is funded by the Ministry of Education in partnership with UNESCO Santiago / ED, Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean. It seeks to characterize the opportunities, risks and security offered by the Internet for children and young people. The study projects itself as the starting point of a Latin American network dedicated to the research in infancy, youth and technology.
Kids Online Chile is inserted in the EU Kids Online network, the most important worldwide research agenda related to ICT, infancy and adolescence. It is led, between 2006 and 2014 by the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science and currently is led by the Hans Bredow Institute from the Hamburg University in Germany. Thirty three countries participated in the project which primary objective was to gather empirical information regarding opportunities risks and security that the Internet offers to European boys and girls. This is achieved using surveys to gather information about the internet user experiences at home by the children and their parents.
After an intense work in adapting the research instruments developed by the EU Kids Online network to the Chilean context, the Chilean team begun the pilot survey study. In this stage, 120 adolescents will be surveyed, including their parents as well as their teachers, in schools in Valparaiso and Santiago. The main objective of this phase is to test the instruments to be applied, the analysis methods and preparing the programmed fieldwork to be commenced next August with the collaboration of the marketing research company IPSOS.
"The implementation of this survey is very relevant in the framework of the discussion of the risks and opportunities in the usage of ICT in Chile. This because despite the high rate of access to these technologies in Latin America, there is scarce information regarding its use by adolescents and children. This lack of information impacts in the consolidation of beliefs and myths that are, in most cases, originated by the fears of adults."- comments the project coordinator Patricio Cabello, associated professor form the School of Journalism of the Pontifical catholic University of Valparaiso.
The Chilean EU Kids Online team is composedby researchers from different research centers such as "Centro de Estudios de Políticas y Prácticas en Educación" -CEPPE from the Sociology School of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the "Instituto de la Comunicación e Imagen" of the University of Chile. The also work on the consolidation of an interdisciplinary research network of the childhood and youth in the ICT in Chile and other countries of the region, boosting a compared qualitative research among Colombia, Brasil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Costa Rica.