Jasmina Byrne

Using mixed methods to research children’s online opportunities and risks in a global context: the approach of Global Kids Online

This case presents the Global Kids Online research model, revealing the challenges of researching children’s internet and mobile use in a global context, and providing practical methodological solutions. With most available research conducted in the global North while most growth in the population of young internet users is occurring in the global South, researchers are faced with the challenge of creating research tools that are both context-sensitive, yet able to capture children’s experiences of the internet on a global scale, and that allow for robust cross-country comparative approaches. The Global Kids Online methodology is designed for children aged 9-17 who use the internet at least minimally and for adult respondents (the children’s parents or carers). It includes a survey of parents and children, and individual and group interviews with children. The Global Kids Online project was developed as a collaborative initiative between the London School of Economics and Political Science, the UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, and the EU Kids Online network to address this need for a robust global evidence base on children’s online opportunities and risks, and their effects on children’s well-being and rights, which can be used to inform national and international policy, regulation, and practice

Children as Internet users: how can evidence better inform policy debate?

ABSTRACTAs more and more researchers from all over the world are becoming interested in how children use the Internet and mobile technologies, global evidence of both the opportunities that the Internet brings, and their associated risks, is increasing. A new research initiative, Global Kids Online, contributes to this through provision of tools and guidelines to national researchers and comparative analysis of country-specific research findings. For the first time, rigorous and comparable evidence from lower and middle-income countries (South Africa, Serbia, the Philippines, Brazil and Argentina) is available on a range of topics: children’s civic engagement, participation and digital literacy, as well as risky behaviour and negative experiences. But to what extent do current Internet-related or broader child rights policies (regarding education and protection) correspond to this growing evidence base? What are the opportunities, through evidence use, for influencing new policy direction related to child...