Acuerdo de Unión Civil

Three findings are worth highlighting due to their surprising nature.

1. One is the fact that income and education seem to play no role in determining access to dig- ital devices and the acquisition of digital skills. In the cases of the parents with lower income and education, all the households had at least one digital device, and most had several. If the children did not have certain devices at home, such as consoles and laptops, they were able to have access at school and at their friends’ houses. This easy access allowed the development of digital skills that do not differ much from the families with higher income and education. 2. The other is the lack of use of digital technologies for educational purposes, school-related or

not. The tablet is regarded solely as a toy, and its potential as a tool for learning is ignored. 3. In the parents’ opinion, children who can read and write are taking more online risks than those

who do not. So some younger children end up using the devices in a more autonomous way and parents have never bothered to alert them to possible dangers that could materialise as inappropriate language or obscene images. However, with older siblings parents were already concerned about discussing possible dangers online.

Romania

National socio-economical context

• Romania is situated in Eastern Europe. Formerly a communist country, it became a de- mocracy in 1989 following a violent revolution, went to a democratic regime with free market. Romanian is a Romance language, and the predominant religion is Christian Or- thodox. The majority of the population are Romanian, with Hungarian, Roma and German minorities. Since 2007, the country has been a member of the EU. The population is a bit under 20 million, and is rapidly ageing with a low birth rate. The official unemployment rate is 4.6 %.

• The average family is 2.6 persons. Where there are children, the classical model is of two adults and one, maximum two, children.

• An important phenomenon, especially after 2007, is migration for work, particularly for jobs requiring low qualifications, among people of working age, from poor or underprivi- leged areas. This means that children are often left in the care of the extended family.

Internet and digital technology

• ICT had a slow initial penetration, mainly in universities and research institutes, but caught up later. In recent years, very high internet speed and a broad coverage of cable TV combined with a culture oriented towards the latest trends has encouraged Romani- ans to buy expensive gadgets despite their lack of economic power.

• There is a clear preference for Microsoft operating systems (Windows) and Android on portable devices, because people lack the resources to invest in anything other than the device and have a preference for free or pirated software.

General pattern of parenthood

• High SES families are supportive of seeing their children educated and learning based on direct experience and being explorative while lower SES families focus more on encour- aging their children to be nice, polite and obedient.

• Both strategies are reflected in the way in which children from both groups relate to digital technology, with the former being more ‘explorers’ and the latter more ‘followers’.

Schooling system for children from 0 to 8-year-old

• Since 2013, the compulsory schooling has started in elementary school, with the ‘grade zero’, a preparatory class, for children aged 6, that forms the passage from kindergarten, which is not attended by all children, to school.

• With ‘maternal’ leave (recently including the fathers) of up to 2 years, children are usu- ally taken care of by one of their parents up to that age. The monthly payment amounts to 85 % of the monthly average of the parent’s income, 1 year prior to the birth of the child, so parents are encouraged to stay at home and take care of their children. Since crèches are almost extinct (they belonged to the factories in communist Romania), most parents either use their extensive family to take care of the child after that age and prior to kindergarten or employ the services of nannies (usually, from the black economy, with no proper education in carrying out this role and mostly based on informal credentials). • Children cannot bring their own technological devices to kindergartens and schools; most

kindergartens are endowed with a TV set, a DVD player and some computers, but these are used on special occasions, not during the everyday educational processes, or are used as babysitters. In schools, there are ‘informatics’ laboratories with computers and internet connections, also used only occasionally or even never (due to locked doors and a definite concern not to ‘ruin’ the computers). Although teachers are catching up with technology, they are not formally trained, so there is a divide between the younger teachers, who are more savvy and the older ones, who tend to be ‘technologically naive’ (with honourable exceptions to both parties).

Age Schooling type

0-3 Crèche

3-6 Kindergarten

6-8 Two first grade of primary

After-school and leisure activities

• Children are usually collected from school by members of the extended family (usually grandparents) when parents are at work, particularly in small towns and rural areas. In bigger cities, after-school programmes have started to develop, either on the school premises or in private facilities, for the more affluent parents.

• The activities mostly frequently undertaken depend on the family’s values and principles, and also on money. Thus, those parents who have greater ambitions over education send their children to sports activities or to learn to play instruments or chess or to learn for- eign languages, while the others spend their time either indoors, playing and consuming media products of some kind, or outdoors, depending on the weather (cold weather and rain are a deterrent to such activities).