School Mediation. : Results of a qualitative cross-cultural investigation in nine European countries

Résumé En

As regards quantitative data, although there are great differences across countries, the EU Kids Online II survey showed evidence that 81% of the European children have benefited from at least one form of teacher mediation (ranging from 97% in Norway and 65% in Italy) (Livingstone et al., 2011). The most frequent kind was active mediation of internet safety (73% of children mentioned one or more forms of guidance), followed by restrictive mediation (62% said that teachers made rules about what they could do on the internet at school). The less common form of mediation, mentioned by around half of European children, was general active mediation. What the research did not say at that moment was: what are the actual concerns related to eSafety that teachers care about? How exactly does this engagement appear: is it proactive or reactive? How do young people perceive this engagement? Are they happy with it, or do they consider that there are still gaps that should be filled in teachers’ mediation or things that should be changed due to lack of propriety or ethical slippage? We have tried to answer all of these questions in the qualitative part of this research.