Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
7-2019
Abstract
As Vietnam’s economic growth and consumer demands continue to accelerate, more Vietnamese families are now able to acquire portable touchscreen devices such as iPads. Previous research has shown that the use of touchscreen devices can benefit preschoolers’ learning, especially within school and home settings. However, little is known about the broader sociocultural environment within which such technology adoption by families with preschoolers takes place, especially in the Global South. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development, this research investigates the ecology of tablet use and early childhood learning by pre-schoolers in Vietnam through an ethnographic investigation of 42 mother-child dyads. We found that Vietnamese preschoolers’ tablet use for the purpose of early childhood learning was initiated, sustained or even enforced by their parents. Vietnamese mothers strongly regard tablets as learning tools that give their children a distinct edge in educational achievement. However, such enthusiastic appropriation of the tablets was not matched by the mothers’ concomitant understanding of the benefits and risks of touchscreen devices for children, nor the availability of social scaffolding structures for the parents.
Keywords
early childhood learning, media ecology, Pre-schoolers, tablet devices, touchscreen devices, Vietnam
Discipline
Asian Studies | Communication Technology and New Media
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Journal of Children and Media
Volume
13
Issue
3
First Page
241
Last Page
259
ISSN
1748-2798
Identifier
10.1080/17482798.2019.1613247
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
Citation
PHAM, Becky and LIM, Sun Sun.
Vietnamese pre-schoolers’ tablet use and early childhood learning: an ecological investigation. (2019). Journal of Children and Media. 13, (3), 241-259.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/91
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2019.1613247