0-3-year-old children's language and literacy learning at home in a digital age (0-3s, Tech and Talk)

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Digital media are a commonplace feature in contemporary family life. From birth, almost every child born in the UK has a digital footprint and digital media begin to influence how they live and learn. Around them, families are likely to watch internet-connected TVs and use smartphones or tablets to interact with distant family and friends. Very young children's earliest toys might be digital or have digital components, such as Smart toys, educational or games apps and digital books. These everyday digital practices offer rich opportunities to promote early talk and literacy, but many parents are unsure how to support their children's use of new media in meaningful, playful ways that benefit their learning and their futures. Parents are also mindful of public debates that focus on risks to children's digital safety and security rather than on how digital media influence children's ways of living, sharing, engaging, and learning with and about people and the world. While there is rich research into older children's digital learning and socialising, there are serious gaps in what is known about how very young children interact with, around and through digital media, what devices and platforms they have access to, how long-standing social divides determine digital device ownership and use, and how parents, carers and siblings in majority and minority ethnic, privileged and disadvantaged UK communities support 0-3-year-olds' learning with digital media. The proposed study addresses this research gap. Uniquely, it brings together academic experts across the four UK nations, supported by a multi-sectoral, international Advisory Board. The specific project objectives are to: 1. Build an empirically robust body of knowledge about how 0-3-year-olds' lives intersect with digital technologies at home in socially and ethnically diverse families in inner-city, urban and rural communities in the four UK nations, including geographic areas of social and economic deprivation2. Contribute to knowledge about how 0-3-year-olds develop early talk and literacy as they engage with different semiotic systems (e.g. touch, images, sounds, music, speech, writing) in diverse media, and how family members (parents, caregivers, siblings) mediate and safeguard 0-3-year-olds' learning with digital technologies at home3. Construct robust theoretical models of the human, non-human and more-than-human entanglements and networks that make up the contemporary home learning environment4. Develop innovative methodological approaches to researching young children's lives at home in diverse communities, through participatory research that is respectful of family preferences, responsive to different cultural values, beliefs and practices, and adaptive to any ongoing social distancing requirementsThe project will build a robust body of evidence about 0-3s' language and literacy learning by trialling new ways to research the home collaboratively and sensitively with children and families in diverse communities. The project's theory building will inform practical and conceptual understanding of the contemporary home learning environment, identify areas for future research and build research capacity by recruiting mid- and early-career researchers in universities across the UK. Guided by the multi-sectoral Advisory Board including world-leading academic experts on the digital child, third sector organisations and policymakers, the project will generate empirically informed publications on new approaches to understanding and researching digital childhoods, and materials to help parents make informed decisions about using digital media in learning activities that promote their children's language and literacy. Resources will also be developed for health and social care workers delivering home support services for families, early childhood education professionals, and national and international policymakers interested in promoting early talk and literacy.