| Abstract: | This article focuses on parenting and children's game play. The study is based on an ethnographic study of 32 American middle-class families and takes a discourse analytic approach. Earlier research has argued that parenting styles are dependent on social class, ethnicity, and gender. The present data reveal considerable diversity in how middle-class parents deal with game play, which is currently one of the most common child and youth leisure activities. This diversity is seen across stances taken within the same interview and across interviews. It is argued that differences in middle-class families' parenting styles are related to their view of the child and their stance on game technology. In addition, talk about parenting reveals parents' construction of good and bad parenting, where they see themselves as belonging to the former category. |
