Information technologies and communication between parents and children

This is an exploratory study that aims, on the one hand, to examine in more detail how children between 12 and 16 years of age use different audiovisual technologies, what they feel and think when using them, and whom they like to speak to about such experiences. On the other hand, we look more deeply into the interactions between adults and children, particularly between parents and their children, in relation to these technologies when children use them at home or in other places. We analysed responses to questionnaires with several common items, administered separately to parents and children. Children’s responses reflect an important level of dissatisfaction when talking with different adults about media activities. Our findings support the thesis that more and more children socialise through new information and communication technologies with little or no recourse to adult criteria, giving rise to the emergence of specific children’s cultures. Crossing of the responses of parents and those of their own children shows us which aspects of media reality adults overestimate or underestimate in comparison to children, and to what degree certain judgements coincide and differ between generations. The results can be applied to the improvement of relations between adults and adolescents, taking advantage of adolescents’ strong motivation to engage in activities using audiovisual media

Histoires de vie, témoignages, autobiographies de terrain : formes d'énonciation et de textualisation

Dans ce volume collectif, des anthropologues, des historiens et des linguistes s'interrogent, à partir de leur point de vue respectif, sur la relation entre "observateur" et "observé" quand celle-ci est basée sur la collecte, la mise en forme et l'analyse d'un type particulier de documents : les histoires de vie, les biographies de terrain, et plus généralement toutes formes de témoignages, de comptes rendus et de récits se référant aux unes ou aux autres. Il s'agit de faire émerger des points de vue complémentaires sur les formes d'objectivation de l'observation et de représentation du processus de récolte des données, sur les figurations de la voix du narrateur et du sujet-agent, sur le métalangage et son efficacité dans la construction de la connaissance et du type de savoir qui en dérive