Parenting Cyber-Risk: Opportunities and Challenges Raising Children with Digital Environments (Routledge Studies in Crime, Justice and the Family)

On the back of their last book, Cyber-risk and Youth, and building on a new research project, Adorjan and Ricciardelli marshal current research to explore parenting in the digital age.

Utilizing 70 original interviews from rural and urban area Canadian parents, the book provides an overview of research on “digital parenting” and illuminates the modern parental experience of managing children’s access to internet-connected technologies. The book explores parents’ experiences with cyberbullying and nonconsensual sexting, as well as concerns over breaches of privacy, screen time and internet addiction. It also investigates parents’ views regarding effective and ineffective strategies in mediation of technology and cyber-risk, including new directions such as restorative practices intended as a response to online conflict and harm. While framing their discussions among sociological theories, Adorjan and Ricciardelli also deliberately emphasize the gendered nature of the book’s discourses and encourage critical reflection of various online surveillance technologies, often marketed to mothers, to keep children safe.

As such, Parenting Cyber-Risk is a standout research monograph which not only offers broad insight into 21st-century parenting challenges but also offers solutions. The book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying criminology, sociology and any other related fields.

Michael Adorjan is an associate professor at the University of Calgary. His research and teaching centers on youth and cyber-risk, drawing from theoretical areas including dramaturgy and social constructionism, surveillance and privacy. Recent publications examine both educator and parent understandings and responses to cyberbullying and other forms of online-mediated conflict and harm and restorative practices in response to cyber-risk. He also publishes on Hong Kong, especially responses to youth crime and public perceptions of police in Hong Kong, and with Rosemary Ricciardelli, is involved in research examining correctional officers in Canada.

Rosemary Ricciardelli is a professor (PhD) in the School of Maritime Studies and Research Chair in Safety, Security, and Wellness, at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Fisheries and Marine Institute. Elected to the Royal Society of Canada, her research centers on evolving understandings of gender, vulnerabilities, risk and experiences and issues within different facets of the criminal justice system and among mariners. She has published vastly in the areas of public safety, criminalized persons and wellness – broadly defined. As a sex and gender researcher, her interests lay in the social health, identity construction and lived experiences of individuals.