Growing-up challenged and challenging: gender and sexuality norms in referential research on ‘internet risks’ and in children 1

The paper thematises children’s engendering and sexualisation in new media environments, and their ambivalent attitudes toward commercial (porno)sexuality constructions. The inquiry into adaptation to dominant gender identity and sexuality prescriptions in spite of children’s ambivalences is contextualised by the critical analysis of grand quantitative survey research in the EU Kids Online II framework. It is argued that gender and sexuality norms introduced by the epistemological, methodological and interpretative input of the research do not transcend the dominant matrices. According to the Slovenian ethnographic research, school children exhibit criticism towards the intrusive and exploitative character of certain new media commercial contents, and this is not included in the analysed referential quantitative survey in any way. As a consequence, childhood remains conceptualised as a state of societal passivity in this context, which brings more disadvantages to girls in new media relations. Besides, th...