The Information World of Parents: A Study of the Use and Understanding of Information by Parents of Young Children

Recent decades have seen change in social attitudes toward parenting within the United Kingdom. During this time, parenting has received an unprecedented amount of attention from government, through legislation and policy initiatives, as well as becoming a regular topic in the news media, television programs, and for book publishers. The consequence of this social change is that parents today, arguably, face far greater pressure in terms of sifting and weighing the wide range of messages, opinions, and information targeted at them. Despite these social changes, parents and parenting have received comparatively little attention from researchers specifically examining their information literacy needs. This article is based upon research conducted using constructivist grounded theory and examines how a group of thirty-three parents in Leeds, United Kingdom looked for, accessed, and assessed information. The primary outcome of the research is a substantive grounded theory, which is framed within five categories: being a parent (core category); connectivity; trust; picture of self; weighing. These five categories describe how parents look for, access, and weigh information on a daily basis. This theory has implications for how organizations, services, and professionals convey information to parents. It also supports the notion of a need to view information literacy as part of a complex socially constructed paradigm.