Professor Rebekah Willett’s research explores children’s media cultures, focussing on issues of gender, play, literacy and learning. Aligning with the sociology of childhood, Rebekah analyses how media are experienced differently in different childhoods. She connects her work with educational research that views children’s literacies as involving ‘webs of meaning’ that are formed within and through different contexts, purposes and discursive practices. Rebecca will contribute to the Educated Child program, offering new theoretical constructs to help understand children’s engagements with media as cultural practice.

Rebekah’s current research project, Navigating Screens, investigates parents’ strategies for making decisions about screen media practices, analyses advice for parents about ‘healthy’ screen media practices, and works with librarians and other community members to help understand parents’ decisions and challenges. Rebekah is widely published in the field, including recent papers on parents’ decision-making connected with screen media practices and an analysis of children’s use of screen media and the role of public libraries. Rebekah has co-edited a number of books, including  Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures (2011) and Children, media and playground cultures: Ethnographic studies of school playtimes(2013).