SPECIAL ISSUE 1 June 2026
DOI DOI: 10.66434/ijspsy.v1i1si.481

Parent-child relationships as protection against technology-facilitated gender-based violence in early schooling contexts

Judith Ngunan Age1, Susan Thuketana2
  1. 1 University of Pretoria, South Africa
  2. 2 University of Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Despite the proliferating scholarship on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in educational settings, children in the early schooling years remain conspicuously absent from both theoretical formulations and empirical investigations. Research has focused overwhelmingly on adolescent and adult populations, leaving the specific mechanisms of vulnerability operative in younger learners, as well as the protective resources most proximate to their daily lives, inadequately conceptualised. This paper identifies that gap as both analytically significant and practically urgent and argues that it cannot be addressed without centering the parent–child relationship as the primary protective resource for this age group. Drawing on a critical interdisciplinary synthesis of attachment theory, Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, and Livingstone's risk-opportunity framework, the paper develops the Home-Based Protective Framework (HBPF): a four-component conceptual model integrating secure attachment as relational infrastructure, digital co-engagement as scaffolded mediation, open risk communication as informational protection, and community-embedded parenting support as structural enabler. The paper maps three developmentally specific vulnerability factors: concrete operational cognition, incomplete bodily boundary formation, and attachment-dependent disclosure capacity, which position young children as qualitatively distinct from adolescent populations in their TFGBV exposure. The HBPF is culturally anchored in African communal family structures and Ubuntu ethics of collective child-rearing, challenging the implicit individualism of Northern digital safety frameworks. The framework generates specific implications for school-family partnership design, parental digital literacy programming, early childhood educator training, and the governance of device use across home-school digital interfaces. HBPF represents a theoretically warranted and practically actionable foundation for an empirical research programme addressing one of the most underserved intersections in the scholarship on digital violence, child development, and educational equity.

How to Cite

Age, J. . N., & Thuketana, S. (2026). Parent-child relationships as protection against technology-facilitated gender-based violence in early schooling contexts. International Journal of Studies in Psychology, 1(1si), 16–23. https://doi.org/10.66434/ijspsy.v1i1si.481
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