Svenska barns tankar om krig

Abstract

Swedish children are often confronted by the mass medias war imagery, despite the long Swedish tradition of neutrality and peace. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether Swedish children are affected by the mass medias war images, how they think, react and contend with their experiences, whether children believe they can influence and prevent war, and also their thoughts about the future. Structured interviews with 20 randomly selected children in the third grade (age nine) in Uppsala, Sweden, were done. The results showed that 19 children had experienced war images from TV, some of these also from other media. The children had a lot of thoughts about war, and a small difference between girls' and boys' way of thinking was noticed. The boys reflected over causalities and the girls reflected sympathy and affect.

More than half the children reacted negatively to their impressions of war. Seven children were afraid, five would be if war came to Sweden. Most of the children slept well, three had slecpimg difficulties. The study reveals that 17 children consulted someone about war, more than half had discussed war with their parents. Thereafter, friends was most commom to talk to. Half of the group were contented with the conversations while eight wished to pursue the subject. Most of the boys and half of the girls had played war. Almost three quarters of the boys, but only one girl, had war toys. Half the group see disagreement and conflict as the cause of war. Twelve children had suggestions for war preventions, four children did not believe that they could influence the outcome. Few children thought of war when reflecting on their future.