In the previous chapter, I considered the diverse and context dependent ways in which parents make sense of the wider world they are raising their children in. This meant thinking particularly about the news, and the ways in which this sense-making relates to the stages of parenthood and parents’ own resources. I follow on from that chapter now, to unpack parents’ algorithm literacies as part and parcel of broader platform literacies (DeVito, 2021) necessitated amidst datafication. I approach algorithm literacy not separately from, but as part of, media and digital literacies (Livingstone, 2004; Buckingham, 2006), with its longstanding emphasis on understanding, awareness, technical skills and critical capacities. Particularly for parenthood, I see the scope of algorithm literacies as incorporating: 1) parents’ awareness (Gran et al, 2021) of the presence of algorithms; 2) parents’ technical competencies in manoeuvring through algorithmic interfaces; 3) parents’ critical capacities (Snyder and Beavis, 2004) to make sense of what algorithms represent; and 4) parents’ abilities to champion their children's best interests, including mentoring, brokering, and shaping (Livingstone and Blum-Ross, 2020) the role of algorithms in their children's lives. This last – the component of parents shaping the role of algorithms in their children's lives, relates closely to the civic dimensions of many definitions of critical media and digital literacies (Buckingham et al, 2007; Polizzi, 2023). As Livingstone and Blum-Ross astutely argue in their work on parenting for digital futures, parents have significant roles in acting as ‘technology mentors’ for their children (2020). This role matters to parents, and advocating for their children (Alper, 2023) is important to them. Every parent in my dataset of 30 parents, instinctively introduced to me their myriad, diverse practices around algorithms in relation to their children when I attempted to find out about their own approaches to algorithms. While many parents drew out distinctions between algorithms and data in relation to themselves versus their children, and outlined often differing stances about these, they took their roles as mentors and shapers seriously. Often, though, their competencies, abilities, and practices in relation to these roles, were uneven.

Liam is a secondary school teacher in Surrey, and the father of a 2-yearold toddler and an infant.