How to check if parent element in html is specific tagname (e.g. span) using Javascript

Question

I need to check if the parent element is a span. How can I do that using Javascript (not JQuery)?

Answer 1

element.parentNode.tagName.toLowerCase() == 'span'

Answer 2

var elem = document.getElementById("myElement"),
    isParentSpan = elem.parentNode.tagName === "span";

alert( isParentSpan );