20 years of gathering children’s voices: The art of researching with children, not on children

A School of Education seminar presented on Wednesday, September 26th 2018 by members of the School's Early Childhood Team

Presenters:

Dr Jo Bird
Dr Chuanmei Dong
Dr Sue Elliot
Dr Angel Mok
Dr Yukiyo Nishida
Dr Margaret Rogers
Professor Margaret Sims

The images we have of children influence how we work with them. For example, in the past children were considered vulnerable and in need of protection. In that context it was important for adults to focus on making decisions for children to ensure they were safe, not exposed to unnecessary risks, and allowed time to simply be children, free from the worries of complex decision-making. Over time the way we think about children has changed.

The UN Convention on the rights of the Child has played a part in this change given its emphasis on children’s rights to participate in decision-making. The idea of children’s agency has become more and more important.

In this presentation members of the Early Childhood team will discuss their different research perspectives, fore-grounding the interplay of children’s voices with different ways of viewing  the world, and different perspectives of the relationship of between humans and the environment.

How do our understandings of the world, and our place within that world as humans impact on the ways in which we work with children, and the ways in which we do research with children?

Presentation