Children's Voices Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This article discusses the processes of: (1) transition; and (2) learning agency development in early childhood educational settings and proposes a framework for understanding interactions between these two processes. The paper presents findings from a single case study which provides evidence of the relevance of acknowledging young children’s voices in research concerning them and in educational practices. The research was carried out in a State school in Santiago, Chile, and aims to contribute to related work carried out in Chile as well as internationally. The main research questions were: ‘What issues in relation to transition do Chilean young children highlight as important when interviewed using photographs?’ and ‘To what extent do young children demonstrate the development of their sense of learning agency when interviewed using photographs?’ The study adopts a bio-ecological perspective and follows a multiple level and multiple methods design. This article reports the preliminary findings of two photograph interviews carried out with one girl aged between 5½ and 6½ years (the first in Kindergarten and the second in First Grade). The analysis considers the information
revealed during these photograph interviews, and reports the important issues for this girl’s transition process and its relation with her development of learning agency. Finally, the discussion highlights the relevance of these issues and their relation to the context in which the data was gathered as well as the contribution of this study to research in the transition and learning agency field.

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- Participatory Research, Children's Voices, Sense of agency, Self-regulation

Der Beitrag entwickelt folgende zentrale These: Um 1900 'begann unsere Gegenwart‘ insofern, als in den Städten der Übergang in eine moderne Mediengesellschaft erfolgte.
Deren kompetenteste Nutzer waren Kinder und Jugendliche.
Bemühungen, die Heranwachsenden vor ‚Schmutz und Schund‘ zu bewahren, thematisierten zentral, dass die neue Medienumwelt Heranwachsenden den unkontrollierten Zugang zu Wissensbeständen eröffnete, die als „erziehungswidrig“ galten. Diese Konstellation besteht
in Grundzügen bis heute, und viele aktuelle Reaktionsmuster gehen auf den Schundkampf der Kaiserzeit zurück. Die Kulturanthropologin Margaret Mead hat ein Modell entwickelt, das den Konflikt um die Regulierung des Wissenszugangs in den historischen Wandel der Generationenbeziehungen einzuordnen ermöglicht.

Fairy tales play a substantial role in the shaping of childhoods. Developed into stories and played out in picture books, films and tales, they are powerful instruments that influence conceptions and treatments of the child and childhoods. This article argues that traditional fairy tales and contemporary stories derived from them use complex means to mould the ways that children live and experience their childhoods. This argument is illustrated through representations of childhoods and children in a selection of stories and an analysis of the ways they act on and produce the child subjects and childhoods they convey. The selected stories are examined through different philosophical lenses, utilizing Foucault, Lyotard and Rousseau. By problematizing these selected stories, the article analyses what lies beneath the surface of the obvious meanings of the text and enticing pictures in stories, as published or performed. Finally, this article argues for a careful recognition of the complexities of stories used in early childhood settings and their powerful and multifaceted influences on children and childhoods.

- by Marek Tesar and +3
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- Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Education, Media Studies

This article discusses how qualitative research with children exposed to intimate partner violence deals with methodological issues of children’s voices. Violence researchers argue for the need to see children as competent social actors, di erentiate between groups of children, attending to adult– child asymmetry in research and acknowledging children’s individual experiences. However, little is said about how children’s voices are produced in their local, cultural and societal contexts. There is also an ignorance of the politics of representation, which may hamper the development of ethically responsible research on children exposed to intimate partner violence.

- by Lucas Gottzén and +1
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- Sociology of Children and Childhood, Domestic Violence, Child abuse and neglect, Qualitative Methods (Sociology)

Qualitative research provides opportunities to study bullying and peer harassment as social processes, interactions and meaning-making in the everyday context of particular settings. It offers the possibility of developing a deep understanding of the culture and group processes of bullying and the participants’ perspectives on peer harassment as well. It gives participants opportunities to discuss their own understanding and experiences of bullying in their own words. This article reviews qualitative studies on bullying or peer harassment in school (including some studies in which qualitative and quantitative methods — so-called mixed methods — have been used).

- by Robert Thornberg
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- Sociology, Interactionism, Sociology Of Deviance, Psychology

Recent research indicates that teachers have the predominant role in organising early childhood classrooms in Australia. Not much is known about the involvement of children in organising the kindergarten classroom in Queensland, Australia. There is even less research that considers how the play equipment, utensils, resources and the classroom space itself influence how children talk about their kindergarten indoor learning spaces. This article problematises our understandings of the early learning space and materials within which children learn. This article questions the typically taken-for-granted notion that the early learning space is an empty container in which objects and resources are placed and where children take up a passive position. Children having a role in organising the materials in the classroom is legitimised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this investigation, the following question is explored: How do children describe their role in organising the materials in the indoor early learning space of one kindergarten? Six children aged 3.5-5 years, from one kindergarten in Queensland were involved in individual child-led tours and later, audio-recorded, video-stimulated recall interviews. A sociomaterial lens was brought to the analysis of data, enabling the consideration of the underlying interactions between space, materials and people. The findings suggest that children do see themselves as having a role in how the early learning space is organised. This article offers recommendations to researchers.

- by Evangeline S Manassakis
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- Design, Participatory Research, Participatory Design, Children's Voices

This article is an account of fieldwork carried out in a school in East Sussex, in the south of England, with a group of 10-and 11-year-old children, to discover whether they perceive social class in a selection of children's fantasy fiction texts. The methodology will be described, and there will be a discussion of the initial findings. I am grateful to University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries for the funding that enabled me to buy the books used in this research.

- by Alison Baker
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- Education, Children's Literature, Reading, Children's Voices
- by Martina Vormann-Sauer
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- Music, Musicology, Children's Voices, Voice
- by Enrique Gracia
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- Sociology, Social Change, Social Movements, Psychology

This study investigates innovative ways that outdoor educators can actively promote young participants’ authentic voice in educational research and, in turn, increase our understanding of their worldview through accurately recording what children are seeing, hearing, doing, and touching when they are beyond our researcher’s gaze. The study was conducted with an Australian primary school class who completed a 1-year place-based outdoor learning program. It employed a novel research design wherein video footage was obtained from body-worn cameras mounted on the chests of the children. The footage depicts first-person visual and audio data from children’s viewpoints and deepens our understanding of children’s learning experiences. Additional data included observations, curriculum work samples, academic results, interviews, and student-generated photographs. Results highlight that footage provides unique insights regarding triangulating findings on student learning experiences. Body-worn cameras may be used to enhance young people’s participation in research when integrated into a broader child-friendly approach.

- by Tonia Gray and +2
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- Children's Voices, Outdoor Education, Student learning outcomes, Children's Outdoor Education

The persons who are social work's constituencies are typically disenfranchised and excluded. This is particularly the case with children whose voices are routinely suppressed. This paper outlines why Children's Article 12 Rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to express their views on all matters concerning them should also apply to social work research. The ethical issues around research with children are explored and a number of different research methods are outlined in order to offer a starting point for social workers wishing to place children's viewpoints and voices at the centre of their research.

- by Sharon Milner and +1
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- Social Work, Children's Voices, Children's Rights, Children
- by Marek Tesar
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- Philosophy, Education, Sociology of Children and Childhood, Teacher Education

Abstract: In creating and negotiating the complex and detailed time-space relations between ourselves and others, we also craft our own unique selves. In other words, we become, and are ourselves, only in relation to others. In such a (relational) view as this - in which we all soak up, and float in, so to speak, the (to an extent) same sea of creative interrelational activity - what it is which makes me as a person unique, in relation to everyone else in the extensive social 'seascape' around me, are the places or positions I and only I occupy within it, and the degree to which I am, or can become, answerable or responsible to others for them. But that 'seascape' is only 'to an extent' the same for us all: some of us have a more easy passage into certain regions of it than others.

- by John Shotter
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- Social Theory, Communication, Children's Voices, Critical Social Psychology

Current concerns about an alleged childhood obesity crisis and children’s physical (in)activity levels have combined to justify fitness lessons as a physical education practice in New Zealand primary schools. Research concerning children’s understandings of fitness lessons, reveals that they construct fitness as primarily related to a quest for an ‘ideal’ (skinny or muscular) body. The conflation of fitness with thinness, however, is complex and problematic.
In this research I used a visual methods approach to examine six primary school children’s responses from photo elicitation interviews. I drew on Foucault’s notion of discourse/power and his conceptualisation of governmentality to examine how six children experienced fitness lessons and constructed notions of fitness, health, self and the body. Results illustrated that the children made few links between fitness lessons and health or fitness lessons and learning. Their responses signified a constant tension between fitness lessons as fun and fitness lessons as overly repetitive and tiring. However, they drew on obesity discourses which link fitness lessons, as a means to lose fat and/or increase muscles. In accepting the obesity discourses as ‘true’, the children monitored, judged and moralised bodies and behaviours in dichotomous ways: fit or unfit, skinny or fat, active or lazy. They assumed that fitness lessons increased fitness, and that being fit ‘improved’ their corporeal appearance. I coined the term COPE (Corporeal Orientated Physical Education) to highlight how such practices focus exclusively on the body at the expense of critical and holistic learning. I concluded that children’s subjectivities were potentially shaped via fitness lessons in a manner that can result in social stigmatisation, dissatisfaction with bodies, and potentially disordered exercising and eating. In this light, I encourage teachers and researchers to critically reflect on the assumption that physical activity should focus on body size, shape and weight over pleasure, relevance and learning.

- by Darren Powell
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- Physical Activity, Children's Voices, Body Image, Childhood Obesity

Aims - Highlight the impact that diagnosis communication to an ill child and his siblings can have on the understanding and the experience of the disease, on the child’s compliance and on the communication within the family about the experience of illness. Methods - Through a qualitative approach, a study case has been conducted by observing doctor-child diagnosis communication and by interviewing parents. The materials have been studied by content analysis.
Results - Diagnosis communication to children helps their participation and understanding of the illness and supports parents to communicate with ill children and with their siblings. The latter often look isolated, suffering, sometimes forgotten and with many problematic behaviors.
Conclusions - Diagnosis communication is really precious to promote children participation; however, it needs to be continuously renewed at home and in the hospital, and requires the constant promotion of an educational alliance with parents.

- by Lea Mai
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- Art History, Art, Museum Education, Children's Voices

The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim’s contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students. Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend (‘none of my business’), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.

- by Robert Thornberg
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- Sociology, Interactionism, Psychology, Social Psychology

The research explores the implementation of the Mosaic Approach into a Greek early years’ setting. For the data collection, 21 children were observed using cameras, tours, mapping, and researcher’s interviews with teachers and parents. Special consideration was given to the newly added tool of peer-to-peer interviews. Results depicted children’s need for quality relationships with peers and adults and their favourite and least favourite places in their school. The authors suggest the adaptation of the Mosaic Approach into the Personal, Social and Emotional
Development curriculum as an educational tool of children’s rights which empowers their voices, as well as reinforcing their self-esteem and ability to form quality relationships.

- by Aimilia Rouvali and +1
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- Early Childhood Education, Children's Voices, Children's Rights, Children's Participation

The aim of the present study was to explore how teenagers explain why bullying takes place at school, and whether there were any differences in explaining bullying due to gender and prior bullying experiences. One hundred and seventy-six Swedish students in Grade 9 responded to a questionnaire. Mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative methods) were used to analyze data. The grounded theory analysis generated five main categories and 26 sub categories regarding accounts of bullying causes. Results indicated that youth tended to explain bullying in terms of individualistic reasons (bully attributing and victim attributing) than in terms of peer group, school setting, or human nature/society reasons. Girls were more likely to attribute bullying causes to the bully and much less to the victim, compared to boys. Moreover, youth classified as bullies were more likely to attribute the reason for bullying to the victim and much less to the bully, compared to victims, bystanders, and victims/bullies.

- by Robert Thornberg
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- Sociology, Psychology, Behavioural Science, Cognitive Psychology

This report highlights children's voices on why protection from violence is a necessary priority within the post-2015 development agenda. The report is based on an overview of national, regional and thematic consultations on the post-2015... more

- by Kim R. Sylwander
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- Education, Domestic Violence, Violence, Curriculum Design

Esta investigación se hizo para estar al tanto de qué manera las películas nacionales han construido y propuesto en la pantalla grande a los niños, niñas y adolescentes; de qué forma los dueños del objetivo y del encuadre los han definido y socializado; qué factores sociales, culturales, políticos y jurídicos favorecieron que se les filmara o que se les negara su visión; y qué tanto, en qué espacios, bajo qué temáticas y en qué roles aparecieron en los inconsistentes pasos y etapas de construcción que ha tenido el cine colombiano. El libro está dividido en tres capítulos. El primero piensa la correspondencia entre la infancia y el trance de mirar en el cine colombiano; los discursos y saberes puestos a circular por la psicología, la medicina, la pedagogía y la religión católica, en el país, para regular o prohibir la mirada cinética de los nna. A su vez, este apartado ahonda en la huella de las cientificidades narradas o en su materialización en acciones orgánicas de censura, y en políticas públicas visuales que han apuntado a que los nna vean contenidos cinematográficos garantizados por los adultos como educativos y moralizantes. La segunda parte del texto detalla con juicio, o de la manera más abarcante posible, las películas made in Colombia que tienen a nna en roles protagónicos o secundarios, o que han emitido alguna opinión de ellos desde principios del siglo xx hasta la actualidad. Así pues, en esta sección se discute la importancia y las razones de la presencia de los nna en los filmes nacionales o, dicho de otro modo, el porqué de sus figuraciones, del grado de inclusión o de tutelarismo que aparece en los relatos, o de los elementos directorales y coyunturales que permitieron que a partir de los setentas a las infancias reales y marginales se les brindara un espacio de visibilidad dentro de la cinematografía colombiana. El tercer y último capítulo se dedicó a buscar las principales representaciones sociales de los nna que contienen el conjunto de filmaciones analizadas, dándosele especial relevancia a las promovidas en el siglo xxi. En este orden de ideas, se destacó la importancia de la representación de los nna en la historia del cine y se propuso un compendio de los dos más grandes imaginarios de los nna en las cintas colombianas: la del nna inocente y la que lo ha entendido como víctima de la pobreza y la guerra

- by Camilo Bácares Jara
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- Sociology, Visual Sociology, Visual Studies, Cultural Sociology

Schooling is a form of misopedy and a fundamental structure in conditioning societal acceptance of domination in other registers. The subordination of children begins with the misguided notion that they are incapable of autonomy, reinforcing a dichotomous understanding of adult/child or teacher/student. Schooling should not be confused with education. The former represents the interests of oppression, molding societal consciousness to accept the conditions of subjugation. In contrast, education in its idealized form is a process of self-discovery, an awakening to one’s potential, and a desire to see such abilities realized. To ensure the absence of coercion in education children need to explore for themselves, making their own decisions about what their interests are, and how those curiosities might be fulfilled. Presenting a broad range of opportunities is crucial, but the decision about what path to follow should be determined by the child. When bound to a classroom we often mistake obedience for education. Yet learning, as geographers recognize, best occurs 'through the soles of our feet' and when children explore the world through unschooling, they live into their creative potential, opening an aperture on alternative ontologies. Unschooling is, in short, one of the most powerful forms of anarchism we can engage.

- by Simon Springer
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- Critical Theory, Sociology, Geography, Human Geography

"The purpose of this dissertation research is to study the experience of adjustment of Colombian immigrant children to living in the US. In order to understand the changes they have experienced as immigrants, the research focuses on the ways in which they talk about the food they eat in the US and on the foods they ate in Colombia. Because of the symbolic importance of food in the construction of ethnic and personal identities, a study of how the children talk about food illuminates the process of blending elements from the immigrant culture with those of the US.
Based on the symbolic interactionism approach to culture, this study assumes that participants’ representations of foods are shaped by their own experiences through interactions with others. Representations of food result from the interactions between participants and the researcher in the research settings.
With a participatory approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with twelve girls and eight boys, and three group sessions with three girls and eight boys. Participants were reached at the Taller Intercultural Hispano Americano and through their parents at the Center for Family Health. Data were analyzed qualitatively following first a process of data reduction and then transforming the interviews and the group sessions into narratives.
Analysis of the data shows that participants’ changes and adjustment are characterized by an emerging process of creolization, a concept proposed by Foner (1997) to explain patterns of acculturation of immigrant families. Creolization is the central idea articulating and providing meaning to participants’ representations of food changes. Colombian immigrant children living in the US are agents actively blending elements from their immigrant culture with elements they encounter in the US context from which new food patterns reflecting their changing circumstances are emerging. Likewise, Tampa in particular and Florida in general provide a context that facilitates and promotes such blending of meanings both in private spaces such as home and in public ones such as restaurants, due to the presence of long-established Spanish-speaking communities of varying degrees of acculturation."

- by Maria C L A U D I A Duque-Paramo
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- Medical Anthropology, Migration, Children's Voices

In his autobiographical novel/memoir W or the Memory of Childhood, Holocaust orphan Georges Perec attempts to penetrate the mist of muddled memories of his traumatic childhood using various strategies he perceives to be neutral and objective. In alternating genres, Perec
gathers fragments, gaps, and uncertainties in an attempt to write about a childhood he can’t remember. I happened quite unexpectedly upon this remarkable work, yet it so thoroughly captures, questions, and represents my own encounters with South African adults remembering
childhoods fringed by or grounded in trauma. In many ways Perec’s book is an organized, schematic attempt to access his early life using the tools and approaches of anthropologists and historians. But ultimately, it is only within the gaps between verifiable truths and misrememberings that Perec finds meaning in and access to past experiences.

- by Monica Eileen Patterson
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- Fiction Writing, History, Anthropology, Media and Cultural Studies

Este libro presenta un estado del arte sobre la investigación etnográfica en colaboración con niños, niñas, adolescente y jóvenes (en adelante, NNA y jóvenes) en cuatro países Latinoamericanos: Argentina, Brasil, Colombia y Ecuador. Teniendo en cuenta que entre las décadas de los ochenta y noventa del siglo XX se ha producido un giro en los estudios sobre la infancia (Prout y James, 1997; James, 2007), la revisión de trabajos abarcó el período que se extiende entre 1995 y 2016.

- by Anny Bertoli and +4
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- Latin American Studies, Education, Youth Studies, Ethnography

The purpose of this study was to identify how a tenor model (male teacher) can aid children who were unable to sing in-tune, or pitch match. [N=126, 68 boys and 58 girls] Several studies have shown the tenor male voice to be “especially... more

- by Terry Moran
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- Children's Voices

In early childhood education we are very used to using songs on a daily basis, for this reason, in this work we are going to look for the benefit of singing at this stage and, attending to these benefits, the importance of educating and working the voice of children in the infant stage, that is, from birth to 6 years. In addition, we will know, through a survey, if the teachers and educators of early childhood education work in class the voice, being aware of all that this entails.

- by Noemi Diaz-Castano
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- Music, Music Education, Education, Children's Voices
- by Nisa Başara Baydilek and +1
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- Early Childhood Education, Children's Voices, Children's Play, Mosaic Approach

ES: Los dibujos infantiles constituyen una de las categorías de fuentes más escasamente tenidas en consideración por los historiadores. Aunque algunos investigadores han comenzado a estudiar sus posibles aplicaciones historiográficas, de... more

- by Juri Meda
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- Visual propaganda, Education, Art, Propaganda

Derechos de los niños, niñas y adolescentes. Convención sobre los Derechos de los niños, niñas y adolescentes. Hermenéutica del derecho de los niños. Derechos e infancia. Interpretación Convención de los derechos de los niños. CDN.... more

Starting primary education is one of the most important changes that children encounter in early childhood. Moreover, especially within the last twenty years, as an outcome of the idea that children are active learners, listening to children’s ideas about their learning, lives, and experiences has gained importance. In this sense, this study is thought to be significant in terms of its aim to analyze the transition to primary school according to the thoughts of children and to offer suggestions for preschool education. For this purpose, the study was conducted with 55 children who were attending 7 independent kindergarten schools in Aydın city center. The participants were selected by a systematic sampling method. The study was conducted using a phenomenological design. For the data collection, a mosaic approach including different verbal and visual techniques that allowed the children to express themselves comfortably was used. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis using the NVivo Qualitative Analysis program. According to the findings of the study, preschool age children described primary school as big, crowded, complex, and distant. They referred to their family, teachers, and television as information sources. Further, they thought that there were many rules in primary school and they could never play. When the dialogues were considered in general, nearly all of the interviews included negative thoughts. It is thought that this case stems from the lack of right information about primary school.

„Minden mese olyan varázstükör, amely belső világunk valamely összetevőjét tükrözi, és azt az utat, amelyet meg kell járnunk, hogy eljussunk az éretlenségtől az érettségig. Aki hajlandó belemerülni abba a mély igazságba, melyet a mesék közölnek velünk, először csak egy mély, csendes vízfelületet fog látni, amely saját képét tükrözi vissza; rövidesen azonban felfedezi a mélyben lelke belső zűrzavarát, de meglátja azt is, milyen úton nyerheti el a békét önmagával és a világgal: küzdelmeinek ugyanis ez a jutalma." Bruno Bettelheim - ezen a bettelheimi szemüvegen keresztül néz a dolgozat a megtanítandó bibliai történetekre és a gyerekekre.

Current elementary school students are inundated with technology daily, taking them away from socializing and being involved in a physical or creative outlet. Teachers are swamped with academic demands and may not have the time or means to support the growth and development of students’ self-esteem through creativity and social emotional activities. One, maybe two, counselors within the school are typically employed and engage with the student population. Even if there is a counselor at the school, they may not be able to support every student about his or her emotions and issues as they arise. Because of these issues and limitations within a school setting, student voice and personal self-esteem development needs may not be addressed.
Children’s confidence and involvement in activities is crucial to support self-esteem growth and development. In this qualitative study, students’ perceptions of self-esteem are represented through their awareness of personal pride or failure in relation to his or her connection to areas of personal belonging and interest. The research within this study addressed children’s perceptions of self-esteem and reflected confidence in academics, support from caring adults, and involvement and connection to groups such as school or home. Qualitative interviews, a short answer response survey, and accompanying drawing artifacts supported students, between the ages of seven and twelve years old, to express their perceptions of self-esteem.
Four key findings addressed students’ perceptions of personal self-esteem. Outcomes were inclusive of confidence in self and school subjects, positive thoughts about self, supporting others and getting support from others, and negative thoughts about self. Implications relating to the research to foster student growth and development in relation to self-esteem are discussed, as well as implications for stakeholders to support student interventions from the school, home, and community.
Key words:
Self-esteem, school, support, child development, child perceptions, child voice

- by Jessica Koltz
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- Child Development, Children's Perceptions, Children's Voices, Elementary Education