Researching Young Children S Perspectives

What ethical dilemmas face researchers who work with young children? Researching Young Children’s Perspectives critically examines the challenges and complexities of rights based, participatory research with children. Rather than approaching these dilemmas as problematic issues, this book positions them as important topics for discussion and reflection. Drawing from their own rich experiences as research collaborators with young children in internationally diverse settings, the authors consider the ethical, methodological and theoretical frameworks that guide best-practice in research with young children. Each chapter poses points for consideration that will inform and challenge both the novice and experienced researcher, such as: How ‘participatory’ can research be with infants under eighteen months? When should listening through observation stand alone? What is the distinction between methodologies and methods? How can all young children be assured of a voice in research? The authors also present seven separate case studies which demonstrate exemplary research with young children. Each study is accompanied by insightful commentary from the authors, who highlight the issues or difficulties faced and propose potential solutions. If you are a student at undergraduate level and above, this book will give you all the confidence you need to conduct your own high quality research with children.

"This is a book which I will return to over time. It carries a powerful, and empowering, message about the task of researching children's views...(It) deserves to find an automatic place in staffroom libraries. I happily recommed it." - Support for Learning" The 1990s have been marked by a growing emphasis, in various professional contexts, on obtaining the views of clients, including children. This position is an international one, shared across the developed world, and encapsulated in the UN Convention on the rights of the child. This book addresses the issues and practicalities surrounding the obtaining of children's views, particularly in the research context. The book takes a deliberately and explicitly pluralist stance. Its distinctiveness rests on the scrutiny of methodological issues pertaining to the collection of children's views and practical applications. The book is structured around two main sections. Section 1 examines five aspects of theoretical and conceptual issues (ethical issues and codes of conduct, children's rights, the legal perspective, developmental dimensions and sociological issues). Section 2 illustrates these aspects by focusing on methods and applications in obtaining children's views in specific projects. The book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in psychology, social sciences, education, health and law. It will also be of value to a range of professionals involved in eliciting children's views (e.g. psychologists, teachers, social workers, medical workers and the police).

Based on extensive research, and grounded in everyday classroom practice, the authors of this book explore important issues surrounding play in the early years curriculum. The book presents children’s views on, and response to their role-play environment, alongside examples of good classroom practice, and addresses vital questions such as: Will structuring role play replace children’s own attempts to create scenarios that grow out of their interests and relationships? Has an over-emphasis on subjects like literacy and numeracy eclipsed the important processes inherent in children’s social play? How we can ensure that provision for role play fully benefits all young children? Critically, the authors present the child’s perspective on play in schools throughout, and argue firmly against a formal, inflexible learning environment for young children. This book will be fascinating to all students on primary education undergraduate courses and early childhood studies. Researchers and course leaders will also find this book a ground-breaking read.

Research with Children is a unique resource book on the methodology of childhood research. Leading and new researchers within the social studies of childhood discuss central questions of epistemology and methodology, demonstrating the links between theory and practice. The theoretical and practical questions are set out in a clear and well-argued fashion and will therefore appeal both to the newcomer to childhood studies and to experienced researchers in the field.

The entirely revised third edition of Research with Children forms a unique resource book on the methodology of childhood research with a core emphasis on theory driven practices. As in the previous two editions, this edition presents particular standpoints in the field, whilst also reflecting the latest developments in the now well-established interdisciplinary field of childhood studies. A rich collection of contributions from leading researchers across a range of disciplinary backgrounds, research practices and theoretical perspectives discuss central questions of epistemology and methodology, demonstrating the links between theory and practice. This edition includes exciting new chapters on: Internet-based research and contemporary technology, Family based research, Children as researchers, Participatory research in the global context, New directions for childhood research. Both theoretical and practical questions are set out in a well-argued fashion that enables easier navigation through the various complexities of the epistemological and methodological questions arising in contemporary research practices with children. As such, this text will appeal to both the newcomer to childhood studies and to experienced researchers in the field. With fully updated chapters, new material and a revised, clearer structure, this new edition will be a valuable resource for researchers working with children.

As researchers and theorists, teachers and teacher educators, parents and grandparents and advocates for children, the authors featured in Ethics and Research with Young Children share a common inclination to counter the idea of an ethics that is conventional-i.e., an ethics that reinforces existing models and discourses, which position children as irrational and incompetent; that de-anonymize children's ways of working and being in the world; that reduces and distorts the social, cultural and political forces that shape children's everyday realities; and, that routinely subtracts from these realities the complex responsibilities that adults have (especially as researchers) to recognize ethics as situated, relational, intersectional, and provisional. Aligned with the interdisciplinary commitments of a Childhood Studies approach and informed by a range of theoretical and practical frameworks, the perspectives offered in this volume are grounded in relationships between and among adults and children, their shifting social, cultural, political and material realities, and a world of ideas and experiences that impel them to face and reorient their ethical commitments to each other.

From both an international perspective and through combining theory, practice and reflection, this book examines critically how listening to young children in early childhood services is understood and practiced.

Recent decades have seen a growing emphasis, in a number of professional contexts, on acknowledging and acting on the views of children. This trend was given added weight by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1990. Today, seeking the perspective of the child has become an essential process in all sorts of tasks, from framing new legislation to regulating professions. This book answers the fundamental question of what it is that constitutes a ‘child perspective’, and how this might differ from the perspectives of children themselves. The answers to such questions have important implications for building progressive and developmental adult-child relationships. However, theoretical and empirical treatments of child perspectives and children’s perspectives are very diverse and idiosyncratic, and the standard reference work has yet to be written. Thus, this work is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature by searching for and defining key formulations of potential child perspectives within parts of the so-called ‘new child paradigm’. This has been derived from childhood sociology, contextual-relational developmental psychology, interpretative humanistic psychology and developmental pedagogy. The highly experienced authors develop a comprehensive professional child perspective paradigm that integrates recent theory and empirical child research. With its clear presentation of underlying theories and suggested applications, this book illustrates a child-oriented understanding of specific relevance to both child-care and preschool educational practice.