Alison Clark

Listening to and involving young children: a review of research and practice

This paper sets out an international review of literature and practice concerning listening to and consulting with young children in early childhood institutions. Most of the existing literature on childrens participation has focused on children over five years old; however, a small number of studies have been undertaken with young children. Beginning with an examination of understandings of listening, the paper describes methodologies for gathering young childrens perspectives, including traditional research methods and participatory approaches. Key themes will be described which have emerged from studies undertaken to date. Illustrative case studies undertaken as part of the review are used to support the limited published material in this field. The paper raises issues for policy, research and practice concerning the implications of listening to young children.

Young Children as Protagonists and the Role of Participatory, Visual Methods in Engaging Multiple Perspectives

How can the perspectives, insights and interests of young children, under 6 years-old, be given status in processes of change? This paper will examine the contribution participatory and visual methods can make to enabling young children to document their experiences and to facilitate exchange with adults. Examples will be drawn from three research studies in educational settings which have developed a specific research method, the Mosaic approach (Clark and Moss 2001; Clark 2004; Clark 2005) which brings together visual and verbal research tools. This paper will discuss how researching with young children rather than on young children can redraw the boundaries between adults’ and children’s roles in the research process including the relationship with the research audience.

Listening to young children: experts in their own lives

Most existing literature on childrens participation has focused on their involvement in service planning, delivery and evaluation rather than on childrens views of their own world, starting from their interests and concerns. Few studies have considered the views and experiences of young children (under five years old). One of the barriers to this work has been uncertainty about ‘how to listen’ to children at this age. Alison Clark and June Statham explore the Mosaic approach, a methodology for listening to young children that brings together verbal and visual tools to reveal young childrens perspectives. The material produced by the children provides a platform for communication between adults and children. Examples are given from two research studies that took place in early childhood institutions in the UK. These illustrate how young children used cameras and participatory activities such as tours and map-making to highlight important people, places and events and to share their views with adults. The discussion focuses on the possible applications of this approach for young children who experience fostering and adoption, including the potential for young children to document and to communicate the important details of their present as well as past lives.

Multimodal map making with young children: exploring ethnographic and participatory methods

Researching the ‘insider’ perspectives of young children requires a readiness to not only tune into different modes of communication but also to create opportunities for this knowledge to be communicated to others. This research is based on a longitudinal study involving young children and adults in the design and review of learning environments. This article first explores mapmaking, one of the methods used in the Mosaic approach as a site of multi-modal communication. Second, it investigates how the maps, as informant-led representations can promote ‘cultural brokerage’ (Chalfen and Rich, 2007) by facilitating the exchange of meanings within learning communities and beyond. This applied ethnographic and participatory research raises questions about the importance of making visible these opportunities for meaning-making across generational and professional boundaries.

Views from inside the Shed: Young Children's Perspectives of the Outdoor Environment.

This article examines messages from participatory research about young childrens perspectives of early childhood environments and outdoor spaces in particular. The studies chosen have been carried out in England with children under six years old using the Mosaic approach and are compared with findings from an Icelandic study using the same methodology. This framework for listening to children and adults brings together visual and verbal tools to gather childrens perspectives and to facilitate exchange with adults. The findings reinforce the importance of private spaces, personal spaces, social spaces and imaginary spaces in outdoor environments for young children. The discussion considers the implications of these findings for creating and supporting creative outdoor spaces.

Understanding research with children and young people

What do children understand about their worlds? Why do young people behave in certain ways? Research is the key to answering these and many other questions you may have in the course of your work or study. As an introduction to research, this book helps you understand how research is designed and carried out, as well as the particular practical and ethical issues involved in researching with children and young people. A key feature of the book is the examples of “real research” which have been selected to show... • Different methods of collecting data in action • Challenges that arise at various stages of the research process • How findings are used to influence policy and practice.

‘In‐between’ spaces in postwar primary schools: a micro‐study of a ‘welfare room’ (1977–1993)

What narratives may a micro‐study within a school reveal about past lives, roles and design? What traces may be contained within a single room? This paper focuses on an oral history of a ‘welfare room’ in a postwar Infants school as told by a welfare assistant. The school is an early example of school designed by Mary (Crowley) Medd opened in 1949. Mary, together with David Medd, was to play a significant role in postwar school design through their work at a local authority level, particularly in Hertfordshire and more widely at a national and international level through the Ministry of Education Architects and Building Development Group (1949–1972). This study, part of a wider investigation of three of the Medds’ postwar schools, reveals three features of architectural intention lived out in the habitation of the space. There is an attention to the ‘in‐between’ as part of a reconfiguring of learning spaces, to comfort and care linked to design, which promotes growth, and to craftsmanship.

Here we like playing princesses – newcomer migrant children’s transitions within day care: exploring role play as an indication of suitability and home and belonging

ABSTRACT Using the concept of suitability to describe newcomer migrant children’s connection to multiple fields of social and cultural relations, we explore a newcomer migrant girl’s transition from an introductory group for migrant children with a refugee background into a mainstream day-care group. Inspired by sociocultural and transitional research, we assume that newcomer migrant children can fall into a liminal phase due to the loss of cultural references. Framed around the situated and contextualised nature of the girl’s remembering and reconstructing of home and belonging through role play, we explore how roleplay discourses might be understood as cultural scripts or laminated productions reflecting particular representations of social and cultural attachment.

Take a walk: following the complexities of young children’s lives

A new journal issue presents readers with a range of possibilities. We are able to make our own comparisons, drawing together ideas and reflections across different studies, methodologies and foci brought side by side. But is this how most journal issues are now read? Editors bring together a series of articles but readers may search and find only by targeted key words, especially if our engagement with journal reading is almost all online. This is an adjustment that newspaper editors also need to face as a higher percentage of readers engage via a screen. Articles online are not anchored in the same way, but float ‘free’, whether we are reading news or academic papers. However, a slower and more eclectic read of a journal issue may sometimes lead to surprising connections from study to study and to our own research. So this is an invitation to take a walk... Taken as a whole, the articles in this issue are indicative of the geographical and methodological breadth of research currently being undertaken across Europe and beyond, concerning young children’s lives. The texts travel from rural China (Fleer and Li) and urban Russia (Bayanova and Mustafin), to Turkey (Kotaman), Cyprus (Tsangaridou and Genethliou), Finland (Iivonen, Sääkslahti, Mehtälä, Villberg, Soini and Poskiparta), to a Korean child in French-speaking Canada (Kim). International perspectives are further developed through cross-national conceptual, empirical and policy-driven collaborations. Huser, Dockett and Perry’s conceptual article brings together German and Australian academics’ shared understandings of the metaphor of ‘bridges’ in transitions. Hammer and He’s empirical article is based on a comparative study of science teaching in kindergartens in Norway and China. Moving to the policy level, Nyland and Ng explore recent curriculum changes in Singapore and Australia. Such assemblage of ideas is one of the strengths of this journal and the community of early childhood researchers involved in EECERA activities, this dynamic process of research and exchange. This issue also enables comparison by subject matter, featuring two articles on the under-researched area of the relationship between young children’s physical activity and motor-skills in Finland (Iivonen et al.) and in Norway (Sigmundsson and Haga).