Johanna Einarsdottir

Playschool in pictures: children’s photographs as a research method

The paper focuses on children’s photographs as a method to use in research with children. Studies using photographs with children are reviewed and compared and a study conducted in one Icelandic playschool is described. The playschool was involved in a project where the purpose was to look at the ways children think about their early childhood educational setting and to develop methods for listening to children’s perspectives. The paper describes and compares two approaches where cameras were used. One group used digital cameras to take pictures in their playschool while they showed the researcher important places and things in the playschool. The other group was given disposable cameras that they could use unsupervised for a period of time. The results show that using cameras and children’s photos is a notable method to use when seeking children’s perspectives on their life in an early childhood setting.

Making meaning: children’s perspectives expressed through drawings

The importance of listening to children’s perspectives has been emphasised in a wide range of recent research, using a variety of strategies. This paper explores the use of drawing as a strategy to engage with young children around the topic of starting school. It describes the approaches we have used, examines the benefits and challenges we have encountered and discusses implications of using drawings as a strategy for engaging with young children (aged 4–6 years) in research.

Researching with Children: Ethical Tensions.

There is a need to reflect on both the processes and outcomes of the range of approaches aimed at promoting children’s engagement in research, with the specific intent of listening to children’s voices. This article considers some of the ethical tensions we have experienced when engaging children in research about their prior-to-school and school environments and their perspectives of the transitions between these environments. Examples from projects conducted in Iceland and Australia are drawn upon to illustrate these tensions and, to reflect on the strategies and questions we have developed to guide our engagement with children. This article raises issues rather than offering simple solutions. We suggest that there are a number of contextual and relational variables that guide our research interactions, and no ‘one best solution’ applicable to all contexts. Our aim in sharing these tensions is to stimulate further debate and discussions around children’s participation in research.

Special Issue: Listening to young children’s voices in research – changing perspectives/changing relationships

The Convention for the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989) posed ‘a profound challenge to traditional attitudes towards children, incorporating ... for the first time in international law, recognition that children are the subject of rights, entitled to be involved in decisions and actions that affect them’ (Lansdown, 2004, p. 4). A more recent addition to the Convention is an emphasis on children as active citizens with rights to express their views and feelings. These rights also apply to young children as early childhood is recognised as a critical period for the realisation of these rights (United Nations, 2005). From the late 1990s and into the new millennium, following the adoption of the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989), childhood was reconceptualised and reframed (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998; Mayall, 2000), resulting in a proliferation of activity around children’s participation. Children’s perspectives were eagerly sought. Early research with children as participants and contributors enthusiastically communicating their ideas showed that children, even very young children, were capable, competent, and active thinkers who had views on issues which affected them (Clark & Moss, 2001). Rinaldi (2001, cited in Clark, 2007) showed that children’s perspectives in research can lead to a pedagogy of listening and have positive outcomes for adults and children. Lansdown (2004) stated that adults too often have failed to recognise children’s capacities because ‘they assess children from an adult perspective and through an adult filtering process which diminishes children’s contribution because they are young’ (p. 5). Hence, creative research methods that suit young children’s competence, knowledge, interest and context have been developed. Clark and Moss (2001) and Clark (2007) found a mosaic approach useful in engaging and empowering very young children in research on matters which were important to them. Darbyshire, MacDougall, and Schiller (2005) used verbal responses (interview and focus groups) and graphic responses, mapping, drawing and diagrams as well as expressive responses (photovoice) in their study of 3to 13-year-old children’s perspectives of play, place and space. Einarsdottir (2005) explored the use of disposable and digital

Young children's decisions about research participation: opting out

Abstract Participatory approaches to engaging in research with young children place a great deal of emphasis on childrens rights to choose whether or not they wish to be involved. A number of recent studies have reported a range of strategies both to inform children of their research rights and to establish options for checking childrens understanding of these rights throughout the research process. This paper seeks to move the debate around childrens informed agreement to participate forward by considering the ways in which children might indicate their dissent – their desire not to participate – at various stages of the research process. Drawing on examples from Iceland and Australia, involving children aged two–six years, the paper explores childrens verbal and non-verbal interactions and the ways in which these have been used, and interpreted, to indicate dissent. Reflection on these examples raises a number of questions and identifies several tensions, as well as offering some suggestions for ways in which researchers can recognise childrens decisions to opt out of research participation.

Introducing children's perspectives and participation in research

Over recent years, there has been increasing attention to the importance of involving children and listening to their voices and perspectives in research. The purpose of this monograph is to draw upon exemplary research with young children that is being undertaken in partnership with academics across the globe. The articles also seek to examine some of the critical issues and ethical dilemmas in this unique research paradigm. We are pleased to present discussion from a diverse range of research settings which includes Sweden, Iceland, Italy, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom and Australia. The underlying philosophy of each article is that all young children have the competence to engage in research as sophisticated thinkers and communicators and that the inclusion of childrens views are pivotal if we are to understand their life worlds.

Democracy, caring and competence: values perspectives in ECEC curricula in the Nordic countries

The aim of the study is to explore how Nordic Early Childhood Education and Care policies frame values education in preschools with a special focus on the values of democracy, caring and competence. The study is part of a larger Nordic project, Values education in Nordic preschools: Basis of education for tomorrow, the aim of which is to explore values education from various perspectives, policy levels, institutional levels and personal levels. The study applies Habermas’s theoretical ideas of communicative actions, lifeworld, and the system. Here the focus is on the system level, namely, values in national curriculum guidelines that serve as the basis of pedagogical practices in preschools in the Nordic countries. Thematic research analysis described by Braun and Clarke inspired the qualitative analysis of the documents. In addition, a quantitative language-based approach was applied to the study. Keywords related with democratic, caring and competence values were selected. The findings reveal different dimensions and meanings of the three value fields, such as democracy as being and/or becoming; care as fulfilment of basic needs and an ethical relationship; and competence values as learning for sociality and academic skills.

Transition to school practices: comparisons from Iceland and Australia

This paper is the result of collaboration among early childhood education researchers from different cultures on opposite sides of the globe. The project sought to identify what practitioners in both preschool and primary school settings in Iceland and Australia regarded as successful transition to school practices. Independently developed surveys of these practitioners, both based on earlier work in the USA, gathered data on what the practitioners identified as ‘good ideas’ in transition practices. There were similarities across the countries: popular practices included children visiting primary schools prior to the start of the school year and informational meetings for parents. There were also differences: Icelandic primary school teachers were, for instance, more likely than Australian teachers to write to their prospective students before they started school.

Icelandic Children's Early Education Transition Experiences.

Research Findings: The aim of this study was to shed light on how children perceive the differences between their early childhood setting and primary school and what they felt they learned when they started primary school. The childrens playschool teachers were co-researchers, participating in the data generation, as well as participants in the study. The study was premised on a view of children as strong and competent actors in their own lives and a belief that the voices of children should be heard and taken seriously. Childrens perspectives were elicited through group interviews and childrens drawings a few months after they started primary school. Practice or Policy: The results of this study indicate that the children had the experience, knowledge, and ability to reflect on both their playschool experience and the transition to primary school and therefore that their voices should be heard and listened to by adults, thereby enabling childrens perspectives to influence policy and practice.

Teaching children with ADHD: Icelandic early childhood teachers' perspectives

Medication for the treatment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has increased tremendously in Iceland during the last decade and the country has now the highest prescription rates for methylphenidate in the world. This study examines Icelandic early childhood teachers’ experiences and perspectives of children with behavioural problems and ADHD‐associated behaviour as well as the support and conditions they feel these children need in schools. Interviews were conducted with eight playschool teachers and eight first‐grade teachers in three playschools and three compulsory schools in Reykjavík. The results indicate that children’s behaviour and teachers’ views of the children’s behaviour cannot be understood without considering their social, cultural and historical contexts. Furthermore, the increase of diagnoses and medication for treatment of ADHD must be seen in relation to the Icelandic cultural and educational context where enormous changes have occurred in a short time.