Samantha Punch

Research with Children: The Same or Different from Research with Adults?

This article explores seven methodological issues in some detail to illustrate the ways in which aspects of the research process usually considered to be the same for both adults and children can pose particular dilemmas for adult researchers working with children. It argues that research with children is potentially different from research with adults mainly because of adult perceptions of children and childrens marginalized position in adult society but least often because children are inherently different. Drawing on classroom-based research carried out in rural Bolivia, the advantages and disadvantages of using five task-based methods (drawings, photographs, PRA [participatory rural appraisal] techniques, diaries and worksheets) are highlighted in order to illustrate how such research techniques often thought to be suitable for use with children can be problematic as well as beneficial.

Not So 'New'?: Looking Critically at Childhood Studies

The ‘new’ sociology of childhood emerged over 20 years ago, arguing for the social construction of childhood to be acknowledged and for the recognition of children and young peoples agency and rights. Other disciplines joined this growing academic area, from childrens geographies to law, so that the phrase ‘childhood studies’ has become a popular label. Policy and practice both influenced, and were influenced by, childhood studies, particularly in relation to promoting childrens rights. This paper provides an insiders critique of the current state of childhood studies, with attention to theoretical challenges and its applicability across Majority and Minority Worlds. From a childhood studies’ perspective, the paper suggests the potential of notions of relations, relationships and reciprocity.

Youth transitions and interdependent adult–child relations in rural Bolivia

There are few studies which document youth transitions from school to work in rural areas of the majority world. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in a rural community in Bolivia, considers how young people make decisions about different types of school-to-work transitions which include migrating to continue their formal education, working in the community, or seeking migrant work in the regional town or in neighbouring Argentina. The paper explores how young people negotiate structural constraints over their choice of transition, including the rural location, economic resources, parental attitudes and family background, gender, birth order, social networks and role models. Importantly the paper highlights that underlying young people’s choice of transition are interdependent household relations. In the majority world, in this case in Bolivia, rural young people may achieve economic independence sooner than those in the minority world, but long-term family interdependence tends to be maintained throughout the life-course. This paper suggests that the notion of negotiated interdependence is a more appropriate way to understand youth transitions and relations between young people and adults in rural areas of the majority world.

Childhoods in the Majority World: Miniature Adults or Tribal Children?

Drawing on ethnographic data from rural Bolivia and applying the theoretical approaches of the minority group child and the tribal child (James et al., 1998), this article shows that majority world children integrate work, play and school, moving back and forth between child and adult-centred worlds. It argues that majority world children have largely been perceived in relation to their work, and that the overlapping arenas of their everyday lives tend to be ignored. A more holistic perspective which considers how they may combine work and school with play could be more appropriate for understanding childrens childhoods.

Negotiating Migrant Identities: Young People in Bolivia and Argentina

Abstract In rural Bolivia, like many rural areas of the majority world, there are few opportunities for permanent employment and most young people do not have access to their own land. Consequently, many young people in southern Bolivia migrate seasonally to Argentina and their migratory experience provides them with a sense of collective identity during periods spent within their home community. It also enables them to access consumer goods as well as to continue to maintain interdependent family ties by contributing financially to their households. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Bolivia, considers the positive and negative ways in which the young migrant identity offers young people alternative youth transitions as well as enhances their social and economic autonomy.

Exploring children and young people's relationships across Majority and Minority Worlds

How can we learn from research and practice in both Majority and Minority World contexts? How can we challenge the current academic area of childhood studies, with new and revised theorisations around children and young people’s agency and relationships? This special issue addresses these questions, capitalising on the intensive seminar series funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. The series, titled ‘Exploring Children’s Relationships Across Majority and Minority Worlds’, was held between April 2010 and October 2011. It was organised by the Co-Directors and Associate Directors of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, a consortium research centre of Scottish universities. Most of the ideas presented in this special issue emerged out of lively discussions at these seminars and we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of all seminar participants. We use the terms ‘Majority World’ and ‘Minority World’ (see also Panelli et al. 2007) to refer to what has traditionally been known as ‘the third world’ and ‘the first world’ or more recently as ‘the Global South’ and ‘the Global North’. This acknowledges that the ‘majority’ of population, poverty, land mass and lifestyles is located in the former, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and thus seeks to shift the balance of our world views that frequently privilege ‘western’ and ‘northern’ populations and issues (Punch 2003). The dichotomy does risk over-simplicity: for example, the ‘rising powers’ of countries such as Brazil, China and India do not sit easily within either category, and each category contains considerable and salient differences. At the same time, the dichotomy has proved a useful device to challenge thinking throughout the seminar series, particularly given the lack of learning across research conducted in these contexts. Across the papers, we generally use ‘children and young people’ to refer to the age group under the age of 18, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This phrase aims to respect that many older children prefer the category ‘young people’ to ‘children’. Papers may use ‘children’, when referring particularly to childhood studies, children’s rights, and when using quotations. A central concern of the ESRC seminar series was to explore the current state of childhood studies. The ‘new’ sociology of childhood of the 1990s carved out attention to children and childhoods (James and Prout 1990/1997, Qvortrup et al. 1994, Corsaro 1997/2004, James et al. 1998). Key assertions were developed: childhood is socially constructed; children are social actors and have agency and are not passive subjects of social structures and processes; childhood is differentiated by structural processes and social variables such as gender, ethnicity and class. These ideas have run alongside policy developments, such as UNCRC, which have globalised attention to the provision for, protection and participation of, children and young people (Hill and Tisdall 1997, Van Beers et al. 2006, Hartas 2008, Lansdown 2010). However, the sociology of childhood is no longer so new. It has become increasingly multi-disciplinary, with other disciplines picking up and extending ideas, such as anthropology, education, law, health studies, history and political science (represented by the trend towards calling the academic area ‘childhood studies’). In particular, within geography a sub-disciplinary group of ‘children’s geographies’ has been formed.

Children and food practices in residential care: Ambivalence in the 'institutional' home

Using an ethnographic approach, we provide an analysis of food practices in residential care to explore the atypical nature of childrens homes as a three-fold space that combines characteristics of ‘home’, ‘institution’, and ‘workplace’. Residential staff invested considerable effort into recreating a ‘family-like’ home but the practices and ideals they drew on could be interpreted and experienced in different ways. We demonstrate the difficulty of delineating between ‘homely’, ‘institutional’, or work oriented practices. While care workers tried to juggle conflicting demands in child-centred ways, the spaces they created could at times be experienced as constraining by the children and as inhibiting a sense of belonging.

Children's food practices in families and institutions

Food and food practices lend themselves to sociological and geographical analysis. In particular the study of the relationships that develop around and through food interactions and rituals can bring into focus practices that are often hidden from view; part of an everyday and mundane world frequently so taken for granted that their meaning becomes lost. Research in this growing field brings to light the significance of food and food practices, and the manner in which their study can provide a lens to explore other facets of social life (Jackson 2009a) within a range of different contexts. Food is of course obviously linked to caring, nutrition and the body (Cunningham 2003, Metcalfe et al. 2008). The rituals of mealtimes provide scaffolding around which time is organised and through which families and other social groups interact and to a large extent ‘do’ family. However the significance of the role of food can often be forgotten, partly as a consequence of how fundamental it is, and thus left in the background of sociological analysis. Food practices then are powerful mechanisms of socialisation and can convey a power that can emerge strongly in a range of differing contexts. Part of taking a ‘practices’ perspective on food is the view that food works not only on a material level as sustenance but also on a symbolic level as something that can come to stand for thoughts, feelings, and relationships. As a social and symbolic object, food carries and changes meaning with the different uses it can be put to by people in their interactions with each other (McKendrick 2004a, Charon 2007). Part of the objective of studying food practices holistically, within their socio-spatial contexts, is to examine in parallel the ways in which both children and adults use food. Food is not only used as a means by which adults care for children, but it is something through which adults manage their own feelings and relationships to each other which in turn impact on children’s experiences. Interactions around food are consequently interpreted from different perspectives and can involve multiple meanings. This is especially the case within contexts such as residential homes where people are brought together from different backgrounds and with very different past experiences (see Dorrer et al. this volume). There has been an increase in research which explores the social significance of food practices in relation to childhood and in interactions between children and adults (Jackson 2009b, James et al. 2009a). Recent studies have emphasised the role of food in the demonstration of care and its use for an exchange of affection (e.g. Kaplan 2000, Gillen and Hancock 2006, Punch et al. 2009). They have examined how power relationships between adults and children are played out and negotiated via food practices, for example through the contesting of rules for family and school mealtimes (Grieshaber 1997, Alcock 2007, Pike 2008). Such research has Children’s Geographies Vol. 8, No. 3, August 2010, 227–232

I Felt they were Ganging up on me: Interviewing Siblings at Home

Abstract This contribution explores the methodological implications and some of the inter- and intra-generational power relations involved when carrying out research with children at home. It draws on data from individual and group interviews about childrens experiences of sibling relationships and birth order. The study was conducted with 90 children between the ages of 5 and 17, from 30 families of mixed socio-economic backgrounds in central Scotland with three siblings within this age range. The contribution discusses some task-based interview techniques as well as the advantages and disadvantages of interviewing siblings individually and in groups within the home setting.

`Barter', `Deals', `Bribes' and `Threats' Exploring sibling interactions

This article investigates forms of strategic interaction between siblings during childhood. The authors argue that these interactions, characterized by notions of reciprocity, equivalence and constructions of fairness, are worked out in relation to responsibility, power, knowledge and sibling status. Birth order and age are not experienced as fixed hierarchies as they can be subverted, contested, resisted and negotiated. To explore these issues, in-depth individual and group interviews were conducted with a sample of 90 children between the ages of 5 and 17, drawn from 30 families of mixed socioeconomic backgrounds in central Scotland with three siblings within this age range.