The purpose of this research study is to identify the characteristics of quality from the perspective of a group of young children as they experience early education and care. Children were involved in a series of research activities to study the effect on them of their nursery experiences. Children‟s views and understandings were elicited using different participative methods over three periods of field work conducted at two separate sites. Using these methods it was possible to answer the following research questions:
What perspectives do young children have on the quality of early education and childcare?
How do children give meaning to the activities and relationships within their preschool settings?
Can the meaning(s) children give be interpreted as quality indicators, to demonstrate an understanding of quality?
This chapter presents the methodological approach of the study, including the research design and the methods used, the interpretation of the data and
conclusions drawn from the data. This is a small scale qualitative study taking an ethnographic, naturalistic approach, studying naturally occurring phenomena. In order to research with children, participative techniques were used to understand how children give meaning to their time in nursery. The children were viewed as active social agents and a methodological aim was to enlighten understanding from the perspective of children, and to give children „voice‟ to articulate their views, acknowledging their rights to be heard (UNCRC, 2000, Great Britain. Children Act 1989,: Great Britain. Childcare Act 2006).
An interpretative and constructivist approach was adopted in the analysis of data, expanding on previous studies of children‟s views. The research contributes to the broader knowledge base of children‟s perspectives on quality and aims to inform policy and practice through the framing of a taxonomy of quality experiences from children‟s viewpoint. This is presented in the concluding chapter. Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) suggest that to be of value
„ethnographic research should be concerned not simply with understanding the world but with applying its findings to bring about change…rendering research more relevant to national policy-making or to …professional practice‟ (1995:15). The data are presented in the form of five case studies written up as „research stories‟ in Chapter Four. Case studies are used in research to provide insight into an issue or case (Stake, 2000).
Qualitative enquiry
Within the social research tradition qualitative enquiry is concerned with
meanings and the way people understand what they encounter in their lives and the associated patterns of behaviour (Denscombe, 2003). The initial research design sought a methodology which would make it possible for young children to convey their points of view through methods appropriate to their age within a natural and familiar context. The research proposal acknowledged that:
„The nature of the research, enquiring into the perspectives of children, will require a methodology that is flexible and open to recognising, and responding to, many different aspects of child behaviour. To be able to interpret children‟s actions and words it will require deep immersion in all aspects of the setting on the part of the researcher…In order to achieve the level of understanding required, a qualitative, ethnographic approach is planned for the research programme, to provide ‟thick descriptions‟ of the day to day experiences of the children within their early education and childcare setting.‟ Initial Project Proposal, June 2004
An ethnographic approach to the study of children and childhood
From the outset it was accepted that ethnography is a recognised approach to researching the perspectives of individuals within educational settings (James, 2001; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford, 2001). According to James (2001) „ethnography as a research method …has enabled children to be recognised as people who can be studied in their own right within the social sciences „permitting‟ children to become seen as research participants and … ethnography …is fast becoming a new orthodoxy in childhood research‟ (2001:245). Children are subjects and participants rather than objects within the research. James asserts that „what ethnography permits is a view of children as competent interpreters of the social world‟ (2001:246). The study of childhood acknowledges the contribution children can make to understand their experiences and „represents a shift in perspective – research with rather than on children‟ (James, 2001:246). She describes further changes in the perspective of children‟s social status and position recognising that:
„although children are members of an age category nominally called „the child‟ to which particular expectations and values are ascribed, they participate and share in a cultural space called „childhood‟ which varies extensively across time and in social space…through their participation as members of this particular
generational space, through occupying an articulate position in the life course, children themselves can be said to help constitute that space in culturally and historically distinctive forms. And it is through the use of ethnography that the everyday articulation of some of these latter processes have been able to be described and, later, theoretically accounted for (James et al, 1998)‟. (James, 2001:246)
Implementing an ethnographic approach
Traditionally ethnographers spent time living amongst the social group under study, often for extended periods. It is now accepted that a less intense approach can be utilised that does not involve the researcher living amongst their
participants but retains an element of prolonged fieldwork (Jeffrey and Troman, 2004). This was the approach used to study two groups of children in their nursery settings in order to understand how they viewed their experiences over time. According to Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) „human behaviour is continually constructed and reconstructed, on the basis of people‟s
interpretations of the situation they are in‟ (1995:8). As previously stated, the project aimed to use naturalistic methods to study naturally occurring
phenomena. However it needs to be acknowledged that the institution of the „nursery‟ is a socially constructed phenomenon, as are the concepts of „quality‟ or „nursery experiences‟ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). The study aimed to elicit the children‟s perspectives on these experiences.
Within the naturalistic paradigm Woods (1996) traces the development of symbolic interactionism as part of the ethnographic tradition. Symbolic
interactionism researches the significance of events, values and beliefs and the emergence of shared meanings. It occurs within specific social contexts, in which the perspectives of individual participants and the reactive perspectives of the researcher are both explored reflectively. Typically studies employing symbolic interactionist methodology are „small-scale, (of) everyday life, seeking to
understand processes, relationships, group life, motivations, adaptations and so on‟ (Woods,1996:48). Travers (2001) cites Blumer (1969):
„We can…look upon human group life as chiefly a vast interpretive process in which people singly and collectively guide themselves by defining the objects, events and situations which they encounter‟ (2001:23-4)
According to Travers this view of the social world „sees meaning not as residing in the heads of individuals, but as shared by members of a society, or by
particular social groups (having) an intersubjective rather than a subjective character‟. Travers (2001) makes links to Mead‟s theory that „individuals are influenced by other people, but they are also active in interpreting, and
responding to, the people and objects they encounter in the world‟, where objects include „material and temporal and social/emotional phenomena‟ (2001:24).
This research project utilised a symbolic interactionist paradigm. The research involved working at close hand with selected children in a core sample group, in order to understand their interpretation of the „people and objects‟ within their
nurseries. Punch (2002) acknowledges that an ethnographic approach offers „prolonged… periods… in order to get to know (children)…and gain a greater understanding‟ (2002:322). However she cautions that as it relies on participant observation there is the inherent difficulty that adults „are unable to be full participants in children‟s social worlds because they can never truly be children again‟ (2002:322). The study would therefore employ a range of complementary methods to elicit children‟s perspectives.
Generational implications
The problem of „adultness‟ and generational considerations were factors that had influenced the choice of methodology. It was recognised that research with children could be prejudiced by the effect of personal childhood experiences on researcher perspectives (Davis, 1998). Adult perspectives are inevitably different from those of children, informed by the adult‟s own childhood as well their
experiences in adulthood. Childhood as a social phenomenon changes with each generation within any culture. The researcher‟s pre-school had been different from the experiences of the current generation of three and four year olds. In the past a majority of children stayed at home until they started school. The
educational significance of a period of pre-school was not widely recognised nor were places available for many children.
From both a professional and parental perspective the researcher was familiar with the range of pre-school settings that had developed in recent years. She had the view that a period of pre-school education in a group setting had many
benefits for children. Before starting the research project she been involved in implementing policies, including the National Childcare Strategy DfEE,1998), which expanded the preschool sector, bringing many more children into non- parental care beyond the home. Within this role she was part of an older generation that had handed down to a younger one social and educational policies based on values, ideologies and imperatives that are meaningful to adults but not to children (Mayall,2002:30-31,35). Children‟s understandings of why they attended pre-school might be different from those of the researcher and needed to be acknowledged in the research design. Using an ethnographic approach the researcher aims to render „the familiar strange and the strange familiar‟ and to understand the view points of participants through close observations over time. The researcher needed to put aside personal assumptions and opinions and gain insights from children‟s perspectives.
Power relationships between adults and children
Aside from this conceptual gap, it is important to recognise inherent unequal power relationships between young children and adults within the pre-school research setting (Morrow, 1998; Robinson and Kellett, 2004). James points out the „additional responsibility‟ (2001:252) placed on the researcher due to
differential power relations. Citing Mayall (2000) she explains that the children do not perceive the researcher as a „„normal‟ kind of adult‟ and „children may not see the researcher as occupying an adult position of power‟ (ibid: 252). She refers to Cosaro „s discussion on the power implications of the difference in size between the young children and the researcher. The researcher is required to „negotiate a new relationship with children – from children‟s point of view‟ (ibid: 252). James challenges Mandell‟s notion of the researcher as „least adult‟, who takes part alongside children. It is important to accept the inescapable differences between adults and children which „least adult‟ denies:
Only when it is openly acknowledged that, however friendly we are, childhood researchers can only ever have a semi-participatory role in children‟s lives, can the power differentials which separate children from adults begin to be effectively addressed – in this sense ethnography is powerfully placed to initiate this
process. (James, 2001::252)
Therefore, researchers can take „seriously‟ the power differentials between children and themselves and seek to „address these in the design,
implementation and dissemination of their work‟ (Robinson and Kellett, 2004: 93).
Methods which recognise children as experts in their own lives
Methods were sought which enabled children to influence the outcome of the research by fully involving them in the research process and by allowing them to control their levels of participation in the project. The intention was to redress the balance of power away from the researcher and towards the children. It was important to select methods which enabled children to project their lives as lived and which would enable them to „speak differently from adults in relation to the issue of the time‟ (Jenks, 2000:69).
A basic premise of the research, which influenced the choice of methods, had been that children are „competent respondents, social actors‟ (James, Jenks and Prout, 1998:32), who are experts on their activities and encounters within the provision they attend. Langsted reports on projects in Denmark involving children of different ages commenting on aspects of quality in their childcare provision. He asserts, „It is an advantage to regard children as experts when it comes to their own lives to a far greater extent than has been the case until now‟ (1994:41). When enquiring into younger children‟s lives, Langsted advocates using a
mixture of methods that are contextually appropriate, and ones which allow an „open and listening approach‟ (ibid:41). Christensen and James (2000) remind researchers that „Children are not adults‟ and that when selecting methods they (researchers) need to „adopt practices which resonate with children‟s own
concerns and routines... paying attention to the ways in which they communicate with us‟ (2000:7).
In two research projects in England, Clark and Moss (2001; 2005) developed a multi-method approach to involve children as research participants, termed by them as the „Mosaic approach‟. It „is a way of listening which acknowledges children and adults as co-constructors of meaning‟ (2001:1) through visual methods, using children‟s photographs, tours of the setting and maps made with the children combined with adult observations and talking to children „to gain deeper understanding of children‟s lives‟ (2001:3). The Mosaic approach offers children a range of methods in which they can voice their views verbally and non- verbally. It was designed as a model approach that could be replicated by other researchers, and was adopted in modified form for the present study following an earlier pilot project.
Pilot work developing the research methods