Jane Merewether

Doing research with young children can be challenging for many reasons, but this book provides clear guidance on how to engage in appropriate methods. Focusing on researching through play, careful consideration is given to: · the founding principles of playful research · understanding young children’s perspectives · prioritising the rights of the child and the voice of the child · examples of innovative research methods Real life examples and research projects are presented, to enable common challenges to be anticipated and to showcase successful creative approaches, and to inspire new paths in research.

This chapter outlines a co-enquiry journey involving academic researchers and public sector funders in the joint construction of knowledge about early childhood in regional Western Australian settings. The focal approach for the South West Early Childhood Project (SWECP) involved ‘rapid appraisal’ while largely utilising qualitative research methods such as interviews and focus groups; the enquiry was augmented by background profiling, photography and field visits. In providing a process analysis, the chapter outlines approaches that the multi-disciplinary team adopted to emerge with a shared coherent voice as they engaged with both the possibilities as well as the uncertainties of an expedited approach. While the denotation of ‘rapid’ distinguishes the approach from in-depth extended ethnographic community studies, this does not, however, imply haste in design or lack of rigour in analysis. Instead, the study involved considerable co-ordination of the research team, including formal meetings and many other informal opportunities to build trust, develop shared understandings, discuss background information, construct a common language and refine skills such as interview strategies, photography and content/context analysis. This co-partnering fostered a significant learning environment for the research team and provided policy makers with an experiential lens to translate findings into policy and strategy.

This chapter offers a collaborative dialogue between academics and practitioners who have given consideration to the literature, the challenges and illustrations from practice in order to examine the notion of child voice in research. It illuminates the researcher-child relationship with an accent on hearing children’s standpoints through the lens of interested and invested adults. These considerations are intended as further provocations to the growing research base that is attentive to foregrounding children’s perspectives. While the chapter is not co-authored by children, it has been constructed so as to respect children’s voices and to task the research community to further deliberate the complexity of issues involved when positioning research practice as ‘researching with children’. Organised in several sections, the chapter explores ethical issues of assent and/or consent from children, examines issues in relation to children in a range of age cohorts and proposes a number of ways forward for this particular conversation using practice-based strategies such as pedagogical documentation and clarification of language use. These broad concepts are scrutinised through a conversation between examples of cooperation, collaboration and co-research, in an attempt to clarify the ongoing perplexity in this research terrain.

Pedagogical documentation is a vital method of assessing and observing young children, and is a practice that enables practitioners, families and children to learn alongside each other.This book draws on the projects and experiences of senior researchers from nations including Australia, Canada, Sweden, Singapore, the UK and the USA to highlight multiple approaches to pedagogical documentation.Topics explored include: using video in pedagogical documentation making the most of outdoor learning environments developing pedagogical documentation within curriculum frameworks the relationship with Early Years transitions the potential of pedagogical documentation for leadership enactment. The book offers guidance, support and inspiration to practitioners and researchers on how to implement meaningful and sustainable child-focused observation in early years contexts.