Children imitate!

Abstract

The cooperative design practices as well as the participatory research tradition and contextual design have inspired the researchers of a relatively new and challenging design context, i.e. design with children for children. An ample literature base of its own has been generated on the subject already. However, the phenomenon of children imitating each other"s work in the design sessions has been largely disregarded in current research. This article sheds light on the practices of "recycling", originally characterised as "imitation", in the drawings produced by children during participatory design workshops in a school setting. The article suggests that instead of ignoring the issue of imitation and recycling, practitioners might start to appreciate it; both when planning design sessions as well as when making interpretations and judgments on the basis of the results produced by children. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Children’s conceptions of mental well-being and ideas for its promotion through digital environments

“…Ideas from existing games inspired some of the designs. Kuure, Halkola, Iivari, Kinnula and Molin-Juustila [62] stress the fact that children recycle ideasimitate, adapt or modify them from several sourcesand that should be understood and respected in research. Age seven to ten is expressed as an optimal age for children to participate in design since they can understand its idea and are not affected by bias caused by strong preconceptions [46].…”

The show must go on! Strategies for making and makerspaces during pandemic

“…We have a long-term interest in children’s technology education and have been teaching children design, making, and digital fabrication skills in both formal education context as well as in informal/non-formal contexts for over ten years (see e.g. Kuure et al, 2010 , Iivari et al, 2014 , Iivari and Kinnula, 2016 , Tisza et al, 2020 , Kinnula et al, 2020 , Norouzi et al, 2021 ), arguing for children’s genuine participation and empowerment in and through digital technology development ( Kinnula & Iivari, 2021 ).…”

Socializers, achievers or both? Value-based roles of children in technology design projects

“…Even the role of critical evaluators of the whole project results has been suggested for them [21]. The questions addressing children's role culminate in who has the decision-making power [21] as well as whose ideas are influential and taken into account [32,38]. While ideals of equal collaboration between participants have been presented, researchers still ponder whether it is possible or meaningful for children and adults to act as equal participants [16,21,39,43], relating to the long-standing discussion of empowerment of users in participatory design (e.g.…”