Privileging Younger Children's Voices in Research: Use of Drawings and a Co-Construction Process

Abstract

The growing acknowledgement of the value of listening to children's views and experiences in social research, popularly termed as "listening to their voices," brings with it methodological consequences. Regarding children as expert informants about their own lives carries with it the simultaneous call for researchers to be experts in developing and employing appropriate strategies that can effectively elicit the insights that children can bring to a research topic. With younger children, the use of participatory methodologies has been foregrounded as the key to unlocking their potential to contribute rich and useful perspectives to inform research into their lives. This article explores the usefulness of employing preschoolers' drawings within the context of a co-construction process to facilitate the children's construction of ideas and reinforce their voices in research. The case is made that the quality of the dialogical engagement is as important as the drawing itself, and both visual images and the verbal exchanges are central to the children's meaningmaking process. In the co-construction process, both adult and child are (ideally) equal players and the resulting dialogical process plays a major role in the constitution of the phenomena. The role of the researcher as the co-constructor can be a challenging one because it entails engaging and supporting children's views and the expression of these views. The discussion and illustrations from the first author's research projects contribute to the literature base on positioning preschool children as valid social actors in their communities.

Draw(Me) and Tell: Use of Children’s Drawings as Elicitation Tools to Explore Embodiment in the Very Young

“…My aim in designing this tool was to create a childcentered activity that would offer the opportunity to engage with young children on their own terms and explore an issue that is abstract and potentially sensitive. The use of visual methods has been found to be very effective when cocreating qualitative data with young children and redressing the power imbalance often present in standard adult-child interviews (Bagnoli, 2009;Gauntlett & Holzwarth, 2006;Mitchell, 2006;Morrow, 2001;Pridmore & Bendelow, 1995;Rollins, 2005;Tay-Lim & Lim, 2013).…”

The Concept of Protection and the Rights of the Children Involved in Research

“…It includes deciding to what extent will be involved in research and determine the collection methods in research. In other words, the child is not only an object but also has a crucial role in the research (Powell & Smith, 2009;Tay-lim & Lim, 2013;Woodhead and Faulkner, 2008).…”

Together, We Can Show You: Using Participant-Generated Visual Data in Collaborative Research

“…Later, participants refl ect on their creations through dialogue or other forms of communication with the researcher (Liebenberg 2009). Co-construction of knowledge occurs during the creative process and in subsequent discussion about the meaning of these new creative works (Basu and Dutta 2007;Crivello et al 2009;Jacoby and Ochs 2005;Schensul et al 2008;Tay-Lim and Lim 2013). Furthermore, researchers and participants are liberated to occupy different positions during this process of coconstruction of knowledge (Carter and Ford 2013;Josselson 2006;Tay-Lim and Lim 2013;Mannay 2013).…”

“…Co-construction of knowledge occurs during the creative process and in subsequent discussion about the meaning of these new creative works (Basu and Dutta 2007;Crivello et al 2009;Jacoby and Ochs 2005;Schensul et al 2008;Tay-Lim and Lim 2013). Furthermore, researchers and participants are liberated to occupy different positions during this process of coconstruction of knowledge (Carter and Ford 2013;Josselson 2006;Tay-Lim and Lim 2013;Mannay 2013). Collaborative researchers interested in demystifying research-based knowledge (Schensul et al 2008) and democratizing research (Schensul 2002) acknowledge the importance of disrupting traditional power imbalances in research environments.…”