Australasian Journal of Early Childhood

At the end of Jake's first day of school his teacher called him the ‘worst kid in the class’. A year later, when he was not ‘progressed’ to Year 1, the pattern of Jake's school development seemed to be set. As I write, Jake is in Year 4, and many of the predictions his Prep teacher made on that first day seem accurate—he has not had a history of successful learning or social experience at school. As I discuss elsewhere (Hill et al., 2002), Jake has had periods of very successful learning and progress though, which indicate that the ‘developmental pathways’ that children tread are socially constructed, rather than reliant on innate ‘abilities’ or ‘natural’ traits. For Jenks, ‘development’, or ‘progress towards an adult state over time’, is ‘the primary metaphor through which childhood is made intelligible’ (1996, p. 36). Psychological notions of development, however, are far more complicated and troublesome than such a metaphor encourages us to believe.

Drawing on a larger critical case study, the writer uses Wenger's (1998) communities of practice framework to reflect on some examples of research practice that involved young children. In Wenger's framework, the research context is viewed as a set of situated social practices that are continually being negotiated by all participants. Most of these practices contain implicit and unstated assumptions about the overall purposes and expectations of the research, thus providing participants with few resources for participating in collaborative ways. As young children move into the research context, they are confronted with new ways of doing things. Being more experienced, the early childhood researcher can make research practice more transparent and assist children to participate more effectively, as collaborators rather than as subjects.

The Starting School Research Project promotes the involvement of children in the research agenda. This paper explores some of the philosophical and methodological issues involved in this stance. The main focus of this paper is the voices of children reporting issues of significance to them as they start compulsory schooling, through drawings, descriptions, photographs and demonstrations.

I had assumed that my experience as a qualitative researcher accustomed to interviewing adults, and formerly as a teacher of young children, would be an adequate enough basis for undertaking research with children. My first inklings that investigating children's perceptions of their (male) preschool teacher would be far from straightforward surfaced when Bill ^* (the children's teacher) introduced me to them. He explained to the children that I would be sitting at the drawing and writing table and that I would like them to draw a picture of him, and to tell me about it. ‘Perhaps you could draw a picture of me in a pink dress,’ he joked.

I settled myself at the table and waited. The few children who approached the table that first morning were more interested in colouring Christmas decorations, the other activity available at the table that day, than in drawing a picture of Bill. ‘Bring some novelty pencils tomorrow’, advised Bill, ‘You need something to attract their interest’.

More children approached the table the following day, keen to use pencils topped with the plastic dinosaurs I'd hastily bought at the local toyshop the previous afternoon. It was clear, though, that the pencils were the drawcard, not the opportunity to draw and talk about Bill.

On my third day in the centre, I strategically ‘reserved’ the dinosaur pencils for children who agreed to draw a picture of Bill. He assisted by removing the colouring activity and channelling children toward me. Their ‘resistance’ was impressive. Sometimes subtle, more often overt, it took the form of rushed, scribbled drawings, multiple versions of Bill in a pink dress, ‘silly’ talk and ‘rough house’ play, almost identical comments, or no comments at all. Deflated and dejected, I retreated from the centre at the end of the week with little meaningful data, my stance as researcher severely challenged and disrupted.

Unlike the Piagetian notion of children actively constructing their own understandings, sociocultural theory emphasises that it is through involvement in activities with others that development occurs. Thus, it is important to consider the contexts in which children are developing; the socioculturally relevant activities within those contexts; the participation with, guidance and support of others, and how this changes through involvement in activities and prepares children for future involvement in similar experiences. This article, drawing on research into young children's understandings of natural phenomena, will illustrate how adopting a sociocultural perspective can present a richer image of what children know, than an approach which relies solely on using ‘scientific’ methods to uncover and analyse understandings.

I feel angry when my brother is hurting me and he, and I'm tired and I'm having a sleep and Jason just says ‘Matthew, Matthew, look at this’. My face gets angry. [Makes face and clenches fist]. That's when they get even pinker. That's what happens to my arms when I get angry (Matthew, age 5—name has been changed).

Research in early childhood education generally involves children in some capacity, whether it be how they respond to various pedagogical initiatives, how their parents or teachers interact with them or what understandings they bring to a situation. Unfortunately, in the past, much of this research has given children limited voice; positioning them as innocent, incompetent and in need of an adult voice to confirm their place in the research. This article examines my research into young children's emotions, which suggests to me that children's voices can be powerful and possibly richer than those of adults acting on behalf of children.

This article examines two vignettes taken from a research project designed to give voice to children's understandings of equity and social diversity in order to raise questions about how this project potentially reinforced inequities in children's lives. A rhizoanalysis of the vignettes is used to raise questions about how young children perform diverse discourses of ‘race’. This paper specifically focuses on the extent to which some of the voices produced in the research colluded in the production of racist and sexist practices. It uses this focus to raise questions generated through the rhizoanalysis for researchers who want to give voice to young children. Specifically, it asks if it is time for researchers to move beyond a concern for children's ‘voices’ and towards transforming inequitable power relations in our research with them.