But What if They Don’t Ask the Right Questions? Problems of Power and Control in Researching with Children

Solvason, Carla ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3072-0079 and Cliffe, J. (2019) But What if They Don’t Ask the Right Questions? Problems of Power and Control in Researching with Children. TACTYC Reflections.

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Abstract

In previous work we discussed ‘voice’ in collaborative research (Solvason, Cliffe and Snowden, 2017) looking at how ideas of power and ownership are negotiated and an authentic voice found. Here we move into the even more complex arena of collaborative research with children. Following the United Nations Rights of the Child (1989) adults woke up to the fact that children are entitled to present their own view about their lives; but we argue that despite a proliferation of research projects focusing on ‘the child’s voice’ (for example Bateman, 2017, Flückiger, Dunn and Stinson, 2018) we rarely see young children’s views at all. Instead we see children's thoughts produced within prescribed parameters and filtered through the lens of adults. Although we may get somewhere near listening to and understanding young children’s interpretations of their experience, the adult and child context remain worlds apart and ‘true’ meaning remains perspectival and lost in translation.

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