Children's Views Research Articles

The pirate in the pump: children's views of objects as imaginary friends at the start of school

ABSTRACTThe main aim of this paper is to use a phenomenological approach (Merleau-Ponty, 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; Merleau-Ponty. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes. Evanston: Northern University Press) to contribute a new theoretical understanding of what imaginary friends mean for children in the context of starting school. The paper addresses the specific area of ‘object-friends’ and draws on examples from an empirical and consultative study of a small sample of five and six-year-old children’s everyday experiences of friendship in school. The paper argues that if practitioners consider embodiment approaches and listen attentively to the knowledge and information that children share about their imaginary friends, this could be used to nurture children’s early learning.

Exploring children’s perspectives of engagement with their carers using factor analysis

Positive engagement between a child and carer in out-of-home care is understood to have long-term benefits for children who have experienced abuse or neglect. This study analysed data from the ‘Views of Children and Young People in Foster Care 2009′ survey of 937 children in out-of-home care in Queensland, Australia, to identify factors that supported or hindered engagement between a child and carer. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and structural regression were used. Findings suggest that children’s engagement with their carer is influenced by a range of internal and external factors including child characteristics, the care experience, contact with biological parents, and placement trajectory. Child engagement is important because it is central to positive outcomes such as placement stability in out-of-home care. Implications for policy and practice include the need for a structural response that supports building and maintaining positive child-carer relationships.

Communities of children: participation and its meaning for learning

This article is concerned with ways in which children's social lives appear to have meaning and with children's subjective orientation in the transition from kindergarten to school. The article presents the development of theoretical concepts for ways in which we can understand children - by the aid of the analysis of empirical data dealing with children's subjective views of the life they are living and participating in. In other words, if we wish to understand children and children's actions, we also have to conceptualise the world in which they live just as that world is seen by children at the place where they stand and where they participate. The article covers on the one hand the presentation of the principal findings of a major research project and on the other a more detailed exploration of the concept of communities, including definitions of what children share and of how what they share links to what adults arrange for them. It also presents arguments for how a social approach to children's issues paves the way for more productive measures than an individual approach offers.International Research in Early Childhood Education, vol. 5, no. 1, p. 139-154

How is supervision recorded in child and family social work? An analysis of 244 written records of formal supervision

AbstractWritten records belie the complexity of social work practice. And yet, keeping good records is a key function for social workers in England (and elsewhere). Written records provide a future reference point for children, especially those in public care. They are foundational for the inspection of children's services. They provide practitioners and managers with an opportunity to record their thinking and decisions. They add to result from and cause much of the bureaucratic maze that practitioners have to navigate. As part of a wider study of child and family social work practice, this paper describes an analysis of more than 200 written records of supervision. These records primarily contain narrative descriptions of activity, often leading to a set of actions for the social worker to complete – what they should do next. Records of why these actions are necessary and how the social worker might undertake them are usually absent, as are records of analytical thinking or the child's views. This suggests that written records of supervision are not principally created in order to inform an understanding of the social work decision‐making process; rather, they are created to demonstrate management oversight of practice and the accountability of the practitioner.

Supporting young children in multi-lingual settings

Following on from last month's article, Ruth Barley explores children's views on culture and identity, and how home or first language plays a significant role when it comes to defining friendship groups.

Cooperation Models, Motivation and Objectives behind Farm-School Collaboration: Case Insights from Denmark

Children lack an understanding of and connectedness to food and ag- riculture, while policies are calling for more emphasis on food and nutrition at school. As a result, foodscapes at school are increasingly the focus of public pol- icy. More initiatives are targeting food literacy of young people and their ability to understand the food system. Thus, efforts are made to promote food literacy through strengthening of farm-school links. The case-study research from Den- mark investigates existing cooperation arrangements in farm-school collabora- tion and the underlying motivation of the farmers and teachers. Findings show distinct differences in motivation. Farmers want to create transparency in their production, ensure support for the agricultural profession or promote food and agricultural literacy. The idealistic motivation of teaching children about food and agriculture weighs higher than economic incentives. Teachers display academic motives for engaging in farm visits, but also a broader focus on shaping children's world views, connectedness to food and nature and fostering life skills. The farm can be an important setting for promoting food, agricultural and ecological lit- eracy. We propose more generic collaboration models of farm-school collabora- tion to characterize the field: from short-term, informal cooperation involving just a farmer and a teacher to longer-term and closer collaboration involving several teachers, farms, schools or other stakeholders from a foodscapes approach. These characterizations of farm-school collaboration can contribute towards future re- search of farm-school programmes. The study applies a foodscapes approach and in doing so uncovers learning opportunities in the foodscapes in and outside the school, which goes beyond eating. This adds to a broader understanding of school foodscapes.

How children represent sustainable consumption through participatory action research and co‐design of visual narratives

AbstractChildren have the capacity to adopt active roles as citizens and are crucial contributors to explorations of contemporary consumption practices and a sustainable future. Yet, children are generally not explicitly encouraged to actively participate in constructing sustainable consumption discourses. This paper investigates how sixty South Australian, urban, public primary school children aged eleven to thirteen, participated in Participatory Action Research (PAR) and co‐design of visual narratives, in collaboration with a communication designer to create fifteen visual narratives expressing their views about consumption and sustainability. The aims of this research are to (1) use PAR to co‐design visual narratives examining how children understand consumption and sustainability in relation to consumption; (2) encourage children's critical engagement with issues of sustainable consumption; (3) examine how children's views on consumption can inform the design of future design interventions about sustainable consumption for young audiences. The research questions are: How do children represent consumption and sustainability through visual narratives; how can children actively contribute to sustainable consumption discourses; what can be learnt from children to inform the future design of activist artefacts about consumption for young audiences.

The effects of the children’s university activities to children’s views and attitudes towards scientists and scienc

AbstractChildren's universities introduce science to children at early ages, and these universities are established and spreading across the world in order to popularize science and take children into these scientific activities. In this study it was aimed to determine the effects of the children's university activities to children's views and attitudes towards scientist and science. The project lasted two weeks and included 27 activities including science, mathematics, arts, and sports. The participants were 50 students from 6th grade. The data were collected through a 21 item-scale developed by Pell and Jarvis (2001), and by "The images of the scientist" scale developed by Song and Kim (1999). The results revealed that students' attitudes to science changed statistically. Also, the images of students to scientist changed positively at the end of the activities. The findings show that the children's university activities have reached its objectives. It is believed that children's universities should be expanded and supported, which may give chance children to meet science and university at early ages. Keywords: children’s university; science school; science education; image of scientist; gifted education.

Black Pete through the Eyes of Dutch Children.

The traditional figure of Black Pete seen during the December festivities around Sinterklaas (the Dutch Santa Claus) in the Netherlands has sparked fierce debates about his racial stereotypical characteristics and his potentially negative effects on children’s opinions about black people. The Black Pete phenomenon has even been discussed by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, resulting in a report urging the Netherlands to eliminate this form of racial stereotyping. The adult debate about Black Pete is clearly important, but Sinterklaas is essentially a children’s holiday. Surprisingly, there have never been any systematic studies to examine children’s views on Black Pete. The current study is the first to do so. In a sample of 201 children aged 5–7 years, we collected free descriptions of Black Pete, asked children to group him in relation to other figures, and to assign characteristics to him and comparison figures. The results showed that (1) Children are clearly aware of Black Pete’s skin color and subordinate status; (2) Children associate Black Pete more with clowns than with black people; (3) Children evaluate Black Pete very positively, but the positive characteristics do not generalize to their evaluation of black people. The findings illustrate the deep-rooted childhood origins of many Dutch people’s affection for Black Pete and their lack of awareness of his relation to racial stereotypes. This explains the resistance to changing the Black Pete figure and the slowness of the change process on this front.

Foster children's views of their birth parents: A review of the literature

Several bodies of research, theory, and practice document that even maltreated children develop and maintain attachment relationships with their parents. While this attachment can confound clinicians, it can be understood from an evolutionary perspective: Attachments – even with abusive parents – increase the survival of the species by ensuring that dependent infants and children in danger will seek proximity and comfort from a caregiving adult. Despite the phenomenon being well documented, a missing piece from the literature is whether children – who have alternative caregiving options – will still express attachment to their maltreating parent. To address this question, 27 studies in which children currently in foster care were interviewed were coded for presence/absence of three expressions of attachment: (1) Yearning for the birth parents (2) fear and anxiety due to separation from the birth parents and (3) minimization of the maltreatment perpetrated against them by the birth family. We also asked whether, despite the presence of attachment, maltreated children would express relief upon removal from the home of the birth parent. Most of the studies reported that at least some children expressed these four related beliefs, providing important insight for clinicians working with maltreated children.

Where are the schools? Children, families and food practices

Reducing childhood obesity is an international priority and children's diets, food knowledge and practices have come under intense scrutiny in both policy and popular discourse. Notwithstanding evidence that health interventions which resonate with children's own views are the most effective, there is still relatively little research which mobilises children's everyday perspectives on food to inform public health policy. We report key findings from a qualitative study with 53 children aged 9–10, attending two socio-economically contrasting schools in the UK. The study explored children's understandings of food in everyday life and their ideas about the relationship between food and health. Throughout the study, despite recent attempts to position schools as key sites for public health interventions, children consistently emphasised families as the locus for enduring food practices. The research highlights the value of listening to children and applying our understanding of their perspectives to ensure that public health initiatives work with the important influences on their diet and health that they themselves identify.

Questioning assent: how are children's views included as families make decisions about clinical trials?

BackgroundAssent is used to take children's wishes into account when they are invited into clinical trials, but the concept has attracted considerable criticism. We investigated children's accounts of decision‐making with the aim of informing practice in supporting children when invited to join a clinical trial.MethodsWe audio‐recorded qualitative, semi‐structured interviews with 22 children aged 8–16 years about being invited to take part in a clinical trial. Most children were interviewed with their parents. Analysis of the transcribed interviews examined the content of participants' accounts thematically, whilst also drawing on principles of discourse analysis, which examines how individuals use talk to achieve certain effects or social practices.ResultsIt was not possible to separate children's knowledge of the clinical trial, or their decision‐making processes from that of their parents, with parents taking a substantial mediating role in producing their children's decisions. Decision‐making gradually unfolded across time and events and was interwoven within the family context, rather than happening in one moment or in the clinical setting. Whilst children valued their parents' role, a case study of child–parent disagreement indicated how children can struggle to be heard.ConclusionsDecisions happen within a process of family dynamics, in contrast to ideas of assent that isolate it from this context. Parents have a substantial role in children's decisions, and thus how families come to provide consent. Reflecting this we argue that assent practices need to focus on supporting parents to support their children in learning and deliberating about trials. However, this needs to be accompanied by practitioners being alert to the possibility of divergence in child and parent views and enabling children's perspectives to be heard.

Write, draw, show, and tell: a child-centred dual methodology to explore perceptions of out-of-school physical activity.

BackgroundResearch to increase children’s physical activity and inform intervention design has, to date, largely underrepresented children’s voices. Further, research has been limited to singular qualitative methods that overlook children’s varied linguistic ability and interaction preference. The aim of this study was to use a novel combination of qualitative techniques to explore children’s current views, experiences and perceptions of out-of-school physical activity as well as offering formative opinion about future intervention design.MethodsWrite, draw, show and tell (WDST) groups were conducted with 35 children aged 10–11 years from 7 primary schools. Data were analysed through a deductive and inductive process, firstly using the Youth Physical Activity Promotion Model as a thematic framework, and then inductively to enable emergent themes to be further explored. Pen profiles were constructed representing key emergent themes.ResultsThe WDST combination of qualitative techniques generated complimentary interconnected data which both confirmed and uncovered new insights into factors relevant to children’s out-of-school physical activity. Physical activity was most frequently associated with organised sports. Fun, enjoyment, competence, and physical activity provision were all important predictors of children’s out-of-school physical activity. Paradoxically, parents served as both significant enablers (i.e. encouragement) and barriers (i.e. restricting participation) to physical activity participation. Some of these key findings would have otherwise remained hidden when compared to more traditional singular methods based approaches.ConclusionsParents are in a unique position to promote health promoting behaviours serving as role models, physical activity gatekeepers and choice architects. Given the strong socialising effect parents have on children’s physical activity, family-based physical activity intervention may offer a promising alternative compared to traditional school-based approaches. Parents' qualitative input is important to supplement children’s voices and inform future family-based intervention design. The WDST method developed here is an inclusive, interactive and child-centred methodology which facilitates the exploration of a wide range of topics and enhances data credibility.

That's My Art: A Case Study on Children's Views of Cultural Policy

How do children experience a participatory TV cultural policy project and, related to that, which views do they share on cultural policy matters? These questions guided a case study on a TV show aired on the Flemish children's public service channel, which staged children as cultural experts. Although the programme was presented as a participatory project, we found that the children's views were minimally involved in the production process. The children also expressed concerns about how (their) art and cultural practices were represented. Yet, from a cultural policy perspective, the children accepted adults’ authority in art and cultural matters.

Children view own-age faces qualitatively differently to other-age faces

ABSTRACTLike most own-group biases in face recognition, the own-age bias (OAB) is thought to be based either on perceptual expertise or socio-cognitive motivational mechanisms [Wolff, N., Kemter, K., Schweinberger, S. R., & Wiese, H. (2013). What drives social in-group biases in face recognition memory? ERP evidence from the own-gender bias. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. doi:10.1093/scan/nst024]. The present study employed a recognition paradigm with eye-tracking in order to assess whether participants actively viewed faces of their own-age differently to that of other-age faces. The results indicated a significant OAB (superior recognition for own-age relative to other-age faces), provided that they were upright, indicative of expertise being employed for the recognition of own-age faces. However, the eye-tracking results indicate that viewing other-age faces was qualitatively different to the viewing of own-age faces, with more nose fixations for other-age faces. These results are interpreted as supporting the socio-cognitive model of the OAB.

The relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being

The overarching aim of the study was to ascertain the relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being. More specifically the study aimed to fit a structural model depicting the nature of the relationship between children's environmental views and their global, and domain-specific life satisfaction. The sample included 1004 twelve-year-old participants randomly selected from 15 primary schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The measuring instrument included the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for children, the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale and the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the NEP Scale which showed appropriate fit structure. A good fit structure was also found for the overall structural equation model. However, the overall model showed that children's environmental views were not related to their global life and domain-specific life satisfaction. At a foundational level, more research is required to allow for a better understanding of how children in differing circumstances construct and assign meaning to nature, and what their perceptions of nature are before we can begin to ask them when, how or why they engage in nature.

Children Voice their Kindergarten Experiences: A Cross-Cultural Exploratory Study in Korea and the US

DRAWN FROM HOFSTEDE'S (2001) cultural dimension, this study aims to understand how culture plays a role in young children's views of their kindergarten experiences and communication styles in South Korea and the United States. Due to the large power distance between adults and children, children in Korea were hesitant to express critical views about kindergarten. They neutralised their dislikes and verbalised the expected group norms in order to be a ‘good’ child. Critiquing universal approaches to addressing child participation rights, we argue that being responsive to cultural differences in social relationships may enable children to more freely share their perspectives. It also discusses ways to improve the quality of children's lived experiences in kindergarten by listening to children's challenges and desires in each country.

Same Old Story? Children and Young People's Continued Normalisation of Men's Violence against Women

Globally, nationally and locally men's violence against women is an endemic social problem and an enduring human rights issue within all societies and cultures. Challenging attitudes that condone violence both at the individual and community level is a key priority in its prevention. This paper brings together findings from two separate studies based on children's and young people's understandings of men's violence against women. Both studies were located in Glasgow, Scotland, and used qualitative methods to explore children's and young people's views of men's violence against women. The two studies, conducted nearly ten years apart, involved children aged 11 and 12 and young people aged 15 to 18. Despite the differences in age and the interval between them, there are remarkable similarities identified within both studies centring around children and young people's normalisation of men's violence against women. This paper presents a discussion of three of the key themes identified from these studies: the construction of men's violence; gender roles and the naturalisation of difference; and the normalisation of men's violence. In both studies the techniques of normalisation were employed by the participants to minimise both the seriousness of the violence and the significance of it to the victims. The findings clearly illustrate the widespread justification of gendered violence by both boys and girls. Thus, while the development and implementation of domestic violence/abuse education programmes need to take into account gender differences, targeting only boys’ attitudes fails to acknowledge an important component in reducing domestic violence/abuse: the internalisation of patriarchal norms by girls and women.

Tourism experiences through the eyes of a child

ABSTRACTChildren are viewed typically as unsophisticated or incompetent research respondents. We challenge these assumptions by collecting data directly from 39 children, aged 9 and 10 years, which captures how they experience their holiday destination through ‘real time’ recordings. The findings reveal that children like to be physically active, have freedom and safety to play and make new friends independently. Holidays represent time spent with family and offer an escape from everyday routines and environments. Conversely, children dislike bad weather and queuing in traffic, restaurants and attractions; journeys are spoiled by travel sickness. This paper makes a number of major contributions to existing research. It adds to our understanding of the physical and emotional proximity of tourism experiences within an age specific context. It explores children's views and opinions as articulated by themselves and not adult proxies. It provides ‘real time’ data on tourism experiences, rather than using recollections.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT: A RANKING ACROSS EUROPE, AUSTRALIA, AND JAPAN

1.IntroductionFamily attitudes and gender roles are key drivers of changing family patterns (Dommermuth et al. 2015; Frejka 2008; Goldscheider et al. 2015). The attitudes towards maternal employment do not only refer to the family but are also related to gender roles and the distribution of household labor. Research on attitudes towards parental employment and especially the country comparative perspective is very important for better understanding fertility behavior and gender culture. Evidence from panel data indicates that gender role attitudes and family formation are related in a dynamic process, in that gender role attitudes influence family formation and vice versa (Hanappi et al. 2016; Moors 2003). Differences in attitudes towards demographic behavior and values are large across countries (Aassve et al. 2013). The gendered division of paid work and care and individual attitudes towards it are crucial for understanding the gendered nature of welfare states (Haas 2005; Lewis 2002).The political, social and economic contexts as well as the cultures of care shape individual family attitudes. In modern societies there are dominant social norms and attitudes towards family and gender, which are part of an overall cultural system and embedded in the institutional system of a country.Parental employment - especially maternal employment - involves the need of external childcare. From various perspectives the relationship between parental employment and external childcare on the one hand and children's wellbeing on the other hand has been studied (Hsin and Felfe 2014; Ruhm 2004). Results indicate a positive effect of early institutional childcare (kindergarten, qualified day-care mother) on children's cognitive and linguistic development (Loeb et al. 2007; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network 2000; Sylva et al. 2011) their social competencies (Barnes et al. 2009) and no significant association between first-year maternal employment and elevated levels of child behavior problems (Brooks-Gunn et al. 2010). In line, Lombardy and Cooley (2014) conclude that early employment poses no risks on the development of chil- dren's cognitive skills. from families with low and middle income as well as children from families with a migration background benefit the most from the early external childcare and therefore from the early parental employment (Loeb et al. 2007). From an economic perspective, Havnes and Mogstad (2011) report a positive effect of involvement in external childcare on education and labor participation in later life course as well as a lower risk of dependence on social assistance. In addition, the role of familial habitus is shaping children's views of their future employment, as indicated by an intergenerational transmission of non-traditional attitudes from mothers to their children (Johnston et al. 2014). It turned out that daughters are significantly more likely to reach higher school degrees, participate in the labor force, and work more hours if their mothers held non-traditional beliefs. Mothers' attitudes are also significantly associated with sons' partners' (daughter-inlaw) labor supply. This could explain an important part of gender inequalities in economic opportunities.We study attitudes towards the statements A pre-school child suffers if his/her mother works and Children often suffer because their fathers concentrate too much on their work. We adopt the culturalist research perspective as we concentrate on social values and norms in a broad range of post-modern countries (Haas 2005; Pfau-Effinger 1998). The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of cross-country differences in gender roles and family models. By studying not only the attitudes towards combining motherhood and work when children are at preschool-age, but also by addressing the less studied issue of the role of fathers in childrearing, we bring new insights into the perception of parenthood across Europe, Australia and Japan. …