The altruism of pre-adolescent children’s (tweens) perspectives on “worry”and “happiness”

Author(s):

Jonathon Sargeant

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

25. Research on Children's Rights in Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

25 SES 05, Children's Views on Rights and Life

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-29

08:30-10:00

Room:

NIG, Seminarraum

Chair:

Ann Quennerstedt

Contribution

The development of service provision for children has increasingly acknowledged the importance of the child’s voice and children’s perspectives (Fattore et al., 2007). However, this acknowledgment is yet to take a firm hold at the implementation level (Lundy, 2007). Government and non-government organisations in Australia invest heavily in the development and provision of services for children, yet there remains a large void in the focus of helping professions where practitioners, teachers, and social workers are engaging with children, but remain insufficiently equipped to effectively address the views of children. While those with an interest in childhood are commonly advocates for children’s rights, the paucity of research that actually explores pre-adolescent children’s perspectives reveals an unfounded tenet that children are unreliable commentators on their own lifeworld. Article 12.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (UNICEF, 1989) declares; “States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child” (UNICEF, 1989). However, Lundy (2007) notes that although both Australia and the United Kingdom are signatories to this convention, the “due weight” to the child’s voice identified in the UNCRC is yet to be fully realised. With the ever increasing conception of the global village, it is important to identify what (if any) unique perspectives Australian children maintain in the face of media influences, global consumerism, education, family values, environmental destruction, and terrorism compared with children of comparable social values and educational experiences in other parts of the world i.e. England. This paper presents the findings of study of the perspectives of Australian and English “tweens” in response to an open ended questionnaire. The underlying aim of this research was to facilitate the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data to provide a contribution to the educational literature from the pre and early adolescent child’s perspective. This paper focuses on the contemporary perspectives of pre-adolescent children as they identified them in the questionnaire.

Method

This study was conducted using a qualitative research methodology incorporating a questionnaire. Open questions were chosen as the tool for data collection because of the enablement of participants to write a free account in their own terms and explain and qualify their responses (Cohen et al., 2007). The questions were intentionally framed (so as) to elicit from students a personal response. This was particularly important to this study as events occurring, even on a daily basis in the local and global community could directly affect the children’s responses. An additional strength of open-ended questionnaire design described by Burns (2000) is that it is an effective technique available to provide information on beliefs, attitudes, and motives. Cohen, Manion, & Morrison (2007) note that “an open-ended question can catch the authenticity, richness, depth of response, honesty and candour which, are the hallmarks of qualitative data”.

Expected Outcomes

The children identified features in their lives that reflected the high importance of individual relationships. They expressed an awareness of wider global issues such as climate change, war, inequality and global conflict but placed a higher priority on local concerns such as the welfare of their own family. The nomination of material possessions such as money, computer games, television and toys, were made by some participants, however, the overriding essence of most responses related to the maintenance of positive relationships in the home environment. Given the breadth and scope of information children now access, it is somewhat surprising that they can still eloquently identify issues they intrinsically rate most important. Developing an understanding of the nature of children’s concerns and perspectives for the future will benefit and have a significant impact on (and perhaps, change) the way we think about children and provide services and education that considers their perspective.

References

ARCHARD, D. (2004) Children, Rights and Childhood, New York, Routledge. BERKOWITZ, M. W. & GRYCH, J. H. (1998) Fostering Goodness: Teaching Parents to Facilitate Moral Development. Journal of Moral Education. BIDDULPH, S. (2006) Some things change. Ideas Festival 2006. Brisbane, Unpublished. BOATENG, P. (2003) Every child matters. UK Government Green Paper. BURNS, R. B. (2000) Introduction to research methods, Frenchs Forest, Pearson Education. CHILD HELPLINE INTERNATIONAL (2007) Connecting to Children: A compilation of child helpline 2006 data. CHILD HELPLINE NZ (2008) Child Helpline. COHEN, L., MANION, L. & MORRISON, K. (2007) Research Methods in Education, London; New York, Routledge. COOK-SATHER, A. (2002) Authorizing Students' Perspectives. Educational Researcher, 31, 3-14. COOK, D. & KAISER, S. (2004) Betwixt and be Tween: Age Ambiguity and the Sexualisation of the Female Consuming Subject. Journal of Consumer Culture, 4, 203. CULLINGFORD, C. (1997) Give children the freedom to think. The Times Educational Supplement, SS18. CULLINGFORD, C. (1999) The causes of exclusion : home, school and the development of young criminals, London, Kogan Page. CULLINGFORD, C. (2006) Children's own vision of schooling. Education 3-13, 34, 211-221. DANBY, S. & FARRELL, A. (2004) Accounting for Young Children's Competence in Educational Research: New Perspectives on Research Ethics. The Australian Educational Researcher, 31, 35-50. DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (2000) Handbook of qualitative research, Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage Publications. ECKERSLEY, R. (2001) Being Young - never better, or getting worse? FATTORE, T., MASON, J. & WATSON, E. (2007) Children’s conceptualisation(s) of their well-being. Social Indicators Research, 80, 5-29. GILLIAM, F. D. & BALES, S. N. (2001) Strategic Frame Analysis: Reframing America’s Youth. Social Policy Report: Giving Child and Youth Development Knowledge Away, XV, 3-15. GROUNDWATER-SMITH, S., BRENNAN, M., MCFADDEN, M. & MITCHELL, J. (2003) Seconady schooling in a changing world, Melbourne, Thomson Learning. HABERMAS, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action, Beacon Press. INSPIRE FOUNDATION (2007) Inspire Foundation. KIDS HELP LINE (2007) Kids Help Line 2006 Overview - Issues Concerning Children and Young People. Kids Help Line. KOMULAINEN, S. (2007) The Ambiguity of the Child's 'Voice' in Social Research. Childhood, 14, 11-28. KULYNYCH, J. (2001) No playing in the public sphere: democratic theory and the exclusion of children. Social Theory and Practice [H.W. Wilson - SSA], 27, 231-64. LUNDY, L. (2007) "Voice" is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33, 927-942. MASON, J. & FATTORE, T. (Eds.) (2005) Children Taken Seriously: In Theory, Policy and Practice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. MISSION AUSTRALIA (2007) National Survey of Young Australians 2007: key and emerging issues. Mission Australia. PRASAD, N. (2007) The Little Emperors of a Ubiquitous Kingdom: Marketing and its Impact on Vulnerable Groups – Tweens. International Marketing Conference on Marketing & Society,. IIMK. PROUT, A. (2005) The future of childhood. IN PROUT, A. (Ed.) The future of childhood series. London, RoutledgeFalmer. QVORTRUP, J. (1994) Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics, Vienna, European Centre. QVORTRUP, J. (2005) Varieties of Childhood in Studies in Modern Childhood: Society, Agency, Culture, Palgrave Macmillan. SARGEANT, J. (2004) The Importance Filter: Children's perspectives of their place in the world. IN GOSKI, S. A. (Ed.) International Cultural Research Network: Exploring Cultural Perspectives Conference. Florence, Italy, ICRN Press. SARGEANT, J. (2007) Children being children: the value of an 'importance filter'. Journal of Student Wellbeing, 1, 15-30. SARGEANT, J. (2008) Australian Children: Locally Secure, Globally Afraid? IN GERBER, R. & ROBERTSON, M. (Eds.) Children's Lifeworlds: Locating Indigenous Voices. New York, Nova Science Publishers. SIMPSON, B. (2004) Children and television, New York, Continuum. STRASBURGER, R. (2001) Children and TV Advertising: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 22, 185. TUCCI, J., MITCHELL, J. & GODDARD, C. (2007) Children’s fears, hopes and heroes - Modern Childhood in Australia. Melbourne, Monash University & Australian Childhood Foundation. National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse. UNICEF (1989) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York. WYNESS, M., HARRISON, L. & BUCHANAN, I. (2004) Childhood, politics and ambiguity: Towards an agenda for children's political inclusion. Sociology-The Journal Of The British Sociological Association, 38, 81-99.

Author Information

Jonathon Sargeant

Bond University

Centre for Research in Children's Citizenship