A composite narrative is a story constructed using multiple children’s voices to present research findings. These stories can resonate with readers, while also capturing research rigour by conveying the properties and categories that are used to develop qualitative research findings (Johnston et al., 2021). Composite narratives offer new and effective methods for giving children voice in educational research, fulfilling children’s rights as stated within the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). Article 12 of the UNCRC outlines children’s right ‘to have a say about what they think should happen when adults are making decisions that affect them and to have their opinions taken into account’ (UNCRC, 1989). This international law entitles students to be involved in decisions about their education.

Research methods like composite narratives provide ways of giving children ‘a say,’ or ‘voice’, in their education. Thus, educational research offers a way to fulfil the rights of children outlined in Article 12 of the UNCRC (Cook-Sather, 2020). Educational researchers can work with students to generate research findings that capture students’ experiences (Sargeant & Gillett-Swan, 2015). The findings can be communicated by constructing composite narratives that convey children’s voice in a way that resonates (Johnston et al., 2021).

This paper contributes to the development of methods for conveying children’s voice in educational research by outlining a process for constructing composite narratives. The process builds upon the work of other qualitative researchers who have developed methods for constructing composite narratives (Willis, 2019). The result is a set of methods that can be used to convey student voice in educational research. Other qualitative researchers from a range of backgrounds and disciplines might also use these methods to convey children’s voices, as more and more researchers in social sciences use composite narratives to present their findings (McElhinney & Kennedy, 2022).

Composite narratives can be constructed using a six-step method, which is useful for conveying children’s perspectives to the adults that make decisions about their education. An example of a composite narrative and how it was constructed will be presented, which is taken from a research project conducted in Western Australia. The research approach was based upon the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969), which informed the development of grounded theory methods. Straussian grounded theory methods were used to develop research findings together with participants, who were adolescent children. The study included 25 fifteen-year-old students, who contributed more than 175 classroom observations and 100 interviews. The children in the study worked with the researcher to generate findings that answer the research question: “How do students experience their perceived teachers’ expectations of them?”  

During the full presentation at the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER), an example of a composite narrative called 'My socks don't matter today' will be given to the audience for them to read. The example narrative will be printed and an advance copy is available through email (o.johnston@ecu.edu.au). The narrative uses a singular first-person voice, but it is a ‘composite’ of quotes from interviews with children who contributed to its development (Johnston et al., 2021). The narrative conveys the finding that was generated together with the children: that students experience teachers as having high expectations when teachers seek to understand more than students as ‘students’, but as people with whole lives.

The composite narrative was constructed to convey this finding back to the children’s educators so their voices could be heard and acted upon, fulfilling the children’s rights in Article 12 (UNCRC, 1989). The methods section below begins to explain how the finding was generated with the children and how the narrative was constructed.

Methods Straussian grounded theory methods were used to develop the research findings together with the children (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Each child was followed throughout a week of their secondary school classes, then interviewed at the end of each day about how they experienced their teachers’ expectations of them to explore their answers to the research question. The classroom observations created a shared context of understanding when students referenced specific classroom interactions with their teachers when expectations had been communicated (Lundy & McEvoy, 2012). Only one student was observed and interviewed at a time, so the findings were progressively developed with the students. The main research finding was generated from the raw data through open, axial, and theoretical coding (Cooney, 2011). The final theoretical category of ‘knowledge of students’ was generated, from which the students and the researcher generated the main research finding. To represent the research finding back to the students’ teachers, the composite narrative ‘My socks don’t matter today’ was constructed. The following six-step process for constructing composite narratives was followed to communicate the finding using the children’s voice: 1) Develop a narrative thread (a storyline) for the first half of the narrative. In ‘My socks don’t matter today’ the first half of the narrative has the storyline from Rochelle’, who experienced low expectations when her teacher seemed to care more about whether she was complying with school rules (like what socks to wear) than about her. 2) Build the first half of the narrative using quotes from other children. 3) Develop a narrative thread for the second half of the narrative. This narrative uses a story from ‘Nadia,’ who experienced high teacher expectations when a teacher showed care and understanding towards her. 4) Build the second half of the narrative using quotes from other children. 5) Edit and structure the narrative. An introductory and concluding paragraph were added to emphasise the research finding that was generated with the children. 6) Assigning a meaningful title. Rochelle’s words about teachers who ‘care more about socks than students’ illustrate how the children perceived high expectations when teachers cared about them more than their compliance with school rules. The presentation at ECER will explain the process used to construct and disseminate the finding in detail, so that international researchers can consider the use of these methods to represent children’s perspectives in educational research.

Composite narratives compile children’s words that were uttered during interviews into stories that communicate the children’s meaning to readers. Story form has been used since the beginning of time to communicate complex meanings in ways that can be readily transferred to other contexts (Johnston et al., 2021). Composite narratives provide a means to fulfil children’s rights to have their opinions heard and considered in matters that affect them, such as their education (UNCRC, 1989). Researchers from European and international contexts that seek to emphasise the perspectives of children when disseminating research findings may consider the unique capacity of composite narratives to capture and convey the perspectives of children in a way that resonates with readers (Wertz et al., 2011). Article 12 applies to all children internationally, with 196 countries having ratified the treaty (United Nations, 2023). New ways that educational research can fulfil these children’s rights, such as methods for constructing composite narratives, will be useful for educational researchers. Further benefits of composite narratives make them appropriate for their use for increasing the representation of the experiences and perspectives of children in international educational research. For example, composite narratives offer methods that include representation of research rigor, protection of participants’ anonymity, and the ability to engage readers in narratives that they can readily transfer to their own contexts (Willis, 2019). The above benefits of constructing composite narratives make them a useful new method for presenting research findings to a range of research end users, including critical academics, teachers, and school leaders. For research involving children, composite narratives offer a way for a broad audience to hear children’s perspectives, so that their voices are heard and acted upon in their education.

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