Session Information
25 SES 12, Children’s Capacities for Conceptualising and Research
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
Participative action research in education should engage the voices and the perspectives of all the individuals involved in the practice. Traditionally, voicing has meant helping people in minority groups to speak out, to ask questions and to contest conventions. In an educational research that means for example that pupils are given a possibility to ask questions about how they are taught and to contest conventions by giving new suggestions about how teaching methods should be improved. It has been claimed that by voicing people researchers can raise the level of their awareness (critical intelligence) and increase their capacity to engage in moral critique. By that means I see voicing as one of a key element in a process of educating children to become participative citizens.
This participative action research initiative is part of Agents- research program that aims at supporting children’s agency and resilience in formal and informal learning contexts. The goal of the research program is to find out aspects that promote children’s abilities for self-regulation and acting (participating) in different environments. Through these findings the program seeks to develop new models and methods in promoting children’s agency in education. The methodological assumptions of the program are participative.
The goal of the empirical action research initiative is to develop participative pedagogy and narrative teaching method by studying children’s experiences. Another goal of the empirical study is to develop participative research methods in studying lived pedagogy. In this paper I will present a participative way of collecting and interpreting data through pictures taken by 3rd graders. Data also included group interviews. A total of one teacher-researcher and 25 pupils participated in the research. Data was analyzed by using narrative story network analysis.
The paper gives a presentation how data was gathered as part of normal school day. In the paper I will also give a brief methodological presentation how these narratives were analyzed. The theoretical contribution of analysis rests on the concept “lived pedagogy”, adapted from Max van Manen’s term “lived experience”. Like van Manen, I start by asking the key question of phenomenological-hermeneutical research: what is the nature of the phenomenon as meaningfully experienced? For me the phenomenon is the pedagogical understanding of the people in a pedagogical relationship: it begins from listening to and reflecting on the stories told by children about their experiences of education.
In the presentation I will also discuss about the possibilities this method gives to the pedagogical research. The paper also points out that involving pupils more closely in educational decision-making, and listening seriously to their stories of experiences are essential first steps in developing pedagogy and teaching methods.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bland, D. & Atweh, B. (2007) Students as Researchers: Engaging Students’ Voices in PAR. Educational Action Research 15 (3), 337-349. Chase, S. E. (2005) Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices In N. K.Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Third Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 651-680. Cruddas, L. (2007) Engaged Voices: Dialogic Interaction and the Construction of Shared Social Meanings. Educational Action Research 15 (3), 479-488. Etherington, K. (2009) Reflexivity: using our ”selves” in narrative research. In S. Trahar (ed.) Narrative Research on Learning. Comparative and International Perspectives. 2ndprint. Oxford: Symposium Books, 77-92. Guba, E.G. & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005) Paradicmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Third Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 191- 216. Kemmis, S. (2006) Participatory Action Research and the Public Sphere. Educational Action Research 14 (4), 459-476. Leitch, R. et all. (2007) Consulting pupils in Assessment for Learning classrooms: The Twist and Turns of Working with Students as Co-Researchers. Educational Action Research 15 (3), 459-478. Morrow, V. & Richards, M. (1996) The Ethics of Social Research With Children: An Overview. Children and Society 10 (2), 90-105. Niemi, R. Heikkinen, H.L.T. & Kannas, L. 2010. Listening to polyphony in the classroom:reporting action research through multiple voices. Educational Action Research 18 (2), 137-149. van Manen, M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for An Action Sensitive Pedagogy. New York: State University of New York Press. van Manen, M. (1991) The Tact of Teaching. The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness. New York: State University of New York Press. Winter, R. (2002) Truth or Fiction: Problems of Validity and Authenticity in Narratives of Action Research. Educational Action Research 6 (1), 53-68.
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