This paper draws on the author’s experience of undertaking social research with young children as part of an Education Doctorate in a number of English Early Childhood settings. The findings of an earlier project indicated that within the parameters of the case study, i.e. that of two Early Childhood settings located in 3-11 primary schools, children used questions differently when addressing adult practitioners in the setting and when addressing their peers in a free flow play situation.  The children showed a clear awareness of their audience for their questions, which varied according to their role within the setting, either as adult practitioner or peer class member. The questions asked of practitioners were mainly of low cognitive demands, such as social conventions and requests for information as to the routines of the day.  The questions asked of their peers however were often a means of sharing of a joint intention, a focusing on a co-operative endeavour.  A second project therefore, reported here, examined how the young children interacted socially and intellectually within continuous provision and the use of language in their free play.

This current research project sought to examine subjectivity and inter-subjectivity. Subjectivity has its basis in the recognition that humans have individual consciousness and intentionality and that they express this through their own agency, or their actions on the world around them, both physical and social (Trevarthen and Aitken, 2001). This is evident from early infancy, where the newborn develops a relationship with the mother or other caregiver, responding to her expressions, gestures and vocalisations in meaningful interactions. This relationship is not solely one-way but rather is reciprocal and multi-intentional. It is also international.

The later experience of young children, entering group care requires that they learn to accommodate the subjectivity of a wide range of significant others and recognise how to respond to them using an identified differential, both peers as potential playmates and adult practitioners as caregivers and educators. Inter-subjectivity occurs where, in this instance, young children show evidence of the recognition of a mind state in others, understanding this to be different from their own and actively work with this in mind to develop a shared play intention and this appeared to have been the case within the previous research project. The notion of inter-subjectivity was relevant to this project in that how a child developed their understanding of another child’s thinking may have been a pertinent issue in the unfolding of the trajectory of these negotiated play situations and the communicative skills and abilities that this engendered. The renowned Early Childhood settings of the Italian City of Reggio Emilia emphasize reciprocity and the strategies used to develop peer learning as an explicit pedagogical focus.  Therefore the area of inter-subjectivity was selected as an area for exploration, using the lens of the philosophy of Reggio Emilia.

MacLure, M. (2012) ‘Classification or wonder? Coding as an analytic practice in qualitative research’, in Coleman, B. and Ringrose, J. ( eds.) Deleuze and Research Methodologies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University press Parten, M. (1932) Social participation among pre-school children in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 27, no. 3, pp 243-269 Sylva, K., Sammons, P., Melhuish, E., Siraj-Blatchford, I., Taggart, B. and Elliott, K. (2003) The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Findings from the Pre-School period. Research Brief No. RBX 15-03. London: DfES Tisdall, E.K.M., Davis, J.M. and Gallagher, M. (2009) Researching with children and young people. London: Sage Trevarthen, C. and Aitken, K.J. (2001) Infant Intersubjectivity: Research, Theory, and Clinical Applications in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp3-48 Walsh, D. (2012) ‘Ethnography’, in Seale, C. Researching Society and culture. London: Sage