25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Paper
Children’s Participation in the Protection System: Collage Inquiry Approach for Meaning Making
Daniela Bianchi, Chiara Carla Montà, Elisabetta Biffi, Alessandro Pepe
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Presenting Author: Bianchi, Daniela;
Montà, Chiara Carla
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No.12 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2009) affirm that children have the right to participate in all decisions that affect them and call for giving their views full attention in all spheres of life. Such participation entails the construction of learning experiences in which an authentic dialogue between adults, young people and children, and diversity amongst generations, roles and perspectives are key aspects.
The right to be heard is protected in official proceedings before the judicial authority, albeit in a variety of ways (UN General Assembly 2010). At the same time, there are still a number of complex aspects to involvement in the child protection system (Biffi & Montà, 2020). In this situation, the social service and the court are two institutional actors that mediate participation. Therefore, constructing a participatory process and making sense of it becomes a primary educational objective of the services part of the protection system. Moreover, since these educational settings are concerned with more vulnerable children, they can be considered as a sort of “field test” or “magnifying glass” on how the progress in striving to the implementation of children’s rights, as enshrined by policies, is proceeding. Mechanisms to ensure children’s participation in the protection system have been implemented (CoE, 2011) but there seems to be a gap between what is declared and its implementation. Children feel their voices are not being taken into account (Munro, 2011) and this view seems to be also shared by workers, especially when referring to young children (Kriz & Skiveness, 2015; Van Bijleveld et al., 2014).
Consequently, in such a peculiar context, it is essential to investigate the meanings and educational practices that promote children’s participatory rights in decision-making processes. To this end, participatory research in daycare centres for children in a metropolitan area in Northern Italy will be presented. Day care centres for minors are part of Socio-Educational Projects, i.e. those services where access is mediated by the Family Social Service, where there is a mix of social and educational functions and a strong integration with the territory.
Within a larger study exploring the reality of Daycare centres and the participatory practices that are adopted, gathering the meanings that children and practitioners attribute to them, the present contribution will focus on answering the following research question: What does child participation in decision-making processes within Day care centres mean and how is it experienced by the children who attend them?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWith a view to exploring the meanings attributed by the children, the research project is embedded within a qualitative research framework (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). It was designed following the epistemic principles of the phenomenological-hermeneutic approach (Van Manen, 1990; Mortari, 2007) and adopted a participatory method (O’Kane, 2008; Welty & Lundy, 2013; Christensen & James, 2017). The study followed the guidelines suggested by the ethical code of the Italian Society of Pedagogy (SIPED, 2020) and by the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2001).
The research question was explored in five Day care centres in a metropolitan area in Northern Italy. The children were admitted to the services by decree of the juvenile court and first-level referral by the social service. The participants were selected on a voluntary basis. The group consisted of seven boys and three girls.
In order to foster the construction of an appropriate climate of trust, and to encourage the sharing of views, the collage inquiry approach (Butler-Kisber, 2010) was used to explore the meaning attributed by the involved children to participation in decision-making at the Day care centre.
Among the reasons for choosing this approach are (Biffi & Zuccoli, 2015): the possibility of sharing thoughts through a non-verbal channel, which allows one to go beyond the possible limit of language; group sharing of the realised products, which facilitates a process of mutual recognition and the possibility of experimenting reflection on one's own representations.
The aim of the analysis of the collected data was the understanding of the investigated experience. For this, reference was made to the model proposed by Max Van Manen (1999) who suggests a procedure based on the search for the structuring themes of the explored experience. The collages were archived on a collaborative online platform in the form of a digital blackboard. This enabled the integrated analysis of the collages and their accompanying narratives, through the identification of individual narrative segments and their correspondence with the images in the composition. The research team proceeded following a specific protocol (Butler & Kisber, 2010) that consisted in the repeated and in-depth reading of all the collected materials, with the aim of achieving an initial understanding of the studied experiences, which was necessary in order to be able to then highlight the structuring themes. Subsequently, the central and fundamental themes in the material were identified concerning the research question and its significance.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsFour key findings emerged from the data analysis process: 1) the characteristics that participation in decision-making at the Day care centres has; 2) how participation is built throughout activities at the Day care centres; 3) participation is framed as a process that involves oscillating between the self and the group of peers and practitioners; 4) participation is framed as a dialogical process, where power dynamics and conflict are thematised.
Furthermore, the data analysis process was able to highlight the characteristics that successful participatory processes, according to the participants' perspectives, have. Moreover, a key aspect that emerged concerns what children learn through participation in decision-making processes in Day care centres.
Finally, the analysis is able to suggest possible directions for improvement, so for enhancing the quality of educational services and the protection system, when it comes to promoting participatory rights.
ReferencesBiffi, E., & Montà, C. C. (2020). Documenting children in alternative care services: Transitional spaces between ‘Being spoken for’ and ‘Speaking for oneself’. Documentation in Institutional Contexts of Early Childhood: Normalisation, Participation and Professionalism, 167-183.
Biffi, E., & Zuccoli, F. (2015). Comporre conoscenza: il collage come strategia meta-riflessiva. Form@ re-Open Journal per la formazione in rete, 15(2), 167-183.
Butler-Kisber, L. (2010). Qualitative inquiry: Thematic, narrative and arts-informed perspectives. Sage Publications.
Christensen, P., & James, A. (2017). Research with children. Taylor & Francis.
Council of Europe. (2011). Recommendation CM /Rec(2011)12 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on children’s rights and
social services friendly to children and families. Retrieved from:
https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=090000168046ccea.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. sage.
Munro, E. (2011). The Munro review of child protection. Final report –a childcentred system. Norwich: TSO. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/munroreviewofchildprotectionfinalreportachildcentredsystem.
Križ, K., & Skivenes, M. (2017). Child welfare workers' perceptions of children's participation: a comparative study of E ngland, N orway and the USA (C alifornia). Child & Family Social Work, 22, 11-22.
Mortari, L. (2007). Cultura della ricerca e pedagogia. Prospettive epistemologiche. Roma: Carocci, 77-238.
O’Kane, C. (2008). The development of participatory techniques: Facilitating children’s views about decisions which affect them. In P. Christensen & A. James (Eds.), Research with children: Perspectives and practices (2nd ed., pp. 127–154). London: Routledge.
Società Italiana di Pedagogia (2020). Codice etico. SIPED. https://www.siped.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020-11-12-SIPED-Direttivo-Codice-Etico.pdf
Welty, E., & Lundy, L. (2013). A children’s rights-based approach to involving children in decision making. Journal of science communication, 12(03), 1-5.
Van Bijleveld, G. G., Dedding, C. W., & Bunders-Aelen, J. F. (2014). Seeing eye to eye or not? Young people's and child protection workers' perspectives on children's participation within the Dutch child protection and welfare services. Children and Youth Services Review, 47, 253-259.
Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience. Human Science for an action sensitive pedagogy. New York: New York Press.
25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Paper
Interrogating Voice in the Early Years: The Spider’s Web as a Metaphor of and for Practice
Mhairi Beaton1, Claire Cassidy2, Carol Robinson3, Kate Wall2, Elaine Hall4
1Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom; 2University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom; 3Edgehill University, United Kingdom; 4University of Northumbria, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Beaton, Mhairi;
Cassidy, Claire
The paper describes a research project which sought to explore a deeper understanding of the enactment of children’s voice within early years practice settings. The research project built on previous research exploring factors for eliciting young children’s voice. Further previous research had also examined how these factors were manifest when practitioners were working with young children with diverse cultural backgrounds, including those from indigenous communities. Following both projects, the research team sought to illustrate key factors for facilitating children’s voice, that might be understood and employed by practitioners, academics and children. Through a series of dialogic encounters with the research data, the metaphor of a spider’s web emerged as a way in which this might be captured. The application of the web may be useful to interrogate voice practice in educational settings.
In this paper, it is proposed that the spider requires consideration prior to discussion of the web it creates. Acting on the basis that agentic behaviour is required if children’s voice is to be effectively facilitated. We problematise who the spider may be and suggest that there may be a requirement for collaborative working; this collaboration may include practitioners, children, and other members of staff, including management. Indeed, the web may support consideration of who is required to facilitate effective voice in a range of educational settings.
Germane to identifying the ‘spider’ is an assumption that the centre of the web represents an aspiration around which the enactment of voice revolves, a recognition of the imperative to hear the voices of young children. Key to the construction of the web are the spokes that maintain its structure. In our web there are currently eight spokes, which we propose are essential elements of voice practice. These spokes, including definition, inclusivity, power, listening, space and time, process, approach and purpose were surfaced during the Look Who’s Talking Project, as a consequence of dialogue between academics and practitioners.
The web’s anchor points represent context specific mechanisms that support the facilitation of voice, including, for example, professional connections, memberships of social media support groups, or professional learning opportunities that work collaboratively with other like-minded practitioners. There is no expectation that the web is perfect – no ideal web exists. Indeed, the web, its shape, size, strength and anchor points represent practice as it exists or is understood by the spider. The web may be considered a learning tool that allows a more informed understanding of voice in educational settings, thus enabling users to reflect on the extent to which practice is meeting the needs of the individual children with whom they work. While, at this stage in the process, we have identified a number of key concepts that contribute towards the bridging threads, and will share these in the paper, we welcome further dialogue from colleagues in other European policy and practice contexts.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAs a research group, we have a long-term focus on developing insight into voice work in early years settings, which is situated in the realm of children’s rights. Key to our academic work is a commitment to working with and through practitioners in the field. This conceptual piece of work has been informed by dialogic encounters with practitioners. Engagement with practitioners in the field permits troubling of theoretical concepts arising from our academic research, thus giving warrant to our findings. While this is a conceptual piece of work, we maintain a co-participatory approach to ensure validity within the field.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBuilding upon the outcomes of previous research has allowed the research team to surface insight into what the bridging threads between the spokes might be. Insight into the nature of what the bridging threads represent is important work. While much academic research has focused on the enactment of children’s voice in practice, we would suggest that a lacuna within academic work on voice is to provide a spotlight on the connections between the web’s spokes. Only by understanding these connections, can we further enhance voice in ways that are meaningful, effective and emancipatory. From the methodology employed, we posit that connections such as agency, and collaboration are fundamental to build a strong and sustainable web. The individual must have agency within her own context in order to ensure that they can respond appropriately to the needs of the individual young children with whom they work. In a similar manner, we suggest that it is key that practitioners have the opportunity to work in a collaborative manner with others to interrogate their practice to ensure continual reflection on the strength and sustainability of their practice with respect to voice.
ReferencesAyliffe, P., Bartle, P., Joyce, P., Stubbs, K., Susan Atkinson, S. and Beaton, M.C. (2022). The ADVOST project: Facilitating voice and agency in the early years classroom in Biddulph, J., Rolls, L. and Flutter, J. (Eds.) (2022). Unleashing Children’s Voices in New Democratic Primary Education. Routledge, Abingdon.
Arnott, L., and K. Wall, eds. 2021. Theory and Practice of Voice: A Guide for the Early Years. London: Routledge.
Blaisdell, C., Arnott, L. and Wall, K. (2018) Look Who’s Talking: Using Creative, Playful Arts-Based Methods in Research with Young Children, Journal of Early Childhood Research, 17(1): 14-31
Cassidy, C., Wall, K. Robinson, C., Arnott, L., Beaton, M. and Hall, E. (2022). Bridging the theory and practice of eliciting the voices of young children: Findings from the Look Who’s Talking Project. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 30(1), 32-47.
Clark, A. 2005. “Listening to and Involving Young Children: A review of Research and Practice.” Early Child Development and Care 175 (6), 489–505.
Jalongo, M. R., J.P. Isenberg, and G. Gerbracht. 1995. Teachers' Stories: From Personal Narrative to Professional Insight. The Jossey-Bass Education Series. Jossey-Bass, Inc.: San Francisco, CA
Stern, R. T. 2017. “Implementing Article 12 of the UNCRC: Participation, Power and Attitudes.” Stockholm Studies in Child Law and Children’s Rights Series (2). Stockholm: Brilll/Nijhoff.
United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child. General Assembly Resolution 44/25, 20 November 1989. U.N Doc. A/RES/44/25.
Wall, K., Cassidy, C., Robinson, C. Beaton, M., Arnott, L. and Hall, E. (2022). Considering space and time: Power dynamics and relationships between children and adults. In M. Brasoff and J. Levitan. Student Voice Research Theory and Methods. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wall, K., Cassidy, C., Robinson, C., Hall, E., Beaton, M., Kanyal, M. & Mitra, D. (2019). Look who’s talking: Factors for considering the facilitation of very young children’s voices. Journal of Early Childhood Research 17(4), 263-278.
Wall, K., Arnott, L., Cassidy, C., Beaton, M., Christensen, P., Dockett, S., Hall, E., I’Anson, J., Kanyal, M., McKernan, G., Pramling, I. and Robinson, C. (2017). Look who’s talking: eliciting the voices of children from birth to seven. International Journal of Student Voice 2(1). http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/61250/
25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Paper
‘The System isn’t Right’: Risking the UNCRC Right to Education when Young Children Start School in an Advanced Economy.
Jane Murray1, Helen Simmons1, Paula Stafford2, Sarah Brooking2, Lyndsey Lambert2
1Centre for Education and Research, University of Northampton, United Kingdom; 2Foundations for Children Nursery Schools Federation, Northampton, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Murray, Jane;
Simmons, Helen
All children have a right to education, yet that right is not realised fully (Murray et al., 2019; OHCHR, 1989, 28). In England - an advanced economy - 22% of children enrolled in school are persistently absent, and England’s government does not even know how many school-aged children are not enrolled in school (Children’s Commissioner for England, 2022). Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and/or those living in poverty are those who are least likely to be in school (FFT Education Datalab, 2021). In England during 2022, 16.5% of all children - and 7% of children aged 3-4 years in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings - had diagnosed SEND, while in 2021, 27% of UK children were living in poverty (Department for Education, 2022; GOV.UK, 2023; Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2023).
Starting school is a major event in a young child’s life: an introduction to statutory education that is powerful in setting expectations for the school experience in the long-term. Young children starting school enter a new world that is usually culturally and organisationally different from home and their ECEC settings: ECEC settings tend to adopt a social pedagogic model, whereas schools are inclined to implement a transmissive banking model (Moss, 2013). For some children, moving to school is a happy process, but for others – especially children with SEND and/or living in poverty – early experiences of school can be difficult (Kaplan et al., 2022).
For decades, educators in many countries have recognised that starting school can present challenges and have adopted strategies aimed at supporting children’s vertical transitions from ECEC or home into school (Kagan and Neuman, 1998). These strategies are many and varied; they include schools’ engagements with whole new classes of children and their families, or with individual children and their families. Some take place before children start school, some once children are in school, and some involve schools working with ECEC settings or with their wider communities (Early et al., 2001). However, whilst transfer strategies may ease some children’s move to school, many young children experience discontinuities when transitioning from pre-school to school, presenting problems for the children and their educators, and disadvantaging or - for those already disadvantaged - further disadvantaging many children longer term (Andrews et al., 2017; Pianta et al., 2007).
The fragmented and diverse English ECEC landscape includes childminders, nursery classes in schools, maintained nursery schools (MNS) and private, voluntary and independent nurseries (Coleman et al., 2022; LaValle et al., 2022). MNS constitute the highest quality ECEC provision, due in large part to their structural quality, including higher staff qualifications (Paull and Popov, 2019; Sylva et al., 2010). Importantly, MNS ‘provide high quality ECEC for children most at risk of underachievement’ (Solvason et al., 2021:78; Sylva et al, 2010). Yet whilst 92% of 3-4-year-olds are enrolled in ECEC provision in England (GOV.UK, 2023), the 600 MNS serving predominantly socially deprived populations in England in 1988 had reduced to 392 by 2019 (Paull and Popov, 2019).
Among remaining MNS in England, by 2021, eight within an English Midlands county had identified increasing challenges for children moving from their ECEC settings to school, particularly children with SEND. The county was characterised by growing numbers of children with SEND, children with SEND missing from education, and reduced funding for children with SEND (Hillery, 2021). Staff from the eight MNS invited university academics to work with them to research MNS and school stakeholders’ views of vertical transitions for children moving from MNS to schools in 2022, especially children with SEND.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis participatory qualitative study had two stages and investigated perspectives of primary carers, educators and children, according to principles of equality and mutual respect. University and MNS colleagues worked collaboratively, agreeing the study’s focus and design, and managing, analysing and interpreting study data in partnership.
The methodology was instrumental case study, supporting investigation of a complex issue in a real-world context to secure understanding from multiple perspectives (Stake, 1995). Ethics were approved and monitored by the university’s research ethics committee and followed its ethics codes and procedures and British Educational Research Association (2018) guidelines.
Purposive sampling was adopted. The Stage One sampling frame consisted of primary school leaders (n=24), reception teachers (n=50), MNS leaders (n=8), MNS teachers (n=60), and parents of children who started school in September 2022 (n=300). The Stage Two sampling frame comprised MNS key workers (n=6) and MNS SEND Co-ordinators (n=4) of children with diagnosed SEND who left MNS to start school in 2022, and school reception teachers who received those children (n=6).
Stage One consisted of online questionnaire surveys for all stakeholders. The Stage One educators’ survey addressed respondents’ qualifications and experience, gender, setting type and size, their children with diagnosed SEND and/or funding, provision type for children with SEND, transition strategies, challenges for children, parents and educators when children start school, and ideas for improving children’s experiences of starting school. The Stage One parents’ survey asked if their child had funding and/or an Education, Health and Care Plan, about their child’s progress, and whether aspects of nursery provision had supported them and their child. Stage One data informed development of Stage Two data collection tools. In Stage Two, paired interviews-as-case-studies focused on children with SEND (n=6) in the term after they started school. Adapted Photovoice techniques (Wang and Burris, 1997) were used to conduct the interviews with MNS key workers and MNS SEND Co-ordinators (n=10) who had worked with children with SEND (n=6) in the study MNS before they started school. Finally, a short online survey with five questions was conducted with reception teachers who had received the children with SEND whose educators had been interviewed. Reception teachers (n=6) were asked what transition arrangements they made, what does and does not work well for children with SEND starting school, and suggestions for improvements; just two responded. An MNS manager signposted participants to information about the study, consent forms and the surveys, and set up interviews.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThemes emerging from Stage One were ‘Transitions’, Transition barriers’, ‘Partnership with families’ and ‘Voice of the child’. Stage Two themes included ‘Teamwork’, ‘Relationships’, ‘Demands on staff’, ‘Educator status’, ‘Focus on rubric’, ‘Focus on child’, ‘Funding’, ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘Exclusion’.
Findings suggest the study schools and MNS adopt various strategies aimed at supporting young children starting school. However, practices, views and positionings of children differ in each phase; for example, MNS leaders and educators were more focused than school leaders and educators on listening to young children’s voices. Findings also indicate that educators in both phases find management of children’s transitions to school demanding and difficult, acknowledging that ‘The system isn’t right’. However, findings also suggest there is potential for educators in each phase to learn from each other, and that greater involvement of parents may be beneficial.
Some ‘meeting points’ (Moss, 2013) provided continuities for young children’s transitions to school. These included discussions between educators frrom different phases, educators visiting settings and homes, pedagogical documentation and education, health and care plans. However, whereas nursery educators were committed to following children’s interests, school educators tended to expect children to conform to school culture and requirements. Equally, school leaders and educators appeared less motivated than MNS leaders and educators to want to improve children’s experiences of starting school.
UNICEF (2012:2) proposes that school readiness not only requires ‘children’s readiness for school’ but also ‘schools’ readiness for children; and families’ and communities’ readiness for school’. Yet the present study’s findings highlight disjuncture between social pedagogic and banking models that requires children to accommodate divergent conceptualisations of childhood in ECEC and school (Moss, 2013). This situation is antithetical to supporting children to start school successfully and reveals one reason for high numbers of children in England whose right to education is not realised.
ReferencesAndrews, J., Robinson, D., and Hutchinson, J. (2017) Closing the Gap? London: EPI.
British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2018) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. Nottingham: BERA.
Children’s Commissioner of England (CCE) (2022) Where are England’s Children? London: CCE
Coleman, L., Shorto, S., and Ben-Galim, D. (2022) Childcare Survey 2022. London: Coram Family and Childcare.
Department for Education( 2022) Special educational needs and disability. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1082518/Special_educational_needs_publication_June_2022.pdf
Early, D.M., Pianta, L.C., Taylor, R.C., and Cox, M.J. (2001) Transition Practices. Early Childhood Education Journal. 28 (3): 199-206.
FFT Education Datalab (2021) Who’s left 2021? https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2021/10/whos-left-2021/
GOV.UK (2023) Reporting Year 2022. Education provision: children under 5 years of age. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5
Hillery, M. (2021) New research reveals an alarming 40,137 of children across the East Midlands will miss out on their education because of factors beyond their control. Northampton Chronicle and Echo. 31.8.21.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2023) Overall UK Poverty Rates. https://www.jrf.org.uk/data/overall-uk-poverty-rates
Kagan, S.L. and Neuman, M.J. (1998) Lessons from Three Decades of Transition Research. The Elementary School Journal. 98 (4): 365-379.
Kaplan, G., Mart, S., and Diken, H. (2022) Transition to school process of children with disadvantages. Journal of Childhood, Education & Society: 3(1): 28-47.
La Valle I., Lewis J., Crawford C., Paull G., Lloyd E…and Willis E. (2022) Implications of COVID for Early Childhood Education and Care in England. London: Centre for Evidence and Implementation.
Moss, P. (Ed.) (2013) Early Childhood and Compulsory Education: Reconceptualizing the relationship. Abingdon: Routledge.
Murray, J., Swadener, B.B. and Smith, K. (Eds.) (2019) The Routledge International Handbook of Young Children’s Rights. Abingdon: Routledge.
OHCHR (1989) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.
Paull, G., and Popov, D. (2019) The role and contribution of maintained nursery schools in the early years sector in England. London: Department for Education.
Pianta, R.C., Cox, M.J., and Snow, K.L. (2007) School Readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of accountability. Baltimore: BPC.
Solvason, C., Webb, R. and Sutton-Tsang, S. (2021) ‘What is left…?’: The implications of losing Maintained Nursery Schools for vulnerable children and families in England. Children and Society. 35(1): 75-89.
Stake, R. (1995) The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I. and Taggart, B. (Eds.) (2010) Early Childhood Matters. London: Routledge.
UNICEF (2012) School Readiness: A conceptual framework. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund.
Wang, C. and Burris, M. (1997) Photovoice. Health Education and Behavior. 24: 369-387.
|
