Children’s Participation in Preschool Documentation Practices

• Research aimsThe aim of this research is to study children’s participation in preschool documentation practices and the role of artefacts such as computers, toys and children’s crafts in these practices. In this paper I will use data from videorecordings of documentation practices in a Swedish preschool in order to analyse how participation is enacted.Relationship to previous research worksPrevious research has focused on either children’s participation or preschool documentation.Theoretical and conceptual frameworkThe analysis is inspired by post-humanist theory stressing the intra-action (Barad, 2007) of humans, discourses and material. Agencies emerge through this intra-action, that is; the components do not have agency by/in themselves.The benefit of the approach is seeing the artefacts involved as contributing to the production of the documentation practice.Paradigm, methodology and methodsCase study was chosen as a research method, the case here being the documentation activity as well as one specific preschool. Video recording was used as an extractive modality, capturing situations that could be analysed later.Ethical considerationsTo ensure that the study was conducted ethically correct it was vetted by the Central Ethical Review Board. Teachers, parents and children were asked to consent to participating in the study.Main finding or discussionThe preliminary results evinces that artefacts played an important role for children’s participation. For example, the use of the computer when documenting enabled a child to participate in changing the objective of the documentation.Implications, practice or policyThe implications of this study for practice are the importance of considering the complexity of relations between children, adults and objects such as computers or toys when focusing on children’s participation in documentation practices.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogiskt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogical Work (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

children’s participation

pedagogical documentation

preschool practice

children’s rights

childhood

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)