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Listening to children as a wayto reconstruct knowledge aboutchildren: Some methodologicalimplicationsJúlia Formosinho a & Sara Barros Araújo aa PortugalPublished online: 15 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Júlia Formosinho & Sara Barros Araújo (2006) Listening to children as a wayto reconstruct knowledge about children: Some methodological implications, European EarlyChildhood Education Research Journal, 14:1, 21-31, DOI: 10.1080/13502930685209781

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E u r o p e a n E a r l y C h i l d h o o d E d u c a t i o n R e s e a r c h J o u r n a l

Vol. 14, No . 1 2 0 0 6

21

Listening to Children as a Way to Reconstruct Knowledge About Children:

Some Methodological Implications

JIJLIAFORMOSINHO I SARA BARROS ARAIJJO 2

Portugal

SUMMARY" In recent years, some researchers have been turning to children's views as a way to better construct knowledge about children and childhood issues. This article presents', firstly, a brief refection on the image of child underlying this new perspective in research with children, an image that assumes, first and above all, a strong belief in children's rights and competence. The article also includes a presentation of some methodological considerations that should be taken into account when interviewing children, namely considerations around procedures, consistency and validation of the contents from interviews with children. It concludes with a debate about ethical issues.

RESUME: Au cours de ces dernikres anndes, un certain nombre de chercheurs se penchent sur les points de vue des enfants afin d'amdliorer nos connaissances des enfants et de l'enfance. Cet article propose tout d'abord une brbve r~flexion sur l 'image de l 'enfant qui sous-tend cette nouvelle perspective de recherche, une image fortement ancrde sur les droits et les comp~tences des enfants. L 'article pr~sente ~galement quelques consid&ations mdthodologiques devant ~tre prises en compte lorsqu 'on interroge les enfants, des considerations relatives aux proc6dures, ~ la cohgrence et gtla validation des contenus des entretiens, ll se termine par une discussion autour de questions dthiques.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: In den letzten Jahren haben sich einige Forscher der Perspektive des Kindes selbst zugewandt als einem Weg, Wissen iiber Kinder und Fragen der Kindheit besser konstruieren zu kOnnen. Deser Beitrag liefert zuniichst eine kurze Reflektion iiber das Bild vom Kind, das dieser neuen Perspektive in der Forschung mit Kindern zugrunde liegt und vor allen anderen Voraussetzungen von einer starken Oberzeugung von den Rechten und den Kompetenzen des Kindes ausgeht. Dieser Artikel umfasst zudem eine Pr~isentation von methodologischen Betrachtungen, die beim Interviewen von Kindern beriicksichtigt werden sollten, niimlich insbesondere iiber Verfahren, Konsistenz und Validierung yon Inhalten der Interviews mit Kindern. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit ethischen Fragen schlieJ3t den beitrag ab.

RESUMEN: En a~os recientes algunos investigadores han dirigido su atenci6n alas visiones de los nihos como una mejor forma de construir conocimiento acerca de los nihos y de la infancia. Este artfculo presenta, en primer lugar, una amplia reflexi6n acerca de la imagen del niYto en que esta perspectiva se sustenta, una imagen queen lo primordial asume una fuerte conviccidn en las competencias y derechos del ni~o. El art[culo incluye tambidn la presentaci6n de algunas consideraciones metodoldgicas que deben ser tomadas en cuenta al entrevistar ni~os, especfficamente consideraciones acerca de procedimientos, consistencia y validez de los contenidos de las entrevistas con nigzos. Finaliza con una discusi6n acerca de problemas dticos.

Keywords: research with children, children's perspectives, child's images, methodological issues, interviewing children, ethics in research with children

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22 European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

The R e s e a r c h Contexts 3

Before presenting some methodological issues that are, according to the authors, more pregnant and worthy of scrutiny when interviews with children are analysed as a privileged mean to understand children's perspectives, a brief presentation will be made of the two research contexts - Childhood Project and Childhood Association - in which research in the realm of Childhood Pedagogy has been carried out for the past fifteen years.

Childhood Project

Childhood Project: Contextualization of Socio-Constructivist Pedagogical Models is a project that encompasses research, intervention and teacher training, in the realm of Childhood Pedagogy and Pedagogy of Teacher Education. It is a project carried out by a team of professors and researchers from the Institute of Child Studies from University of Minho, Portugal, and specialized pre-school teachers, coordinated by the first author of this article.

Childhood Association

Childhood Association is an association of professionals of human development that has, as its mission, to promote intervention and research programs aimed at the improvement of the education of young children, in their organizational and communitarian contexts. Childhood Association is based on the collaborative and voluntary work of university teachers, researchers, pre-school and primary school specialized teachers and psychologists. This association aims at the professional development of teachers and the improvement of the organizational contexts in which they work, as a way to guarantee quality education for young children integrated with the needs of parents and communities in which they live (Formosinho & Formosinho, 2001).

These are the two contexts in which research was carried out during the last fifteen years aimed at understanding children's competence and rights in their daily life in the classroom and in the school. The image of the child as competent and the image of the student as participant is fully advocated in these two projects and inspired various pieces of research.

The earlier studies concentrated on children's views of educational space, time and educa- tional routines and allowed the acknowledgement of children's competence and knowledge about their daily life in childhood institutions. Indeed, they highlighted a vivid understanding of class- room organization and of daily activities, as well as what they liked and disliked most. The latter studies concentrated on the interactional aspects of children's daily lives in classroom and school, namely teachers' roles and functions (Formosinho & Lino, 2001) and children's perceptions about teachers' reactions to children's behaviours (Formosinho & Arafjo, 2004).

The first of these studies, by Formosinho and Lino (2001), was carried out in two very different pedagogical contexts: one with a transmissive approach and the other with a constructivist approach. Forty five children (five years old) were interviewed about pre-school teachers' tasks. Results show a very clear perception on the part of the children about their teachers' performances.

The study carried out by Formosinho and Aratijo (2004) intended to take a closer look to one of the multiple aspects concerning children's relationships and interactions in pre-school - the way rules are set and applied, concerning "bad" and "'nice behaviour". For this purpose, forty four children were interviewed, attending two different pre-school settings in what concerns pedagogi- cal options: a context that adopted a traditional, transmissive and adult centred approach to pedagogy and a constructivist context.

More specifically, this research presented, as its main goals: 1) listen to children's voices in what concerns the way their actions are perceived and replied to by the pre-school teacher; 2) listen to children's articulation and verbalization of these perceptions; 3) verify if perceptions presented by children are different in different pre-school contexts; 4) research children's willingness to participate in the research process, and 5) triangulate children's perspective with adults' perspec- tive, meaning researchers' perspective.

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J. F o r m o s i n h o & S.B. A r a u j o 23

The results of this study indicated that children have a voice about teachers' perceptions and replies to their actions, and they articulate teachers' reactions in a very competent way. Also, their interpretation and voice are very sensitive to different pedagogical contexts, meaning that children are perceiving and interpreting different pedagogical options. Indeed, children's voices about teachers' reactions and interactions are highly connected to the different pedagogical con- texts, meaning that they are interpreting with reference to a very specific context. Finally, it was possible to verify that children participate very willingly in the research process.

The centrality conferred to the child's perspective on issues concerning several aspects of her daily life relates to two main reasons. First, it relates with the fact that the research projects carried out by Childhood Project and Childhood Association depart from specific situations that occur in children's daily life in context in order to hear the unheard voice. Second, it relates with the need of being responsive to the voice of the children we decided to listen to and with the need to develop a pedagogical approach which is sensitive to children, their feelings and thinking about issues that concern them.

Introduction

Research concerning children's lives was elaborated, for many years, under an adultcentric bias (Scott, 2000), i.e., turning to and with reference to the adult's voice in order to obtain information about children's daily experiences. In fact, children seemed to be placed in a state of"quarantine" (Arids, 1962), completely separated from the world of the adult. This bias is partly explained by the doubts and concerns as to what affects the cognitive and social ability of the child to process and respond to structured questions about behaviours, perceptions, opinions and beliefs.

In recent years, some researchers broke this tendency, by turning to children's perspectives as a way to better construct knowledge about childhood issues (e.g.: Christensen & James, 2001; Formosinho, Zabalza & Pascal, 2001), rescuing children from that "quarantine" (Aribs, 1962) in which they seemed to be captive for so many years. Indeed, several theorists and researchers point to the importance and utility of listening and hearing to children's voices in what relates to aspects that directly concern them (Formosinho & Aratijo, 2004; Woodhead & Faulkner, 2000; Schiller, 2005). Obviously, this is related to a re-construction of the conventional image of the child that has led theory and research over many years, as the authors stress next.

Constructions of the Image of the Child

Until the last two decades of the twentieth century, the western world has been looking at children through two different, but equally problematic lenses. Thus, according to Prout (2003), children have been seen as in danger, an idea that is linked to concepts of dependence, vulnerability and idealised innocence, or children have been seen as dangerous, an image that portrays children as threats to themselves, to others and to society at large (Prout, 2003). However, the new realities that characterize children's lives have produced a growing disparity between conventional and, sometimes, highly rooted, ways of representing children and the new and demanding needs im- posed by social transformations 4.

Several authors have added their contributions on the construction of the new image of the child. Woodhead (1999) refers to four types of construction of childhood: the tribal child, the developing child, the adult child and the social child. The social child is perceived as a social actor; it is a concept that emphasizes the way children can be empowered to grow in competence through participation (Woodhead, 1999). Assuming a post-modern perspective, Dahlberg, Moss e Pence (1999) consider the child as a co-constructor of knowledge, identity and culture. These authors also consider the child as an active participant and a co-constructor of meaning, having agency to carry out that participation. Children have a voice of their own that should be taken seriously; indeed, children should be involved in a democratic dialogue and in decision-making (Dahlberg, Moss and Pence, 1999). According to James and Prout (1990), children must be seen as actively involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives of those around them and of the societies in which

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they live. They can no longer be regarded as simply the passive subjects of structured determinations (p.6).

Indeed, throughout the last century, in the pedagogical realm, the recreation of the image of the learner as a participant has been a constant challenge.

Underlying this change in what concerns the way children participate in social processes and, more specifically, in research processes, are two basic and complementary principles: the belief in children's rights and the belief in children's competence.

Belief in Children's Rights

This means to believe in children's right to be heard, to participate and to have control over their lives (Formosinho & Arat]jo, 2003). In fact, two articles of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child point out for the need to safeguard children's rights at this level:

Article 12: The governments o f all countries should assure that a child who is capable o f Jbrming his or her own views should have the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting that child, and that the views of that child should be given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

Article 13: The child has the right to the freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart ideas of all kinds, regardless offrontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child~ choice.

But the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child isn't the single international document in which children's rights assumed a central role. Thus, an even superficial overview on several international documents and national legislations makes visible this phenom- enon. According to Sousa Fernandes (2004) it seems that children, after being absent or just the object o f marginal juridical relevance over centuries, finally emerged as a central figure in the context o f the international declarations o f rights, almost seeming a collective expression of re- morse over the forgetfulness to which they were voted (p. 23).

Belief in Children's Competence

This principle implies an image of the child that has been slowly developed: that of a being with moral, social, emotional and rational competence (Formosinho, 2005). More specifically, it relates to the belief in children's competence to understand, reflect and give wise answers (Formosinho & Arafijo, 2004). At this level, research with children has been demonstrating that the communicational competence of children increases when they are given control over the contents and that children" limitations at the level of their competence as respondents reflect, generally, the interviewer's limitations. Moreover, children's perspectives are very sensitive to structural and dynamic characteristics of the contexts in which children live and their interpretations are made with reference to very specific and subtle aspects of those contexts (Formosinho & Arafijo, 2004). For example, our previous research unravels a child/learner that differentiates teacher's roles and functions from auxiliary staff roles and functions and, above that, that clearly differentiates roles and functions of adult figures according to clear and opposite pedagogical stands opted for by the adult: a transmissive pedagogical option and a constructivist one.

Methodological Considerations on Interviews with Children

Having asserted the importance of children's participation in social processes, this section of the article is dedicated to the presentation of some topics that should be carefully scrutinised when children participate as active agents in a very specific type of social processes, the research processes. In this ambit, some considerations are going to be presented on three different but complementary aspects of the research with children: methodological procedures, consistency and

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J. F o r m o s i n h o & S.B. A r a u j o 25

validation of the contents from interviews with children and ethics.

Considerations Concerning Procedures

Data collection with children can constitute a very complex process and the negligence over some issues can jeopardize the validity of the collected data, such as the context in which the interview is carried out, the use of stimuli in order to promote children's involvement and the role of the interviewer.

The context of the interview

The relevance of the context in which the interview is carried out has been emphasised by some authors. Some point out the fact that research with children carried out in children's domains (Moore, 1986, op. cir. Mayall, 2000) can favour data collection, once the details verbalized by children could be richer and their disclosures could exceed what is commonly known by adults. The relevance of the context is also explained by the fact that the expression of the child's personality, at a behavioural and attitudinal level, is, frequently, dependent upon the context (Scott, 2000). Thus, it is possible that the context in which the interview is carried out will influence the child's answers. Besides this, the context has a major relevance once the social meaning the child attributes to certain concepts (e.g., work or honesty) can differ according to the context in which the child is being interviewed (Scott, 2000). The use of familiar settings for the child has also the major advantage of promoting children's motivation and reducing anxiety (Greig & Taylor, 2001 ).

Interview with the child in the familiar context: interviewing a child in the familiar context consumes more time and, for that, it becomes more expensive. In a study carried out by Scott (1997), this researcher verified that children appreciate being interviewed in the familiar environment, because they are considered elements of the family with a valid contribution. The risk underlying the interviews with children in the familiar context is that their answers could be influenced by parents or brothers/sisters.

According to Mayall (2000), the parameters concerning the presence of the researcher in a familiar context should be negotiated. The author refers to the existence of a triangle of conventions and negotiations. First, it 's important to keep in mind that the researcher is a guest of the parents, and, in that sense, must accept, or negotiate, the conditions that parents offer. Secondly, the researcher is also a guest of the child and should also take into account what tbe child considers adequate. For example, is it convenient for the researcher to allow the child to choose the place in which she prefers to be interviewed? Thirdly, the parent and the child can negotiate between them the way this social event should be structured and who should be a part of it.

Interview with the child in the school context: when the interview is carried out at school, this could favour the interview process, once the child can make an association between the processes of interview and evaluation (promoted by school) and, by doing this, can pay more attention to questions. The child can also demonstrate a higher tendency to give the correct answer and to try to "confer" their answer with peers (when the interview is carried out in pairs or small groups), or even alter it according to what would be better accepted in the group (Scott, 2000).

The use of stimuli to promote children's involvement

Some of the research conducted with children has been using stimuli and rewards in order to promote children's interest, promote their thinking and reflection, as well as attenuate the effect of the question-answer format, highly controlling and adult centred. The review of the literature on this subject carried out by Brooker (2001) points to the following types of stimuli as the more commonly used in research: a) Dolls, soft toys and puppets: used to help children "act out" their attitudes and feelings,

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although it has been suggested that they demonstrate children's feelings towards dolls rather than people; b) Persona dolls: help children to construct a narrative or scenario about a more "real" person- ality;

c) Photographs and drawings: enable children to sort, group or point to images if they have difficulty communicating verbally; d) "Smiley faces": enable children to demonstrate without words their degree of liking, dislik- ing, for a situation or activity; e) Children's own drawings and paintings: widely seen as an effective and respectful way of initiating discussion (pp 166-167).

In the realm of Childhood Project and Childhood Association research projects, the child's productions, along with pictures of their own life contexts (classroom and classroom activities), are considered ideal stimuli to elicit children's narratives around several subjects.

The role of the interviewer

In spite of the previously stated importance of the interviewer, they tend to make, according to Graue and Walsh (1995), two mistakes when they interview children, based on two distinct premises. Those fundamental mistakes will be presented, as well as ways to eradicate them.

Thefirst mistake is to assume that children are too immature from a developmental point of view to be able to think conceptually or to use the necessary language in order to express their ideas. So, interviewers restrict their interviews to simple and concrete questions about observable objects and activities (the interviews are more similar to interrogatories than conversations). This strategy becomes boring for the majority of children and demonstrates an enormous lack of respect by the considerable knowledge that children have about their own world. As a way to eradicate this mistake, Graue and Walsh (1995) argue that the interviewer should trust the child's ability to teach him/her which are the most important questions to be asked. The essence of an adequate interview is, then, to give children the necessary space so that they can teach what we need to know, while we place them the questions that will encourage children to do just that.

The second mistake is that interviewers tend to assume that children perceive the interview situation as adults perceive it, with a similar balance at the level of power and rules of interaction. However, children perceive the interview situation differently from the adult: they perceive the interview as a search for the right answer, i.e., the search for an answer that will satisfy the adult, who already knows the answer. There are several ways to eradicate this mistake: a) The interviewer should offer children his/her own perspectives, ideas and observations, which could operate as a stimulus to the child's thinking. In fact, by offering children this informa- tion, the adult is communicating that he also has doubts about that particular subject and that the child could offer valuable information to reach an answer (Brooker, 2001). The way this is done can either promote child's thinking or induce them to repeat adult's ideas; b) Interview children in pairs or small groups (e.g., Formosinho & Arafijo, 2004; Formosinho & Lino, 2001) - besides attenuating the traditional power relation between the child and the adult (Brooker, 2001), it is a format that the child knows and with which she feels comfortable (talking to other children) and it also constitutes a format that gives children more space for her to set the agenda, i.e., the level and content of the conversation (Graue & Walsh, 1995; Greig & Taylor, 2001); c) The interviewer should be flexible, children tend to ask for more guidance than adults, especially if they aren't secure about the content of the question (Scott, 2000); d) Sometimes, there are questions in which children feel more inhibited (for example, talk about what they like and dislike about school, when the interview is carried out in the school context). Interviews in pairs or small groups, especially when children are given the opportunity to choose the peers that will accompany them, can diminish that inhibition. In fact, this interpersonal context is seen as very supportive and empowering (Mayall, 2000; Formosinho & Aratijo, 2004).

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J. Formos inho & S.B. Araujo 27

Considerations Concerning Consistency and Validation of the Contents from Interviews with Children

As stated before, the quality of data that results from interviews with children depends on several factors, just as those resulting from interviews with adolescents or adults. The consistency and validation of the contents are one central question that depends on options concerning procedures, but also on some specific topics, analysed in this section, such as the adequacy of themes and questions, interviewing competencies, reflexivity, triangulation and analysis of internal consist- ency.

Adequacy of themes and questions

One of the most relevant questions concerns the adequacy of themes and measures used in research (Scott, 2000). Thus, in the design of adequate measures for young children, researchers should verify if the questions posed to children are, indeed, measuring the concept/variable that they intend to measure. In parallel, the researcher should also verify if questions are unambiguous and if the child will interpret them according to what he intends (Scott, 2000). Questions should be pertinent and relevant in relation to the children's social and emotional maturity, as well as their familiar and cultural background.

Interviewing competencies

The quality of data from interviews with children will be optimized if the interviewer is competent in the interview process, as stressed before. Indeed, establishing a privileged relation with the child can encourage her to a higher involvement in the interview, especially if children are completely assured about the confidentiality of data (Scott, 2000). Establishing, in the beginning, certain guidelines before the child can also favour enormously her ability to answer and increase her being at ease in the interview process. Scott (2000) refers some of these guidelines: a) Avoid structured interviews as much as possible; a semi-structured interview has been seen as a much more adequate format to interview children; b) Give the child unambiguous and comprehensive instructions at the beginning of the inter- view. More specifically, explicitly allow "don' t know" answers. In fact, children tend to always give an answer, even when they don't know the answer. This is related with issues of "social acceptance" and with the fact that "don ' t know" answers could be interpreted by the adult as lack of respect, lack of attention or cooperation; c) Avoid 'directive questioning', since this can elicit in children feelings of discomfort due to the possibility that they feel that is being tested. Moreover, children tend to become monosyllabic when they are directly questioned; d) Interview the child in a familiar context, once children's communication tend to be more extensive, clear and complex when they are in a familiar context, with familiar adults.

Thus, in what concerns the child's tendency to answer according to the adult's wishes (related to her will to please), as well as her egocentrism (the tendency to interpret all themes as if they were related to her), it 's important to have in mind that very improbably young children would deliberately deceive the adult. Thus, it's more adequate to assume that children will give "honest" answers to questions that are adequate to her age and level of understanding. If that doesn't happen, the "fault" could be situated at the level of the researcher and not at the level of the child (Brooker, 200 l).

Reflexivity

Reflexivity is now widely regarded as a methodological necessity in research located within a qualitative paradigm. What then is reflexivity? Davis, Watson and Cunnningham-Burley (2000)

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state that it is something easier to do than to define. However, it has been said, mainly in the field of ethnographic research, that reflexivity opens to a deeper consciousness of the researcher self as a mode of self-analysis and it is achieved through detachment, internal dialogue and daily scrutiny of the research process, mainly at the level of interpretations of field experiences.

In what concerns the study of children it is now being recognized that reflexivity is a dual process, because it is not only common to the discourse and practice of researchers, but it is also a stance adopted by children who participate in the research. Indeed, there are many researchers calling our attention to the fact that children not only think and communicate about their experi- ences and practices, hut they also develop relationships with the researchers and consider the importance of the presence and involvement of the researcher in their everyday lives.

Indeed what is at stake here is that children are not mere respondents but interpreters of the research process and, if allowed, can contribute to the shape of the research process.

The dual reflexive process requires children's researchers to be aware and to explore their perceptions concerning children's cultures. It is necessary to examine the language of the researcher in order to learn about differences between researcher's cultures and children's cultures. Indeed research should be viewed as an encounter, a meeting of two languages: the meta-language of the researcher and the everyday language of the studied children (Davis, Watson & Cunnningham- Burley, 2000). According to these authors, it could be even possible to speak of three languages because the researcher's values acquired during his/her life course are also present in the research setting and may have little to do with academic paradigms and more to do with everyday language/ culture based on the researcher personal life story.

Triangulation

Data collected with children benefits from the process of triangulation with other evidences. These other evidences could be informal or systematic observations or interviews with other actors (peers, parents or professionals) (Brooker, 2001).

Analysis of internal consistency

Some authors also defend the use of analysis of internal consistency of the contents from inter- views to children, in the sense of surpassing some bias reported in research.

Considerations Concerning Ethics

Several professional associations reinforce the idea that all of those that are involved in research have the right to be treated in an ethical and morally acceptable way, including, of course, children (Parsons & Stephenson, 2001). Thus, the way adults see children and their place in society will affect the way research will be conducted and, as a consequence, the way children will be treated in the research context. Ethical considerations are particularly relevant in the case of interviews, once these constitute a much greater intrusion in the subject's life, than the one that would result from other research methods, such as observation.

There are some guidelines concerning interviews to children, which reflect the necessary respect and sensibility for the child: a) Children' s informed consent: it means to give children a credible and meaningful explana- tion about the underlying intentions of the research, as well as to guarantee the child a real and legitimate opportunity to deny becoming a part of that process (Formosinho, Zabalza & Pascal, 2001), not only in the beginning of that process, but also at any time along it (Flewitt, 2005; Greig & Taylor, 2001);

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J. Formosinho & S.B. Araujo 29

b) Parents informed consent; c) Conclusion of any interview session if the child present any kind of stress/anguish; d) Conclusion of any interview session reassuring, thanking or rewarding the child, in the sense of promoting his/her self-esteem; e) Children' privacy in what concerns their physical and psychological image; f) Anonymity when reporting data (Flewitt, 2005).

Formosinho (2005) summarized these ideas in the following table:

TABLE 1: Children's rights within research

• . , s S

PRIVACY

Children are ,~ people with rights to be u~ respected re

,• C O N F I D E N T I A L I T Y ",

Formosinho (2005) points out that the cultural evolution brought about a new image of the child that, necessarily, impacts on research paradigms. At this level, according to this author, the first challenge for research in an ethical one: the respect for children.

C O N C L U S I O N

Several authors have been calling attention to the important process of hearing children's voices as a way to better know them, recognize and respond to their needs, interests, competence and rights. More specifically, some domains have been identified and explicitly acknowledge as arenas in which children's perspectives should be considered, such as pedagogical intervention (e.g., Formosinho & Arafijo, 2004), social welfare (e.g., Hallett, Murray & Punch, 2003; Mullender, Hagne, Imann, Kelly, Malos & Regan, 2003) or social policy (e.g., Hallet & Prout, 2003; Mayall, 2O00).

This paper intends to call attention to the indisputable contribution that children can give on research projects that address topics that directly or indirectly affect children's lives. The fact that research is made with children and not on children conveys several responsibilities and con- cerns for the researcher, some of them analogous to research using by proxy methods, and some that are new and very specific to research focusing children's perspectives. For that, it's important to point out that discussing these methodological issues it's an ongoing debate, for which diverse contributions are welcomed, in order to achieve a platform of communicational understanding in the research community. In fact, the novelty and complexity of this recent approach shouldn't repre- sent a barrier, but a driven motor of investment, in order for children's participation to be, finally, fully recognised, which, in our optic, can only be achieved by the creation of real and effective

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opportunities. As for our own research projects, interviews with children about school and peda- gogy constitute an affective mean to recognize their extensive knowledge and conscientiousness on these topics and can be a stimulating input for transformative pedagogy.

FOOTNOTES

University of Minho and Childhood Association. 2 Institute Polytechnic of Porto and Childhood Association. 3 Childhood Project was funded by Aga Khan Foundation and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation until

1996, and from then until now is funded by the Centre of Research on Childhood Professionals (CIFPEC) from University of Minho. Childhood Association is funded by Aga Khan Foundation and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since 1997.

4 Prout (2003) identifies five areas of childhood change: (1) the declining number of children in industrialized countries; (2) the growing diversity of children's living circumstances (e.g. demo- graphic decline of the nuclear family); (3) the multiple socialization of children due to increasing cross-national flows of people, things, values and images; (4) the increasing efforts to control and regulate childhood; and (5) the emergence of children's rights and voice.

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Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to:

Jtilia Formosinho Associa~ao Crian~a

R. Dr. Justino Cruz, n ° 154, 3 °, sala 8 4700-314 Braga

Portugal

Email: acrianqa@clix.pt

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