Understanding the Contribution of Visual Methods to Early Childhood Research: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52634/mier/2015/v5/i1/1503Keywords:
Visual Methods, Early Childhood, Cross-Cultural.Abstract
Research in education has previously been dominated by what Law (2007) terms the “hygienic forms” (p. 33). Hygienic forms apply to positivistic quantitative traditions which claim supremacy over other forms of knowing. In this methodological paper we report on a phenomenon auto-driven visual elicitation approach of an on going research which attempts to make sense of how children (3-5 year olds) in cross-cultural settings understand risk and safety situations in their settings. We reflect on the concern for contextual reflexivity, emanating from the notion that research activity in early childhood education is “in danger of succumbing to political ideology and methodological fashion” (Prosser & Loxley, 2007, p. 1). We argue that research into early childhood education needs to acknowledge the implicit tensions between conventional empirical research and the politics of research methodology and that researchers cannot bring to the fore everything that is there to be known about child development and learning through orthodox mechanistic means. There are quotidian aspects of children's experiences, development and learning which can best be captured by visual methods that combine other approaches like interviews and observations. The paper concludes with some reflections on the ethical dilemmas and validity issues that confront the researcher when the visual and digital are used across cultures with children.
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Copyright (c) 2021 Joseph Seyram Agbenyega, Sunanta Klibthong
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Facio, E. (1993). Ethnography as a personal experience. In J. H. Stanfield II & R.
M. Dennis (Eds.), Race and ethnicity in research methods. Newbury Park: Sage.
Fleer, M. (2005). Developmental fossils—unearthing the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of 'Child Development'. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 30(2), 2-7.
Jenks, C. (1996). Childhood. London: Routledge.
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Lather, P. (1994). Fertile obsession: Validity after post-structuralism. In A.
Gitlin (Ed.), Power and Method: Political activism and educational research. New York: Routledge.
Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous. New York: Vintage Books.
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture, in R. Fox (Ed.), Recapturing anthropology: working in the present. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
Alder, P., & Alder, P. (1998). Peer power: preadolescent culture and identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University press.
Chaplin, E. (1994). Sociology and visual representation. London: Routledge.
Clark-Ibanez, M. (2007). Sociology of childhood and photo elicitation interviews. In G. C. Stanczak (Ed.), Visual research methods (pp. 167-196). London: Sage.
Clark, C. D. (1999). The auto-driven interview: a photographic viewfinder into children's experiences. Visual Sociology, 14, 39-50.
Corsaso, W. (1997). The sociology of childhood. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (1999). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Post-modern perspectives. Philadelphia: Falmer Press.
Deppeler, J., Moss, J., & Agbenyega, J. S. (2008). The ethical dilemma of working the visual and digital across space. In J. Moss (Ed.), Researching education visually, digitally and spatially (pp. 209-227). Amsterdam: Sense Publications.
Du Bois, B. (1979). Passionate scholarship: notes on values, knowing and method in feminist social science. Paper presented at the First National Convention of the National Women's Studies Association, in the panel on Feminist Research and Traditional Methodology, 1 June, 1979, Lawrence, Kansas.
Eder, D., & Fingerson, L. (2001). Interviewing children and adolescents. In J. F.
Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (pp. 181201). California: Thousand Oaks.
Facio, E. (1993). Ethnography as a personal experience. In J. H. Stanfield II & R. M. Dennis (Eds.), Race and ethnicity in research methods. Newbury Park: Sage.
Fleer, M. (2005). Developmental fossils—unearthing the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of 'Child Development'. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 30(2), 2-7.
Jenks, C. (1996). Childhood. London: Routledge.
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Lather, P. (1994). Fertile obsession: Validity after post-structuralism. In A.
Gitlin (Ed.), Power and Method: Political activism and educational research. New York: Routledge.