Location: online via Zoom
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (CET)

Dr. Lynsey Burke, Dr. Katie Westwood & Laura Jarvie (Lectures in Early Years Education and Education Studies, University of Dundee – Scotland)

Leading change: A playful approach to listening to children’s voices in the Additional Support Needs sector

This session explores how creative and play-based methods can be used to listen to the voices of children with additional support needs.  There is increasing recognition of child-centred approaches to listen to children’s voices and to enact Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989).  This increase is underpinned by theories proposing that the concept of ‘voice’ is multi-faceted and multi-layered, and that pedagogies to listen to children should align with developmentally appropriate methods, specifically play.

Drawing on a combination of an ethnographic and a participatory research approach, children located within the Additional Support Needs base of a primary school in Scotland were invited to become co-researchers, with a view to shaping change within their schools. Children decided how, when and where to share their views.  Individual communication preferences for the data collection phase were identified, and these included, for example, sand, drama, painting, percussion instruments and digital technology.  The children’s voices, captured and amplified through these arts-based methods, were subsequently used to inform meaningful change within their daily lives in school. Ethical considerations were carefully addressed throughout, using a Playful Research Ethics Framework (Burke & Jindal-Snape, 2023), recognising the particular needs of conducting research with vulnerable children.

In this PINA session, we will highlight the importance of children’s agency throughout the participatory research process. Alongside a presentation of findings, we will also hear reflections from the school’s Head Teacher, to consider the impact of this project on the school’s spaces, pedagogies and environment and to highlight how children’s voices have been used to shape change. More widely, it is hoped that this study will help to raise the profile of innovative research methods and their value when listening to and amplifying children’s voices.

Please request the Zoom link from pina(at)fh-potsdam.de