Many children many voices Anja Tertoolen Wieke Bosch

Many children, many voices Anja Tertoolen Wieke Bosch Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 1

Brief overview of our research until now • Children’s perspectives on their education in school • Method: interview by their teacher about a specific educational theme • Goal: students get a clear understanding in the complexity of interviewing young children • Focus on the improvement of the quality of talking with young children Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 2

How to interpret? Improvement of the quality of talking with children by their teacher means first of all : • Interpretation of what children are saying? (do we really interprete the meaning of what they are saying? ) • Interpretation of what teachers are meaning Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 3

Participants in this analysis Practioners involved: • The teacher-practioner herself • Student-teachers • Teacher trainers especially in education of young children Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 4

Protocol of analysis Teacher communication: Verbal interventions - questions like asking for information, intentions, mental thinking etc - Statements like confirming, repeating, summerizing etc Child’s communication: - What does the child say; what does the child mean. - Basic needs as conditions for development. Basic needs are: relation, competence, autonomy (Stevens) Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 5

Theoretical Background * Theory: Stevens: Basic Needs Bahktin / Wertsch: authority and dialogic aspect. Multivoicedness. * Methodology: Focus on reliability by triangulation (three groups of participants in analysis) Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 6

Analysis • Interview on video • All the participants used the same formats for analysis • We used a small part of the interview for a profound analysis • First we show you a particular part of the video • Second we want to share some of our findings Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 7

Example 1 Focus on the quality of talking with young children. • All the participants analysed the verbatim (communication of the children) on 7 different kinds of interventions. (asking information; giving information; asking for the perception of the child; ‘go-on questions’= continue to enquire after the meaning; confirmation; repeating the child’s observations; summarizing) Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 8

Example 1 Diagram. Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 9

Example 2: Focus on the ‘basic needs’ 1 • All the participants analysed the verbatim (teacher communication)on the basic needs: relation; competence and autonomy. Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 10

Example 3 Focus on the ‘basic needs’ 2 • This diagram shows the impact of the teacher’s appeal on each child about the sense of: • Relationship • Competence • Autonomy Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 11

Some Conclusions In general: • We found a great diversity in data based on the analyses of the participants. • We would even go so far as to say that it’s very difficult for students (and for researchers) to retrieve the meaning of the child and to be sure of what children really moves • You have to know the children (in our case the classroom teacher) and their background to get a notion of their meaning (and not only listen to what they are saying) while interviewing them • It’s not easy to educate students on this aspect of their (future) profession and for students to be trained in this aspect. • Listen to Susan L. Engel in her book ‘Real Kids’ while she is saying: ‘The challenge for the researcher is to understand that what is on the child’s mind not neatly match what the context would suggest’. Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 12

In the near future • To bring the participants together to share and discuss their findings • To share the interpretation(s) with the children involved and ask for their opinions on the interpretations of the participants Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 13

Many children, many voices Anja Tertoolen a. tertoolen@domstad. nl Wieke Bosch w. bosch@hs-ipabo. edu Tertoolen/Bosch EECERA 2007 14