Children describing the world: Mixed-method research by child practitioners developing an intergenerational dialogue

Abstract

Children are becoming increasingly engaged in the practice of research, either as active collaborators with adults or as independent researchers in their own right. This paper explores aspects of training and mentoring of children engaged in research practice as independent researchers, and highlights the use of creative methodologies in mixed-method research undertaken by children.Three primary aspects of participation and training are considered in relation to the space children inhabit in the research community: the ways in which children acquire research skills and the ways in which children are mentored in their research practice; the use of creative methods as conceptual and interpretive tools in interdisciplinary mixed-method research and how creative methodologies may benefit and empower child practitioners; and thirdly the importance of dissemination of research undertaken by children, and the quality of the intergenerational dialogue emerging from it. The paper begins with a story.The story is a personal observation translated into narrative and placed here to contextualise (rather than analyse) the research work undertaken by a group of Australian children, concurrent with their counterparts in the UK and Canada, over an 18-month period between April 2011 and September 2012. It introduces a methodological framework that was the underpinning of the project designed by the children and mentored by the author.