Uncertainty and practical judgement in research: a call for attentive ‘listening’

Abstract

This paper draws upon research projects in which efforts have been made to find ways of listening to young children’s voices in early years contexts. This listening, namely in the mosaic approach, helps us to see how children make sense of their world, and adopt our planning and ‘being with’ young children. After setting the context of early years pedagogy and ideology of mosaic approach, this paper focuses on the researcher’s journey to turn her gaze inward before making any claims about her engagement with and listening to young children. Since this approach purposely leaves unanswered the question what kind of data is going to be collected, researchers have to decide what data is in the course of a research project, through their engagement with children. We argue for befriending uncertainty and dilemmatic thinking as it provides us with a different way of seeing, knowing and listening the hard to know. Through writing about phronêsis, this paper focuses on the process of decision-making and judgements that researchers undertake. The final argument calls for attentiveness and aims to acknowledge practical judgements as a fundamental part of researching early years.