Browsing by Author "Partanen, Annakaisa"

The goal of the “new paradigm” in childhood studies and specifically child perspective research is to bring the child into the center of producing information regarding their lives. Various methods based on oral storytelling are considered appropriate for presenting such things that children consider meaningful. Using visual methods aims at increasing children's possibilities in self-expression within the means of the research. From these premises I designed a child perspective narrative study, meant to chart the fourth grader's experience of the school forest. However, new and more acute research problems arose from the data produced in the study: How has the research setting limited, or on the other hand, made possible what is being told? What is expected from the listener for the stories to be heard? 22 4th graders participated in the study in the spring of 2016, and were presented with the question: "What would you like to share with the researcher about the school forest?". To begin with their stories the pupils first photographed the school forest. Photo-elicitated narrative interviews were then conducted with each participant. The material was interpreted by means of narrative analysis, making use of the small stories approach. Reaching the “narrative space” within the research was challenging for the participants. The dominant form of expression was “showing” instead of narrating, or giving narrow descriptions of what is there in the forest: trees, stones, sticks. The narrative quality of the interviews was largely fragile. This resulted in the children's own school forest experience remaining rather distant. Reflexive thinking of the context of the narration, such as the research setting and being in school, brought out several factors prohibiting the narrative space from opening up, such as insufficient informing and the overriding of an explicit consent from the child. So called counter stories within the data were two stories, in which the children's subjective school forest experiences were celebrated. The narrative space was made possible by an inclusive interview interaction. The results of the study can be applied in the planning of ethically solid child oriented research, in which the child's own consent is given the weight it deserves and the challenges of conducting a research in school are consciously met. This is how the potential of children’s free narrating is more likely to flourish.