Browsing by Subject "formal school"

The purpose of this study was to examine child-ethnographers’ views on life in classroom. The child-centered approach of the study involves children’s active participation in data-collection. The aim is to give children a voice in research and practice. The study is part of the research project "Children tell of their well-being – Who listens? Listening to children's voices and receiving their stories” (TelLis, 1134911) financed by the Academy of Finland. The research data were collected by using a research method "Children as ethnographers" (Hohti 2010). 29 pupils worked as co-researchers and observed their classroom during an eight-month period in 2010 when they were on the 3rd and 4th grade. The data consists of 52 writings of the pupils and some stories. The analysis focused on the classroom action described in the narratives. The analysis revealed that children drew attention mainly on pupils' action in the classroom. The action took place in three layers of the school: the formal school, the informal school and the physical school. The power was constructed between the official script and the pupils' counterscript that both affected the classroom interaction. Children's writings showed that there was tension between pupils' agency and control of the school institution. The pupils' competence in the official layer was gendered: there were notably more observations of boys' activity in the informal and physical school.