3.2 Constructing Collaborative Interpretations: Children as Co-researchers in an Ethnographic Study in Argentina

Abstract

In this chapter the active participation of children in production processes of knowledge inherent to the ethnographic research and the possibility that ethnography with kids features to enrich the interpretation processes in educational research argues. Through a report on the process by which the researcher worked with the children to produce ethnography of his neighborhood in the greater Buenos Aires region interpretive work is discussed. On one side showed how children interpret their environment sometimes aligned adults meanings and sometimes did not, but in all cases their interpretations may shed light on public perceptions of the social world to which they belong. Furthermore, the moments when the action researcher found children without reveals seek explanations and came to understand through subsequent visits to the streets or in the interaction with the children are reported. The general argument is that children are reflective thinkers. If you sometimes go through the process of socialization so are adults occasionally, and certainly ethnographers. The dislocation that resulted in the researcher herself in the ways of being and interacting children have recovered in this chapter in order to show the contrast of reflexivity that connects along the ethnographic fieldwork