Child as researcher: Within and beyond the classroom

Abstract

This article was authored by a university educator and a twelve year-old child. The first author was a visiting teacher to a small, rural, state primary school in Queensland Australia. She spent one day per week for nineteen weeks fostering an inquirybased stance to teaching and learning. The second author is a student within the researched school. Because research generated and co-authored by a child is a largely unprecedented approach to articles published in scholarly journals, the topics of this inquiry are both the within-school research and the complexity of researching and writing about it. The research uses the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology, and Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) elements of an educational experience as the framework for data analysis. The goal of this article is to inspire teachers and teacher educators to creatively empower child research. The article offers process implications for teachers and teacher educators seeking to support children as researchers within and beyond the school.