Eliciting young children’s ‘voice’ in low-income areas in England: recognising their mutuality of being

Abstract

This paper responds to suggestions that the concept of ‘child voice’ is under-interrogated in academic and grey literatures. It presents findings from data generated with seven mothers in a small-scale qualitative study about young children’s well-being in a low-income area in England. The findings suggest a re-conceptualisation of young children as a ‘mutuality of being’ may broaden the means by which children’s voices can be heard and responded to, especially those living in, or at risk of, poverty. The paper highlights some of the possible shortcomings of conceptualising young children as bounded individuals who can be abstracted from their social and material temporal/spatial contexts. The implications of individualising children, prevalent in Early Childhood Education & Care policy in England, are considered. The paper concludes by suggesting that eliciting young children’s voice(s) necessitate including other voices, past and present, from the socio-cultural contexts in which they are entangled.