Learning to Become Researchers: Towards Participation?

Abstract

In this chapter I focus on a small-scale exploratory project undertaken in a state primary school in the UK with mixed ability and linguistically diverse children. The aim of the project was to find out whether, and to what extent 9–10 year old children would engage with the idea of learning to undertake research for themselves. Proponents of the ‘New Childhood Studies’ have long promoted the idea of child research, but there is also a great deal of doubts raised about the value and the meaning of children’s research and in this context we still lack understanding of children’s experiences in the initial phases of learning about research. This chapter reports on a 6-week research club intervention, where the children were able to become first time researchers who designed and administered a questionnaire within their immediate communities. The children also analysed and reported their findings. In addition to observational data from the researcher journal, the chapter also draws on follow-up interviews with the children where they articulate their developing understandings of the research process and their new identities as researchers.