Introduction: Du point de vue des enfants

Abstract

From the Point of View of Children. How can researchers gain access to children’s perspectives? This special issue of BMS is dedicated to the methodological challenges encountered by those working on children’s representations and practices. Through a presentation of various ways of addressing these challenges, it aims to contribute to the epistemological renewal of research on children. The objective here is to analyse the specificities resulting from childhood as a social status whilst also taking into account the diversity of what it means to be a child. This perspective means using a methodology that allows us to focus on the child without separating them from their environment. This issue brings together six contributions from a range of disciplines (sociology, psychology, political science, and geography) that present studies conducted with children, for the most part aged between 5 and 11 years old, using a variety of methodologies: questionnaires (Camus, Geay and Pagis; Simon), observations conducted within families or at school (Lareau and Harvey; Hargis), semi-directive interviews (Simon; Ott; Rouyer et al.), focus groups (Ott), activities, drawings and games (Rouyer et al.; Ott; Simon; Camus, Geay and Pagis). In so doing, this issue shows how a reflexive approach to the methodological questions we encounter when conducting research on children can improve our knowledge of childhood and its social differentiations.