Speaker - How far can young children meaningfully participate in a research process?

Using data collected as part of an indepth qualitative research project this paper explores ways in which young children (ages 4-7 years) can meaningfully participate in a research process. The concept of ‘meaningful participation’ will be considered in relation to methodological issues emerging during the course of individual interviews and specifically in relation to three issues: 1) their own choice of method(s) to explore views and feelings; 2) their social agency through the operation of techniques to control, deflect, challenge, test and reveal; and 3) the actual accounts and/or meanings they attached to their own work. It will be argued that the concept of ‘meaningful participation’ cannot be viewed as a static category but that its status, shape and significance varies throughout each interviewer/researcher encounter and that this has implications not only for the child/researcher relationship but also for the interpretation and representation of children’s work in subsequent reports of research findings.