Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to acknowledge the influence that the interaction-based observation method developed by Mariane Hedegaard has had on my studies of young children’s friendship activities. Hedegaard has problematized how the existing methods of evaluating children’s development were inadequate. These methods were based on the assumption of testing children as if a test situation can be a neutral and context-free activity . Hedegaard developed an alternative approach, the interaction-based observation method . The approach brings to the fore ethical considerations while it focuses on identifying children’s motives and competences. By taking the child’s perspective , it places the researcher as interpreter of children’s apparently intentional actions and the motives they convey, giving considerable power to the researcher. In this, Chap. 1 considers the method and its ethical implications for early childhood research and how Hedegaard’s methods address these concerns. The method also offered a new and important perspective on analyzing pedagogical practices and the conditions in institutions when considering children’s learning and development . Since the 1980s, the interaction-based observation method has been fundamental to the education of pedagogues in early childhood pedagogy in Denmark. These same ethical concerns and ways of overcoming them are therefore also relevant to early education practice .
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Notes
- 1.
From 1966 to 1980 Hedegaard’s last name was “Stenild”.
- 2.
Knud Erik Løgstrup (1905–1981).
- 3.
Translated: Description of young children, 1990. Reprinted in 2003 and 2013.
- 4.
The person, conducting the observations and evaluating the child, can be a researcher, a pedagogue, a psychologist, etc.
- 5.
The Danish Law on Day-Care, 2016.
- 6.
A flying fox is a play equipment, like a small cable car, propelled by gravity. Sometimes called a zip line or a zip wire. Designed for the use of one child, sitting on a plate with a wire in the middle, holding the wire and “flying” down. In this case, three children were on the flying fox, and due to the higher speed, and lesser space for each of the children, Sophia fell off.
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Sørensen, H.V. (2019). Studying Children’s Friendship Activities Ethically Using the Interaction-Based Observation Method. In: Edwards, A., Fleer, M., Bøttcher, L. (eds) Cultural-Historical Approaches to Studying Learning and Development. Perspectives in Cultural-Historical Research, vol 6. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6826-4_18
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