What Can We Learn About Child Perspectives and Children’s Perspectives from Empirical Research?

Abstract

The empirical studies presented in this chapter all look for children’s expressions and perspectives as far as it is possible for an adult to grasp them. In some respect, children express themselves verbally and in others, bodily, so evidently it all becomes a question of the researcher’s skill in putting herself or himself in the child’s position. Video technology has here become a great help in interpreting children’s perspectives. Many of the studies presented here are worked out together with teachers by staging what the researchers want to study, and by this also function as an eye opener for teachers. What we primarily can learn from the presented research studies is that children are often more capable than was earlier thought; teachers are often surprised about this when they discover children’s perspectives and intentions. A Conclusion one can make is also that to become aware of young children’s capabilities, where their perspectives may be traced, adults must look for them – believe they exist! This means that child perspective is a prerequisite for seeing the child’s perspective or, in other words, children’s perspectives cannot be analysed and described if we do not bear the child perspective in mind.