Investigating Morality in Toddler’s Life-Worlds

Abstract

The following interaction between toddlers took place in a Swedish preschool. This particular toddler group involved 16 children aged between 1 and 3 years. The children and their teachers were gathered in a large playroom.

This excerpt raised many questions for me as a researcher, such as: How do these children experience their “wordless” interplay? What might be of importance for Olle when he takes the comforter from Anna? He uses gentle movements and he is smiling, why is it so? And what might be Anna’s experiences of this kind of interaction? Is she all right with Olle using her comforter and how does she interpret Olle’s intention when he stretches out the comforter after sucking it a second time? Is it possible for me as a researcher to interpret this interaction in terms of morality from the children’s point of view?

Commentary to Eva Johansson: “Investigating Morality in Toddler’s Life-Worlds”

• Gloria Quiñones 

1. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

   Gloria Quiñones

The philosophical underpinnings of this chapter are based on moral dimensions: how they are experienced and expressed by young children and how Eva investigated these with young children. Morality is portrayed in the chapter in terms of the values and norms associated with how we treat others—our acts, relationships and communication. This chapter provides an opportunity to consider the researcher role accordingly.

Eva uses the ontological concepts inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty of lifeworlds and Alfred Schütz’s theory of the social world in everyday encounters with young children while video recording them. The theoretical concept that I found very interesting and that appears throughout the chapter was the child’s perspective. According to Eva this was understood through an interpretation of the child’s lived experience and expressions, which gives meaning to the idea of morality.

As Eva defines it, the life world is concerned with the ways in which the young child perceives the world and how the life-world is both subjective and objective. As such, the world overrides the subject—yet is lived and experienced by the child. I found this idea relevant to my own work on vivencias since the subjective lived emotional experiences of the child were also central to my inquiry. It seems that, regardless of what philosophical stand we take, ideas of the researcher and the researched merge when we are committed to finding ways of giving meaning, understanding and interpretation to the young child’s experience.

Eva comments that the ontology of life-world relates to how we develop knowledge about the world as such about things, events, interactions and people. In her research emphasis is placed on the child’s perspective, including the child’s experiences and expressions of meaning, and how this is understood through philosophical interpretations of the lifeworld, lived body, intersubjectivity and horizon.

According to Eva the life-world is therefore subjective and ambiguous. Through intersubjectivity the “other” is always present in how we, as researchers, make meaning of the young child’s world through the child’s expression, gestures, emotions and communication. Eva reminds us that it is not just that these experiences and expressions are visible in the physical world but that they are also evident in the intersubjective human experience. Paying attention to experience reveals the ways in which the individual makes sense of and interprets his or her world.

The philosophical orientation towards notions of being and interpreting the life-world bears synergy with the dialectical relationships found in perezhivanie—vivencia. The lived, ongoing emotional experiences in cultural-historical theory are also central to inquiry. The child and the researcher and those around them are seen in both approaches as offering important clues about how the child is experiencing aspects of life. In our research these were focussed on homework, while in Eva’s study episodes of right or wrong are under scrutiny. The way to understand the child, it seems then, is how we as researchers understand him or her subjectively by interpreting these lived experiences that we have the privilege to be part of through the research encounter.

Another philosophical idea that I found important when researching with young children was the idea of the horizon—what a beautiful word to express the child and the researcher “being-in-the-world”. This is a strong position for theorising and unites the child and researcher’s world while, at the same time, signalling difference. As the child gets closer to the researcher, the researcher gets closer to the child. This closeness creates familiarity yet the researcher is, at the same time, a stranger.

The idea of body size in the horizon is inspiring for researchers of very young children to think about, as it introduces the idea that the child and the researcher “share a life-room”, which brings this intersubjective interplay between the researcher and the child. This is important in understanding the child while observing or filming because the researcher is encouraged to recognise the fact that they and their research subjects are being together in the world of the toddler. This idea of how horizons meet, theorized by Eva, encourages researchers to consider how “both shared and disparate horizons” are present in the process of researching with toddlers.

I think there is a lot of potential in the idea Eva introduces related to the concept of manifold. Here she seems to suggest that the child’s perspective is simultaneously concerned with mind, body and life-worlds. In accepting this notion the researcher needs to find ways of increasing her awareness of the young child’s communication as expressions of meanings and life-worlds. Eva suggests, and indeed demonstrates, that this manifold process needs to be taken into account at all the phases of the researcher process—during, in and after the researcher leaves the field:

It is essential for the researcher to found his or her understanding on the child’s bodily being-in-the-world, when searching for children’s expressions of meaning of the phenomenon at hand.

For Eva, then, it is critical to consider the child’s body as a means of expression, particularly when researching the young child. This tenet echoes with the research described by Marilyn and myself, but for Eva the researcher is invited to consider their activity a moral enterprise rather than merely a means of gathering data. The researcher therefore relies on his/her own interpretations of the “child’s bodily being-in-the-world”—not as truth, but as an intersubjective phenomenon. Thus to study “morality” also relies on the meaning the researcher gives to what the child is communicating and expressing through “lived body as gestures, facial expressions, words and emotional expressions”.

The concept of shared life-room unites the idea of creating an “intersubjective space” between children and the researcher, emotionally, mentally and physical. This is important when being with the young child as it becomes an integral and moral endeavour! As this evolves, it unfolds throughout all the phases of the research design. I think Eva has strongly demonstrated her research directions in the “shared a life-room” with young children through being interested not only in her research intentions but also with those of the children. Being present in the everyday lives of children demands the researcher consider all these interrelationships.

A question that came to my mind on reading this chapter was how we might resolve the dilemma of the researcher’s power and influence in research. Eva draws on an example in which the researcher’s presence and his awareness of the researcher caused a toddler to change his attitude to another child playing with him on the slide. At first, the toddler didn’t want the girl to climb the slide, but when he is aware of the researcher’s interest, he changes his attitude. I wonder how we are able to interpret those meanings and how we sense this change of attitude? This and other similar examples are discussed in light of the importance of the researcher’s intervention (intentionally or otherwise) in the life-world of the young child, and the implications of this. These are moments when the researcher needs to be sensitive both with the child and with the research goals. As Eva explains, being sensitive is essential and the field decisions that are taken, as a result of such insights, are important. For example, the researcher needs to choose when to stop the camera or indeed if stopping the camera is desirable. I find this very important for researchers to take into account when they are “new” to or not familiar with video-observing methodologies.

Overall, I felt that Eva was able to show the complexities in understanding the young child and the researcher being together with children throughout all the phases of the research process—being in the field, leaving the field and making meaning of the interactions between children. When recreating the interactions I could imagine the situation because Eva’s descriptions of events were detailed. Being familiar with the data is essential to understanding the child. Eva reminds us of this:

Becoming familiar with the totality of data as well as the parts was critical to be able to recognize similarities and differences of the situations and the children’s various experiences and expressions.

Familiarity with the data is essential for any researcher. However, the reporting of bodily expressions is always constructed by the researcher and then by the reader who imagines these situations. Eva’s careful and detailed recreation of the events and the interactions offers an example of how this might be possible in ways that respond to her moral entreaty.

There are commonalities throughout our research with young children—such as remaining close to what we lived and trying to understand the young child both ethically and respectfully while being sensitive to interpretations of expression and communication. I think Eva has portrayed this complexity not only from the child’s perspective but also from that of the researcher both in the field and after the field. This is especially true when understanding and analysing data while remaining morally responsible and maintaining the “lived approval” from the children while observing them.

I enjoyed and learnt from this chapter. As a result I am inspired to be morally responsive and astutely aware of myself as influential when video observing when relating with children and, most importantly, in maintaining a respectful stance towards the young child in research.