How to Involve Young Children in a Photovoice Project. Experiences and Results

Abstract

For a considerable period of time, discussions on children and how they describe their own life-worlds did not form a part of research practice (CHRISTENSEN & JAMES, 2008). Although some methods are currently being applied with success in research with children, a more comprehensive implementation of different participatory methods is necessary which takes into account the child's peculiarities. One aim of the project "Learning Together, Living Diversity" was to involve children of kindergarten age in participatory research. To demonstrate diversity in a context close to everyday life and to start conversations with the children about this topic we used photographs taken by the children in their living environment. We aim to use the collected findings to develop a didactic method for early childhood education dealing with diversity in the sense of a basic form of existence: every person is unique, and this uniqueness should be perceived as enrichment. In this method, the early childhood phase and the institutional experiences embedded within it are considered fundamental to understand and accept the existence of various life-worlds.