My story and the child's story

Today has been full of lightbulb moments – well, not really moments of clarity but questions arising in my mind about the reality of what I am studying. Mainly, the idea that the majority of research about childhood is either quantitative and carried out via parent surveys, or qualitative and based in the child’s childcare setting. I’ve been searching for specific literature around the theme of young children’s transitions, and all that’s coming up is the transition from preschool to school, and from reception to key stage one. This makes me ask the question – where is the research about other transitions? About things that happen at home? Where are the qualitative, in depth case studies about how children feel and behave at home with their parents? So, I wonder if research appears to be easier to carry out within settings, because the practitioners are aware of the ethics surrounding research (or at least they should!) and that it is easier to access children within settings than through their families? To me, this disempowers the parental role in the child’s life, and while practitioners in settings do play an important role with young children, it is the families who will be the main support for the child when they move house. This should steer my own research towards seeing children in their homes, but if I’m aiming to create case studies then I could see them in a variety of places to gather a bigger picture of who they are and what their life is like.

Maybe I haven’t looked far enough yet, or used the correct key words. Maybe I’m making an assumption. To be honest I would like to think that I’m wrong, and the answers are out there to be found, because as a parent this offends me! Approaching this study with a background of being both a parent and a practitioner, I can see how important it is to involve all of these people; after all, the child’s world is based on their social ecology and there’s no getting away from that. And my role as a researcher is also based on my social ecology and my experiences, which there is also no getting away from. I have to keep this in mind when I do finally get out there in the field, because my findings will be the child’s world and my own intertwined to create my version of their story. I just hope I can do it justice and enable their voice to be heard.