Learning with families about conversations with young children: connection, interests, experiences.
Dr Janet Morris: University of Greenwich
Abstract
This research explores adults’ conversation with young children through collaborative research with parents. The research design was a collective, qualitative case study, of four parents to explore the conversational environment around three children aged between 3 and 5 years old. Data were collected using qualitative methods, including conversation logs compiled by the collaborating parents. Semi-structured interviews facilitated joint reflection on the conversation logs and specific episodes of conversation. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews, the conversation logs and specific episodes of conversation. The collaborative process provided insights into the children’s communicative practices and enabled the production of individual conversation maps demonstrating their individual funds of knowledge-based interests. Sustained conversations occurred where there was a ‘coming together’ of the conversational partners in a ‘third space’, enabled by conditions conceptualised as a delicate, shifting ecosystem, vulnerable to influences associated with ‘modern
ways’.
Keywords: Language development, parents, collaborative, relationships, children’s interests.
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