The project ‘Children’s Playground Games and Songs in the New Media Age’ ran from 2009-11 and was funded by the AHRC. The project involved a broad team including the PI, Professor Andrew Burn at UCL, the Universities of Sheffield and East London, and the British Library.
The project aimed to develop understanding of how children’s playground activities were shaped by new media, given the increasingly digital landscapes that children encountered in the early years of the 21st century.
We were clear from the conceptualisation of the research study that we wanted children involved as active participants in the research. This was based on a recognition that research involving children should respect their voice and agency, including children of a young age.
The project in Sheffield involved a two-year ethnographic study of a school in Sheffield, Monteney Primary School. In order to ensure children’s participation in the project was as active as possible, we designed an approach in which children were recruited as co-researchers, in that they were engaged in data collection, analysis and dissemination. We planned to set up a panel of children who would oversee the school’s participation in the study.
To read the research paper connected with the study, click here.
We had initially stated to the headteacher and staff that we wished to work with two children from each year group and so had expected to have a panel of twelve children at our first meeting. However, because the school had a two-form entry, the staff decided that each class should have two representatives on the panel and thus we were surprised to see 24 children entering the room that first morning! However, we quickly recovered and agreed that the school had made the right decision, as children in each class could, therefore, find support from another co-researcher in the same class. Teachers had chosen children to participate for a variety of reasons and principles of inclusion were important. This meant that the panel included children who had a statement of special educational needs and children who were socially isolated in the playground, so this project offered a means to engage them more meaningfully in play.
In the meeting, we introduced children to the aims of the project and also spent some time reflecting on the concept of research itself. We found the children to be highly reflexive and they were able to understand the nature of the task that was presented to them over the next two years, even suggesting ways of undertaking the research that we had not considered (such as interviewing family members at home about their memories of play).
It was explained that adult researchers would be undertaking ethnographic research in the playground, using notebooks to record observations and also recording play using digital video cameras and interviewing children with the use of voice recorders. However, it was important that we also involved child researchers so that we could understand the nature of the play from their perspectives. Each of the panel members was given a research notebook to record their observations and notes. There were also sets of digital equipment given to the school (video camcorders and voice recorders) to enable the capture of play and the recording of interviews. The panel members were trained thoroughly in the use of this equipment.
All children in the school could participate in data collection if they wished, by using the video camcorders and digital audio recorders. It was the role of the panel members to support their peers in this, and this was a role that they undertook diligently. We had planned that each class in the school could use the recording equipment for two weeks at a time to collect data, but had to change this to one week on the insistence of the panel, who felt that this would be better in terms of classes not having to wait too long to have a turn with the equipment.
We held two whole-school assemblies to discuss the project with the school and to introduce the use of the equipment. Part-way through the project, we held another assembly in which we showed various videos shot by children in order to discuss best practice and to reinforce key messages. Regular meetings were held with meetings of the Children’s Panel in which issues relating to data collection, analysis and dissemination were considered.
In Marsh (2013), the outcomes of this process are detailed. The children collected a wide range of data that enabled the research questions to be addressed. They constantly made decisions about what to record and when and some of these decisions mirrored the kind of decisions the adult researchers made. For example, 7-year-old Kate and Carl were members of the panel who used their research notebooks a lot to record their observations. They were asked how they decided to use their research diaries on any given day:
Kate: We look out of the window to see if it looks just like running and stuff or the same old games.
Interviewer: And what makes you think, ‘Oh well, today’s the day where I’ll take my book out’?
Kate: Because when we look out of the window it looks like people are playing with different people and playing different games and stuff aren’t they? [Turns to Carl]
Kate went on to note:
Well, I think like our most important job is just making sure we get all the games like we haven’t got about ten times like, what me and Carl used to play, like Pokémon and stuff. But after we’ve got it we don’t put it down again do we, Carl, we just put all Tiggys down because everyone were playing Tiggy off ground, Tiggy hiding, and all stuff like that weren’t we, so you play at every Tiggy game, I did.
Thee excerpts indicate that Kate was engaging with issues of data replication and data saturation, as adult ethnographers do. Marsh (2013) notes a number of other ways the children’s decision-making as co-researchers was nuanced and reflexive.
Towards the end of the project, the Children’s Panel were involved in sessions in which they analysed data. The data were selected by the research team as it was not feasible to expect children to sift through the many hours of video, transcript and visual data (e.g. children’s drawings) that had been collected in the study. Therefore, excerpts of data were chosen that enabled children to reflect on the research questions. The children again demonstrated great reflexivity in this process. They were then involved in developing presentations of their findings that were shared in a Children’s Conference that took place at the end of the project. This took place in the Sheffield Showroom, an independent cinema, and hosted by Ian McMillan, a local author and poet. The Conference consisted of children presenting their research findings to an audience of children and adults and it was highly successful.
The children’s panel was also actively involved in other ways of disseminating research, such as the website that the British Library devised – ‘Playtimes’. The children were engaged in planning the website and preparing animations that shared their findings.
Whilst the project was, overall, successful in addressing the research questions (see the final project report here), there were tensions and challenges in the active engagement of children in the research process.
First, it was not possible to ensure children were involved in every aspect of the research. The research questions had been devised prior to the study commencing and therefore they did not have an opportunity to change these.
Second, it was important to ensure that the research was not exploitative in any way. There were benefits to the school and the children from taking part, such as payments to the School and materials given to children, and we were cognisant throughout the project of the need to ensure that each child wished to continue to participate. However, in hindsight it would have been beneficial to have more formal recognition of the children’s participation, perhaps through a form of accreditation with the Sheffield’s Children’s University.
Thirdly, there was always a risk of impact on children’s social interactions, firstly because they would have had less time to play with others as a result of collecting data and also because other children may have resented the Children’s Panel members for being specially selected for the project. However, this did not occur, as far as we were aware.
Finally, just because we were concerned that children should have voice and agency in this research did not mean that this was automatic. Whilst the Children’s Panel were highly engaged, not all children in the school were and so the findings were, in that sense, not exhaustive.
This project took place over ten years ago, and whilst much has changed in that period in terms of children being participants in research projects, there were aspects of it that we think are still pertinent when designing research projects. These include the following:
Respecting children’s prior knowledge and cultural practices that are relevant to the study in question.
Providing numerous opportunities for children to reflect on the nature of research itself and their ongoing role as researchers.
Ensuring that children have thorough training in data collection methods and are given multiple opportunities to ask questions, interrogate and play with the materials.
Ensuring that research methods are age-appropriate and are interactive in nature (such as the use of video, still cameras, point-of-view cameras, art/collage, playful approaches and so on).
Preparing materials that enable the research to be conducted by children of all abilities, and from a young age (e.g. that are age appropriate in terms of language used, visual in nature where necessary, etc.).
Providing ongoing support for the children’s research in the form of regular ‘de-briefing’ meetings which pay attention to issues of inclusivity and diversity (engaging children in, for example, reflecting on the way in which gender, race, ethnicity, disability and other aspects of identity might be impacting on the study).
Finding ways to ensure children are involved in data analysis. This may mean a pre-selection process by adult researchers if children are not to feel overwhelmed by the task. It may also involve representing the data in various ways e.g. visually.
Ensuring children have opportunities to disseminate their findings in meaningful ways.
To this list, and reflecting on this question in 2022, we might add:
Enabling children to have opportunities to co-construct the research from the start including helping to shape the research questions and project design.
Providing ways to enable children to engage both in person and virtually with the project e.g. through the use of online conferencing software.
Ensuring children have opportunities to have their engagement in the project formally recognised either through curriculum work or through engaging with a relevant external organisation (e.g. a Children’s University).
Marsh J. (2012). Children as knowledge brokers of playground games and rhymes in the new media age. Childhood, 19(4):508-522. DOI: 10.1177/0907568212437190