Argyris Arnellos, Thomas Spyrou and John Darzentas
This paper aims to develop the role of autonomy in the emergence of the design process. It shows how the design process is facilitated by autonomy, how autonomy is enhanced…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop the role of autonomy in the emergence of the design process. It shows how the design process is facilitated by autonomy, how autonomy is enhanced through the design process and how the emergence of anticipatory and future‐oriented representational content in an autonomous cognitive system provides the functionality needed for the strengthening of both its autonomy and the design process, in which the autonomous cognitive system purposefully engages.
Design/methodology/approach
Initially, the essential characteristics of the design process and of the cognitive systems participating in it will be identified. Then, an attempt to demonstrate the ability of an enhanced second‐order cybernetic framework to satisfy these characteristics will be made. Next, an analytic description of the design process under this framework is presented and the respective implications are critically discussed.
Findings
The role of autonomy is crucial for the design process, as it seems that autonomy is both the primary motive and the goal for a cognitive system to engage in a design process. A second‐order cybernetic framework is suitable for the analysis of such a complex process, as long as both the constructive and the interactive aspects of a self‐organising system are taken under consideration.
Practical implications
The modelling of the complex design process under the framework of second‐order cybernetics and the indication of the fundamental characteristics of an autonomous cognitive system as well as their interrelations may provide useful insights in multiple levels, from the purely theoretical (i.e. better understanding of the design process and the conditions for each creative fostering), to the purely technical (i.e. the design of artificial agents with design capabilities).
Originality/value
The innovative aspect of the paper is that it attempts an analysis of the design process under a framework of second‐order cybernetics, by attempting to analyse and explain the emergence of such a process from the point of view of an autonomous cognitive system. This results in some interesting implications regarding the nature of the design process, as well as regarding its “mechanisms” of emergence and evolution, with respect to the characteristics of the participating autonomous systems.
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Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak and Mateusz Marecki
In the years 2016–2019, in collaboration with primary school students from Wrocław, Poland, the authors endeavoured to implement participatory methods in children’s literature…
Abstract
In the years 2016–2019, in collaboration with primary school students from Wrocław, Poland, the authors endeavoured to implement participatory methods in children’s literature studies. Their collaborations with these children resulted in the formation of an intergenerational research team and the publication of two peer-reviewed articles co-written with child researchers. As their thinking about child-led research has gravitated towards approaches accentuating the value of co-thinking, they have grown convinced of the potential of participatory research to counterbalance the adultism prevailing in children’s literature studies. Building on the authors’ two participatory projects: ‘Children’s Voices in the Polish Canon Wars: Participatory Research in Action’ (Chawar et al., 2018) and ‘Productive Remembering of Polish Childhoods: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon’ (Deszcz-Tryhubczak et al., 2019), this chapter offers a meta-critical reflection on the practical and ethical challenges of working on a research paper co-authored by young collaborators. They focus on issues linked to child–adult co-authorship, such as anonymity concerns, the ethics of representations, time pressures, and institutional challenges. They propose that the key to reassessing the status of child-led research in academia lies in accepting the ‘messiness’ of participatory research, treating it as a constant work in progress rather than a final outcome or product, and shifting away from the more rigid format of academic writing towards a collectivistic and free-flowing narrative.
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Rossana Perez-del-Aguila, Patricia Rodriguez Aguirre and Jimena Cuba Blanco
This chapter explores how eight children from five Bolivian migrant families living in Madrid perceive their participation within their families. Children understand their…
Abstract
This chapter explores how eight children from five Bolivian migrant families living in Madrid perceive their participation within their families. Children understand their participation as taking responsibility for domestic chores and taking care of younger siblings. Children's ideas of participation are associated with their school experience and are about simply having a voice in everyday mundane interactions with adults and peers.
Parents' cultural values, power and authority dominate decisions in the family. These children were born in Spain and practices in their family homes are influenced by their parent's strong cultural ties with Bolivia. The data collected show that the lives of these children and their views of participation need to be understood beyond the binary of the Global North and Global South (Twum-Danso Imoh et al., 2019).
The research employed the ‘routes of participation’, a playful and creative research method that aimed to empower children to explore their ‘interdependent agency’ (Abebe, 2019) and the meaning of participation within the context of their family lives. We conclude that any successful intervention with children needs to understand the meaning of what children say in relation to the various situations in which they live. Listening to children's voices and paying attention to the language that they use in their everyday lives should continue to be the basis of child-centred research and child-centred practice. The chapter encourages to reflect on the value of culturally grounded playful activities to understand children's agentic experiences and their contribution that they can make to their own lives.
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Grace Spencer and Jill Thompson
The expansion of research with children offers new opportunities for the development of child-centred practice. Children's participation in research has been championed as a…
Abstract
The expansion of research with children offers new opportunities for the development of child-centred practice. Children's participation in research has been championed as a positive way to challenge the processes and practices that affect their everyday lives. Yet opportunities for collaborating with children, and leveraging their voices, remains heavily guided by adult-led priorities. In this chapter, we offer a critique of ‘child-centredness’ and related voice-based and participatory discourses in the absence of a full-fledged engagement with the power imbalances between adults and children. We draw on examples from our research with children on contemporary global challenges (COVID-19 pandemic, health and migration) to expose the ways that adult-led agendas for, and definitions of, participation can affect children's engagement in research. We highlight how children also effect change and display their agency through the sharing of their experiences with adult researchers. The dynamic nature of social change highlights children's considered engagement with contemporary challenges but also the importance of reciprocity and willingness of adults to listen and respond to the issues that children identify as being central to their lives. We attend to the ways our methodological decision-making offers opportunities for leveraging children's perspectives, but also highlight the dangers of reproducing dominant adult/child power relations when seeking to be ‘child-centred’. We conclude by offering some critical questions to prompt further debate in this field, In doing so, we highlight the value of reciprocity and critical reflexivity as necessary first steps towards a more considered engagement with adult/child power relations in ‘child-centred’ research.
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Nadine Correia and Cecília Aguiar
Listening to and considering children's voices shows respectful regard for children's needs, interests and experiences, and helps discern what is meaningful for them in a…
Abstract
Listening to and considering children's voices shows respectful regard for children's needs, interests and experiences, and helps discern what is meaningful for them in a particular subject or situation. Creating opportunities for the expression of children's voices implies child-centred practice: recognising children as active agents, with evolving competences and capacity to understand, think and choose with some degree of autonomy, thus being able to influence decision-making. Therefore, the commitment to listen to children's voices represents a fundamental step towards empowering children and supporting their participation rights. Importantly, children have the right to be heard and to have their voices considered from the earliest ages, in their significant relational contexts, such as early childhood education and care (ECEC). Listening to and valuing children's multiple voices in ECEC can be done in many ways, ensuring the context, children's background, characteristics and preferences are respected. In this chapter, we address the specificities of listening to children's voices and taking them into account in ECEC. We discuss common challenges that may prevent the full expression and consideration of children's voices, and ways to overcome them, to ensure children's meaningful participation in what matters to them and support them in becoming active citizens in society.
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Tom Disney, Lucy Grimshaw and Judy Thomas
This chapter presents a research study which explored the experiences of teenage secondary school girls in England whose schooling was disrupted by the pandemic and implementation…
Abstract
This chapter presents a research study which explored the experiences of teenage secondary school girls in England whose schooling was disrupted by the pandemic and implementation of lockdowns. We begin by setting the context for school-based research with children and argue children and young people experience ever-increasing pressure to act as redemptive future agents and thus sites of capital accumulation. Despite this we go on to argue that there were important moments, practices and experiences of care during the lockdown periods that can be harnessed to help resist the capitalist logics that exert such pressures upon current school children. We explain the process of using arts-based methods to engage pupils in discussing their experiences and how these methods are based on caring practices which we argue are essential for research on care. Our findings suggest the girls had positive experiences of schooling and lockdowns and we present some significant examples of caring agency that young people demonstrated in contrast to the negative media discourses about home learning. We do not seek to obscure the difficulties that these young people experienced, but in highlighting their caring agency, we demonstrate the complexity of lockdown experiences and illustrate the role and importance of care in the unbounded space of the school.
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This introductory chapter provides the context for this edited collection: Care and Coronavirus: Perspectives on Children, Youth and Families which aims to understand care in the…
Abstract
This introductory chapter provides the context for this edited collection: Care and Coronavirus: Perspectives on Children, Youth and Families which aims to understand care in the context of COVID-19, the practices, experiences and potential futures of it for children, young people and families. In this chapter, the authors begin by exploring COVID-19 and its implications for children, young people and families. This includes a consideration of how particular discourses of childhood and youth often led to the marginalisation of children in care policy and practice during the lockdown periods. The authors then discuss interdisciplinary literature on care to identify directions in policy, practice and research, drawing attention to the political nature of care and the need for scholars of childhood, youth and family to engage with these critical and political approaches to care. The authors argue that developments in the field of Childhood Studies can be brought into productive dialogue with care to forge new ways of thinking through care and childhood. The final part of the chapter provides an overview of the ensuing chapters and concludes with the implications of this work for future research, policy and practice. The authors argue that COVID-19 heightened the attention paid to care and the ways in which care is vital for the maintenance of ourselves and the world around us, while also cautioning about the inequalities and the commodification of care that was revealed in these times. The authors end with a call for reflection on the failures and successes of caring during the pandemic and in its aftermath so we might plan a more caring, hopeful future.
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– This paper aims to offer both a practical and reflective stance on a longitudinal multi-method interpretive consumer research project carried out with tween girls.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer both a practical and reflective stance on a longitudinal multi-method interpretive consumer research project carried out with tween girls.
Design/methodology/approach
This multi-layered approach to data collection, involving qualitative diaries, accompanied shopping trips, e-collages and in-depth interviews, addresses the need, as articulated by Morrow and Richards (1996, p. 96) to “move away from the narrow focus of socialization and child development” toward a research approach that prioritizes children’s own experiences of their lives as children, thereby reconsidering the richness of children’s voices.
Findings
In line with those whose work seeks to privilege children’s knowledge of the world they inhabit while also emphasizing the need, as in the case of adult “doing” to place that existence within its broader social context (Russell and Tyler, 2005, p. 227), diaries, in-depth interviews, shopping trips, e-collages and researcher diaries were used to access the world of these social neophytes as they mediate their social worlds through the ever pervasive prism of consumer culture. The light and shade of their worlds cannot be captured by adult-oriented perspectives on research which assume that young consumers are incompetent, worthy of debate merely to ascertain levelness of agency or of interest merely to quantify degrees of participation in and comprehension of the semiotic markers of our consumer society.
Research limitations/implications
Only female consumers were involved in this study which underlines the need to engage with both genders when it comes to researching young consumers.
Practical implications
This paper offers a tangible contribution to the movement of research toward understanding young consumers’ worlds through engagement with multi-layered discourses and representations.
Originality/value
This multi-layered, multi-method research project acknowledges the enthralling complexity of these young consumers’ social worlds, giving a richness and immediacy to their accounts of the compelling intimacy between young adolescent identity and the marketplace.
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Serge Svizzero and Clement A. Tisdell
Possible reasons for using kites to kill gazelles are comprehensively reviewed in this article. Even though they are now well inventoried and documented, desert kites are still…
Abstract
Possible reasons for using kites to kill gazelles are comprehensively reviewed in this article. Even though they are now well inventoried and documented, desert kites are still not well understood, as exemplified by the recurrent controversies about their function and dating. According to the dominant view, kites were hunting structures used to drive and to mass kill large herds of wild ungulates, particularly gazelles. Although kites were intensively used during the Early Bronze Age, some of them could have been built and used before that. Beyond these issues, the cultural and socioeconomic aspects of the kites phenomenon are even less understood, and therefore, we focus on changing reasons for the long-lasting use of kites as hunting devices. We contend that the reasons why they were used during the period of utilization for hunting gazelles changed, in most cases, in response to socioeconomic development. It is hypothesized, for example, that, as a result of urban development, kites may have been increasingly (but not exclusively) used to kill gazelles to trade their products with urban communities and farmers, even though they had other uses as well which are also considered. The main hypothesis presented in this article enables diverse opinions about the types of uses and reasons for utilizing desert kites to be reconciled, including in particular varied reasons given in the literature about why they were used for killing gazelles.