Action Research with Children: Reintegrating Heart and Mind.
I am just back from EECERA’s 25th anniversary 
which met in Barcelona. Over 1000 scholar-practitioners in the field of early learning met there for a week with tons of workshops and presentations. I was invited to offer a keynote about ActionResearchChildren_EECERA on contemporary action research, something I refer to more and more as “not your fathers’ action research.” The reference to “father” points to the need for a generational update -each generation must reinvent the wheel as our worldview shifts. ‘Beyond the fathers’ also recognizes the post-patriarchal flavor of action research and our concern with empowerment and justice. Starting with reference to good practice I spoke of the impressive work of Kwi-Ok Nah (Korea), Nancy Price (USA) and Ernie Stringer (Australia). Each illustrates a different level of systems emphasis in their action research with, rather than on, children. Nah (to be published soon in ARJ) worked with pre-kindergardners who, in the process of learning to make requests, ended up designing a new playground using photo voice! This is all the more interesting for occurring in a Confucian (authoritarian) culture. Nancy’s work was about hardwiring mindfulness practice into teachers’ schooldays and seeing how pedagogical attachment flourished as a result. Ernie’s work has been about really involving parents, way beyond cake sales, to help shape their children’s education. The main conveners, Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram were celebrating 25 years of this rapidly expanding annual conference. They refer to their practice as “Praxeology” which brings a special focus to issues of ethics and power when working within the participatory paradigm of action research in the context of Early Childhood Research. An additional great pleasure was meeting Julia Formosinho whose influential work in Portugal has really been about encouraging early learning beyond the passivity that the previous Portuguese dictatorship, under Salazar, encouraged. What makes all this work of general interest to all acton researchers, I believe, is the creativity discovered when working with pre-literate and highly suggestible stakeholders, namely very young children. Certainly we recognize children have the right to determine their own lives, but how often we forget to allow them actually to shape things? The child centered consent processes alone require a level of honesty and creativity that we all can learn from. But more than that I see how relevant is this work when working with all stakeholders. For how many of us have not been socialized to passivity? How many of us can easily imagine a better future when we have been socialized to reproduce the current system. Action research brings a constrictive approach to creating new worlds and in the work of EECERA we see the possibility of that as small children learn to shape their own context. A world in which too many schools fail their children needs more useful action research. A world in which too many organizations waste people’s lives and the world’s resources needs more useful inquiry. A world in which all living systems – water, air, food, all species – are in decline needs action research. When we see work with pre-kindergartners we see action research offering the possibility of a gentle, generational revolution! Best wishes to EECERA for their next 25 years!
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