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Childhood

Towards a sociology of 1012 year olds? Emerging methodological issues in the 'new' social studies of childhood
Sally McNamee and Julie Seymour Childhood 2013 20: 156 originally published online 9 November 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0907568212461037 The online version of this article can be found at: http://chd.sagepub.com/content/20/2/156

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CHD20210.1177/0907568212461037ChildhoodMcNamee and Seymour

Article

Towards a sociology of 1012 year olds? Emerging methodological issues in the new social studies of childhood
Sally McNamee Julie Seymour
University of Hull, UK

Childhood 20(2) 156168 The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0907568212461037 chd.sagepub.com

Kings University College at the University of Western Ontario, Canada

Abstract
This article reports on an analysis of 320 empirical research articles published between 1993 and 2010 in three of the leading childhood journals. The study looked to establish the potential samples used in accounts of empirical research studies with children; and to explore the methodology employed. The first part of this article outlines why a consideration of the ages used in childhood research is worthy of investigation. This addresses technical, methodological and epistemological dimensions of the area. It then goes on to discuss the results of our investigations. The guiding question was who are the children in the social study of childhood?, and the authors conclude that there is an over-focus on a particular age group.

Keywords
Age, childhood research, methodology, methods, 1012 year olds

Introduction
The genesis of this article arose from reflections on presentations at a recent international conference on childhood. Attendance at a number of papers where researchers had outlined their samples led us to wonder whether there was a prevalence of 1012 year olds in research on childhood. To address this, we undertook a systematic
Corresponding author: Sally McNamee, Department of Interdisciplinary Programs, Kings University College at the University of Western Ontario, 233 Epworth Avenue, London, Ontario N6A 2M3, Canada. Email: smcnamee@uwo.ca

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investigation into the ages of children involved in research in the new paradigm of childhood studies. In the roughly 20 years since the beginning of the new paradigm of the social study of childhood and the call for research with, rather than on, children, how had this call taken shape? Who are the children represented in the new paradigm? In addition, we are also responding here to James et al.s (1998: 191) call to pay heed to methodology [and] pause to ask ourselves whether our standard research techniques . . . are indeed the most appropriate. While in agreement with these authors statement that studying children need not of itself necessitate the adoption of new or exotic techniques (1998: 191) it is timely to investigate these issues as the new paradigm comes of age. We approached our task by examining research articles in the three main journals of the discipline: Childhood, Childrens Geographies and Children and Society. We looked to establish the actual samples used in accounts of empirical research studies and to explore the methodologies employed. The first part of this article outlines why a consideration of the ages used in childhood research is worthy of investigation. This addresses technical, methodological and epistemological dimensions of the area. We then go on discuss the results of our investigations.

Why focus on childrens ages in childhood research?

First, this focus is necessary for simple reasons of representativeness, to explore whether there is an over-representation of one group. Theoretically, childhood studies could include research with children of all ages under 18 (as per the UNCRC1 definition of childhood). Fraser et al. (2005) suggest that young people can be actively involved in research from the age of 2, giving as examples Clark and Mosss well-known Mosaic approach with 24 year olds (2001) which utilized cameras and drawings, and their own research which describes projects with 24 year olds. At the other end of the childhood continuum, research is taking place with 16, 17 and 18 year olds. However, Greig et al. (2007) point out that teenagers are often not differentiated by discrete years but referred to as belonging to an age group, e.g. 1014 year olds, 1517 year olds. Perhaps, most importantly, in acknowledging the paradigm shift to the new social studies of childhood and its associated methodological transfer to research with, for or by children rather than on them, we want to establish whether, when we talk about children having a voice, we are talking about all children and if not, about which children are we talking? Second, age can be a contentious issue due to its associations with the developmental model of childhood. Comments such as It is clearly developmentally inappropriate to require 5 year olds to complete a conventional questionnaire (Dockrell et al., 2000: 56) still cause a frisson from a new social sciences of childhood standpoint even though it was followed up with the competency-recognizing statement that It might however be equally inappropriate for some 10 year olds to complete questionnaires (Dockrell et al., 2000: 56). Research from this developmental paradigm stressed the difficulties of interviewing young children; that is 36 year olds. Such childrens tendency to agree with nonsense answers and be very literal was foregrounded in this paradigm as was the orthodoxy that pre-schoolers are suggestible (Hogan, 2005).

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There have of course been some robust defences of developmental psychology research from the perceived attack by the new social studies of childhood (see, for example, Hogan, 2005; Woodhead, 2009; Woodhead and Faulkner, 2000). It has been pointed out that Piaget used interviews and observations, that Vygotsky saw children as social actors and Bonfenbrenner considered childrens social worlds (Woodhead and Faulkner, 2000). We would not want to argue against these points, but neither is it our intention here to rehearse the extensive debate which has taken place elsewhere. Instead, our aim here is to explore how research under the new paradigm has been carried out. Recent childhood research has incorporated a recognition of childrens competencies rather than developmental stages but this may not extend to all the practitioners with whom they are working. For example, in Campbells (2008) study of childrens involvement in their parents separation, service providers thought 7 year olds were not old enough to give informed consent. The prevalence of the competence-based approach to children in childhood studies notwithstanding, two issues relating to age emerge. One, as pointed out by Christensen and James (2000), is that people may be still grouping children together by age based on assumed communalities of experience. Second, many discussions of methods in the new social study of childhood still, perhaps surprisingly, base their recommendations of which techniques to use on age groups. Hence, in 1998 James, Jenks and Prout argued that it may be likely that researchers were unconsciously choosing which ages to research based on our assimilation of the developmental model. They asked:
How often do researchers choose an age group simply because they feel that the children will be old enough to engage effectively with the researchers project, rather than because at that particular age in that particular society children are sharing a particular social, rather than simply developmental, experience? (James et al., 1998: 174)

In the subsequent decade, despite Kesby (2007: 194) reiterating that The capacities, resources and experiences of people are contingent and must be uncoupled from any necessary link with biological age in research design, examples of the use of age as a defining category in the choice of research techniques abound. For example, Hennessy and Heary (2005) advise that the focus group is better for children over the age of 8, but state that it may be best to use playful group activities rather than conversation with younger age groups (2005: 239). Similarly, it has been said that surveys are more appropriate with children over 8 (Haunberger, 2007, in Lange and Mierendorff, 2009). Of note here is that one of the present authors has successfully carried out surveys with children younger than 8 (McNamee, 1998). Finally, with regard to the paradigm shift James (2010) traces the history of what is now known as the new social study of childhood from a series of interdisciplinary workshops held in the 1980s, which culminated in the publication of Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, a collection of papers edited by James and Prout (1990) where the tenets of the emergent new paradigm were first elaborated. James states:
There was agreement, first, that children could and should be regarded as social actors; second, that childhood, as a biological moment in the life course, should nonetheless be understood as a social construction; and finally, there was methodological agreement about the need to access childrens view first hand. (James, 2010: 216)

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However, there was no agreement on how best to access these views. Some authors claimed there were special child-friendly methods while others considered that, beyond privileging the child as subject (as argued for with other social groups) and recognizing their different competencies, existing methods would suffice (Punch, 2002). In proposing a different definition, Fraser et al. (2005) stated that child-friendly is a term describing a negotiated research process; that is one based on a critical epistemological approach incorporating an emancipatory methodology, rather than being about the specific type of research technique used. In this construction, child-friendly methods draw on article 13.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) through which children can participate by sharing their opinions and experiences (Beazley et al., 2009: 371; see also Cahill, 2007; Hazel, 1995). It is this latter definition of the term childfriendly as relating to a methodological approach rather than the use of specific techniques which we pursue later in the article in our investigation of the impact of the paradigm shift. The call for research which took childrens voices as central found a ready and willing audience. Research with (rather than on) children became increasingly popular as the new paradigm grew, aided in the UK by the introduction of the ESRC Children 516 Programme. In the introduction to a special issue of Children and Society, which focused on the ESRC Children 516 Programme, Prout stated:
One of the main achievements of [the programme] has been to provide a mass of new research collected in ways that have allowed children a much more direct voice in their own representation than has often previously been the case. (Prout, 2002: 71)

Leaving aside for the purpose of this article discussions of the authenticity of voice (Syprou, 2011), the ESRC programme did indeed provide for childrens direct voices, however, the majority of the research projects carried out under the programme focused on children aged between 9 and 14. As Thomson (2007) says, it has been established that we should listen to children and the debate has moved onto how best to represent this groups many voices. What this article does is to question which of those voices are actually being represented. Clearly, there has been a paradigm shift in the social study of childhood as Mayall (1999) showed, from traditional research using measurement, observation and testing and which viewed the child as object (and essentially problematic). In contrast, the new paradigm views the child as subject, relational and sited in generational ordering (Lange and Mierendorff, 2009). This epistemological shift required a new methodology and, as an outcome, incorporated some techniques previously considered inappropriate for use with children such as questionnaires, interviews and discussions, vignettes, participant observation, written accounts and diaries. Alongside these, some new techniques such as structured activities, audio, photographic and visual recording and walkabouts have been developed and these iconic and embodied techniques, as Lange and Mierendorff (2009: 91) have suggested, are shifts in the whole of sociology which challenge the dominance of the linguistic approach and consequently in childhood research contest an aspect of the unequal relationships between children and adults.

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Reflecting on this epistemological and methodological shift in their editorial to the special issue of Childrens Geographies, UN Convention on the rights of the child 20 years on: The right to be properly researched, Beazley et al. (2009: 365) raise the questions what exactly (and what age) is a child when seen as the subject rather than object of research? How does this affect both methodology and method?. In their piece, they problematize the issue of age in childhood research and acknowledge that there is often insufficient discussion of methods in research reporting but go on to explain that their special issue privileges articles which focus mostly on the ethics of rights-based research. However, Beazley et al. stress that the topic of the age of children in childhood research is both important and neglected and call for more work in this area (Beazley et al., 2009: 368) particularly from a rights perspective. This article goes some way then to responding to that call. What it does is to examine published research on childhood since the early 1990s arguably the point at which childhood studies fully emerged to explore, first, which childrens views we are actually hearing and second, what methodologies are actually being used in the enterprise to access childrens views on their own lives.

Methods used in this study

We investigated three leading journals within childhood studies: Children and Society, Childhood and Childrens Geographies. We studied Childhood and Childrens Geographies from the first year of their publication in 1993 and 2003 respectively. For Children and Society we began recording from 1996 when it appeared that the new paradigm of the social study of childhood began to be adopted by contributors to this journal. All articles which reported research findings were examined. A total of 320 articles were examined, and later analyzed in SPSS. Essentially we carried out a meta-analysis of methodology and, in particular, of sample composition.

Analytical caveat
When we sought specific details of techniques used, samples chosen and the methodological reasons behind these choices, there were a significant number of articles which failed to give any such details. In relation to age, some 12% of the empirical articles considered did not state the ages of the children with whom the research was carried out, or the information was presented with such lack of clarity that it was impossible to tabulate. For example, one article reported as follows:
Sample: 112 girls under 15 years old, 64 girls aged 15-18, 3/4 of those under 15 were 12-13 and group interviews were conducted with 36 under 15 and 120 girls aged 15-18.

Here we would have no idea where to start recording in our grid (see Table 3). 112 under 15 exactly how old were they? In fact in our dataset we did not record any of the ages mentioned in this article as there was not enough clarity to do so, although on first reading of the sample details they appear clear enough. Other articles (the majority) would simply indicate an age range. As a result of this lack of data or clarity, we will be

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drawing on some 282 of the 320 articles in order to present our data. These were distributed as shown in Tables 1 and 2. In total, 30% of the articles studied were pre-2001, with 70% being published between 2002 and 2009.

The potential of being studied

Using data from articles in the leading journals rather than full research reports, meant that we often only knew the age groups that authors outlined in their planned sample rather than the exact age groups of the children and young people who were ultimately researched.
Table 1. Journals studied by number and percentage of articles. Journal title Children and Society Childhood Childrens Geographies Total N 89 160 71 320 Percentage of articles from each journal in our study (%) 28 50 22 100

Table 2. Number of articles studied by journal and year groups. Journal title Children and Society Childhood Childrens Geographies Total 19932001 28 69 0 97 20029 61 91 71 223

Table 3. Example of data mapping. ID 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 Journal 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Year 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 Under 5 5 6 1 7 1 8 1 1 9 1 1 10 1 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

1 1 1

1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1

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This raised two supplementary issues. First, how many researchers actually include this level of detail in their final report, and second, do most readers get their information from journal articles or do they also go to the original sources? Based on journal articles, Figure 1 shows the potential (rather than confirmed actual) age groups included in the studies published. This may seem nebulous but even allowing for the lack of specific data provided in journals (and it raises the additional question of space for methodological data in journal articles, cf. Beazley et al., 2009) we can show the number of proposed samples which cluster around specific age groups. The graph was produced by giving an equal opportunity of being studied to each age year which was proposed for inclusion in a sample, e.g. a study looking at 515 year olds would allocate one unit to each of the years 515 whereas one looking at 1012 year olds would allocate one datum each to 10, 11 and 12 year olds. While a crude measure, it allows a graph to be built up which shows the distribution of proposed study subjects and allows an examination of whether particular age groups are (potentially) privileged over others. The graphic reproduced in Figure 1 shows an example of how such potential sampling looks in a spreadsheet. We are not presenting the number of children in each age group who were researched but the potential of each year group being included in research based on the samples described in the journal articles.

Findings The ages of the children reported in the research articles

This demonstrates a peak in ages reported between 9 and 17, with the ages of 10, 11 and 12 being the most commonly reported; 10, 11 and 12 year olds are at least three

Figure 1. Distribution of ages studied, whole sample.

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times as likely to be included in research samples than a 5 year old and nearly twice as much as a 17 year old. The younger age groups (57) show considerably less likelihood of being included in research samples than those at the other end of the childhood continuum, i.e. 1518 year olds. Interestingly, there is a bimodal distribution to this curve with a dip at 13 and then another surge at 14. One possible reason for this could be the known time of change of performance at school, or puberty. The danger here is that researchers may be focusing on moments of transition and therefore ignoring other, more everyday events in childrens lives. That is, there may be other stories to tell than the key events of education and biology. Also, by focusing on transitional events we make these points in childrens lives inherently researchable and important and we therefore perhaps over-research that age group, inadvertently producing a circular hermeneutic of childrens lives. Our research seems to bear out Beazley et al.s assertion that the essential category the child ungendered and (below 18 years) age-free is much easier for most people to think about and research with as if it consists of human beings between 10 and 17 years than of infants or toddlers or school-aged children (2009: 368). There are some slight differences in the age groups potentially studied between the three childhood studies journals. Children and Society and Childrens Geographies are most likely to report research with children described in articles as secondary and older (34% and 45% respectively).

Researchers justifications for using sample ages?

We were interested in seeking to understand why researchers had focused on the age group in their sample. To quote Greene and Hogan (2005: xiii), while published research often goes into some depth when describing the methods used, very little attention is given to the rationale for using the method in the first place. This applies equally to the choice of sample and we also found that, in the journal articles examined, this methodological issue was rarely discussed. Of the research reports 75% did not mention why they had chosen to study the ages on which they had concentrated. Where they did justify choosing that particular age group, it was sometimes related to the topic of the research question. Could it be the case that the studies represented in the tables above are responding to James et al.s (1998) call for sociological rather than developmental events to be focused on? For example, it might be argued that researchers are interested in educational transitions rather than 1012 year olds per se. Hence we explored whether the over-use of 1012 year olds was explained by a study of (UK) high school transition. As shown in Table 4, this was mostly not the case. Had it been then, notwithstanding our earlier comment on over-privileging educational transition points (due to ease of institutional access perhaps?), the question is why are researchers not also looking at the first transition to school at 5 years old? Table 4 details some of the few justifications provided in the articles for studying a particular age group. Of these seven explanations, three can be described as sociological reasons or experiences, one can be described as a technical consideration, based on accessibility; and three

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Table 4. Ages studied with justifications given by researchers. Age studied 912 711 1017 1621 8 14 911 Justification given by researchers in articles

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This age is articulate and able to describe their feelings Their networks are expanding beyond immediate family and friends and they also have the greatest use of their neighbourhood during middle childhood Old enough to stay at centre after training session rather than being picked up or going straight home, old enough to have money Age at which one can articulate when one is feeling assured The age of 8 represents a strong transition phase towards increasing independence in dealing with everyday life They were accessible Teachers advised the researchers that children younger than 9 are not sufficiently cognitively developed

can be seen to be explicitly based on developmental milestones. So it appears that fewer than half of the (very few) explanations provided as to the choice of the sample adhere to the social science impetus of the new paradigm of childhood studies; but it is hard and perhaps dangerous to speculate from such a small number of responses. Clearly there needs to be more transparency in published accounts of research with regard to choice and justification of sample.

A consideration of the methodologies employed in the journal articles

The defining feature of the new social study of childhood paradigm is its critical epistemological approach and the use of a participatory methodology rather than the adoption of specific research techniques. We gathered information on the techniques used but our primary interest was in the use of an explicitly expressed childfriendly methodology following the definition of Fraser et al. (2005) outlined earlier in the article. To briefly comment on the use of research techniques, all of the methods researchers reported were recorded and again, we would like to emphasize the variability in reporting this. Some articles had more thorough descriptions of the research techniques employed than others. Analysis showed that the most common research method used was the interview technique used exclusively in at least 41% of studies on which information about research techniques was available. Significantly fewer researchers, around 11%, had followed up on James and Prouts (1990) advice that ethnography is the best way to study childhood. To return to methodology, we categorized studies as child-friendly where they were transparently associated with the use of PAR; that is, underpinned by an explicitly political statement on the part of the researcher which aligned them with a participatory perspective (pace Cahill, 2007; Fraser et al., 2005; Hazel, 1995). While we would not dispute that many researchers use standard methodologies in a manner tailored for

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children, what we were looking for was to see whether the child is to use Woodhead and Faulkners (2000) phrase subject, object or participant. Table 5 collapses the methods used into a dichotomous variable of standard or childfriendly in order to explore the main methodology reported in each of the three journals examined. The research articles which most frequently utilized child-friendly approaches occurred in Childrens Geographies. This journal also has many dedicated research editions with three between 2007 and 2010 (2007 5:3, 2008 6:2 and 2009 7:4). While there does appear to be a difference in the approaches used in the research published by the three journals, surprisingly perhaps Table 6 indicates that there does not appear to have been a chronological dimension to the adoption of child-friendly methodologies. The last decade sees only a slightly increased use of research studies explicitly identified as using such PAR/child-friendly approaches. There appears to have been a surprisingly limited methodological shift over time. Whether this is because the acknowledgement of epistemological shift in the social study of childhood which appears in most articles in the journals interrogated has not been mirrored by a corresponding discussion of the impact this paradigm has had on the adoption of participatory methodologies rather than being due to a slow uptake of such participatory approaches it is hard to gauge precisely because there are such minimal data available. Interestingly, Table 7 suggests that where 912 year olds are specifically targeted as
Table 5. Methodology used by journal (%). Journal title Children and Society Childhood Childrens Geographies Standard methodology 83 82 55 Child-friendly methodology 17 18 45

Table 6. Methodology used by year group of publication (%). Year of publication 19932001 20029 Standard methodology 80 74 Child-friendly methodology 20 26

Table 7. Methodology used by age category (%). Age 912 only Primary school age and younger Secondary school age and older Wide range of ages Standard methodology 68 79 79 73 Child-friendly methodology 32 21 21 26

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a sample group, the research is more likely to use child-friendly methodologies than are studies where the sample age group is wider.

Conclusion
This analysis has highlighted two main issues. The first is around the reporting of methodology in journals. While the lack of full reporting of methodology may be presented as an issue of space and readers referred back to the original reports, we feel that this omission raises the question as to why this is not considered important contextual information. Is the reporting of research techniques, sampling frames and methodological approaches in journal articles insufficient and is this perhaps erroneously ascribed to limitations of space or word count rather than a perception that methodology is less important than the publishing of results? Surely we need to know from the researchers the details of their samples and the rationale behind their selection? We also need more specific details of exactly who was sampled. This could be provided in footnotes or tables. This would allow a future examination of who was actually sampled rather than, as in our data analysis, who was potentially sampled. Second, and perhaps more problematically from an epistemological point of view, our investigation suggests that not all childrens voices are being heard. We acknowledge that some of the studies on much younger children or teenaged groups may be appearing in more age-focused journals (e.g. those concerned with early childhood education or youth studies). Yet, there is still a lacuna in the key childhood journals. Kesby, in his introduction to the special issue of Childrens Geographies on methods, considered that so far in childhood studies we have revealed the missing children, made space for their voices, explored the social construction of childhood and begun to trace its heterogeneity. He therefore considered that It is time to also interrogate the foundational concepts of this project and face up to their incoherence (Kesby, 2007: 194). Similarly, Spyrou (2011: 151) maintains that research in the social study of childhood has mostly failed to scrutinize itself and to attend critically to issues of representation. We would be in agreement with these statements. In this article we suggest that there is still some work to do in the field on the grounds that some childrens voices have been given more space than others. In our efforts to deconstruct childhood, have we constructed a sociology of 1012 year olds? Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Karen Martel and Bailey Deadman for their assistance with gathering the data and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Funding
This work has received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Note
Text from the UNCRC, available at: www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.

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