Self-Authored Artifacts as Mediational Means: A Focus on Embodiment

• In Event: Young Participants as Partners in Research

Abstract

1. Objectives. We investigated the interactional processes taking place when Finnish children share and discuss their preschool day experiences via self-authored photos and drawings. In this presentation we focus on how these visual means are used in the interaction as resources that aid sharing one’s experiences. In particular, we ask: how are children’s experiences negotiated and renegotiated moment-to-moment in co-constructive processes, and how do self-authored photos and drawings mediate these negotiations?

2. Theoretical framework. Our theoretical framework stems from socio-cultural perspectives on human interaction (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978). Accordingly, we understand interaction as being a situative process in which participants utilize different mediational means to engage in collaborative activities. These activities are embedded within a specific institutional and cultural-historical context.

3. Methods of inquiry. The on-going analysis draws on iterative interaction analysis frameworks (Jordan & Hendersson, 1995) with a specific focus on embodied interaction. That is, the analytical work identifies social and material conduct through which participants use photos and drawings as mediational means (Goodwin, 2000).

4. Data sources. Data consist of nine focus group discussions between 10 to 30 minutes each, totaling 192 minutes. In the discussions, 2-3 preschool children shared and discussed digital photographs and drawings they produced to represent their ”moments of joy” during a preschool day. The discussions took place over a two-week period when the children documented, shared and reflected upon their lives and experiences in the preschool. One Finnish public preschool class (19 preschool children, 6-7 years old) and their teacher participated in the study.

5. Results. Our current analysis warrants two preliminary findings. In relation to the interactional dynamics, we found that sharing and talking about one’s experiences is just one of the agendas in play in the situation. Children “bring in” and create their own interests and agendas in the focus groups. This, then, seems to create an overall dynamic within which moments of telling are fragile and elusive interactional achievements.

Our analysis also illuminates the multimodal nature of “telling” about pictures and drawings. In addition to pointing, telling is enriched with vivid expressive gesturing and vocal mimicry, which seem intended to recreate the original situation depicted in the artifact.

6. Scientific significance of the study. Our study contributes to the ongoing discussions concerning visual methodologies in two important and connected ways. First, it highlights the interactional dynamics taking place when children share their experiences (Westcott & Littleton, 2005). Second, it addresses the undertheorized role of the visual tools within these interactions (O'Brien, Varga-Atkins, Umoquit, & Tso, 2012).

In all, our results highlight how children's perspectives on their experiences in preschool emerge in joint discussions and with the help of self-authored artifacts. The results are of potential value to researchers and practitioners in different academic fields wishing to understand and promote children's participation in matters concerning them, in research and the society in general.

Authors

• Jaakko Hilppö, University of Helsinki

• Lasse Lipponen, University of Helsinki

• Kristiina P. Kumpulainen, University of Helsinki

• Antti Juhani Rajala, University of Helsinki / Department of Teacher Education