Family Questioning Practices During Inquiry: Shaping Young Children's Ways of Perceiving and Knowing

• In Event: Drawing on Families' Ways of Perceiving and Knowing to Learn About Diverse Epistemologies in Action

Abstract

Largely unspoken messages of how to engage with others and the world (Goodwin, 2013) shape children’s ways of noticing, questioning, and explaining (Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, Galco, Topping, & Shrager, 2001; Goodwin, 2007). However, we know relatively little about when and how this occurs within family activity (Mehus, Stevens, & Grigholm, 2010; Ochs, Taylor, Rudolph, & Smith, 1992). Drawing upon ethnomethodological and interactional analysis traditions (McDermott, 1976; Jordan & Henderson, 1995 Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997), I analyze data from a longitudinal video-ethnographic study to explore children’s developing epistemologies—their ways of perceiving and knowing—during naturally occurring activity.

To identify family activity that may shape children’s ways of perceiving and knowing I am guided by Dewey’s (1938/1981) insistence that inquiry begins when individuals feel puzzled. Using this “felt puzzle” as a sensitizing construct (Blumer, 1954), I identified instances of families orienting to and exploring puzzling situations to their own satisfaction—moments of inquiry. By examining patterns of interaction within families—family practices (Tuomi-Gröhn, 2003)—I explore how routine engagement shapes ways of perceiving and knowing.

I present an in-depth analysis of a moment of inquiry between a young boy, Charlie (2 years 11 months), and his mother to explore relationships between forms of sensemaking and ways of knowing. I describe Charlie and Mommy’s formulation of a puzzling situation—why The Dogs Ate the Boy’s Dinner in the movie Up—and exploration of that puzzle to their satisfaction. In particular, I examine how Mommy’s “remember when” question prompted remembering when Charlie visited his grandparents and their dog, Gem, ate his food. By placing these two narratives—The Dogs Ate the Boy’s Dinner and Gem Ate Charlie’s Food—in relation to each other, Mommy encouraged Charlie to take the perspectives of several characters, both real and fictional, to build theories of character motivations. They worked to understand the dogs in Up by thinking about Gem the dog, and to understand the boy’s experience by thinking about Charlie’s experience in ways similar to scientists work to take perspectives and build theories (Ochs & Taylor, 1992; Ochs, Taylor, Rudolph, & Smith, 1992).

I connect this instance of inquiry to other similar instances in Charlie’s family, arguing that remembering together was a family questioning practice. I broaden my analysis to explore patterns in Charlie’s participation in remembering together during moments of inquiry over hours, days, months, and years. These patterns show that remembering together shaped the forms of sensemaking in which Charlie engaged during inquiry, and reflected patterns in the very things Charlie noticed in the first place. I demonstrate how in tracing participation in family practices, researchers gain insight into reciprocal relationships between ways of perceiving and ways of knowing, and the interests and concerns of community members. I also propose these family practices as tools for connecting understanding of when and how children come to participate in particular ways of knowing with what Goodwin (2007) has called a family ethos and eventually with cultural repertoires of practice.

Author

• Danielle Keifert, Exploratorium