Anchoring Ethnographic Research in the Logic of Children

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Imagining Early Literacy, Care, and Criticality

Abstract

Much educational research is written about children rather than with them, often overlooking the complex ways children make sense of their learning and social worlds. This paper offers methodological and ethical practices for conducting child-centered ethnographic research that foregrounds children’s logic, agency, and ways of knowing. Drawing on a 10-week interactional ethnography in a first-grade mathematics classroom, we illustrate how researchers can earn access to children’s interactional spaces, co-construct data with them, and anchor analysis in moments children signal as meaningful. We argue that centering the logic of children enables researchers to reveal co-constructed opportunities in learning and shared meaning-making often obscured by adult-centered approaches, contributing to more rigorous, responsive, and ethically grounded educational research.

Authors

• Daniel Edelen, Georgia State University

• Audra Skukauskaite, University of Central Florida