Power sharing: participatory research as democracy in early childhood education and in education

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory research
• democratic education
• early childhood education
• participatory research in early childhood education
• participatory research in education
• democratic research

Introduction

Last term, I had the privilege of teaching Research Methods in Education to a wonderful group of international master’s students who had travelled from their home countries in Asia and Africa to study at our campus in the United Kingdom. The module focuses on learning to research in Early Childhood Education and in Education (ECE&E), and most of the postgraduate students in this group are teachers or educational leaders in early childhood settings or schools with exciting plans for conducting their dissertation fieldwork in their workplaces. During our time together, I explained to the students that the module does not only provide the knowledge and skills they will need to conduct their master’s dissertation study, but also offers them opportunities to learn about a broader range of paradigms, methodologies and methods relevant to ECE&E. In this way, we invest our students with resources they can use to conduct further research in their schools and early childhood settings long after they have graduated. We do this because we believe that ECE&E academics have a responsibility to support other stakeholders in our field to conduct inquiry, so that co-construction of knowledge about ECE&E includes teachers, students, and parents – authentic ‘insiders’ (Griffiths 1998, 138–139) – who can offer expertise and understanding accrued from their lived experiences.

This participatory approach to research requires us to challenge established epistemological tenets. We begin by asking: ‘What knowledge about ECE&E is valued, by whom, and for whom?’ We reject the proposition that only knowledge produced by an academic elite using others as research data sources has value, and we value opportunities to bolster our learning with knowledge derived experientially with – and by – stakeholders who experience ECE&E every day: teachers, students and parents. Appadurai (2006, 167) argues that research has ‘democratic potential’: all individuals have capacity to research and no person should be excluded from being a researcher. In this paper, I argue that participatory approaches to research leverage democracy in ECE&E by empowering stakeholders to reposition from being researched to researching, and I consider three widely used models to highlight key characteristics, benefits and challenges of ECE&E participatory approaches to research. For this paper, I attend to both Early Childhood Education and Education because work that has been undertaken form these – and other disciplines – concerning participatory approaches to research has relevance for both EEC&E, and we can learn from each other.

Participatory research approaches can leverage democracy

In the third decade of the twenty-first century, democracy is facing challenges globally (Engelland 2023; Miliband 2024; Ziblatt 2024). This phenomenon has been identified as problematic because democracy leverages freedom, human rights, prosperity, development, security, and peace (Council of Europe 2024; United Nations 2024). In the last century, educators Dewey (1916; 1925) and Freire (1970) argued for democratic pedagogies and built the foundations of participatory approaches to research in education. In ECE, participatory research approaches have been influenced powerfully by pioneers including Montessori who positioned herself as a teacher-researcher (Montessori 1916; O’Donnell 2007) and Isaacs (1930) who educated teachers as researchers collecting data that provided evidence of young children’s own ‘epistemic interest and inquiry’ (Isaacs 1944, 322).

As I write now in 2024, multiple definitions for participatory approaches to research exist, yet there is also consensus that participatory approaches to research require democratic processes (Cargo et al. 2008; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). Fielding and Moss (2011:, 42) highlight that ‘democracy … can and should pervade all aspects of everyday life’, as ‘a way of thinking, being and acting, of relating and living together’. Therefore, applying democracy to ECE&E research means shifting the power to do research from the ‘rarefied world of academia’ to communities and individuals in our ECE settings and schools (Redmond 2008, 9). Research is fully participatory when everyone involved in a project is either a co-researcher or a researcher (Fielding 2001; O'Kane 2008; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). To gauge the extent to which professional researchers might be involved in democratic ECE&E research, it can be helpful to refer to participation typologies that clarify the power sharing required to enact participation (Arnstein 1969; Fielding 2001; Hart 1992), as Wilkinson and Wilkinson (2018) suggest. These typologies indicate that PR in ECE&E may be (i) a partnership between professional researchers and other ECE&E stakeholders, (ii) delegated by professional researchers to other ECE&E stakeholders, or (iii) fully controlled by ECE&E stakeholders.

Participatory approaches to research include many categories, with Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) especially popular (MacAuley 2017; Wilkinson and Wilkinson 2018). Another common approach is Participatory Research (PR), a term that is sometimes used interchangeably with CBPR and PAR (Centre for Social Justice and Community Action and National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, (CSJCA/NCCPE) 2022). Additionally, the moniker PR is also sometimes used as an overarching term encompassing all categories of participatory approaches to research, characterised by Coyne and Carter (2018) as person-centred, representative, inclusive, strengths-based sites of knowledge co-construction, underpinned by time, space, flexibility and relationships. In the present paper, though, PR is framed as a separate category. Given that PAR, CBPR and PR (as a discrete category) are three major participatory approaches used for research in ECE&E, I explore each in further detail below to exemplify some key characteristics, benefits and challenges of ECE&E participatory approaches that may influence a democratic orientation to researching.

Participatory action research in early childhood education and education

Based on Lewin’s (1946) AR cycle, Action Research (AR) requires practitioners to (i) study a problem for which they have responsibility, (ii) reflect critically on their research findings, to (iii) inform a plan and (iv) act with the intention of improving the situation (Foreman-Peck and Murray 2008). Stenhouse (1975) and Elliott (2015) promoted AR as a teachers’ tool for addressing a perceived disconnect between educational theorising and educational practice. AR and PAR are sometimes conflated, perhaps because both focus on the value of knowledge accrued through experiential learning to secure change (Cornish et al. 2023; Morales 2016; Reason and Bradbury 2001; Whitehead and McNiff 2006). However, whilst PAR incorporates AR characteristics, several features distinguish PAR from AR. First, while an individual or small group tends to conduct AR research and their co-workers are positioned as research subjects, PAR tasks are distributed among community members, so that change is enacted ‘through collaborative action’ (Padayachee et al. 2023, 10). Second, unlike AR which is a methodology, PAR is a distinct approach to research (Pain, Whitman, and Milledge 2011). Third, PAR is political: PAR researchers address ‘problems caused by unequal and harmful social systems’ to enact transformation (Cornish et al. 2023, 1). PAR evolved from the need for change, predicated on recognising that while every person is an expert in their own life and experiences, privilege and power shape the political and cultural systems that influence individuals’ experiences and lives, yet exclude them from participation in those systems (Torre 2009). Epistemologically, PAR intersects critical theory with social constructivism (Langhout and Thomas 2010): the PAR process distributes power by requiring collaborators to share their knowledge and abilities through engagement in open, critical dialogue to generate new knowledge (Cornish et al. 2023). Through their engagement in PAR ‘collective democratic participation’, collaborators who are not academics have opportunities to acquire skills, knowledge, capacities, and autonomy (Campos and Anderson 2021, 41).

ECE researchers and pedagogues value PAR for its potential to disrupt prevailing social injustice (Adriany, Yulindrasari, and Safrina 2023; Dansereau and Wyman 2020), and they regard PAR as a valuable tool for promoting inclusion (Farndale and Reichelt 2023; Heimburg, Langås, and Ytterhus 2021; Mahadew and Hlalele 2022). However, ethical protocols concerning anonymity and identity can be difficult to secure in PAR, especially concerning propagation of results to a wider audience (Fletcher and Marchildon 2014; Pain, Whitman, and Milledge 2011). Additionally, when PAR involves adults and children who have previously co-existed in a culture in which children are subordinated, or different community members have conflicting agenda, the success of PAR can be compromised, especially when sufficient time is not afforded to build equal relationships and engage in dialogue (Langhout and Thomas 2010). Equally, PAR requires participants’ collaboration and engagement at every stage of the research (Cornish et al. 2023; Pain, Whitman, and Milledge 2011), which can be problematic when participants have competing imperatives, for example learning and teaching, and the requirement for full engagement by all parties may be burdensome which is another ethical consideration (British Educational Research Association 2018).

Community-based participatory research in early childhood education and education

CBPR is a partnership research approach that attends to issues affecting communities, for which all community members share equal commitment to working together on research projects (CSJCA/NCCPE 2022; Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (DC-AURC) 2024; Vangeepuram et al. 2023; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). CBPR has also evolved from AR, so enacting change tends to be regarded as its key purpose (Fontaine, 2006; Holkup et al. 2004). CBPR is often a research partnership between academic researchers and community stakeholders and requires mutual respect and trust between research partners to reify equal relationships (Collins et al. 2018; Harvey, Pierce, and Hirshberg 2023; Tariq, Grewal, and Booth 2023). Unlike PAR, CBPR does not require an action (DC-AURC, 2024); CBPR research may focus on developing new understanding, for example. Harvey, Pierce, and Hirshberg (2023) found the culturally responsive potential of CBPR to be especially beneficial in an ECE context, while Thingstrup, Prins, and Smidt (2022) argue that CBPR offers an ‘inclusive, respectful, place-sensitive’ research approach that mirrors desirable ECE pedagogies. CBPR also provides a context for developing research questions that genuinely reflect a community’s concerns and can encourage participants to be more willing to consent to research participation. Equally, research instruments developed by a whole community can be more trustworthy because community members use their insider knowledge to design, test, implement them (Minkler 2005). However, the demands on all community members to contribute equally to the research can be challenging. It cannot be assumed that it is easy for all community members to engage in CBPR, for example, working parents who do not collect their children from an ECE setting may find it difficult to collaborate. In such circumstances, there is a risk that CBPR may illuminate and even entrench existing disconnections between a setting or school and its community members (Jarrott et al. 2021; Thingstrup, Prins, and Smidt 2022).

Participatory research in in early childhood education and education

This section focuses on PR as a discrete category of participatory approaches to research. When people participate as co-researchers and researchers to investigate issues they experience in their everyday lives, and co-produce knowledge that may inform useful change – including understanding – they are engaging in participatory research (Ospina, Burns, and Howard 2021). However, while those engaging in PR may seek positive change in their lives, PR does not emphasise transformation as strongly as some other forms of participatory inquiry, for example PAR (Cornish et al. 2023). PR is a research approach that facilitates co-construction of multiple testimonies (Liamputtong and Rice 2022). As for some other participatory research approaches, a political stance is a characteristic of PR; those who engage in PR are often resisting disenfranchisement and subjugation and the act of collective research can be empowering (Liamputtong and Rice 2022). Ainscow (2024) argues that PR is useful in the field of Education because it enables teachers to view themselves as researchers, it generates useful knowledge that addresses authentic educational problems, and teachers are more likely to apply findings derived from PR to their practice than findings from traditional forms of educational research.

In PR, any research instrument that allows for collaborative inquiry can be used and those taking part can choose their level of participation at each step in the research process (Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). This flexibility may be especially useful in ECE&E contexts where educational practice already places many demands on educational leaders, teachers, parents and students. To this end, PR may be defined as research co-construction by stakeholders and academics in which stakeholders decide the elements of the research process they undertake themselves, the elements they share with academics, and the elements they appoint academics to conduct. PR affords flexibility because it is an approach based on principles, rather than a specific methodology or method (Wilkinson and Wilkinson 2018). PR principles include participation, cooperation, transparency, inclusivity, equality, responsibility, respect, reflexivity and co-production (Amsterdam University Medical Centers 2024; Cardiff University 2021; Scott-Barrett et al. 2023). The PR focus on principles means those taking part can select methodologies and methods that are appropriate to their research and their contexts.

However, PR in ECE&E can present challenges which participants must navigate to secure successful process and outcomes. In particular, the parochial nature of projects designed and conducted in situated ECE&E contexts by insiders may detract from research quality, with implications for the trustworthiness of knowledge they generate (Ainscow 2024). Equally, PR in ECE&E with children can present specific challenges. For example, adults can struggle to understand young children’s communications, research tools may not engage children, it can be difficult to assure children’s confidentiality and privacy, and to balance power relationships between adults and children, and children’s participation in research may change their usual activity (Sevón et al. 2023; Waller and Bitou 2011).

Yet there is much evidence that PR can also be beneficial for ECE&E. Teachers, students and parents co-produce valuable knowledge as ECE&E researchers (Clark 2010; Fielding 2001; Murray 2017). Children’s active engagement in PR positions them to be recognised as competent social actors and respected as rights holders (Dockett and Perry 2019). When teachers are also researchers, they empower themselves to improve their practice and raise their professional status (Kincheloe 2012). When parents engage in PR, their insights concerning their own children give them capacities to co-produce knowledge that would be impossible for professional researchers (Hackett 2017). In ECE settings PR’s affordances have facilitated co-production of new knowledge across many diverse aspects of practice that matter to stakeholders, including play (Baker and Ryan 2021), children’s wellbeing (Fane et al. 2020), early mathematics (Gripton 2023) and socio-emotional development (Elwick and Green 2020; Koch 2021). PR has also proved useful for research conducted in schools (Fielding 2001; Lee, Jin, and Yi 2022),

Summary

In this paper, I have argued that adopting participatory approaches to research can leverage democracy in Early Childhood Education and Education, and I have illustrated this by considering three participatory research models that are used widely in the two fields: PAR, CBPR and PR. All have challenges and benefits. One overarching challenge is the lack of consensus in defining participatory approaches to research and this aspect requires further development. However, among the overall benefits of participatory approaches to research is the empowerment of stakeholders as they reposition from researched to researchers. As a standalone category of participatory approaches to research, PR has much to commend it for ECE&E. Because it does not demand transformative action or equal collaboration required of other approaches, PR affords flexibility that makes it relatively easy to use and relevant for many ECE&E contexts. Whilst participatory approaches to research will not – and should not – replace traditional ECE&E research which has its own value, benefits afforded by participatory approaches to research to ECE&E individuals and communities are palpable and are an expression of commitment to democracy.

Introduction to International Journal of Early Years Education, Issue 32.2

In the section below, I introduce sixteen articles that have been curated for this issue of International Journal of Early Years Education. Their selection has been influenced by this paper’s focus on participation in research. Fielding (2001) identifies four levels of research participation: (i) ‘Researcher’ which requires the participant to lead the research, (ii) ‘Co-Researcher’ for which the researcher leads the research with the participant involved in one or more research processes, (iii) ‘Active Respondent’ requiring the participant to respond actively and the researcher to hear the participant’s responses, and (iv) ‘Data Source’, a more traditional approach for which the participant is positioned as the object of the research. Each of the articles selected for this issue of International Journal of Early Years Education is based on ECE research that illuminates participation at one of these levels.

This issue opens with three articles featuring participants as researchers: ‘Name it and claim it: Supporting early childhood teachers to recognise themselves as researchers’ authored by Andrea Nolan and Louise Paatsch, ‘Disrupting the Aistear Hour: Working towards a Play-Based curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms in Irish primary schools’ by Carol Ann Ó Síoráin, Margaret Kernan and Fiona McArdle, and ‘Understanding Parent and Staff Perspectives on Bicycle Usage in Nurseries and at Home’, contributed by June O’Sullivan, Saudaa Nadat and Leila Roberts.

Four contributions then recount research that includes co-researchers. The first – ‘Body practices: Negotiations of ‘risk’ in Norwegian and French preschools’ – comes from Pascale Garnier, Anne Greve, Oddbjørg Skjær Ulvik, Victoria Chantseva, Sylvie Rayna, Bjørg Fallang, Liv Mette Gulbrandsen and Ingvil Øien. Next, ‘Guiding children towards individual and collective growth. Educative participatory experiences in a preschool setting’ is authored by Sara Frödén and Britt Tellgren, then ‘Whom to Share Teacher, Joker or Stranger’ by Hüseyin Kotaman and Mustafa Aslan, is followed by ‘State vs Private preschool setting: assessing school quality for a successful learning environment’ by Eleni Tympa and Vasiliki Karavida.

In one article by Catarina Wahlgren and Kristina Andersson, participants are active respondents: ‘The child in the Swedish preschool photograph versus the child in the curriculum – a comparison of contemporary notions’.

Studies that position participants as the data source are reported in the final set of articles in this issue. ‘Decision-making factors for group organising in Swedish preschools’ by Panagiota Nasiopoulou is the first in this group, followed by ‘Teachers’ and Children’s use of Words during Early Childhood STEM Teaching supported by Robotics’, authored by Marie Fridberg and Andreas Redfors. Two mixed methods studies follow: ‘(In)capacity to early learning provisioning in Namibia’ from Gert Van Rooy, Elizabeth Kamara and Chosi Kasanda, and ‘Early Childhood Practicum Students’ Perceptions and Experiences of Remote Directed Fieldwork Course during COVID-19 Pandemic’ by Su Jeong Wee, Jessica Dennis, Yafen Lo, Kheng Ly-Hoang and Patricia Ramirez-Ulloa. Next, Tahir Saleem and Baber Khan contribute ‘Exploring the efficacy of children’s media use in enhancing L2 vocabulary acquisition’. We then feature ‘Fostering positive relationships among classmates: useful models for social pedagogical actions’ by Eleftheria Beasidou and Karenia Botsoglou. The penultimate paper for this issue is ‘The Impact of Pre-primary Education on Primary Student Achievement: Evidence from SACMEQ III’ by Kyoko Taniguchi, and the final article – ‘Young Children’s Science Learning from a Touchscreen App’ – is authored by Harriet Tenenbaum and Jo Van Herwegen.

In conclusion … 

The articles in this issue of International Journal of Early Years Education illuminate the rich diversity of participation that characterises contemporary ECE research. I commend each to you, and I invite you to consider how our combined efforts as researchers, co-researchers and research users may leverage democracy within and beyond the field of Early Childhood Education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).