‘I’m Just Doing Something!’ Navigating the Messiness of Participatory Research With 3 and 4-Year-Old Children in Early Childhood Care and Education Settings in Ireland

This paper explores the reality of participatory research with young children aged 3-4 years old in two early childhood care and education settings in Ireland. It combines the Lundy (2007) model of participation and the Mosaic approach (Clark & Moss, 2001, 2005, 2011) to listening to children. Informed by the notion of the competent child, the pedagogy of listening and the pedagogy of relationships, we use our reflections to capture the process of participatory research. The findings indicate, that as a process, participatory research is messy and non-linear. It is surprising, playful, challenging and rewarding. The findings reference the primacy of relationships between researchers and children, highlighting the need for time and space to establish relationships with children, create a safe environment, gain their trust, facilitate their agency, leading to sustained researcher/child engagement. The findings also underscore tensions and challenges that may impede children’s participation in research, including the research agenda, the dichotomy between educators’ and researchers’ expectations of children, differences in pedagogical approaches, and the inherent structure/routine of the setting. Overall, we argue that the ‘messiness’ of participatory research with children should not only be expected but welcomed and embraced. We see it as a manifestation of meaningful participation of children – achieved on their terms, developed at their pace and resulting in their voices, being truly expressed, recorded, listened to, and acted upon.