From images to interaction: Examining the relationship between children's photography and types of dialogic interactions

Photo elicitation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) can facilitate various types of dialogic interactions between teachers and small groups of children. However, little is known about how the content of children's photographs and their perspectives on them relate to different forms of interactions. In the present study, we explored the themes of photographs taken and discussed by children and the extent to which photography assignments and identified themes were associated with types of dialogic interactions in related small-group discussions. The interaction types examined were drawn from prior work by Muhonen et al. (2026): individual interview, group interview, child-centred dialogue, and teacher-directed dialogue. The analytical strategy employed a mixed-methods approach, combining thematic analysis and multinomial logistic regression. Eight photography themes were identified, with play, social relationships and rules, and physical surroundings emerging most frequently in the photographs and discussions. Both the photography assignments and the identified themes significantly influenced the likelihood of different types of interactions. These findings extend prior research by demonstrating variations in how different photography assignments and themes contribute to the emergence of both more segmented initiation–response–feedback sequences and more extended, collective forms of interaction in ECEC.