the deafening silence

Abstract

A B S T R A C TResearchers who deal with inclusive education have made great efforts to listen to the voices of children in order to understand marginalization. Despite the fact that these efforts take place, the voices of many children fail to be heard and hence many children continue to be marginalized. In this article we will develop and implement a technique in order to understand and address marginalization. We will develop a technique that uses children's drawings and a simultaneous talk with children to reveal voices of marginalization. We fi rst defi ne the technique by presenting its theoretical background and then illustrate how the method has been used. Using evidence from a school in Cyprus, we demonstrate how children's drawings and simultaneous discussion with the creator of the drawing can help us develop a richer understanding of marginalization. K E Y W O R D S Cyprus education, early childhood drawings, inclusion, marginalization '… what children say about teaching, learning and schooling is not only worth listening to but provides an important -perhaps the most important -foundation for thinking about ways of improving schools' (Rudduck et al., 1996: 1) dots, dots, dots! Narrated by A.M. It was a Wednesday morning in a class with 22 fi ve-year-old children. It was time for free activities and children were sitting around circular tables in groups of four or fi ve. Some of them played table games and the rest drew with colour pencils. George Downloaded from journal of early childhood research 7(1) 28 was drawing and seemed absorbed in what he was doing. At some point the teacher passed by his desk and she looked at his drawing. 'You are drawing dots! Do you only know how to make dots? Do something sensible so that we can understand it!' 'You don't know what I'm doing', George answered angrily and without looking at his teacher he bent his head sadly towards the fl oor. The teacher turned towards me and told me: 'From the time he came to our school he only draws lines and makes dots.' Given my effort to develop a technique for discussing children's drawings in order to locate children who experience marginalization, this episode urged me to observe George more closely and to discuss his drawings with him [see drawing 1]. Little by little, I managed to develop a good relationship with him. It was a relationship of trust and friendship. Very often he told me that his classmates made fun of him because he drew dots. As time passed he began to talk to me about his 'dots' . Initially he told me:'This is a broken road' and he showed the circular lines he had drawn on the paper. drawing 1 (George) 'The rain breaks the road and goes to the sea'

Untitled

“…It is commonly undertaken in the field of CYC as a creative, critical and relational practice of inquiry that seeks to challenge the traditional standards of -doing research‖ by imagining new possibilities of engagement with youth (Bellefeuille and Ricks, 2010;Bellefeuille et al, 2014). Arts-based researchers recognize that nondiscursive forms of inquiryranging from visual arts, performance, dance, music, creative writing, poetry and so oncan be forms of research (Angelides and Michaelidou, 2009;Barone and Eisner, 2012;Leavy, 2009;Liamputtong and Rumbold, 2008).…”

Privileging Younger Children's Voices in Research: Use of Drawings and a Co-Construction Process

“…Wright (2003) has also emphasized that when preschool children engage in multiple domains of expression, they are "liberated to mentally manipulate and organize images, ideas and feelings, and to use a rich amalgam of both fantasy and reality to portray experiences" (p. 24). Many recent empirical studies with children below the age of 7 have demonstrated the efficacy of employing multiple techniques to gain valuable insights into the children's worlds (Angelides & Michaelidou, 2009;Brodkin, 2005;Einarsdottir et al, 2009;Grace & Bowles, 2011;Harris & Barnes, 2009;Jesuvadian & Wright, 2011;Lee, 2009;Stephenson, 2009;Wei & Di Santo, 2011;White et al, 2010;Yin, Lee, & Ebbeck, 2003). These studies have employed innovative child-friendly methods and methodologies together with traditional conversations/interviews.…”