Chapter 5

“What does it mean?”

Social, cultural, and institutional norms invoked by adults in school settings often limit children’s voices in educational research. This chapter re-examines interview data, focusing on methodologies used to address the challenges associated with interviewing children. For this analysis, three challenges have been identified from transcripts: limiting the child/adult binary, analyzing children’s language, and overcoming children’s inexperience with interviewing. To address these challenges, this chapter focuses on methodological strategies used in an ethnographically inspired research study. These strategies included framing children’s positions through the reconceptualized model of childhood, using open or emergent listening (Davies 2011, 2014) during interviews, and reactive entry methods (Corsaro 1985, 2003). The analysis of the children’s language is expanded to include the bodily ways or multimodal forms of communication and the closer examination of the children’s abilities to participate in multiple conversations during interviews. Excerpts from interviews initially perceived to have “failed” are examined to understand how children’s inexperience with interviewing can be misinterpreted as unpredictable. Finally, interviews are interpreted as pedagogical encounters in which children are taught cultural and social norms.