Tuff trays and I-poems: Exploring young children’s voices and understanding of family

Description

This paper explores young children's experiences of family utilising sensory activities with tuff trays. Much of the research around family conducted with children focuses on family composition and membership (e.g. Castren and Widmer 2015, Mason and Tipper 2008), less is known about family-as-activity (Clark and Kehily 2013) and as a verb (Morgan 2011) where the practices of and within the family provide meaning and insight into how families relate and not just who they are related to. By using tuff trays and loose-parts resources, open-ended provocations were set up for children aged 3 to 4, who in turn engaged in exploration, discussions and reflections enabling them to voice their own constructions and reconstructions of family as part of the every-day and the mundane. Children engaged in recreating and reimagining what they do with their families, activating conversations about family practice. Unexpected stories of garden sheds, offices and kitchen adventures were told alongside the creation of artefacts that illustrated children’s meaning making of family. Children’s sense of self within the family and their positioning was documented by developing 'I-poems' using an adaptation of the Listening Guide (Gilligan 2015) to utilise both verbal and non-verbal expression. This method of analysis was combined with thematic analysis (Bryman 2016) of the narratives of family practice. Emphasising the experiences and voices of children (in the widest sense possible) contributed to better understanding of how they position themselves within their families and wider context.

The generated knowledge about children’s understandings of family provide insight into children’s sense making and the poetic presentation of the data emphasises children’s communication beyond language. To deepen the analysis, this paper will explore snippets of ‘data that glows’ (MacLure 2013) within the I-poems to illustrate not just sense making, but also children’s relationship building with who (and what) they narrate as family. Acknowledging, exploring and promoting young children’s voices positions them as capable and agentic in narrating their everyday experiences. This research builds on existing early childhood practice and resources familiar to young children to offer novel ways of listening, documenting views and experiences combining observations, speech and body language with poetic inquiry and a focus on the self in relation.

Exploring children’s understandings of family practice can develop early childhood practitioners’ understanding of children’s families and voices and in turn promote stronger home-setting partnerships, benefiting children, families, and settings. The play-based methods that will be discussed offer an effective way to incorporate more active listening using approaches, objects and activities that are readily available in settings, thus positioning the child and their experiences at the centre of early childhood practice.

Period	11 Sept 2025
Event title	British Educational Research Association Annual Conference 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Brighton, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International