Oppilaitten eettinen toimijuus videotutkimuksessa

The rapid development of various recording technologies in recent years has created appealing opportunities for researchers to document and study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning in ways which previously were either impossible, high-priced, or impractical. The potential access that low-cost and ever-smaller recorders provide us has been wisely tempered with cautions that researchers critically reflect on whether the benefits of the research outweigh the invasion of participants’ privacy, especially in research with children. These cautions rightfully place the burden of ethical deliberation on the researcher. However, by so doing they also direct attention away from the ethical work done by study participants and overshadow their agency in relation to the research. In effect, the cautions join and reinforce dominant narratives of participant, especially children’s, vulnerability in research and the researcher as the main ethical actor during the research process. This study seeks to balance such narratives by drawing attention to how children demonstrate their awareness of the audience of nearby recorders to each other and, through such actions, also create spaces for private, out-of-view interaction they do not wish to be recorded. With demonstrative vignettes from a yearlong ethnographic study of children’s learning in an alternative STEM learning infrastructure, the study argues that such moments highlight children’s ethical agency in research.The rapid development of various recording technologies in recent years has created appealing opportunities for researchers to document and study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning in ways which previously were either impossible, high-priced, or impractical. The potential access that low-cost and ever-smaller recorders provide us has been wisely tempered with cautions that researchers critically reflect on whether the benefits of the research outweigh the invasion of participants’ privacy, especially in research with children. These cautions rightfully place the burden of ethical deliberation on the researcher. However, by so doing they also direct attention away from the ethical work done by study participants and overshadow their agency in relation to the research. In effect, the cautions join and reinforce dominant narratives of participants’, especially children’s, vulnerability in research and the researcher as the main ethical actor during the research process. This study seeks to balance such narratives by drawing attention to how children demonstrate their awareness of the audience of nearby recorders to each other and, through such actions, also create spaces for private, out-of-view interaction they do not wish to be recorded. With demonstrative vignettes from a yearlong ethnographic study of children’s learning in an alternative STEM learning infrastructure, the study argues that such moments highlight children’s ethical agency in research.Peer reviewe

Smart City Governance and Children’s Rights: Perspectives and Findings from Literature on Natural Elements Influencing Children’s Activities Within Public Spaces

This paper shows a comprehensive literature review based on a comparative method that investigates a set of 25 papers from different disciplinary fields. The articles are retrieved from the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases and individuated through queries containing the key terms child, play, city, neighbourhood, outdoor space, public space, urban space, mobility. The timeframe considered spans from 2004 to present. The analysis focuses on three related aspects: (i) methodology; (ii) conceptual apparatus describing children’s experience of spaces; (iii) green spaces and natural elements incorporated in public space design considered as determinant of children’s outdoor activities. This paper provides detailed information on the relationship between the availability of natural settings and elements and children’s outdoor practices and activities. Retrieving from previous studies the concept of practicability the authors reflect on significance of natural elements in reinforcing the potential of the built environment to promote children’s independent playful practices. This study is instrumental in structuring an analytic methodology for determining a synthetic index of the practicability of public spaces. The relevance of a methodology for assessing practicability relies on its potential to enable a better understanding of conditions conducive to children’s independent playful practices and to support governance by assisting the implementation of strategies of urban regeneration within the smart city paradigm