IN-PERSON Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

This paper reports on a youth participatory action research study involving Year 5 and 6 children in Aotearoa New Zealand, exploring the extent to which they participated and influenced curriculum decision-making for learning. Findings from this research demonstrate that children participate and influence curriculum decision-making in complex and varied ways. The research findings highlight the benefits of drawing on children’s interests, prior knowledge and lived experiences in meaningful ways for core learning, teacher- and child-initiated inquiries. Using Rogoff’s Planes of Analysis to understand the results, the data set identified three case narratives: (i) Curriculum-based learning (ii) Teacher- and school-initiated inquiry and (iii) Child-initiated inquiry where an established collaborative community of practice saw children negotiate and identify meaningful pathways to learning, recognising their strengths, strengths of others and how collaboration improves learning outcomes. Throughout these case narratives children experienced autonomy in decision-making through planning and organising learning, activities, and events in individual and collaborative ways. Children demonstrated, through classroom observations, interviews, and focus groups, that experiencing autonomy in learning meant they were in control and were able to decide what was best for their learning, demonstrating their self-determining participatory rights in line with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.