Of beings that are not yet whole

Professor Dr Claudia Machold and the young field of childhood research

"Sind so kleine Hände, winz`ge Finger dran..." is a ballad by Bettina Wegner, which she wrote spontaneously during a train journey in 1976 and which became internationally known in Joan Baez's interpretation. It is a hymn to non-violent parenting in the 1970s, a time when modern childhood research was just beginning. Since her appointment in 2017, Claudia Machold has been researching and teaching in the school of human and social sciences as a professor of educational sciences specialising in childhood research.
The scientist dates the beginnings of childhood research, which originally focused primarily on (developmental) psychology, paediatrics and education, to the beginning of the last century. However, the social science-orientated, educational childhood research that she represents has only developed in the last 20 to 30 years. Decisive impulses came from Northern Europe. One of the most important criteria of this research is "the idea of viewing children as actors", says Machold. Among other things, the research focuses on the living conditions of children, who are still often affected by poverty in the 21st century. "Children are actors in society," she says, "and poverty is a good way of showing that they are not just appendages of their families."

Researching as a participant observer

"I do ethnographic research," says the educational scientist, referring to a method that systematically records descriptive findings by means of field research on site. Machold is active with ethnographic field visits to daycare centres and primary schools. "And what I do there is to look at how educational practices are carried out; in other words, I don't interview educators, teachers or social pedagogues, but I go into everyday educational life and observe what happens there in a participatory way." Ethnography attempts to describe and understand how people live together, the social and political organisation and the cultural characteristics of a section of society. "It is a practice-theoretical perspective that we adopt," she continues, "which assumes that people act on the basis of implicit knowledge, i.e. that what they do is not permanently consciously accessible to them. But by reconstructing this, I can draw conclusions about social phenomena."
One concrete example of her field research is a long-term study funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In this study, Machold accompanied and observed children for eight years as they made their way through the educational institutions of nursery and primary school, i.e. up to the transition to lower secondary school. In the course of this ethnography, the team also researched the Delfin4 language assessment procedure in daycare centres, which was abolished in NRW in 2014, and observed the extent to which the increase in diagnostic procedures, e.g. for the area of language or procedures for monitoring development, can contribute to classifying children in an ethnically coded manner at this early age and thus run the risk of contributing to standardisation processes. For example, it was interesting to observe the extent to which Delfin4, by testing all children against the norm of age-appropriate development in German, did not take into account the multilingual prerequisites of four-year-olds. It was also possible to reconstruct that the results of the procedure must always be understood as the results of social processes. In this case, for example, the testing was preformed by the fact that it was linked to the local and state funding of language support, which meant that children with a migration background in particular were at risk of being tested as needing language support.

Teachers are a piece of the mosaic in the social fabric

One focus of the field research is participant observation. "I sit there and take notes, and afterwards I create observation protocols," explains the researcher. The teacher is no longer the main focus, because, Machold continues, "she also participates in practices and is an actor in the entire social structure." These studies then also include the children, the space, the images, i.e. the entire environment. The results of their investigations are based on analyses that follow the claim of theorising. Plausibility is then further established by consulting other scientific studies

How do children perceive their childhood?

Some time ago, Claudia Machold conducted a child interview with a ten-year-old whom she had been accompanying for years. "It was fantastic," she says enthusiastically. In this narrative interview, the researcher always has to reflect on what what is said says about her as the interviewer, because although she says, "I am a researcher who has accompanied this child regularly since she was four, even at the report card presentation," what is said can only ever be understood against the background of the interaction situation and therefore does not simply reflect a past reality.
An interesting aspect of the interviews is the fact that children always tell their own stories. Machold comments: "When I see that children move on (unprompted) from questions about the reports to questions about world politics, then I can draw conclusions from this".
Many facets of childhood research are still far from being fully developed. For example, the researcher regrets the fact that there is hardly any work on racism in childhood research. Although the international literature offers knowledge on the subject, mainstream research has not yet discovered the research aspects for itself, as the assumption that children are still far too self-centred in their early phase persisted for a long time. However, ethnographic observations show that children also reproduce the socially relevant categories, i.e. female or male, 'white' or 'black', in their interactions at a very early age. "And it indicates," explains Machold, "that the culture and social conditions in which we live are also relevant in early childhood. Children are not isolated beings who only see themselves in an egocentric way. Children in early childhood are also social actors."

Diversity-Spielzeug.de

And in order to adequately represent the diversity of society to these social actors, learning materials, such as toys, need to change more and more. While some manufacturers rely on the strict stereotyping separation of girls' toys in predominantly pink and boys' toys in blue, it is still rather small initiatives that are trying to make the world of children's culture more recognising and aware of diversity. The online platform diversity-spielzeug.de, for example, offers a diverse and empowering range of toys and books that bring together what was previously a small selection. "What does it do to 'black' children or children of colour," asks the researcher, "if they always read children's literature that only depicts white children? They lack the 'identification role models' that also make their existence normal." Professor Machold is aware of the rapidly growing market - which is often not sensitive to differences - and would like to participate in a research project on this topic.

"Alte Feuerwache" project

The educational scientist is planning a regional project for transfer. "I was approached by the Alte Feuerwache in Wuppertal. They are building a daycare centre and approached me as a childhood researcher." The Alte Feuerwache is an international meeting centre in the heart of Elberfeld's Nordstadt district. The centre sees itself as an open children's and youth facility that offers a wide range of educational, cultural and intercultural activities for young and old. The "Alte Feuerwache gGmbH" and "forum e.V." are working together to establish a new, forward-looking five-group day care centre for children aged zero to six in Wuppertal's Nordstadt district: the Kulturkindergarten (http://www.altefeuerwache-wuppertal.de/news/348-kultur-kindergarten-der-alten-feuerwache). "I am in contact with the educational director of the daycare centre. The team and the management were hired a year before the daycare centre opened. They work very closely on the educational concept. I would also like to network here. I was approached to provide scientific support for this project." The joint project work will begin with an initial teaching research project, which will be carried out with students on the Master's programme 'Childhood, Youth and Social Services'. Among other things, the everyday life of the children is to be taken into account as well as the tight financial circumstances in the families. Like colleagues from other disciplines at the University of Wuppertal, Machold is involved in concrete neighbourhood development in the heart of Elberfeld.

Can we adults learn from children?

Without getting into a conflict between researcher and mother, she says: "When I see that children also make distinctions in their early years, hierarchising distinctions, then that points to the social conditions in which we live. And then I have to think about the social conditions in which people who are completely new to this world internalise certain distinctions at an early age."
Machold believes that adults and all educational institutions have a great responsibility. Through her observations of the children in her research, she is constantly gaining new insights into social conditions through the children.
"Children learn about power relations and hierarchies very early on. And they know that adults are the most powerful," she concludes.
Children's world of experience offers an as yet undiscovered scientific treasure. Recognising the knowledge gained can strengthen society, or as Bettina Wegner puts it in her ballad:
Straight, clear people
would be a nice goal.
We already have too many people without backbone
.

Uwe Blass

Professor Dr Claudia Machold studied educational science with a minor in psychology and sociology at Bielefeld University. She completed her doctorate there in 2013; the topic of her dissertation: "'Children' re-signify difference. Positioning practices of 'children' in an elementary educational context. A post-structuralistically informed ethnography". This was followed by a position as a temporary academic counsellor and a professorship (educational science with a focus on migration), both in Bielefeld. She has been working at the University of Wuppertal since April 2017.