COURSE DESCRIPTION AND TIMEPLAN

Researching Children:

New Theoretical Approaches and Research Methods

 Hanoi, November 8 2004 – January 14 2005

 Instructors: Karen Fog Olwig and Tine Gammeltoft, University of Copenhagen

 Time: November 8, 2004 - January 14, 2005

 Course Description:

Children’s health, mental capacities and education have long been central subjects of research in fields such as medicine, psychology and pedagogy.  These research fields have tended to see children as human beings in the making in the sense that they are developing into fully mature adults.  In recent years, anthropology and sociology have developed a strong research interest in children that seeks to investigate and understand children’s position in society as human beings in their own right.  This research field has examined children’s varying conditions of life, the ways in which they themselves experience their lives and the aspirations and expectations for the future that they nourish.  It has done so by seeing children as both objects of various forms of socialization by adults, and as subjects who develop ideas, form social relations and engage in various activities from their particular vantage point in life. This course offers an introduction to this new research field in order to show how it generates new knowledge about children that may be useful to professionals who work with children in varying capacities. The course has two parts: 1) a theoretical part that offers a survey of the new research field, and 2) a more practical, methodological part, where participants design and complete a small research project that focuses on various aspects of children in society.

 The first part of the course (the core course) will present some of the main theories and concepts employed in anthropological research on children, with particular focus on 1) children’s everyday lives, particularly within the context of the family and institutions for children, such as the daycare center or the school, and 2) children’s dual position as social minors in present society and as new citizens in the society of the future.  It will also discuss various research methods employed in this form of child research. Ethnographic case material from different part of the world will be used to illustrate various theoretical and methodological approaches.  By the end of this part of the course, participants will develop a small scale research project on children that is of special relevance to his or her field of interest.

 The second part of the course (the optional course) will consist in data collection for the research  projects generated during the core course, followed by two workshops where participants will present the empirical findings of their research and discuss how these findings can be analyzed and written up, drawing on the conceptual and theoretical approaches presented in the first part of the course.

 Course Plan:

 Core course,  November 8-13:  Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the Study of Children and Youth

 Monday November 8:

9:00-11:30       Lecture: Introduction to the anthropology of children and youth

14:00-16:00     Participants' presentation of their own work in relation to research on children and youth

 Tuesday November 9:

9:00-11:30       Lecture: Anthropological perspectives and research methods

14:00-16:00     Discussion of anthropological methods on the basis of readings

 Wednesday November 10:

9:00-11:30       Lecture: Vulnerable Children I

Children in the Societal Order: Street Children

14:00-16:00      Discussion of anthropological approaches to the study of street children within a Vietnamese context

Thursday November 11:

9-11:30            Lecture: Vulnerable Children II

Children in the Family: Wanted and Unwanted Children

14-16:30          Discussion of anthropological approaches to the study of wanted

and unwanted children within a Vietnamese context

 Friday November 12:

9:00-11:30       Discussion of the participants' projects

14:00-16:30     Write-up of the participants' projects

 Saturday November 13:

9:00-12:00       Presentation and discussion of project proposals

 Optional course, November 14-January 14:

 November 13-December 29: Data collection for research projects

 December 30-31: Workshop I: Presentation of Collected Data and Tentative Answers to the Research Questions

 January 13-14: Workshop II: Presentation of Papers