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Eliciting the Voices of Children from Birth to Seven Look Who’s Talking:
People

Kate Wall (University of Strathclyde)
Kate’s work focuses on the development of innovative pedagogies and research methodologies (including visual approaches) that facilitate effective talk about learning (metacognition). She is interested in the development and exploration of democratic spaces where learners can talk about their experiences of learning.
https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/wallkateprofessor/

Claire Cassidy (University of Strathclyde)
Claire’s research interests primarily relate to the School of Education’s research theme Rights, Citizenship and Dialogue, which she leads. She is interested in the concept of child, mainly from a philosophical perspective. Her book, Thinking Children, offers a unique philosophical exploration of the concept of child and proposes ways in which children’s voices and children’s participation might be promoted in society.
https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/cassidyclairedr/

John I’Anson (Stirling University)
John is Convenor of the Research on Children’s Rights in Education (Network 25) of European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) (http://www.eera-ecer.eu/networks/network25). He has undertaken a variety of research projects in relation to creativity, aesthetic education and the use of moving image. His research to date has both an empirical and theoretical orientation and draws upon a variety anthropological and post-structuralist writers.
https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/11506

Aileen Nicholls (CELCIS, University of Strathclyde)
Aileen has many years social work experience in the public and voluntary sectors, most recently with a social enterprise fostering charity working in partnership with Scottish local authorities. Aileen believes passionately in multi agency working to enable permanent, settled home lives and maximum wellbeing for looked after children and young people.
https://www.celcis.org/about-us/whos-who/our-staff/

Lorna Arnott (University of Strathclyde)
Lorna’s research explores young children’s social experiences with technology. Her work attempts to understand how the preschool environment and culture, the children and the artefacts contribute to children’s interactions and social experiences.
https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/arnottlornadr/

Gerard McKernan (Glasgow Early Learning Centre)
Gerard is Early Learning Centre Manager for Glasgow City Council. He is interested in playful pedagogies.

Carol Robinson (Brighton University)
Carol’s research interests combine theoretical and empirical work focusing on two main areas: the voices, experiences, rights and empowerment of children and young people; and the development of learning and professional knowledge through doctoral study and its enactment in practice. She has led several pupil voice projects in primary, secondary and special schools, helping staff to develop ways of listening to the voices of children and young people.
https://www.brighton.ac.uk/staff/dr-carol-robinson.aspx

Pia Christensen (University of Leeds)
Pia’s research focuses on children and young people’s agency in everyday life through the lens of ethnography. She has worked with children aged 3-18 years old in families, day-care settings, schools and local communities in England and Denmark. Her main research has investigated different aspects of children and young people’s everyday experiences including health, well-being and self-care; time and transitions; the meaning of food; risk engagement and management.
http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/people/academic/christensen

Mallika Kanyal (Anglia Ruskin University)
Mallika’s current research interest is around the usefulness of participatory research and its place as an alternative approach to conventional research in education contexts. Her research focuses around the pedagogical use of participatory approaches in early years as well as in higher education. She has published this work under the strand of children’s participatory rights in early years and students’ voice in higher education. Her other research interest is around children’s socio-emotional development and the importance of peer relationship in early years.
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/health-social-care-and-education/about/school-of-education-and-social-care/our-staff/mallika-kanyal

Elaine Hall (Northumbria University)
Elaine’s research career has spanned sixteen years and more than thirty funded projects. This research has been directed towards the experience of teaching and learning from the early years to old age, as curriculum-specific, metacognitive and professional practices. The diversity of context has produced a unifying theory of pedagogic enquiry, which focuses on the intent of the researcher, the power of research and pedagogic tools and the critical engagement of research networks.
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/h/elaine-hall/

Mhairi Beaton (Aberdeen University)
Mhairi’s research interests centre round two main areas but both explore the ways in which we can enhance the participation of young people in their learning. She is interested in inclusion, inclusive practice and inclusive pedagogy. I am particularly interested in how pupil voice can be utilised to promote pupils’ ownership and involvement of their own learning. She is also interested in all aspects of assessment and how it might be used to improve learning for all.
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/education/people/profiles/m.beaton

INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTORS

January seminar:

Ingrid Pramling (Gothenburg University, Sweden)
Ingird’s research career started with the INOM group, directed by Ference Marton. She has devoted her efforts to applying the phenomenographic research approach to research on children. Her dissertation, The Child’s Conception of Learning, described how children become aware of their own learning. This sparked an interest in metacognitive issues. Her research interest then came to focus more on didactic issues, that is, how preschools can contribute to children’s learning.
http://ipkl.gu.se/english/about-the-dept./staff?languageId=100001&userId=xprain

Sue Dockett (Chrales Sturt University, Australia)
Sue has been involved in a wide range of teaching and research. Much of this relates to educational transitions and the expectations, experiences and perspectives of all involved. Sue’s current research also encompasses young children’s perspectives of school and community, noticing young children’s mathematics, ethical tensions in rights-based participatory research with children and young people, curriculum continuity as children start school, and the experiences of starting school for families with complex support needs. Sue’s work has been published widely, both nationally and internationally.
https://arts-ed.csu.edu.au/schools/education/staff/profiles/professors/sue-dockett

June seminar:

Lasse Lipponen (Helsinki University, Finland)
Lasse is a professor of education, with special reference to early childhood education, at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. His research work is directed to cultures of compassion; children’s agency; pedagogical leadership; play; and understanding children’s experiences in their life-world with digital documentation and participatory research methods.
https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/persons/lasse-lipponen(53eaf18d-c091-43c8-8a17-2550bfa4575e).html

Dana Mitra (Penn State University, US)
Dana is currently the Students-at-the-Center “Distinguished Fellow” with Jobs for the Future/the Nellie Mae Foundation. She is the founding editor of the International Journal of Student voice and the co-editor of the American Journal of Education. She served as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in 2012 to study child participation and educational reform in Bangalore, India. Her prior work experience also includes teaching elementary school in the Washington, DC area and serving as the coordinator for two White House Conferences on Character Education.
https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dlm54