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Young Children's Perceptions of Distant Places

By Faith Jenner

The following extracts are taken from a student dissertation considering the knowledge young children (Year 1) had before and after teaching about a place in Kenya. The pre-test information directed the use of a BBC Zig Zagprogramme and Geographical Association and Action Aid photopacks which between them covered both rural and urban Kenya. The post-test information highlighted certain fundamental conclusions. The extracts show:

i) The use of a word association technique to gather ideas of perception (Figure 1).ii) An extract from an interview transcription showing a coding technique (Figure 2).iii) The suggested code for analysing interview transcriptions (Figure 3). Note the code is determined by the

original objectives of the research so will be different for each research subject. The code is a tool for analysis not the analysis itself.

iv) The conclusions which were illustrated by the research and which were used to suggest further work with the children.

v) The original starting point (Figure 4).

The main aim of this project was to explore the statement made by Catling that the:

“children's growing knowledge and understanding of one place feeds and informs their awareness knowledge, understanding and appreciation of others”(Catling,S. (1995) 'Wider horizons: the children's charter' Primary Geographer No. 20 January pp. 4-7)

Figure 1: Changes in perception after the showing and discussion of BBC Zig Zag programme and photographs of Kenya.

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Figure 2: An extract from an interview transcription showing a coding technique.

Coding key Suggestions for use in analysising children's responses

RSI Remaining stereotypical ideas

CI Indication of change of idea

S Recognition of Similarities

D Recognition of Differences

H Reference to Houses and Homes

P Reference to People, transport, and so on

LU Reference to Land Use

Note: The last three categories are 'movable feasts' dependent upon the focus of the resource materials and the objectives of the teaching and learning activities.

Figure 3: The coding key: sorting out perceptions.

Some conclusions

[There is] evidence that children do form stereotypical ideas from an early age. Children world wide have access to ICT, to email people across the world, to find out about other countries

and to begin to accept the similarities instead of the differences. With the increase in multicultural education and society, children need to be fully prepared Despite the optional requirements of the National Curriculum at key stage 1 children should be given the

opportunity to learn about an overseas country, to have their ideas challenged, so that they are prepared to accept and nurture the multicultural society in which we live.

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Figure 4: Getting started using material from the Primary Handbook (Carter,1998)

An article on Faith Jenner's research will be published in Occasional Paper No 5 Classroom Research (in preparation).

Pupils' pre- and post-test drawings

The starting pointfor the case

study of Year One children’s’ views of Kenya

Carter R.1998 (Ed)Handbook of Primary

Geography

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