Childhood

http://chd.sagepub.com/

The Ambiguity of the Child's 'Voice' in Social Research

Sirkka Komulainen
Childhood 2007 14: 11
DOI: 10.1177/0907568207068561

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://chd.sagepub.com/content/14/1/11

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:
Norwegian Centre for Child Research

Additional services and information for Childhood can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://chd.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://chd.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Citations: http://chd.sagepub.com/content/14/1/11.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Feb 26, 2007

What is This?

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’ IN
SOCIAL RESEARCH

SIRKKA KOMULAINEN This article addresses the ambiguity of the child’s

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, London
Key words:
ambiguity, childhood, communication,
social construction, ‘voice’
Mailing address:
Sirkka Komulainen
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, 50 Hallam Street,
London W1W 6DE, UK.
[email: sirkka.komulainen@rcpch.ac.uk]
Childhood Copyright © 2007
SAGE Publications. London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi, Vol 14(1): 11–28.
www.sagepublications.com
10.1177/0907568207068561
‘voice’ in social research. Drawing on a recent
research project on young children’s
communication difficulties, the author argues that
the currently popular discourse on ‘listening to
children’ is beset with practical and ethical
ambiguities that result from the ‘socialness’ of
human interaction, discourses and practices. In
particular, the author argues that the notion of the
child’s ‘voice’ is, despite being a powerful
rhetorical device, socially constructed. This article
illustrates and discusses ambiguities that arose from
fieldwork in two ‘special needs’ settings,
considering their epistemological implications for
social research, and offers reflexivity as a strategy
for ethical research conduct.

In the last 10 years or so discourses across various child welfare arenas and
social research indicate an increasing concern for listening to children’s
‘voices’ (Alderson, 1995; Davie et al., 1996; Morris, 1999). Various
researchers argue that, despite legal and ethical recommendations, for
instance, by the Children Act 1989 (England and Wales), children’s ‘voices’
are still not taken into account in decision-making processes that directly
affect their lives. The Act required that important decisions to be made about
the children concerned, for example by courts, would need to take into
account ‘the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned’, con-
sidered in the light of his/her age and understanding (Children Act, 1989:
S17).
Recent writings in child welfare and childhood sociology regard the
child’s ‘voice’ as a matter of need, right and skill, and worthy of being lis-
tened to and studied in its own right (James and Prout, 1997). Discussions
about the child’s ‘voice’ have typically revolved around whether adult pro-
fessionals are willing to listen to children, and how listening can be done
successfully. They have drawn on complex debates having to do with chil-
dren’s competencies, age and maturity, and the credibility of their statements

11

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

(Davie et al., 1996) in effect assessing whether children’s ‘voices’ can be

taken seriously, and at what age this might be possible.
Communication of adult professionals with children has typically been
guided by developmental theories on children’s skills at certain ages.
However, in recent years, challenging the hegemony of developmental
approaches, sociologists of childhood have promoted an alternative perspec-
tive to children’s competencies, arguing, for example, that where children
are the subjects of professional and judicial activity focused on welfare
needs, children’s rights are eroded by assumptions about their lack of cogni-
tive, emotional and experiential competence to make decisions in their own
best interests (Parton and Wattam, 1999). In this way, children are too often
denied ‘agency’ and subjecthood in society because they are deemed vulner-
able and incompetent. This approach argues that children are not only
shaped by society but also shape it (Prout, 2000) in their own ways.
Scholars have made varied attempts to acknowledge children’s agency,
for instance, through research strategies that involve participating in chil-
dren’s culture. In the early literature of this kind (Corsaro and Streeck,
1986), entering directly into children’s worlds was recommended as a way
of establishing how the development of children’s ‘social competence’ is
embedded in social contexts. Subsequent studies of ‘children’s cultures’
have investigated the ways in which children acquire, use and refine social
knowledge and discourse skills in their everyday interactions with peers and
adults and in the communicative procedures through which they structure
the interpersonal world around them. This has been achieved either through
direct observation or through micro-ethnographies conducted in institutions
(Hutchby and Moran-Ellis, 1998).
In addition, some writers have promoted a phenomenological research
approach that may facilitate access into ‘children’s worlds’, including the
worlds of young and/or disabled children with little or no speech. This
involves detailed in-depth observations and prolonged interaction where the
child ‘allows’ the adult to take part, or the child leads (Goode, 1991). This
kind of approach has also involved the ethical aim of promoting equality in
research relationships, and to give children a ‘voice’.
More recently, the ‘voice’ of the disabled child has increasingly been
included in the literature (Beresford, 1997; Middleton, 1999). For example,
Morris (1999) notes widespread assumptions that disabled children lack the
skills not only to act in their own best interests, but also to make their views
known in a comprehensible way. These discussions about ‘opening up com-
munication channels’ between disabled children (including those with little
or no speech) and their carers seek to give children choices allowing them to
exert some control over their lives.
My research project on young children’s ‘communication difficulties’
hoped to marry the aforementioned issues, in many ways overlapping practi-
cal, ethical and social research concerns. It started off from the assertion that

12

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

disabled children’s ‘voices’ are marginal in society (Morris, 1999) and that
adults ought to seek and allow for novel ways for ‘bridging the communica-
tion gap’ (Middleton, 1999). According to contemporary guidelines for ethi-
cally sound research conduct, the inclusion of disabled children in sociologi-
cal investigation as subjects rather than objects seemed at first to be a sound
ethical pursuit, even though there may be significant barriers to communica-
tion due to a profound impairment. In short, researchers and practitioners
should not assume that even young disabled children with little or no speech
‘have nothing to say’ (Beresford, 1997).
However, my actual research experience in special needs settings led
me to take a different route in considering the ethics and practice of research
in this context. I came to see that there are fundamental ambiguities in the
understanding of ‘normal’ communication. I identified a moral-pragmatic
tension at the heart of the so-called ‘child-centred’ debates, including social
research: young children (with or without communication difficulties) are
typically positioned as both dependent, vulnerable receivers of care and edu-
cation, and sometimes ‘agentic’ subjects with distinct ‘voices’ (Hutchby and
Moran-Ellis, 1998; Middleton, 1999; Morris, 1999). I suggest this ambiguity
applies to both disabled and able-bodied children. Furthermore, I have
observed particular understandings of the concept of ‘voice’, typically as a
relatively straightforward mental, verbal and rational property of the individ-
ual (e.g. Finnegan, 2002).
In the course of the research process, I found that a sociological decon-
struction of children’s ‘voices’ became necessary so that the notion of
‘voice’ is understood as a multidimensional social construction, which is
subject to change. At the same time, ‘voices’ manifest discourses, practices
and contexts in which they occur. I argue that what is ‘true’ and ‘real’ about
voices remains an unresolved puzzle since, as Bakhtin (Emerson and
Holquist, 1986) argues, ‘voices’ are always social. The notion of ‘listening to
children’s voices’ may be a good starting point for a social study of chil-
dren’s lives. Nevertheless, it makes it – particularly in light of current rec-
ommendations of ethical research conduct (e.g. Alderson, 1995) – a chal-
lenging task. Hence, this article aims to describe how this is the case, and
suggest strategies for epistemologically and ethically sound research con-
duct.
With these issues as a starting point, I now discuss what can be learned
about adult–child communication in specific institutional contexts for social
research purposes. In this respect, Durham Peters’s (1999) question – ‘how
do we know that we have really communicated?’ – proves useful. Before we
can simply ‘give a voice’ to children, we need to acknowledge that there are
ambiguities involved in human communication, and that these ambiguities
result from the ‘socialness’ of human interaction, discourses and practices.

13

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

The research project

This article draws on a research project that was carried out in England
between 2000 and 2004. The initial idea of the project was to explore the
ways in which children’s ‘voices’ were (if they were at all) taken into
account within professional practice, and how the child was positioned as a
communicator in multidisciplinary specialist settings. Drawing on social
constructionist perspectives, the original research design sought to develop
novel sociological understandings of young children’s ‘communication diffi-
culties’ and thereby contribute to both child welfare practice (including child
protection), childhood sociology and theories of disability. The research
began with the working hypothesis that in professional settings, young dis-
abled children’s ‘voices’ may be in danger of remaining marginal. Hence,
the project aimed to describe how children’s communication and communi-
cation difficulties were understood and acted towards in the everyday prac-
tices of child welfare specialists.
I conducted ethnographic research in two settings, where I observed
interaction among and between young children and adult professionals. The
first setting was a day nursery (the ‘Children’s Centre’), where disabled chil-
dren were receiving additional support and education in a therapeutic envi-
ronment. In the second, ‘Team Service’, setting, a multidisciplinary team of
practitioners assessed children’s communication and other health, welfare or
educational needs. Although entirely different settings, the practices in both
were based on clinical and therapeutic knowledges of children with special
needs. The two settings operated in the framework of current legal and ethi-
cal guidelines for good practice, which aimed to maximize the child’s poten-
tial through early intervention (e.g. Dockrell and Messer, 1999; Friel, 1997).
The fieldwork commenced in the ‘Children’s Centre’, where I spent
most of the time observing everyday action (such as meal times and circle
times) in the nursery, and occasionally individual therapy sessions. I spent
about 9 months observing the ‘Children’s Centre’. Sometimes I took an
opportunity to engage in ‘free play’ with children, although I mostly
remained a ‘marginal observer’ (Berg, 1995). I also conducted some video
recordings, which allowed for detailed data analysis. Prior to video record-
ings, I had obtained informed consent from the parents of the children.
There were up to 15 children together per day in the centre. All the
children were under 6 years old. They had been diagnosed with a disability
that involved a range of physical and cognitive impairments. Due to their
impairments, most children in the nursery had little or no speech, and they
were receiving speech and language therapy.
In the ‘Team Service’ setting, I conducted 25 observations over nine
months. The assessment team consisted of health, education and welfare
professionals, who carried out tests with the children and interviewed their
parents. The children who had been referred to the team were under 8.

14

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

Although ‘communication difficulties’ were a frequent reason for the refer-

ral, not all the children were diagnosed as disabled or as having ‘communi-
cation difficulties’. My fieldwork involved observing testing sessions with
children as well as meetings where the team would plan the assessments
and, in the end, come up with a decision about further intervention. In this
setting, I always remained behind a one-way screen between an observation
room and two assessment rooms.
The methodological approach and data analysis can be characterized
as what Dorothy Smith (2002) calls ‘institutional ethnography’, with a par-
ticular focus on what was ‘social’ in the two settings. Institutional ethnogra-
phy begins with particular issues, concerns or problems that are ‘real’ for the
people in the setting. These problems then give direction and focus to the
research. For data collection and analysis, I combined ethnomethodological
and Foucauldian concerns (Potter, 1996; Silverman, 1987), focusing on how
members put discourses to work as they constitute their social realities. The
data extracts,1 as I intend them to be in this article are descriptive examples
of ‘passing moments’ (Schwandt, 1994), which I use in order to illustrate the
implications of the findings for social research engaged with adult–child
communication and the ambiguities that may be involved.

The ambiguity of interpretations

I first encountered the ambiguity of the child’s ‘voice’ in the nursery prac-
tice, where it was a direct object of specialist action, including both verbal
and non-verbal communication. The ‘good practice’ ethos in the setting
involved attempts to give children ‘voices’ through acts of choice-making.
However, I found that choice-making crystallized certain understandings of
communication and the child. Indeed, both verbal and non-verbal interaction
in choice-making situations drew on the idea that children are not only enti-
tled to choices but also willing to make them.
The following two extracts describe verbal choice-making during meal
times, where children were served a ‘three course’ meal, and before each
round were given options to choose from, such as apple juice or orange
juice, or different kinds of pudding:

Eating goes on as usual. At first, ‘Sarah’ is the only adult who keeps talking to
the children, e.g. ‘If you don’t eat it you will always be as tall as that’. Then two
other workers join in – especially ‘Tracey’ (loudly) and newcomer (quietly):
‘Would you like some more? Good boy.’ Two workers talk about ‘Martin’ –
they think that he might have chickenpox. ‘Robert’ is crying – Tracey: ‘Enough
noise now – you are going to have pudding.’ Tracey seems to be in charge of
the situation that way. ‘Brian’ says: ‘I would like some custard.’ Sarah: ‘Well
you are allowed to change your mind’ (I did not see whether he wanted some-
thing else earlier).

15

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

Verbal children would sometimes initiate choice-making, like Brian

who wanted ‘some custard’. However, verbal choice-making was sometimes
quite ambiguous. The next extract describes a situation where the child
appeared not to be bothered to make a choice:
A worker says to ‘Mike’: ‘You are looking at this one and pointing at other one
Mike. Which one do you want?’ Mike says: ‘Something’, and the worker smiles
at me. Tracey did a very quick round with the food items; still, quite a lot of
speculation is involved in the choice-making. Children are given ‘something’,
anyhow. Martin still cries quite desperately. A worker asks Mike whether he
wants to have apple juice; He replies: ‘No no no no – yes!’ and the workers
laugh at this. Then Mike says something but no one hears it. Eventually the
worker brings out the actual food items and he points approximately at the apple
juice.

In contrast to the previous examples, I now describe a situation where

the child actively ‘sent a message’ – several times – and faced some mixed
responses to it:
This appears to be an educational session. The children are sitting at a table and
a worker is teaching them numbers through play. ‘Jonathan’ is complaining
about stomach ache. Worker 1: ‘It’s nearly lunchtime, you must be hungry.’
‘Jerry’ knows what to do next. The children are banging the table with sticks
really loudly. ‘Paula’ is not with this at all. She keeps banging the table. She
repeats ‘tick tock’. Jonathan: ‘I need to wee.’ Worker 1 says no because he has
just been to the toilet. Worker 2 then enters the room, hears this and asks
Worker 3 to take him to the toilet.
The children sing a pat-a-cake song with playdoh. The worker explains to
me how the children anticipate the events, because they remember them from
the previous session. Paula is falling asleep. The others are clapping and mess-
ing around – they seem to have fun. Some of them shout rather than sing.
Jonathan protests: ‘I’m tired’.

As in the extract, in daily nursery work different interpretations of the child’s

verbal intentions would emerge. Worker 1 interpreted that Jonathan was
complaining because he was hungry, but since lunch-time was approaching
it was not a problem for the worker. Worker 1 also dismissed Jonathan’s
request to go to the toilet, whereas the other two workers took notice of this.
These sorts of situational judgements of the child’s intentions and needs
were typical of the nursery practice.
With non-verbal children, the same model of communication was used
as with verbal children. Here I describe situations where workers used pic-
ture communication symbols (two cards between which the child was
expected to choose) as they interacted with children who had little or no
speech. An adult asked what a child wanted, and the child’s answer was
‘retrieved’ from eye or hand movements, which were interpreted as pointing
at one or the other card with oppositional or alternative meanings.
A worker is using ‘yes’ and ‘no’ cards with ‘Simon’ – a more experienced
worker tells the newcomer what hand movement means ‘yes’ – it is not quite
obvious to me. He actually refuses the food by not swallowing it even though

16

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

his hand movement is interpreted as having meant ‘yes’. The newcomer tells
this to the older one. The workers then take turns in using the cards and offering
the food. He refuses again and the meal is taken away. The newcomer is still
practising with yes/no cards.

What Simon wanted was never clear to either of the workers, but the more
senior worker encouraged the newcomer to offer food items to him. There
seemed to be a power play – or an educational situation – between two
workers of different statuses. The senior worker did not allow the newcomer
to ‘give up’ too easily, in other words, to immediately interpret that the child
said ‘no’ (possibly based on her previous experiences of feeding Simon).
The use of picture cards involved a question–answer model that did
not allow children to ask questions or to dismiss the questions asked by
workers, who only provided dichotomies, such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’, rather than,
for example, ‘I don’t know’. Obviously, there were practical reasons for the
simplicity of the cards. On the other hand, the cards, for this particular rea-
son, only facilitated adult-led ‘conversation’. This approach also assumed
that the child was in the mood for, and capable of, making rational choices.
At its extreme, it appeared that choice-making had become an end in
itself so that the adults insisted that the child give an answer. I frequently
observed the workers making decisions on behalf of the child when an
ambiguous situation arose:
It seems to take quite a long time to feed ‘Jemma’ (or to teach her to eat by her-
self) – others have gone through their pudding already. Now she is shown both
food items (and a picture card to make the connection). The worker seems to be
fed up because Jemma did not look at the ‘no’ picture card but refused a banana.
Another worker says ‘I think Jemma likes custard so let’s have that’.

The problem is in that one could never be sure exactly what the children
wanted until they either swallowed the food or not; by then, they might have
changed their minds anyway. Thus, there were no exact means to measure
whether the task of giving children a choice was successful on each occa-
sion.
I have suggested that verbal communication in the nursery involved
ambiguities, but also that non-verbal communication was often even more
obscure. This, I stress again, is not simply a matter of a lack of speech on the
part of the child. Instead, the ambiguities arose where non-verbal communi-
cation – actually or attempted – was treated according to ‘ideal’ models for
verbal communication. This was inevitably a matter of interpretation.
I have drawn attention to the use of picture communication symbols
because they featured in daily practice more frequently than other means of
augmentative and alternative communication.2 In this respect, the use of
communication aids was part of what I call ‘communication as a medium’.
They were material objects intended to replace words or enable the child to
express a need or choice, and thereby establish shared understandings
between the carer and the child.

17

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

I observed two main ambiguities in the use of picture communication

symbols. First, as I have argued, their use fundamentally involved ambigu-
ous processes of meaning-making: the hoped-for ‘shared understandings’
between children and adults in the setting had an accomplished and situa-
tional character. This meaning-making was based on a certain logic: it
imputed rationality to both adults and children. My analysis questions the
feasibility of such logic, first and foremost because it was meant to serve
moral-pragmatic purposes. I propose that models for good communication
that prefer rational, abstract thinking and action discriminate between differ-
ent groups of people. I observed this taking place between adults and chil-
dren, although in the guise of meeting the needs and individual rights of the
latter. Second, I observed some ambiguities in how routine practice in the
nursery constituted the child as an agent; for example, choice-making situa-
tions assumed rational thought and action on the part of the child.
Furthermore, adult–child communication in the nursery fundamentally
entailed adult interpretations of the children’s meanings. The workers
expected the children to learn certain ‘fixed’ meanings that the adults had
applied to words, signs or pictures. I argue that this ‘literacy training’
assumed face-to-face communication to be something rather linear and
straightforward. I also suggest that children were typically encouraged to
make choices when it was appropriate in terms of adult frameworks, such as
daily timetables. It is possible that meal times may have been one of the few
opportunities for the children to initiate their preferences. Nevertheless, in
this respect, ‘communication’ in the nursery was tied to adult judgements
about the primary task at hand.
There was often a practical reason for addressing children like in this
way, including, for instance, attempts to manage a number of children in a
group. After all, it was the adults who had responsibilities over what hap-
pened in the setting. I stress that I am not jumping to the simplistic conclu-
sion that choice-making by adults, for example, was inevitably detrimental
to the child. This was clear in terms of the child’s daily needs, such as being
fed. I am rather noting that the expectation of the child to be an active and
purposeful choice-maker has implications for perceptions of the child as a
communicator.
These sorts of ambiguities also emerged in the second research setting.
The ‘Team Service’ work involved objects, such as toys, texts or pictures,
the use of which had specific meanings and purposes for the practitioners.
My analysis suggests that these test ‘tools’ were structured and that they
constituted particular kinds of frames for interaction. The logic of testing
overlooked the complexities and ambiguities of meaning-making, and the
child’s potential for behaving agentically. These points are illustrated in the
following extract, which describes speech and language assessment, and
suggests how children may interpret the practitioners’ questions in various,
imaginative and sometimes surprising ways:

18

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

The SLT [speech and language therapist] starts a sentence completion test. P:
‘What is a dress?’ ‘Daniel’: ‘Skirt and a t-shirt’. SLT: ‘What is a bed?’ D: ‘It is
for sleeping with a pillow’. SLT: ‘What do you need to do when you cross the
road?’ D: ‘Stop, look and listen’. The SLT probes to get a desired answer, by
repeating the question if Daniel says something else. SLT: ‘It was a lovely day’
. . . D: ‘And then a ginormous sunflower came’ (excitedly). SLT: ‘What is a
hat?’ D: ‘A hat . . . is a sort of planet shape’, does a rim with his hands above
his head. Practitioners in the observation room comment that he is probably
thinking of Saturn. SLT: ‘The bird flies, the fish . . .’ D: ‘Does not fly’. After
that question he seems to give up or gets fed up and replies: ‘I don’t know’.
The SLT seems to be rushing, looking at the clock and moving forward fast.
She then asks Daniel to explain pictures on cards – he does not recognize all of
them and the SLT shows the same cards a few times. Daniel starts imitating her:
‘We’ll go back to that one’. The SLT carries on: ‘How are a man and a dog dif-
ferent?’ D: ‘Because human and a pet are the right answers’.

The speech and language therapist’s task was to sort out the ‘correct’
answers from incorrect ones, based on her interpretation of whether the child
had comprehended the question. Interestingly, this time she was allowed to
ask the same question more than once; on some other occasions, the profes-
sional requirement for standardization had prevented this.
Thus, meaning-making was a complex activity, both verbally and non-
verbally. Sometimes the practitioners expressed their awareness of this to
me, as in the following extract.
‘Jeremy’ is spotting ‘mistakes’ in practitioner’s pictures – he laughs when a per-
son in the picture puts food in the washing machine and not in the oven.
Meanwhile, another practitioner in the observation room talks about his enunci-
ation, which seems to be the problem, not comprehension (he starts words with
the letter D). This practitioner is convinced that the Team members are ‘tuned in
to understand’ what the child says (when I was wondering whether the parents
would understand him). Still they all keep saying, every once in a while, that
they don’t understand a word that Jeremy is saying during the test. One practi-
tioner says that when she did a test, she just nodded to pretend that she was fol-
lowing him.

It seemed obvious that Jeremy did not have any problems with understand-
ing the intended jokes in the pictures. However, I was having trouble with
understanding his speech and I said this to the practitioners who were in the
observation room. I then asked whether anyone else could make any sense
of it. One practitioner said that as experts they are ‘tuned in’ to understand
the child; another said that she pretended to understand in order to carry on
with the assessment.
In sum, the second setting manifested the same themes as the first:
specialists’ preferences for symbolic communication, expectations of ratio-
nal thought and action on the part of the child, practical difficulty of inter-
pretation, and the rules and recommendations for ‘good’ adult practice,
which framed adult–child interaction. In light of this, fundamental moral-
pragmatic and epistemological questions arose in terms of my research ques-

19

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

tions. What could I make of the child’s ‘voice’ as an object of enquiry?

Could I position the child as a straightforward ‘speaking subject’ in these
circumstances? If not, what kind of approach would be an epistemologically
and ethically sound alternative?
The discourse of children’s rights emphasizes the message that chil-
dren should be listened to by adults who make decisions concerning their
lives, which involves research on/with children. Yet, I repeat: What are chil-
dren’s ‘voices’ and how should we listen to them (Davis, 1998)? Since fun-
damental epistemological and moral-pragmatic questions significantly
affected every stage of the research process, I now reflect on the uncertain-
ties that arose from the fieldwork experience.

Reflections on the ambiguities in the practices of research

My experiences in these settings led me to recognize the need for ‘reflexivi-
ty’ in research in terms of three different areas. First, in the context of
research methods and ethics ‘reflexivity’ typically refers to the relationship
between the knower and the known, with attention to hierarchies, ‘good’ and
‘bad’ research, and the normatively constituted speaking positions (Adkins,
2002). Second, reflexivity in my research had to do with the dichotomy
between realism and anti-realism in social constructionist research. By this I
refer to the problem of using realist methods and then giving reflexive
accounts of the data (Coffey, 2002). Third, I link reflexivity to the ambiguity
of the researcher’s role as an actor in disability/childhood settings. These
interrelated three areas constituted an epistemological and moral-pragmatic
dilemma for me in terms of the child’s ‘voice’ and its place in ethnographic
research practice.
For Coffey (2002), ethnographic writing has a biographical dimension
in that ethnographers are concerned with observing, reconstructing and writ-
ing the lives and experiences of Others. In the field, I at first tried to use
‘realist’ methods to capture ‘social constructions’ and soon figured that this
was not a balanced approach. This is because, although the research used
social constructionism for the analysis of the Other, my initial observations
were based on ‘realist’ principles. Eventually, I made it clear to myself and
others that I could not regard certain things (such as children communicating
about their wishes) as ‘real’ and others as constructed (such as the concepts
of ‘childhood’ and ‘disability’).
For Mauthner and Doucet (2003), this kind of ambiguity stems from
the inseparability of epistemology, ontology and research practice. In the
beginning, I assumed I would be representing other people, and would there-
by be able to distinguish my own ‘voice’ as a researcher from their voices as
research subjects. Gradually, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was
not representing the voices of either children or adult actors in the settings;
instead I ended up deconstructing the notion of ‘voice’ altogether. Having

20

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

taken on postmodern and poststructuralist writers’ rejection of the authorial

‘voice’, and the deconstruction of ‘truths’ (Barthes, 1974; Geertz, 1988;
Lyotard, 1994), I struggled with the crisis of representation in ethnographic
writing.
I also discovered ambiguities in the idea of ‘bridging the gap’ between
adult researchers and children’s worlds in terms of the researcher’s role.
Mandell (1991), for instance, has suggested that adults who research chil-
dren’s lives should avoid authoritarian or patronizing attitudes towards chil-
dren. Others have emphasized the need to engage children in research as
equal participants (e.g. Beresford, 1997). Yet, these suggestions did not seem
to be helpful to my research project. Where to go from here?

Discussion
Disabled and able-bodied children’s ‘voices’ in social research
For Aitken and Millar (2002), the last two decades or so in the UK have wit-
nessed the rise of a ‘culture of consultation’. This means that individuals are
increasingly being supported to make their own decisions rather than having
others make decisions for them. Notions such as ‘personal choice’ and ‘con-
trol’ now lie at the core of developments in services and opportunities.
Increasingly, there have been campaigns to support disabled people as well,
in order to have their views listened to and acted on. Aitken and Millar argue
that as these cultural changes spread it was only a matter of time before the
effects would begin to be seen in various practices, including social research
with children.
I have found that within the so-called ‘child-centred’ discourse in
childhood sociology, children are often granted an individualistic status as
subjects/agents and as intentional beings, whose ‘voices’ may remain
unheard because of the ‘tyranny’ of developmental perspectives over their
lives. Previously, Lee has also referred to the ambiguity of childhood sociol-
ogy and the construction of the child’s ‘subjecthood’ in this fashion:
As sociologists of childhood have attempted to bring children into sociological
focus in their own right, the disciplinary concern with the ‘complete’ has
required that children be attributed the properties assumed more normally to
belong to adults. The sociology of childhood has thus preserved the privilege of
the complete and the mature over the incomplete and immature. (Lee, 1999:
458)

Furthermore, in the child protection context, Lee (2000) has observed

a shift from the body to the ‘voice’. This shift is similar to the shift promoted
within disability studies, where the goal is to achieve societal change and
enhance disabled people’s rights (e.g. Marks, 1999).
At the same time, it has been argued that (disabled) children’s needs
and rights are also social constructs and that these constructs are interrelated
and often contradictory (e.g. Doyal and Gough, 1991). For Woodhead

21

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

(1997), conceptualizing ‘childhood’ in terms of ‘needs’ reflects the distinc-

tive status accorded to young humanity in contemporary western societies. It
is commonplace to regard the needs-led approach as a progressive and
enlightened framework for working with children, by contrast with former
times and other societies. Nevertheless, the concept of ‘need’ conceals in
practice a complex of latent cultural and personal assumptions and judge-
ments about children, which are not attributable to children’s ‘innate’ nature
as such.
In light of this, positioning disabled children as morally ‘deserving’
actors with marginalized ‘voices’ becomes problematic. Actually, it may be
pointed out that many accounts of disabled childhoods often appear rather
pessimistic (Barnes et al., 2000). For instance, protectionist arguments con-
tinue to construe disabled children as vulnerable victims, and typically de-
emphasize the ‘other side of the story’. An example of an optimistic account
could be the following:3
Disabled children, even those with the most severe impairments, are able to
communicate their feelings about their lives and the treatment which they
receive. Disabled children are not passive victims – many are happy and feel
successful. (Barnes et al., 2000: 1–4)

To take the argument further: child welfare and sociological discourses

that are referred to in this article may be associated with the general societal
trend, where children – disabled and able-bodied – have become a moral
project. As for James et al.:
Children have become supremely an issue of our time. Nations are investing in
educational and moral futures and public concerns abound with issues of protec-
tion, rights, and citizenship in relation to the young. It is all too easy to become
embroiled in the urgent hyperbole of paedophilia, child abuse, child pornogra-
phy, childhood criminality or even the perpetual party political battle ground of
educational standards: they are all ‘the’ issues of today and appear to require an
immediate answer, or at least an opinion. (James et al., 1998: 197)

I see my research project and the two research settings as being at the
heart of this contemporary discourse, which manifests itself in moral-prag-
matic justifications and political rhetoric and action. What is important here,
as I agree with James et al. (1998), is that in sociology, we need to consider
this urgent focus on children analytically. I argue that the analysis of chil-
dren’s ‘voices’ must include considerations of the dynamics of human com-
munication and interaction. Young children with little or no speech might
make the most striking example of ambiguous communication – yet I sug-
gest all adult–child encounters entail ambiguities. In principle I agree with
the call for appreciating children’s views on issues that affect their lives; yet
I caution against too simplistic and/or sensationalized a usage of the term
‘voice’.4

22

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

‘Voice’ as an individual property – or a product of social interaction

I further argue that an uncritical treatment of view/‘voice’ as an individual
property dismisses the ambiguity and socialness of human communication.
As my findings on face-to-face communication with young children (with or
without disabilities) indicate, communication is a complex, context-bound
phenomenon. Whatever part children’s communication competencies play in
encounters with researchers, they are ultimately constructed and interpreted
by adults. For this reason, I suggest that researchers ought not to impose a
‘voice’ on a child, but should instead think critically about what the idea of
‘voice’ may comprise.
I have observed certain dominant discourses on human communication
manifesting themselves in childcare practice, for example, in the use of pic-
ture communication symbols. I argue that practices like this constitute the
child’s ‘voice’ as an object that can be possessed, retrieved and verbalized.
To reiterate: the argument in this article is that ideals of ‘normal’ and good
communication that prefer rational, abstract thinking and action discriminate
between different groups of people even though the aim were to meet the
needs and individual rights of children. Thus I argue that the so-called ‘cul-
ture of consultation’ involves many controversies, in particular when
‘extended’ to young disabled children by virtue of legal-ethical obligations.
One set of criticisms of the commonplace understandings of the child’s
‘voice’ has to do with its individualizing character. The view that the ‘mind’
is the site, origin and definition of purposive human action shapes cognitivist
approaches to communication, and is a long-standing tradition in the western
world. This idea is sometimes referred to as a ‘mentalistic’ approach, in
which communication is a matter of mental representations, internal states or
mental concepts (Finnegan, 2002).
In contrast, drawing on the Bakhtinian perspective, I suggest the
notions of ‘mutuality’ and ‘multivoicedness’ as alternatives to a unitary,
atomistic understanding of an individual’s ‘voice’ (Wertsch, 1991). Bakhtin’s
dialogical model focuses on ‘utterances’, which are produced by a ‘voice’, a
point of view. However, for Bakhtin, ‘voices’ are processes rather than loca-
tions: they never exist in social isolation. ‘Meanings’ come into existence
when two or more voices come into contact: there has to be a speaker and a
listener, an ‘addresser’ and ‘addressee’, and there will also be multiple voic-
es and ‘multivoicedness’ (Wertsch, 1991). In the Bakhtinian perspective,
interpersonal communication can never be fail-safe. Hence, the frequent
misunderstandings in human interactions are probably attributable to
unfounded assumptions of mutuality (Graumann, 1995).
In a similar vein, in the context of disability, for Moser and Law
(2001), the paradox of ‘giving someone a voice’ is that voices do not exist in
isolation; they don’t simply reflect something that is pre-existing. Giving
‘voices’ may involve the risk of limiting articulation to that which is verbal,
textual or linguistic. In the context of the ‘communication difficulties’ of

23

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

young disabled children, ‘voices’ that are non-verbal are simply not recog-
nized or are disqualified, even though, sometimes, physical movements
(actions) and noises are obviously more important than the use of words.
‘Voices’ as outcomes of communication processes can also be decon-
structed on a wider discursive level. Durham Peters (1999) has insightfully
suggested that, in western countries, ‘communication’ has become central to
reflections on democracy, love and our changing times. His question is why
such a rich meaning is attached to communication. For Durham Peters, the
so-called therapeutic discourses perceive the alleged components of ‘good
communication’ – understanding, cooperation, community or love – as gen-
uine human goods. However, the attainment of these goods tends to over-
look the circumstantial character of human communication. For example,
too often the label ‘failing to communicate’ might be attached to persons
when they are actually opting out of the game. In this regard, discourses on
communication are essentially moral in character.
An inevitable ambiguity arises when communication becomes disem-
bodied from interaction. However, contextualist approaches to communica-
tion incorporate the notion of ‘social construction’. What they have in com-
mon is the interactionist perspective on language and communication where
the focus is on the ‘communicative act’ (Farr and Rommetveit, 1995): the
meaning of an act is in the nature of the response it elicits from others. I
therefore argue that the child’s ‘voice’ as a concept is a social construction.

What can be done?

My solution to the aforementioned ambiguities involved in the research pro-
ject drew on Smith (2002): the object of my study was what the actors in the
setting treated as ‘real’. My knowledge claims of their realities would be
presented as constructions, which can be read in differing ways by different
audiences. Denzin has described a situation like this a ‘messy moment’ in
ethnographic writing: the texts consist of a ‘cacophony of voices speaking
with various agendas’ (Coffey, 2002: 314–16). However, I reassured myself
that this inevitable ‘polyvocality’ need not necessarily be associated with
unethical research conduct.
The same idea applied to my role as a researcher: there was not one
role but many, and they could not necessarily be predetermined. I only
learned what roles were comfortable for me in the field once I had spent
some time in the two settings, where I gained experience of being both a
detached and a participant observer. In the end, I preferred being a detached
observer, since I did not see how my participation would have benefited the
children or advanced this research. On the other hand, I argue that, as the
alternative to the inclusion of children’s ‘voices’ in this research, I did some-
thing else that is equally valuable: I described observable action that has sig-
nificant consequences to the lives of young children.
During and after the fieldwork phase, I wanted the research to be not

24

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

just fundamentally guided by but also reflexive about moral values and
choices. To reiterate: in terms of research ethics, my definition of ‘reality’ is
based on Smith’s (2002) suggestion – what is real to the subjects is what
matters. My access to the realities of children (with or without communica-
tion difficulties) was limited in both settings. What I know about it has been,
for the most part, mediated by adults; children’s participation has not been
fundamental to this research. However, that mediated knowledge was suffi-
cient enough to convince me that the purpose of this research – to develop
new understandings of children’s communication – is ethically sound.

Conclusion
In this article I have questioned a particular version of a young (disabled or
able-bodied) child’s ‘voice’. This version assumes a rational, autonomous
‘agent’ as an intentional subject – a notion linked to a wider individualiza-
tion process in the western world. Recognizing and accounting for children’s
‘voices’ presumes rational action on the part of the speaker. This perspective
has the moral goal of giving rights to children; yet, when not clarified, it
may dismiss the complexity of communication as a local interactional activi-
ty.
I wanted to draw particular attention to the epistemology, ontology and
practice of qualitative research. This is particularly important in research that
encourages the participation of children in the generation of data. In my
research I came to see the multifaceted ambiguity of the idea of ‘listening to
children’. This recognition undermined the implicit or explicit assumptions
in the so-called child-centred research, which takes for granted that children
have message-like thoughts that can be exchanged, and intentions that match
the situations defined by adults; and that these can be researched in an ethi-
cal fashion (Alderson, 1995). My findings in two specialist settings have
indicated that ethical and epistemological considerations are more complex
than that.
Studying children’s lives in the contemporary world is inevitably polit-
ical. It can be argued, though, that care has to be taken to distinguish rhetoric
from practice. For Roberts (2000), listening to children is not necessarily
‘good’ but may be, in fact, intrusive and the cause of further distress: more
listening may not inevitably mean more hearing. In other words, researchers
should think about when and how to conduct research with children so that it
is as ethical as they claim it to be.
Therefore, since listening to children is not a straightforward thing to
do, judgements of need and harm remain contextual to a certain extent
(Morrow and Richards, 1996). Decisions need to be made about whether
children want to talk if they can – is it really always ‘good to talk?’ As far as
I am concerned, the contemporary, presumably ‘child-centred’ discourse on
listening tends to advocate the Freudian type ‘talking cure’ (Cameron, 2000),

25

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

and does not take into account the possibly harmful effects of ‘having to
talk’. At the end of the day, just as in child welfare practice, social
researchers initiate communicative events with children, and research styles
and purposes frame the subsequent adult–child communication.
Moreover, the question arises whether ‘listening to children’ in social
research is an empowering or a rhetorical device. Is it simply one that
attempts to furnish young children with a western value of competence,
while at the same time, paradoxically, purporting to undermine hegemonic
notions of a ‘skill’? For Prout (2000), the observation that children can exer-
cise agency should be a point of analytical embarkation and not a terminus.
In other words, merely replacing one essentialist argument (that children are
incompetent) with another (that they are competent) appears unsatisfactory.
It is possible that children can be, at the same time, vulnerable and compe-
tent; however, their positioning in this respect tends to be in the hands of
adults.
I have offered reflexivity as a strategy for ensuring ethical research
conduct. By this I stress the recognition of the adult mediation and construc-
tion of children’s ‘voices’, both on local and wider discursive levels. This
might involve reflecting on not simply what one ‘hears’ as a researcher, but
on what one expects to hear, and how these expectations may frame the
dynamics of adult–child interaction.

Notes
I would like to thank Nick Lee and three other reviewers for commenting on the earlier drafts
of this article, my PhD supervisor Jo Moran-Ellis and the sponsors for the research (the ESRC
and a charitable organization, whose name is withheld for confidentiality reasons). The views
expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the RCPCH.

1. The names for children and staff in data extracts are pseudonyms. Practitioners are gen-
erally referred to as ‘she’.
2. Alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) means any method of communi-
cating that supplements the ordinary methods of speech and handwriting, where these are
impaired (Millar and Scott, 2001). Most AAC users use a mixture of unaided (such as signing)
and aided communication (physical objects such as symbol charts or books), and a mixture of
low tech and high tech aids, depending on the situation.
3. See also Komulainen (2005).
4. This argument has implications to research on adult voices as well; however, I feel that
a fair treatment of this dimension is beyond the scope of this article.

References
Adkins, L. (2002) ‘Reflexivity and the Politics of Qualitative Research’, in T. May (ed.)
Qualitative Research in Action, pp. 332–48. London: Sage.
Aitken, S. and S. Millar (2002) Are We Listening? Book 1 of Listening to Children with
Communication Support Needs. Glasgow: Sense Scotland/Edinburgh: CALL Centre.

26

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 KOMULAINEN: THE AMBIGUITY OF THE CHILD’S ‘VOICE’

Alderson, P. (1995) Listening to Children: Children, Ethics and Social Research. London:
Barnardo’s.
Barnes, C., M. Corker, S. Cunningham-Burley, J. Davis, M. Priestley, T. Shakespeare and N.
Watson (2000) ‘Children 5–16 Research Briefing No. 8’; at:
www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/disability-research/files/children.rtf (accessed 25 July 2002).
Barthes, R. (1974) S/Z. Oxford: Blackwell.
Beresford, B. (1997) Personal Accounts: Involving Disabled Children in Research. Norwich:
Social Policy Research Unit.
Berg, B.L. (1995) Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. London: Allyn and
Bacon.
Cameron, D. (2000) Good To Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture.
London: Sage.
Children Act (1989) Ch. 41. London: HMSO.
Coffey, A. (2002) ‘Ethnography and Self: Reflections and Representations’, in T. May (ed.)
Qualitative Research in Action, pp. 313–31. London: Sage.
Corsaro, W.A. and J. Streeck (1986) ‘Studying Children’s Worlds: Methodological Issues’, in
J. Cook-Gumperz, W.A. Corsaro and, J. Streeck (eds) Children’s Worlds and
Children’s Language, pp. 13–33. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Davie, R., G. Upton and V. Varma (eds) (1996) The Voice of the Child: A Handbook for
Professionals. London: Falmer Press.
Davis, J.M. (1998) ‘Understanding the Meanings of Children: A Reflexive Process’, Children
and Society 12: 325–35.
Dockrell, J. and D.J. Messer (1999) Children’s Language and Communication Difficulties:
Understanding, Identification and Intervention. London: Cassell.
Doyal, L. and I. Gough (1991) A Theory of Human Need. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Durham Peters, J. (1999) Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Emerson, C. and M. Holquist (eds) (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays: M.M.
Bakhtin. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Farr, R.M. and R. Rommetveit (1995) ‘The Communicative Act: An Epilogue to Mutualities
in Dialogue’, in I. Marková, C. Graumann and K. Foppa (eds) Mutualities in Dialogue,
pp. 265–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Finnegan, R. (2002) Communicating: The Multiple Modes of Human Interconnection. London:
Routledge.
Friel, J. (1997) Children With Special Needs: Assessment, Law and Practice – Caught in the
Acts, 4th edn. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Geertz, C. (1988) Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goode, D.A. (1991) ‘Kids, Culture and Innocents’, in F.C. Waksler (ed.) Studying the Social
Worlds of Children: Sociological Readings, pp. 145–60. London: Falmer Press.
Graumann, C.F. (1995) ‘Commonality, Mutuality, Reciprocity: A Conceptual Introduction’, in
I. Marková, C.F. Graumann and K. Foppa (eds) Mutualities in Dialogue, pp. 1–3.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hutchby, I. and J. Moran-Ellis (eds) (1998) Children and Social Competence: Arenas of
Action. London: Falmer Press.
James, A. and A. Prout (1997) ‘Re-Presenting Childhood: Time and Transition in the Study of
Childhood’, in A. James and A. Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing
Childhood, pp. 230–50. London: Falmer Press.
James, A., C. Jenks and A. Prout (1998) Theorizing Childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Komulainen, S. (2005) ‘The Contextuality of Children’s Communication Difficulties in
Specialist Practice: A Sociological Account’, Child Care in Practice 11(3): 357–74.
Lee, N. (1999) ‘The Challenge of Childhood; Distributions of Childhood’s Ambiguity in Adult
Institutions’, Childhood 6(4): 455–74.

27

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014

 CHILDHOOD 14(1)

Lee, N. (2000) ‘Faith in the Body? Childhood, Subjecthood and Sociological Enquiry’, in A.
Prout (ed.) The Body, Childhood and Society, pp. 149–71. London: Macmillan.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1994) The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Mandell, L. (1991) ‘The Least-Adult Role in Studying Children’, in F.C. Waksler (ed.)
Studying the Social Worlds of Children: Sociological Readings, pp. 38–59. London:
Falmer Press.
Marks, D. (1999) Disability; Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives. London:
Routledge.
Mauthner, N.S. and A. Doucet (2003) ‘Reflexive Accounts and Accounts of Reflexivity in
Qualitative Data Analysis’, Sociology 37(3): 413–31.
Middleton, L. (1999) Disabled Children: Challenging Social Exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell.
Millar, S. and J. Scott (2001) ‘What is Augmentative and Alternative Communication? An
Introduction’, in A. Wilson (ed.) Augmentative Communication in Practice, pp. 3–12.
Edinburgh: CALL Centre and Scottish Executive Education Department.
Morris, J. (1999) ‘Disabled Children, Child Protection Systems and the Children Act 1989’,
Child Abuse Review 8: 91–108.
Morrow, V. and M. Richards (1996) ‘The Ethics of Social Research with Children: An
Overview’, Children and Society 10: 90–105.
Moser, I. and J. Law (2001) ‘Making Voices: New Media Technologies, Disabilities, and
Articulation’, Centre for Science Studies and the Department of Sociology, Lancaster
University; at: www.comp.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/soc60jl.html (version
rolltalk11cdoc; 17 January 2001) ANT view of voice/subjectivity of disabled person
shaped by non-human environment
Parton, N. and C. Wattam (eds) (1999) Child Sexual Abuse: Responding to the Experiences of
Children. Chichester: Wiley.
Potter, J. (1996) Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London:
Sage.
Prout, A. (2000) ‘Childhood Bodies: Construction, Agency and Hybridity’, in A. Prout (ed.)
The Body, Childhood and Society, pp. 1–18. London: Macmillan.
Roberts, H. (2000) ‘Listening to Children: And Hearing Them’, in P. Christensen and A.
James (eds) Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices, pp. 225–40. London:
Falmer Press.
Schwandt, T.A. (1994) ‘Constructivist, Interpretivist Approaches to Human Inquiry’, in N.K.
Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 18–36. London:
Sage.
Silverman, D. (1987) Communication and Medical Practice: Social Relations in the Clinic.
London: Sage.
Smith, D.E. (2002) ‘Institutional Ethnography’, in T. May (ed.) Qualitative Research in
Action, pp. 17–52. London: Sage.
Wertsch, J.V. (1991) Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action.
London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Woodhead, M. (1997) ‘Psychology and the Cultural Construction of Children’s Needs’, in A.
James and A. Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, pp. 63–84.
London: Falmer Press.

28

Downloaded from chd.sagepub.com at GEORGE MASON UNIV on June 22, 2014