Wild Things: Children as Researchers

In spite of excellent examples of child-led research, questions remain about the implications for childhood studies of children’s participation in what are often adult-designed research activities. In exploring the intertwined and chaotic nature of the social world that is child-led research, this paper will present some key concepts from the dialogic imagination of Mikhail Bakhtin. These concepts serve as a heuristic for examining ‘Tassie Researchers’, a 5-day children-as-researchers program conducted in a school in Australia. Experiences and observations of the program are unpacked and the different voices of the situation highlighted. This is followed by a discussion of findings and implications.