Sociocultural Perspective Essay

This article is about children’s perspective and how to get valid meaningful information from the child’s perspective about their learning experiences. This paper focuses on a sociocultural perspective of children as learners in their own right and co-constructers of their own meaning of learning (Smith, Duncan, & Marshall, 2005). This article also looks at how children can contribute to and make meaning of their learning and how they express that. Children use meaning-making to make sense of their world through and by the experience of narratives (Wright, 2012, p. 26). By using a sociocultural view of children, they are seen in a positive light that sees them as competent confident learners who can contribute and have a voice. This is also

The article uses photographs as a way to bounce information between the child and the researcher. This is a good example of children using meaning-making and narrative to make “sense of the world and of experiences” (Wright, 2012, p. 18).This allows the adult to see “through the eyes of the child” (Wright, 2012, p. 18). This helps the adult gain information about what is engaging and challenging about the children’s learning environments from the child (Smith, Duncan, & Marshall, 2005) to then make a difference in the children lives to make it more engaging and challenging. This is also seen in Childhood studies where children are seen as rights holders. Children need to have the opportunity to express their opinion and voice their thoughts on any subject/experience that interests or provokes them. It’s the role of the adult to be able to understand what the child is saying and advocate for them. The documentation approach is making the children’s learning visible (Clark & Kinney, 2006). It’s seen in the article where the children’s learning is visible through photos and through their interpretations of those photos. At the core of the documentation approach is the belief that “children should be at the centre of decisions about their learning and development” (Clark & Kinney, 2006, p. 4). This approach allows children’s voices, views and understanding (Clark & Kinney, 2006, p. 4) to be heard helping adults to better understand the children to help make the right change/difference in the children’s lives. The Mosaic approach is about enabling children to “explore their perspectives” (Clark & Kinney, 2006, p. 9). This approach embraces children as social actors who are social beings in a social world who’s “interaction[s] make a difference”