Conversation analysis as a creative research methodology

Conversation analysis (CA) has become increasingly prevalent in earlychildhood education research interested in exploring children’severyday interactions with others. Positioning CA as a creativemethodology, this article demonstrates one practical and appliedway of ‘doing’ CA research with early childhood teacher-practitioners that facilitates authentic ways of listening to children’svoices and offers direct implications for practice. Aligning with achildren’s rights philosophy, CA requires rigorous transcription ofchildren’s naturally occurring interactions to document their verbaland gestural participation in situ with a wide range of interlocutors,making visible children’s participation. As such, this article outlineshow the use of CA in ECEC research has a significant capacity toinfluence knowledge and practice with children. Using a CAapproach affords rigorous documentation of children’s contributionsand lived experiences, revealing their competencies and interestsacross a wide range of cultures, languages and abilities, offeringinclusivity and unique insight. To explore these issues in detail, anexample from a New Zealand project exploring pedagogy in naturaloutdoor spaces will be presented, where the affordances of CA as arigorous, robust yet creative research approach with implications forenhancing situated practice will be discussed