Mobilising recipiency: child participation and 'rights to speak' in multi-party family interaction

This paper discusses a child's participation in multi-party family interaction. Drawing from video-recordings of a family Christmas event, we examine instances where a child produces an initiating action that is unsuccessful at first in gaining the recipiency of the addressee(s). We show how for the child a regular issue might be not simply pursuing a response, but more generally mobilising the adult addressee's recipiency and engagement. The analysis describes the methods by which the child attempts to mobilise recipiency, how these attempts are responded to by the adults in the interaction, and how the child pursues recipiency when it is not gained in the first instance. Drawing on these empirical findings we examine the notion of children's ‘rights to speak’ in interaction, in particular reconceptualising it the along the lines of ‘rights to engage’. The paper contributes to understandings about children's communicative competence, as well as identifying more generic aspects of the management of multi-party interaction

Children’s whining in family interaction

Children’s whining is identified in extracts of video-recorded social interaction at home with siblings, parents and other family. “Whining” is primarily a vernacular category, but can be identified in terms of a set of phonetic features including pitch movement, loudness and nasality, and contrasted with crying. We focus on the uses and consequences of whining, in and for social interaction. Rather than identifying and attributing experiential causes or correlates of whining, we examine what children do with it, how it is occasioned, and how others, mostly parents, respond to it. Whining performs actions such as objecting to transgressions and thwarted goals, and making complaints. Parental reactions include one or more of: “stance inversion,” which is the adoption of a contrasting tone in next turn; formulations of the offending circumstances; orientations to remedying the problem; and rejection of the whine’s basis, including dispositional formulations of the child’s whining (e.g., being “grumpy”), and accounts for not complying with a called-for remedy. Data are in English

Intervening with conversation analysis in telephone helpline services: strategies to improve effectiveness

This article overviews the way conversation analytic work on telephone helplines can make an impact in practical situations. It takes three illustrative themes in helpline research: (a) the giving, receiving, and resisting of advice; (b) the expression of strong emotion and its identification, management, and then coordination with helpline goals; and (c) how helplines' policies and practices shape the interactions between caller and call taker. For each of these themes, we show how conversation analysis research insights have been applied to improve helpline effectiveness. This has been done through a variety of practice-based reports, consultancy exercises, and training initiatives, including workshops where we aim to identify and facilitate good practice. Intervention studies of this type are at the forefront of interactional research on telephone helplines. Data are in Australian and British English

Ability to be active: exploring children’s active play in primary schools

This paper presents findings from an innovative multi-method study which sought to examine the impact of toys and toy substitutes on children’s physical activity levels in two UK primary schools. Accelerometers were used to record the physical activity levels of 52 Year 3 pupils (aged 7-8 years) during four separate 30-minute play sessions and, for comparison, during other periods of the school day (breaks, lunch-times and PE lessons). Qualitative data were generated through observations, field notes and semi-structured focus groups with pupils. The findings suggest that a relatively short session of unstructured active play with toys or toy substitutes can make an important contribution to a child’s daily level of physical activity. Moreover, they reveal that children’s enjoyment of play sessions and their creative, physical and social competence are also important influences on their engagement in, and with active, play. Some implications for policy, practice and future research are discussed

Parentification: counselling talk on a helpline for children and young people

This chapter investigates counselling interactions where young clients talk about their experiences of taking on family responsibilities normatively associated with parental roles. In research counselling literature, practices where relationships in families operate so that there is a reversal of roles, with children managing the households and caring for parents and siblings, is described as parentification. Parentification is used in the counselling literature as a clinician/researcher term, which we ‘respecify’ (Garfinkel, 1991) the term by beginning with an investigation of young clients’ own accounts of being an adult or parent and how counsellors orient to these accounts. As well as providing understandings of how young people propose accounts of their experiences of adult-child role reversal, the chapter contributes to understanding how children and young people use the resources of counselling helplines, and how counsellors can communicate effectively with children and young people

Recasting the psychologist’s question: children’s talk as social action

Recasting the psychologist’s question: children’s talk as social actio

Helpline discourse

Helplines are services where callers can request help, advice, information, or support. While such help is usually offered through telephone helplines, Web chat and e-mail helplines are becoming increasingly available to members of the public. Helplines tend to offer specialized services, such as responding to computer-software queries or medical and health issues or seeking information about natural disasters. Further, they may be aimed at particular populations, such as children and young people. The earliest research investigating discourse in calls to helplines in social interactional research began in the 1960s, with Sacks' early work on calls made to a suicide prevention center. Since then interactional research has produced a wealth of understandings of the mundane and institutional interactional practices through which help is sought and delivered. In addition to discussing the breadth of research into helplines, this article explores the relationship between philosophies and interactional practices of helpline service

Avoiding giving advice in telephone counselling for children and young people: empowerment as practical action

Kids Helpline is an Australian 24-hour telephone counselling helpline for children and young people up to the age of 25 years old. The service operates with the core values of empowerment for clients, and the use of child-centred practices,one aspect of which is a non-directive approach highlighted by the avoidance of overt advice giving. Through analysis of a single call to the helpline, this chapter demonstrates how counsellors actively manage and minimise the normative and asymmetric properties of advice in the course of helping clients develop options for change. In doing so we illustrate the practical relevance and enactment of abstract institutional policies and discuss the interactional affordances of institutional constraints on practice

Recruitments, engagements and partitions: managing participation in play

This paper examines the social practices children use to manage participation in play activities. It is part of wider research looking at children’s physical activity in play, and is interested in the role of social interaction in shaping active play. The focus in this article is on how children get others to take part in play they have initiated, and how the inclusion and exclusion of particular children is managed. The data examined is video-recordings of children’s play with toys and boxes. Children were 7-8 years old and played in groups of four in a school setting. Drawing on a conversation analytic approach, the analysis identifies three interactional strategies used to manage the participation of other children in play: recruitments, engagements and partitions. We discuss the design and use of these strategies within the play activity. The paper contributes to studies of children’s play interaction, and considers how greater understanding of social practices can contribute to understandings of children’s physical activity in play. Implications of the research for interventions aimed at encouraging active play are discussed