Critical Realism and Childhood (with Rob Faure Walker and Priscilla Alderson)
Channel: Children in Theory
Date: 2023-11-07

Springing from the introduction to critical realism as a theoretical framework, Priscilla Alderson and Rob Faure Walker discuss its applicability to studies on childhood, some conceptual clarifications required to better understand the frameworks for doing critical realist research, and examples applied to issues of childhood which clarify how the method can be put into practice. Among the issues addressed are the following:

The Epistemic Fallacy, and the dangers of not recognising the difference between epistemological and ontological analyses of childhood.
The study and focus on real causal mechanisms which enable finding underlying realities that frame our social world, and how we interpret it.
An analysis of the role that structures and human agency play in our studies of childhood.
An analysis of the four planes of social being (bodies, relations, structures, and the inner self), and how they aid in how we should analyse and organise information when doing childhood research.
The potential value of reaping from our experiences as parents, teachers, and children in order to do childhood research.

Faure Walker, R. and Alderson, P. (2022). Critical Realism and Childhood. In N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood.  Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool.

For more information on critical realism and the Children in Theory series, follow the link below:
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-and-social-sciences/research/research-themes/children-childhood/children-in-theory/critical-realism/