[00:00:00] [music playing] Hello, and welcome to this short introduction to the Children’s Friendships Matter podcast series, where Dr Caron Carter gives a brief overview of her project prefacing its origins and themes.
[00:00:27] This introductory episode provides some background and context for this podcast series. Over the last decade I’ve been researching children’s friendships in the 4-11 years primary age phase. My passion and interest for this work started when I was a primary school teacher. I was a teacher for 11 years before becoming an academic. I have always been fascinated by the benefits that friendship can bring to children.
[00:01:02] Back in 2005, whilst I was a deputy head teacher, I decided to research further into this area. What made friendship easy for some children but then almost impossible for others? What could the school and teachers do to support? I started researching children’s experiences of being playground friends. This was an action research project which led to changes being made in my school to support children’s friendships.
[00:01:39] I have published several journal articles, including a publication with Cathy Nutbrown and something I have coined ‘The Pedagogy of Friendship’. This calls for greater attention to be paid to children’s friendships.
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[00:02:00] With the emergency of COVID 19, lockdowns and restrictions, children were without their friendships and everyday social interactions. I was concerned about children’s wellbeing and their holistic development and learning. I was left wondering how children might be affected without their usual friendship interactions in school. Therefore, I designed a project to explore how children maintain their friendships during this period with 7–11-year-olds. Now children have returned to school research is emerging with suggestions for ways to support children during this period, post-COVID 19.
[00:02:50] In this podcast series I talk to experts in the field about their research and its implications for both practice and research. Similarly, I will be talking to teachers who are fully immersed in practice about their everyday experiences and the issues that they are facing post-COVID to support children’s friendships. If you are an academic this might influence your thinking or research directions, and if you are a teacher or practitioner working with children, these episodes might provide you with something to reflect on or take away to your classroom on your own work with children.
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[00:03:38] Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information on Caron’s research and other related podcasts. Please visit https://research.shu.ac.uk/friends. This podcast was made possible by a fellowship opportunity funded by Sheffield Hallam University.
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