“How Do You Write What We're Talking About in Our Minds?”

Fawzia Rasheed’s (age 7 years) reflective question ‘How do you write what we’re talking about in our minds?’ early in my research highlights critical issues in using qualitative research. Mayall’s (1996, p. 65) comment that “We can only suggest an interpretation, based on how we construct what we observe and how the data in turn and continuously serves to modify our perceptions.” How then can researchers come to interpret and represent the sense that young children make of their own learning experiences? How can research studies make cultural inferences that go “beyond what is seen and heard to find out what people know?” (Spradley, 1980, p. 10).