ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates what voice and listening to children looks like in rural Armenia. It represents progressive practice for this particular context. This case study represents collectivist (characterised as tolerance and respect for other people + religious faith + unselfishness + obedience) rural culture in the Armenian context where very often teachers working in a kindergarten or school setting are not familiar with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and specifically with Article 12 (United Nations, 1989). In this context, we explore the approaches of teachers in a context where children’s participation is not much talked about or practised widely, to see what kind of practices are being used by the professionals in the field to advance a voice culture.
We conducted observations, focus groups and interviews across nursery (children aged five to six years) and primary (six to seven years) to demonstrate that voice is still very much in its infancy, but teachers are working hard to try and find space in their practice to listen to children. Approaches to progress children’s voice in this context include developing more child-centred pedagogies for learning where choice for children amongst the school day is vital. The work demonstrated that voice can be elicited in Armenian educational context through both indirect (such as observation) and direct methods (explicit questioning).
