Close-Reading Children’s Voices: A Literary Approach to Data Analysis in Childhood Studies

This article is premised on the fact that children are able to craft texts with aesthetic effect, and indeed often do; however, scholars’ engagement with this fact is ambivalent, especially as concerns the possibility for adults to be affected by children’s texts and voices. The field of childhood studies has been historically much more receptive than literary studies to the craftedness and intentionality of children’s voices. It is, however, less well-equipped to analyse child voice in terms of aesthetic devices and poetic effect. I argue here that researchers in the social sciences, who are major readers of child-created texts, especially in the form of transcripts, can and should borrow the tools of literary analysis to enhance their study of children’s voices. Beyond interpretative richness, such a process also allows researchers to better understand the ways in which children’s voices trigger specific kinds of emotional and intellectual engagement that may impact adult researchers’ own writing and interpretations.