Influencia de las características texturales de la roca

This study employed qualitative interviews with children and their parents. The process of interviewing children and their parents was broadly divided into four steps. First, prior to the interview, I identified working children by gathering essential information such as the number of working children in each area, types of work, ages, and gender, to ensure these criteria fits within the sample criteria I had determined, as explained in the previous section. Second, I then conducted an initial visit to the parents and children in their homes. In asking for their participation, I gave them a project information sheet and explained the aims of the study. After

they agreed to participate, I then arranged a time for the interview. Details

regarding the research information were explained in the project information sheet for the parent (appendix 1) and for the child (appendix 4). To encourage children and parents to participate in the interview, I assured them of the confidentiality of the information they would provide. Third, at the specified time as agreed, I made a second or, sometimes, third visit, as informants were not always available at the time agreed, to interview children and parents separately. Before the interview, I asked their consent for participation in the interview and for the interview to be recorded. As I will explain in the section detailing research ethics, I asked for their consent verbally. Details about the consent are explained in the consent form for parents (appendix 2) and for children (appendix 5). It was then followed by the interview. To show appreciation of the children and parents’ participation in my study, I gave them small gifts, such as key rings and small university bags, after the completion of the interview. The final step, in the night or the day following the interview, I immediately made a brief note on the context of the interview including observations such as their responses during interview, such as laughing, crying, or being shy. I also made simple notes about some possible findings or themes

emerging from the interviews.

Interviews with parents

In the first visits, I met parents or carers to gain their consent for participation in this study and to obtain access to their children, ensuring that they would allow them to be interviewed. The purpose of interviewing parents was to investigate their perception of children working and their experiences in involving their children in employment. Key questions included their perception of the daily lives of their children at work, school, play and home, with particular attention to children’s working activities. Other key questions included parents’ perceptions of the agreement and disagreements surrounding children’s involvement in

employment, and their decision to involve their children in employment. Details of the procedure in interviewing parents are explained in the interview guide for parents (see appendix 3).

One-visit interviews with parents were conducted in their home and mostly lasted around an hour. Most interviews with parents in both areas were conducted in the

Javanese language. The use of the Javanese language helped the researcher to communicate with the parents effectively. As explained, this was possible as I speak Javanese. As far as the researcher observed, interviews were conducted without fear. They spoke softly, reflecting their respect for the interviewer. They also provided clear and long explanations for each question, reflecting that they are interested in the topic. Although they spoke in Javanese, sometimes I found some language difficulties in relation to their technical terminology or their specific local vocabulary. Another challenge in interviewing parents was when they were asked about their children’s activities conducted when they are separate, such as

children’s activities at school or at play. I found parents had different responses to the interview questions. In Central Java, parents doing the interviews were mainly fathers, while in East Java they were mainly mothers. This, as explained, was related to their working behaviour. They also had different responses with regard to the notion of food for their visitor. Most parents in Central Java provided water, tea, snacks and, sometimes, lunch or dinner for the interviewer. Although I

emphasised in the project information sheet that they did not need to do so, I finally took the food they provided. This was to maintain close familiarity between the interviewer and the interviewee; rejecting their meals would be considered rude. This practice was in contrast to that of the parents in East Java where most did not provide meals and drink, as I requested.

Interviews with children

The interviews with children were used to provide them an arena to express their views on their involvement in employment. Key questions explored during

interviews were generally about their perception on their working activities and their everyday life at school and play. Other key questions pertained to their understanding of their agreement and disagreement about working children and their decision to become involved in employment. Details on how to interview children are explained in the interview guide for children (see appendix 6). The process of interviewing children was conducted in a slightly different way than with the parents. Unlike interviewing parents, the interviews with children were conducted by employing creative methods (as explained below). By asking consent from the children and their parents in advance, all interviews with children were

carried out in the children’s houses. Most of the interviews with children were conducted with their parents present. In relation to the objectivity of children’s answers, these were part of the challenges of the study, mainly in relation to children’s directed answers, as relatives sometimes interrupted the interviews. Morrow and Richards contend that power imbalance between adults and children is the biggest ethical challenge in doing research with children (1996:98).

Therefore we need to redress the power disparities between the child as a

participant and the adult as a researcher to ensure that children’s voices are really heard (Thomas and O’Kane, 1998:337). Similar to the interviews with parents, the interviews with children were also conducted one time and lasted about an hour. However, different from the interviews with parents, interviews with children were mostly conducted in the Indonesian language or a mix between Indonesian and Javanese language.

One of the challenges faced during the interviews with children was related to the children’s level of linguistic communication and cognitive development. Some children had difficulties in understanding and producing complex words and sentences. They also had difficulties in understanding and expressing complex ideas. Their responses to some questions were generally in short sentences and with simple explanations. Another challenge was children’s linguistic ability, such as a lack of vocabulary so that the researcher sometimes had to wait for the children to find the words to explain their views. To deal with these problems, I always tried to build rapport during the interviews and helped them to find a deeper explanation by asking them additional questions. I also facilitated them to elicit their views by employing two types of creative methods. Having some kind of stimulus material enables children to express their views much easier. I used picture cards (as part of a visual method) and marbles (as part of a material method). The use of creative methods was really helpful in interviewing the

children. The use of picture cards in this study could remarkably increase children’s ability to illustrate their experiences. During the interviews using the picture cards children were able to describe their activities better when compared to those without picture cards. This was even higher in comparison to that of parent explanations. When I asked children questions without picture cards, I always ensured that the children had already mentioned all of their working activities by

asking ‘what else?’ until they mentioned there were no other working activities that they were involved in. However, when I asked them using picture cards, they finally realised some activities had not been explained previously. One of the limitations in using picture cards was that we had to know possible activities performed by children on the sites in the study. Without knowing the activities, the picture cards might be useless, as they cannot explain anything related to the questions being studied. In my study, I found some activities were not found in the locations

studied, such as ploughing, and found some additional activities that were not listed in the picture cards, such as collecting firewood, freshwater mussels, and river sand. This will be detailed further in Chapter 7.

One of the most important features in researching children is about positionality. I found five issues on positionality highlighted from this study. First, different

positions exist between the researcher as an adult and the interviewees as children. Second, there also exist different socio-economic classes between the researcher and the interviewees. To ensure that children were able to express their views freely, I acknowledged these power imbalances, for example by offering a

handshake at the first meeting, wearing simple clothes (e.g. wearing sandals instead of shoes), and using daily language in interviews (Morrow and Richards, 1996; Thomas and O’Kane, 1998). Third, I also acknowledged the positionality of being an adult male interviewer who had to make a conversation with female interviewees. This position might relate to privacy issues in rural households and lack of trust during a one-off interview. Although I asked to interview children separately, I also allowed parents or their relatives to accompany the girls during interview. The next issue was related to my position as a researcher with a rural background; I grew up in a rural area surrounded by agricultural activities. This background allowed me to easily understand the lives of the children in rural areas; however, this might bring bias in my understanding—for example the possibility of entrapment in a

stereotypical thinking model. The last feature relates to ethnicity: as a Javanese I am an insider, but as a researcher I am always an outsider.