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This chapter examines the implications for conceptualising, composing and structuring a postqualitative research project with video and sound. To do so, the authors challenge philosophically, politically and methodologically the mainstream ideas about how video in research works. The chapter starts with a brief detour to explore how the historical entanglement between art and science might inspire ways that postqualitative research could trouble the concept of representation in research, which lies constantly beneath the surface when video and sound technology is integrated into research practices. Demonstrated through a range of examples of research practices embracing moving images and sounds differently, this chapter offers a taste of what postqualitative research with sonic and visual technology could entail. Key questions are discussed, such as what comes into focus when paying attention to the material and the nonhuman through video and sound and what ontological shift this technology allows or promotes. The role of sound is given special attention as an example of readjusting what is heard (and valued as worth hearing) when analysing research data. The aim of the chapter, with its examples and suggested activities, is to excite and inspire researchers to reanimate and re-imagine research with video and sound.

There seems to be a broad agreement that curiosity is important in education. However, current research often seeks to answer the question of how best to nurture curiosity and fails to ask the normative question of why this should be done. A closer look reveals that the reasons for justifying the importance of curiosity vary, with some theorists pointing to its role in cognitive development as a starting point for learning, and others praising it as an element of democracy and a child’s right to participation. Most of these approaches understand curiosity as an individual urge or desire for knowledge. In contrast, this article will examine a relational understanding of the concept by focussing on social curiosity. Instead of following a cognitive developmentalist, intellectual virtue or emancipatory approach to valuing curiosity, I will employ relational ethical theory. The argument then explores a possible analogy between social curiosity and the concept of sovereign expressions of life, as developed by the Danish philosopher and theologian K.E. Logstrup. By drawing on his relational ethics, the article aims to expand the theoretical grounds on which curiosity can be normatively legitimised in education. With children spending longer and longer hours in educational, structured and adult-led settings, I conclude with a twofold normative claim: Social curiosity should be a part of all relations in education and its absence should lead to an ethical demand. In addition, an awareness of the actual deeds through which social curiosity is realised is also a topic that must be addressed by educators.

This article explores the notion of curiosity as a gateway to value dilemmas in early childhood education and care practices. The concept of dilemmatic space (Honig) is used to highlight the complexity of educational practices. Through an ethnographic approach based on video-observation and stimulated recall interviews, the reflections of the practitioners in three early childhood education and care institutions in Norway are analysed regarding situations in which curiosity was challenging and in which explorative behaviour was stopped, transferred or adjusted. The analyses allowed the construction of several axes of dilemmatic space, such as Equality versus Supporting the Individual, Social Order versus Questioning Status Quo and Being Professional versus Being Private. This highlights the entanglement of values, which is part of the ongoing process of constructing professional identity. It is argued that even in the case of widely accepted notions like curiosity, standardised and fixed guidelines on practice cannot be the sole answer to the complexity of early childhood education and care.

Several have challenged the idea that educating is a neutral endeavour. Following this line of thought, this article intends to examine a common concept often taken for granted: curiosity. The aim of the article is to show how curiosity is constructed as a value-loaded notion by tracing its understandings in an early-childhood-education-and-care (ECEC) context from a value perspective. Four official ECEC documents from different organisational levels will be analysed. Informed by qualitative content analysis with a concept-driven strategy, the document analysis seeks to establish connections between the notion of curiosity and prominent value fields in ECEC, such as competence, democracy and care. The analysis of the documents suggests that curiosity often has competence-related value and is frequently understood as a tool for gaining knowledge, especially in natural science and mathematics. Other value aspects, such as supporting democracy, are represented but seem to play a minor part. This suggests that the documents mainly reveal curiosity’s instrumental worth based on the various associated values. At the same time, they neither include possible ethical aspects such as connections to interpersonal caring, nor curiosity’s possible downsides, nor do they mention any existential or intrinsic value. (Published, 21 September, 2017) Citation: Soern F. Menning. “Tracing Curiosity with a Value Perspective.” Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk og kritikk, Vol. 3, 2017, pp. 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/ntpk.v3.531