SOS Children
	Children Charity About this report About our Charity Orphans worldwide Why choose SOS? Sponsor a child Donate or help

Seeing Beyond Violence: Main report text

Objectives and Methodology
12
This places the onus on the reader, rather than the subject, to understand the methodol-
ogy of the project. For some this is a challenging position, since the project makes de-
mands on the reader who has been schooled in conventional research or policy analysis to
see the world as it is seen by those at the other end of the process. Sometimes this will
mean following the research into areas that are important to those involved but perhaps
not seen as immediately relevant by those removed from them. At other times it will mean
being prepared to suspend critical disbelief as we explore interpretations that are specula-
tive and imaginative but may not provide adequate evidence for generalisation.
Our aim is to bring about a shift in perspective ­ to help the reader see the world a little
differently. We are not setting out the challenge the facts but rather to look at them from
a different angle, perhaps to look behind and underneath them as well as facing them full-
on.
"Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Sto-
ries from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the
act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: `Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After
that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for
digestion.'
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a
coloured pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It
looked like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing fright-
ened them.
But they answered: `Frightened? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?'
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an
elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another draw-
ing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly.
They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa
constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geog-
raphy, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what
might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure
of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never under-
stand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever
explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot aeroplanes. I had flown a little
over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a
glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowl-
edge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people
who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among

---

Objectives and Methodology
13
grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved
my opinion of them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear sighted, I tried the experi-
ment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try
to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or
she, would always say:
`That is a hat.'
Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or
stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf,
and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up world would be greatly pleased to have met
such a sensible man."(Saint-Exupéry)18
Not only good will
While the strategy we have adopted requires researchers to shift their perspectives, the
approach we have adopted is entirely consistent with widely agreed policies. For the past
years the participation of children has not simply been regarded as an act of good-will on
the part of adults but is firmly anchored in Children's Rights as stated by the UN ­
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)(Article 12).19 Most countries of the world
have ratified this right and thus are obliged to support its implementation.
"The improvement of political participation is one of the most significant topics of mo-
dern democratical-theoretical considerations." (Hartwig-Hellstern, 16)20
"The former President of the Soviet Union, Michail Gorbatschow, stated a similar claim
in 1987 as he declared that there is no other true method of developing the personality
of young people, and of assuring their opinions as citizens than involving them in all
matters of social significance." (ibid, 106)
Despite the policy intentions, in practice children are often manoeuvred into the position
of being a minority. At school, they are not allowed to co-determine the substance of their
education, they have no stated legal right to participate in or influence matters of public
concern. The future appears to be the concern only of the grown-ups. Occasionally, chil-
dren are confronted with `democratic games' ­ which are, however, usually construed as
the educational aims of adults ­ e.g. `practising democratic rules'. Normally such activities
have little or nothing to do with serious opportunities for participation:
"For reasons of their youth, approx. one-fifth of the world's population is excluded
from the right and the opportunity to actively participate in the social, political and eco-
nomical processes of the world. Thus a system which has been established apparently
according to rational, functionalistic principles can strive for ­ and secure - a maximiza-

Next Page