Hey Im nine not six What its like to look younger than your age

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Hey Im nine not six! What its like to look
younger than your age

• Anna Carlini and Emma Barry

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Why we chose this topic

• Wed noticed that two girls in our year who
  looked very small for their age seemed to be
  treated differently
• We wondered if there were special reasons for
  this and if so why this was
• We were curious about whether being small
  affected their behaviour
• And whether other people behaved differently
  towards them

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We thought about ethics

• How the girls would feel about being observed
• Whether our research would make things worse for
  them
• Whether it might make things better because more
  people would understand

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Getting consent

• We talked to them about what we wanted to do and
  why
• We talked to them about how they felt about being
  in our research
• We talked to our teacher about what we wanted to
  do
• We talked to them about changing their names when
  we wrote about our findings to protect their
  identity. We chose Kaz and Rose as names

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How we collected our data

• We observed them for two weeks in the playground
  and recorded everything into a dictaphone
• We interviewed them about some of the things we
  had seen
• We interviewed them about how they felt about
  being small for their age particularly about
  advantages and disadvantages

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Here is an extract from our observation data

• Shes yelling louder than the others.
• Shes crouching down,
• Shes yelling more.
• Yelling more loudly than the others.
• Yelling even louder.
• Shes crouching down again.
• Kaz is hanging onto people,
• Shes gripping onto them.
• Yelling loudly again.
• Still yelling loudly.
• More yelling loudly.
• More loudly than the others.
• More loud yelling.
• Shes being picked up and carried like a baby by
  one of the group.
• Someone else has picked her up now.
• Someone else has picked her up and is rocking
  her.
• They are holding her by her middle and swinging
  her around.
• Kaz is hanging onto people.
• The group are playing tag. Every time Kaz tries
  to run someone catches her.

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Analysing the data

• We looked for themes and patterns in our
  observation notes
• We looked to see if there were any similarities
  or differences between the two girls
• We did the same from the interview data

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We found some themes

• There were a lot of similarities in their
  behaviour
• The similar themes we noticed were

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1. Being treated like a cuddly doll e.g.

• Being hugged a lot
• Being picked up
• Being swung round

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2. Attention seeking e.g.

• hanging on to people
• gripping on to hands and arms
• clinging
• yelling lots and lots and lots

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3. Small physical size e.g.

• Crouching down
• Ducking
• hiding behind other people

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Interview findings

• They didnt like being babied
• They didnt like younger brothers or sisters
  being thought older than them
• They didnt like being bullied by children who
  were younger than them
• But they did like being able to get into
  adventure playgrounds when peers were refused
  because they were too big
• And they did like being given a lollipop in the
  chip shop!!!

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Final thoughts

• Although this was only a small study we think we
  learnt a lot about what its like to be much
  younger than your age
• We think that adults might not have found out the
  same sorts of things that we did because the
  girls might not have told them what they told us
  and..
• Because we understand better than adults what
  goes on in the playground so our observation was
  different

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Thank you for listening.