Following involvement on Islington’s Inequalities Taskforce (2021-2022) and in consultation with deputy heads in schools, Robinson continued to research children’s school-worlds using a citizens science approach and through using trauma-informed pedagogies to teach written/drawn/ photographed/mapped documentation, with or without formal language, expanding the research to cover Key Stage 2- 4 (ages 11-16). ABC aims to help participants to communicate their needs, challenges and feelings in ways that are legible and therefore actionable by decision-makers (Case study for CAPE here: www.cape.ac.uk/2022/10/31/anthropology-by-children-case-study/).
Children learn to tell and value their own stories, foregrounding those oft-excluded: young people susceptible to gangs/street violence; deaf/disabled children; and children of unsettled/refugee status.
Through conducting original ethnographic research alongside students and teachers, this project will provide data to facilitate development of evidenced-based initiatives to tackle mental health challenges and improve health-choices. The ABC programme has already rolled out anthropological approaches to more than 400 participants, 80%+ of whom had never heard of anthropology before ABC, offering a glimpse at its great potential to bring fresh perspectives to the discipline as a whole.