Well-being in after-school programs analyzed through children’s drawings – analytical findings and methodological reflections

In recent decades, a trend towards more involvement and participation in child and youth research emerged (Gravesen, Mikkelsen & Frostholm, 2021), and researchers have experimented with new empirical methods designed to capture the perspectives of children and youth in innovative ways, e.g. through focus-group discussions, walk-and-talks, future workshops, diaries, photographs, essays, mappings, drawings, etc. (Crivello, Camfield & Woodhead, 2008; Alminde & Warming, 2020).
In the recently completed qualitative research project “Freedom in Leisure”, conducted in Denmark in 2022-2023, understandings of agency and well-being in after-school programs were analyzed through children’s drawings. Nine after-school programs participated involving a total of 43 children as informants. The drawing sessions were an integral part of two rounds of focus group interviews, which featured individual drawings, and future workshops, which involved group drawings.
In the first round of focus group interviews, the informants were asked to draw aspects, that were characteristic of their experiences in the after-school programs. In the second round, the informants were asked to draw characteristics from their experiences of life at home, in school and in the after-school programs. In the future workshops, the group drawings expressed the informants’ ideas for ideal future after-school programs.