What preschool is like: children’s interviews, photographs, and picture selections from two different contexts

Research on children’s perspectives emerged when the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, declared that children had the right to express their views freely and to be heard (UN General Assembly, 1989 ). Consequently, researchers in Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand, and other countries made a paradigm shift in how children were understood (Einarsdottir, 2005 , 2007 , 2010 ; Einarsdottir et al ., 2009 ; Formosinho and Araujo, 2006 ; Peters and Kelly, 2011 ). According to a rights-based perspective, children are viewed as competent social actors who can express their opinions, views, and experiences (Einarsdottir, 2010 ; Formosinho and Araujo, 2006 ; Harcourt and Einarsdottir, 2011 ; Peters and Kelly, 2011 ).