Meeting with Clive

I have had a breakthrough!!! This breakthrough happened awhile ago but because my Internet at home has been rubbish, this is the first time I have been able to write about it!! I feel like I know where I am going with my dissertation finally and this is where my focus will lie. I have shifted through material and have changed my ideas everytime I have read something but now I feel confident that I have something that could really work, I just need to tell Clive!

I was scared before going into see Clive, yet I am not exactly sure why! I think it was because I as aware that he may not like my ideas, he may not give me consent to run my ideas and the thought that this could happen was scary! However, I felt the meeting went really well and I came out feeling extremely positive and ready to press forward.

The focus now lays in looking at children who have been kept at home in the early stages of their lives or have been placed in day care/nurseries. I am not looking to state that one option is better or more beneficial for the child but rather add to the on-going debate that is discussed in most of the relevant literature. I will be contributing to the debate by carrying out observations on two children that I am able to gain access to, these observations will consist of an intellectual test to see how well the child is developing and also an observation known as 'the strange situation' which will be explained further in my final piece but it consists of the mother placing the child in a room with unfamiliar toys and an unfamiliar person, and observing how the child reats to the surroundings, the 'stranger' and then how the child reacts once the mother returns.

I briefly explained this observation to Clive and we begun to dicuss the idea and connotations of the term 'experiment' and how, for me the thought of carrying out an experiment on children disgusted me slightly as it made me think of the children as lab rats/guniea pigs rather than human beings. We were both interested into why I thought this and this is something that I would like to pursue, therefore I will be carrying out research on the term 'experiment' and also researching into my own thoughts and feelings.

I also need to gain consent off the parents of the children and I am wanting to observe due to ethics that are concerned when dealing with children. I already have my ethics form and now just need to approach the parents.

I placed forward the idea to Clive that I want to include a section or involve my mother in my final piece of my dissertation. She has played a large role and has had a big affect on my University life and the way in which my dissertation is forming, Clive agreed with me and I will be writing a type of autobiography about my mother and I, which I have already started to do and there are pieces of literature that I have also found that help highlight and represent what my mother means to me.

Finally in the next two to three weeks, I will be gathering my data and then deciding how to represent this in my final piece. As well as asking myself how I will analyse and interpret the data that I receive for it to be made clear to my reader.