Researching Child-Dog Relationships and Narratives in the Classroom: Rhythms of Posthuman Childhoods

This interdisciplinary book explores posthuman and psychological approaches to childhood education and well-being by examining ‘animal-assisted’ education, using qualitative approaches to understand the nuanced mechanisms which unfold in child-dog interactions.
Mapping the lives of children in a primary school setting and the relationships they share with their school and classroom dog, Ted, the book provides insight into everyday child-dog encounters, the importance of touch in middle childhood and how ‘bodiment’ offers a corporeal and compassionate means to understand the rhythm and musicality in interspecies communication. In doing so, the book uses the unique orientation of ‘rhythmanalysis’, a posthuman critical theory, and new materialist orientation in multispecies empathic childhood flourishing in the future. Reflecting contemporary interest in child-dog companionship, picture books, children’s flourishing, and children’s well-being, the book provides a nuanced multi-disciplinary overview of the field.
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