Research with young children: contemplating methods and ethics (original) (raw)
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Journal of Childhood Studies
The aim of this paper is to discuss examples of ethical and methodological choices that respect children’s rights to participation by encouraging them to be actively involved in the data generation process. The paper introduces the boxes, a model for confidentially obtaining ongoing and informed consent. It also discusses the use of cultural artifacts, chosen by the children themselves, to communicate with the researcher during the interview process. This paper concludes by emphasizing the need to design and cocreate open, flexible approaches in research that encourage children to obtain control and ownership of the research process.
Conducting research with young children: some ethical considerations
Early child development and care, 2005
The recent foundation of a 'Young Children's Perspectives' special interest group in the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) reflects a general move in social research towards the respectful and inclusive involvement of children in the research process. However, established education research guidelines often provide no more than a loose ethical framework, appearing to focus on avoiding poor ethical conduct rather than proposing ways forward for making children's participation in research a positive experience. This short paper draws on my own experiences of conducting ESRC-funded ethnographic video case studies on the ways four 3-year-old children express their understandings at home and in a pre-school playgroup during their first year of early years education. The paper reflects on the processes of negotiating initial and ongoing consent, problematises the notion of 'informed' consent in exploratory research with young children, and considers questions of anonymity when collecting and reporting on visual data. The paper proposes that by adopting a flexible, reflective stance, early years researchers can learn much from children not only about their perspectives, but also about how to include young children in the research process. February 2005 Revised article for EECERA special edition: Dr Rosie Flewitt
Children's Geographies, 2008
This article offers a discussion of the ways in which institutional ethical frameworks can obstruct and obfuscate research with children and young people at the very same time as they attempt to protect these subjects of research. The article shows that key aspects of institutional ethical guidelines and regulations fly in the face of contemporary social studies of childhood, of which geography constitutes a significant part. The increasing recognition of the competence of children and young people combined with their right to participate, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, has not yet been adequately integrated within institutional ethics frameworks. This places those conducting research with children and young people in an invidious position of trying to follow their political respect for the rights of their research participants at the same time as meeting the strictures of research practice defined by their institutional ethics committees. Examples of the author's own experience, plans for future research and actual research practice with young people will be used throughout to explore the tensions between ethics, competence and participation.
ETHICAL ISUUES IN RESEARCH INVOLVING CHILDREN
This essay aims to explore some of the main ethical issues that arise in research involving children. After introducing basic concepts and definitions, the essay evolves around the importance of distinguishing between the needs and rights of children and adults as well as recognizing the fact that children should not be dealt as objects of protection but as subjects of rights, as active social actors. This constitutes one of the first and foremost ethical challenges in research involving children. In addition, the essay investigates the fundamentals of ethics, how ethics can be promoted and justified in research involving children while embarking on a more detailed account of ethical issues before, during and after research such as informed consent, power relations, and confidentiality. The last part suggests and recommends a new methodological approach to research involving children based on the scientific shift from research on children to research with or by children. To conclude, the essay insists on reflecting on the importance for children to remain at the centre of consideration and re-conceptualize children within the social sciences as active agents rather than as the objects of research
The ethics of participatory research with children
Children & Society, 1998
This paper argues that ethical problems in research involving direct contact with children can be overcome by using a participatory approach. A study of children's participation in decisions when they are looked after is described in terms of how a view of the`social child' shaped the approach to establishing contact with children, the choice of topics and methods of communication which were used, and the way in which children were given opportunities to interpret the data for themselves. The paper concludes with the suggestion that a participatory approach can also assist with reliability and validity. #
Research with Children: Ethical Mind-fields
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2001
This article explores some ethical issues involved in research with young children. Research that involves children always contains assumptions about the nature of the child and of childhood in general and these can affect every aspect of the research undertaken with them, particularly ethical concerns. Seeing children as social actors, not as passive participants, has profound implications for researchers who work with children, particularly in how power relations between adults and children are conceived and experienced. In this article I problematise these relations through analysis of taped transcribed conversations with children. 'While the young have always been identifiable by their physical size and age, the meanings these differences have been given are not universal' (Baker, 199 8, p. 117). MacNaughton, G. (1996). Collaborating for change in postmodern times: Some ethical co•nsiderations. Keynote address presented to the Weaving webs conference. Melbourne, July 12. Mayall, B. (2000). Conversations with children: Working with generational issues. In P Christensen & A. James (Eds.), Research with children: Perspectives and practices. London: Palmer Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identit;y. New York: Cambridge University Press. Woodrow, C. (1999). Revisiting images of the child in early childhood education: Reflections and considerations.
Research, children and ethics: an ongoing dialogue
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was a crucial moment that changed children’s status in both society and in research. Nevertheless, if on the one hand children’s competence has been recurrently challenged by the dominant discourse of developmental psychology; on the other hand children have demonstrated themselves to be very helpful in helping researchers to understand the complexities enclosed in their contemporary life experiences.The recognition of children as social actors, followed by the upsurge in empirical interest in childhood, raises new ethical discussions, dilemmas and responsibilities for researchers that need further discussion and reflection.In accordance with this, this text gives an overview of key ethic decisions that were carefully considered along a qualitative study: access to children; protecting children’s privacy and confidentiality, managing power in adult-child relationship, building trust, entering children’s space
Researching with Young Children: Seeking Assent
Child Indicators Research, 2010
Changing views of children and childhood have resulted in an increased focus on the nature of children's participation in research. Rather than conducting research on children, many researchers now seek to engage with children in research. Such a change recognises children's agency as well as their rights to have a say in matters that affect them. Research that reflects a participatory rights perspective and respects children's agency must be based on children making informed decisions about their participation. However, prevailing views of children's competence to make these decisions often preclude their involvement. While recognising the importance of informed consent from parents/guardians, we argue the importance of assent as a means of recognising the wishes of young children in relation to research participation. In this context, assent is defined as a relational process whereby children's actions and adult responses taken together, reflect children's participation decisions.
Children as Research Subjects: The Ethical Issues
Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 2015
From the very beginning of civilization, children are made the subject matter of many social and clinical researches. Due to the vulnerabilities of physical frailty and mental immaturity, children's interests and rights need to be protected from the risks associated with any kind of research. Recently, there has been increased global concern towards the involvement of children in research for the protection of their rights by the ethical research practice. It emphasizes upon the ongoing nature of ethical considerations that ethical issues need to be considered throughout the research process and even the post research ethical issues are equally significant. The study explores some of the major ethical issues that arise in research involving children during and after the research in terms of the best interests of the children.
The perspective of ‘children as social actors’ has created a field with new ethical dilemmas and responsibilities for researchers within the social study of childhood. According to experiences of conducting ethnographic video studies in mixed age kindergarten groups, this paper reflects on the processes of negotiating initial and ongoing consent, problematizes the notion of ‘informed’ consent in exploratory research with young children, and considers questions of anonymity when collecting and reporting on visual data. The paper proposes that by adopting a flexible, reflective stance, researchers can learn much from children about their perspectives and the inclusion of young children in the research process.