Research with children and young people: exploring the tensions between ethics, competence and participation (original) (raw)
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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
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The article outlines issues in the area of childhood studies and children’s rights that concern the participation of children and adolescents from the countries of the Global South in participatory research. The article presents the ethical aspects and methodological dilemmas of such research, pertaining to engaging children and adolescents in research conducted by adults. Other issues addressed in the text refer to the child’s right to respect, the subjective treatment of children and adolescents (as respondents) as well as the limits of participatory involvement of children in the research process. The article also discusses the ethical dilemmas of research whose methodological approaches and concepts were designed in a different, distinct socio-cultural context and can interfere in the life and functioning of the community it is conducted in, including a negative influence on children’s social situation in the future.
A sociocultural analysis of the ethics of involving children in educational research
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This article explores the ethical complexities of involving children in research in the contexts of their families, schools and communities. We argue for an approach that is dynamic, reflexive, responsive and informed by an understanding of how local cultures impact on and shape negotiations and practices around ethical issues and processes. We use different sociocultural lenses to analyse the complexities of ethical processes and practices at the beginning of a research project which explored children's informal and everyday learning. The article contributes to ethical debates about involving children with research through foregrounding the multiplicities and complexities that emerge when researchers are attentive to the practices and values of the settings that children's and researchers' lives traverse.
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Educational researchers working with young children face ethical issues when researching the talk and interactions of young children. Issues around the competence of children to participate in research pose challenges to educational researchers and to the young participants and their families, within what are seen as increasingly risky and regulated research environments. This paper examines some of these issues in light of recent sociological perspectives that account for children as competent practitioners of their social worlds. Drawing on research investigating the governance of the lives of young children in Australia, we examine the rights of children to be both seen and heard as competent research participants. These sociological directions afford opportunities to reconsider the ethical issues around research with young children. Such an approach breaks new ground in early childhood education research.
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 with young children: contemplating methods and ethics
Journal of Educational Enquiry, 2007
The United Nations Rights of the Child mandates the right of children to express themselves and participate in decisions that affect them, while receiving care and protection from adults. However, children's voices have not often found their way into research. Concerns about their powers of communication and cognitive abilities have restricted children's participation. Empirical evidence suggests that if one appropriately engages children in the information-gathering process there is no reason why their perceptions and thoughts should not be regarded as competent. However, methodologies that require researchers to adopt a role of passive observer potentially pose ethical dilemmas. When working with children ethical dilemmas can be minimised by taking on the role of a participant adult. The participant adult role for the researcher is entirely congruent with the cognitive and social needs of children to participate meaningfully in research.
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
Ethical insights and child research
… EL Kronqvist & P. …, 2010
Childhood research aims to investigate and understand children in their everyday life; their actions, intentions and emotions in order to provide supportive environments where children are listened to and valued as such. As long as children are encouraged to take part in activities and express their insights, delights, suspicions and worries, their learning and development is enhanced.