Researching with Children and Young People

Research Design, Methods and Analysis

Kay Tisdall, John M Davis, Michael Gallagher

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781446244845
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Research in Education

?This text will be of great use to postgraduate researchers in education, social work and nursing, and any practitioner involved in carrying out research with children and young people? - CPD Update

?[T]here is a sense of newness and innovation about the book, whereby the reader is treated to insight into the life and work of collaborators who wrote each case study....[T]he book is highly accessible for students at graduate and undergraduate level, for example BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies students? - ESCalate

Researching with Children and Young People covers every stage of the process of doing a research project, from research design and data collection, through to analysis and writing up.

The book is divided into three sections, in which the authors cover:

-Introducing research and consultation with children and young people

-Collecting and analysing data

-Whole-project issues.

Each chapter includes activities, discussion questions, tips and extended case studies to help the reader to engage with the material and investigate the practical implications.

This text will be of great use to postgraduate researchers in education, social work and nursing, and any practitioner involved in carrying out research with children and young people.

1

INTRODUCTION

E. Kay M. Tisdall, John Davis and Michael Gallagher

• What are children?
• How can we, as adults, find out about them, their lives and their experiences?
• How can we engage with children in ways that are respectful, mutually beneficial and liberating, rather than exploitative or dominating?
• How can we involve the children themselves in these processes? And what options are available to us for sharing what we find out?

These questions have been explored over the past two decades through a growing literature to which this book aims to contribute. Children have been a focus of the psycho-social sciences tracing back to the start of the twentieth century (Hendrick, 2003), but they were most often the objects of research. Now, there is intense interest in children as the subjects of research, perceiving them as having something salient to contribute to the questions at hand. Even further, there is a growing commitment to engaging children as collaborators or supporting their own initiatives (for an overview, see Hill et al., 2004; Hinton, 2008; and Chapter 4, this book).

Yet as a team, we have found that these trends raise many more questions than they answer. Our aim in this book, therefore, is to provide you with a range of resources for thinking through some of these questions in your own work. Throughout, we prefer to suggest possibilities than prescribe solutions. We do not think that there is any one ‘right’ way to ‘do’ research design, ethics and data collection, or any definitive answers about how to involve children in research or disseminate findings. We see a range of possible approaches, each of which has certain advantages and disadvantages, depending on the context. We therefore seek to go beyond the taken-for-granted mantras of research methods in childhood studies by asking questions that do not presume a right or wrong answer. By sharing some of our own dilemmas, and inviting you to consider the merits of different responses to these, we hope to offer practical advice in a way that does justice to the complexity of carrying out research with children.

ACTIVITY

Consider these quotes from children (Save the Children, 2001 and Council for Disabled Children, 2008):

• ‘People should listen and not talk down to us because we are young’ (young person aged 12)
• ‘It [being included] is about letting everyone have a say and it doesn’t matter if you can’t read or you don’t have a car’ (young person aged 9)
• ‘Once I was asked a questionnaire but I did not understand the questions so I just said “yes” and “no” where I thought I should!’ (young person aged 13)
• ‘Pass on what we mean not what you think we mean!’ (young person aged 15)
• ‘Don’t guess what we want’
• ‘Trust us – we need to trust you’

What do the quotes tell you about how these children experienced research, consultation and evaluation? What implications would this have for practice?

Reflecting the diversity of research with children, the book contains diverse materials: chapters discussing the overarching themes of ethics, data collection, involving children and dissemination; case studies describing a variety of research, consultation and evaluation projects; top tips scattered throughout the book, from a wide range of colleagues working in different fields, including both practitioners and academics; activities for you to work through; a toolkit offering a wealth of ideas for group work; and a glossary to help with unfamiliar terms. Rather than try to smooth over the differences between our contributors, we have tried to draw these out where possible. We therefore encourage you to disagree with us and the case study authors where you see fit.

By way of introducing this material, we begin by briefly reviewing recent trends in childhood studies. We then discuss the range of possible reasons for carrying out research with children, and the possible differences between research with adults and with children. Finally, we map out in more detail the remainder of the book, its structure and key themes.

Research in Childhood Studies and Children’s Rights

The interdisciplinary field of childhood studies, drawing on a variety of social sciences, has promoted a rethinking of children’s traditionally dependent, objectified status within research methods. Arguments are now well established that researchers should recognize children’s agency, their citizenship as human beings now and not just in the future, and involve children as (the central) research participants. More fundamentally, childhood studies has challenged taken-for-granted ideas of childhood. Historical and cross-cultural comparisons demonstrate that concepts of childhood are not universal nor inevitable (Ariès, 1973; Pollock, 1983; Hendrick, 2003).

Childhood studies has thus encouraged us to look critically at our own and others’ conceptualizations of childhood, and recognize their impact on structures, services and relationships. This equally applies to those involved in research with children. All of us will come to such activities with our own particular backgrounds, and associated assumptions about childhood and youth. This will influence how we carry out our research, in terms of the questions posed, the characteristics of the participants, the methods used, the ethical frameworks and the outcomes.

As authors, we have found it helpful to consider our own assumptions about childhood and youth. We share a desire to see children as active beings, and not just passive recipients of parental or professional care. Like many others in the field, we have been influenced by the UNCRC with its commitment to children’s rights, particularly to participation. At the same time, we increasingly perceive problems with these approaches. We are sympathetic, for example, to recent calls to rehabilitate the notion of children as ‘becoming’ beings. Though denigrated for its normalizing use within traditional developmental psychology (Burman, 1994; see Hogan, 2005, for a full review), we think that rethinking ‘becoming’, emergence and immaturity as valuable attributes of human existence has much potential to enrich our research practice (Prout, 2005; Gallacher and Gallagher, forthcoming). Thinking of both children and adults as ‘becoming-beings’ also raises questions about the focus on children’s rights, since rights have historically been associated with a conception of the individual as a rational, stable, self-controlling being (Lee, 2001). We recognize the power of a rights discourse to achieve our political aims (Hill and Tisdall, 1997), but at the same time we question whether the model of children as independent, competent, individual agents – ‘experts in their own lives’ – is inherently liberating (Foucault, 1977; Rose, 1999; Gallagher, 2006).

The UNCRC

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was passed by the UN Assembly in 1989. Countries may ratify the Convention and are then obligated to translate the UNCRC’s articles into reality. The UNCRC is the most ratified human rights convention in the world.
For more information, see

• UNICEF website: www.unicef.org/why/why_rights.html [this includes the Articles of the Convention]
• UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, see reports by country: www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/
• Children’s Rights Information Network: www.crin.org/

There is considerable commentary and critique on children’s rights. Three journals that frequently have relevant articles are Childhood, Children and Society and the International Journal of Children’s Rights.

Much of the recent research activity in the children’s rights and participation field is termed consultation. The line between research and consultation is a matter for contention. Of course, some research with children asks very different questions to consultation activities, but there is considerable overlap, and a great deal of childhood studies research does aim to influence policy and services. Techniques used to consult with children (see for example, Save the Children Scotland, 2001) are also used by those funded to do research. Researchers have been hired to undertake consultations with children, to influence services and policies. We can, however, see certain differences between the two. There are different institutional and organizational ethical requirements, different funding sources and timeframes, and sometimes different professional backgrounds of the adults involved. Beyond these practical differences, there are disparities about what makes ‘good’ evidence or consultation, in both process and outcome. We can ask some questions, even if we cannot provide the answers:

• Should the ethical standards for research and consultation be the same?
• What claims do we make about validity, reliability and generalizability in research and consultation? Should they meet the same standards? If not, why not?
• What outcomes do we expect of research and consultation? What wider impacts do we expect or hope for? Are the expectations of the adults involved co-current with those of the children involved?

Evaluation is yet another similar term. We can distinguish it by its focus and function: evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of a particular programme, policy or service in achieving its objectives and it typically seeks to contribute to improvements in this programme, policy or service in the future. Evaluation often struggles with how to measure outcomes, particularly when there are multiple influences on participants and randomized controlled trials are not practical or perhaps even ethical. We revisit these issues of methodology in our data collection chapter, whilst our case study authors discuss how they approached their projects as research, consultation or evaluation.

Below, we explore two further issues in ‘positioning’ the book. First, we consider if and how research, consultation and evaluation are important activities to be engaged in. Second, we look at how and in what ways research with children is different from research with adults, and the implications thereof. The final section provides you with an overview of the book and our approach.

Why do Research with Children?

Understanding research in the broadest sense, including consultation, evaluation and many forms of participation, we can make several arguments about why such activities are worthwhile. First, we think that research might open up new possibilities for children, and society more generally. It can question the ways in which we have always done or thought about things. It can raise issues that might not otherwise have been considered, and suggest options that would otherwise not have been conceived. Research can help us to think differently (Foucault, 1985). To this end, Chapters 2 and 3 invite you to reflect on how you think about children, and whether you might benefit from thinking differently. Our chapter on data collection particularly invites you to situate yourself, and asks how your ideas of childhood might affect your research design.

Research can also be a means of representation, a way to ensure that children’s views and experiences are not only listened to but heard by other groups. Domestic violence, for example, was seen as a private problem for a considerable time in Northern societies; only recently has it been seen as a societal problem, that affects children as well as adults (Hester et al., 2006). There is already a world-wide turn to governance rather than government, an increased hope in civil society, partnerships and networks, and community participation as a key part of this (see Barnes et al., 2007; Tisdall, 2008). Recognizing that children should and can contribute to these activities is one way to ensure that their interests and views are not forgotten. With this in mind, Chapter 5, on dissemination and engagement, offers a range of options for representing children in research outputs. It also critically reviews ideas of knowledge transfer and evidence-based policy and practice, asking whether and how research findings really do contribute to social and political change.

Equally, we could argue that research can be a transformative practice in itself, undermining the distinction between process and outputs, means and ends. Action research and participatory models of practice have become increasingly popular in work with children, as we discuss in detail in Chapter 4. In these approaches, research may be seen as a process of empowerment, politicization and consciousnessraising (Cahill, 2004; Cairns, 2006) or as a form of experiential learning (exemplified by Anne Cunningham’s case study in this volume). But it may also be seen as a profoundly emotional process. Some authors suggest that listening to people talk about their lives and concerns in qualitative studies has some similarities with therapeutic practices (Birch and Miller, 2000) and can be seen as a practice of care (Vivat, 2002). When working with children, we would see the caring work of research as an acknowledgement of human interdependence, rather than as a one-way process that reconstructs children as essentially dependent upon adults.

Doing Research with Children

Much has been written about the differences between research with children and research with adults (Punch, 2002). There have been debates about what the adult role should be in research involving children. Mandell suggests that the desirable position is the ‘least adult role’: that is, ‘While acknowledging adult–child differences, the research suspends all adult-like characteristics except physical size’ (1991: 40). Others have disputed that this is either desirable or even possible, if one is an adult researcher (James et al., 1998; Harden e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Case Studies
• About the Authors
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Ethics
• 3 Data Collection and Analysis
• 4 Involving Children
• 5 Dissemination — or Engagement?
• Ending: Some Reflections from the Authors
• Glossary of Terms
• Index