Children as Researchers: Participation Rights and Research Methods

Abstract

Increasingly across the world, children are working as researchers and evaluators (UNICEF 2006). In Britain, for example, every government department is committed to involving children in the planning, delivery and evaluation of policies and services. This chapter considers matters raised by child researchers, illustrated through a review of an international literature. Three main areas will be discussed: the stages of the research process, the levels of participation, and the types of research methods in which young researchers are involved. The idea of seeing the ‘researched’ adult as a co-researcher and co-producer of data, equally involved in the analysis, is already widely acknowledged. This idea is usually argued for in terms of respect and shared control, and of addressing power imbalances in the research relationship. It can also be justified in terms of efficiency, as opening the way to a broader range of collection methods and a fuller understanding of the data. The same advantages can occur when children conduct research with more or less help from adults.