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. These concern, for example, the greater potential for conflicts of interest, often hitherto unrecognized, between children and other actors. It is suggested to work from a perspective of `ethical symmetry' in research relationships with children while taking into account the social and cultural positioning of children in their particular circumstances. An illustrative example is given of the ethical issues that can arise when children are seen as social actors. It is argued that codes of ethics, reflexivity and collective professional responsibility are all required in order to meet the ethical demands that flow from these newer perspectives on children. It is proposed, therefore, that researchers develop a set of strategic values within which individual researchers can anchor the tactics required in their everyday practice in order to work reflexively. Finally, it is suggested that, in order to develop ethical practice for the future, dialogue is required on two levels: between researchers as a means of collectively sharing experience; and between researchers and children as participants in the ongoing research process.

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This article sets the scene for the other papers in this Special Issue on children's and young people's participation, by outlining the nature of the ESRC Seminar Series from which all are derived and by developing the main themes discussed at the seminars. The focus of this Issue is participation by children and young people as this relates to differing notions of social exclusion and inclusion. This article critically examines participation in the contexts of policy, practice, research and theory. In many respects the environments in each of these domains is supportive of increased participation, yet there is also much evidence of limited impact by recent participative measures and of disillusionment by many young people who have been engaged in consultation and decision-making. A way forward is suggested, which entails collaboration among all the key stakeholders including children and young people, connects participatory and social inclusion aims and mechanisms, and is committed to achieving tangible outcomes based on the wishes of children and young people

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This article explores the conditions under which the sociology of childhood was created, suggests some of the problems encountered in this effort and points to some possible remedies. It is argued that the construction of a sociology of childhood entailed a double task. First, space had to be created for childhood within sociological discourse. Second, the increasing complexity and ambiguity of childhood as a contemporary, destabilized phenomenon had to be confronted. It is argued that, whilst a space for childhood has been created, this was accomplished largely in terms of modernist sociology, a discourse that was increasingly unable to deal adequately with the destabilized world of late modernity. An important aspect of this problem is apparent in the reproduction within the sociology of childhood of the dichotomized oppositions that characterize modernist sociology. Three of these oppositions (agency and structure, nature and culture, being and becoming) are explored. It is suggested that moving the sociology of childhood beyond the grip of such modernist thinking entails developing a strategy for 'including the excluded middle'. Inter alia this may necessitate greater attention to the interdisciplinarity and the hybridity of childhood; being symmetrical about how childhoods are constructed; attending to the networks, flows and mediations of its production, and the co-construction of generational relations.

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Actor-network theory is a form of relational materialism that codifies a body of ideas developed in the sociology and history of technology. At its centre is a non-dualistic account of the relation between 'society' and 'technology'. In this view society is produced through the mutually constituting interaction of a wide range of human and non-human entities (including machines and technologies). This paper outlines some of the key ideas of actor-network theory and suggests that they might be usefully incorporated into medical sociology (and/or anthropology). An illustrative example is given which demonstrates some aspects of the application of such a non-dualist approach to a particular medical device, the metered dose inhaler (MDI), widely used in the treatment and management of asthma. Within a shifting network of socio-technical relations the MDI and various human actors are seen to have mutually constituted each other. Competencies were created and distributed and linked to panoptical practices of surveillance, control and modification. These included attempts to change both the technologies and the human actors who came into relationship with it. The intricate and mutually constitutive character of the human and the technological in the processes and relationships of sickness and healing is thus demonstrated.

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