This article explores children's participation in research, from the perspectives of researchers who have conducted research with children. Researchers' reports, gained using an email interviewing method, suggest that children's participation rights are particularly compromised when the potential child participants are considered vulnerable and the topic of the research is regarded as sensitive. Such perceptions result in stringent gatekeeping procedures that prevent some children from participating in research. This article concludes that children should be viewed, not as vulnerable passive victims, but as social actors who can play a part in the decision to participate in research. Such a view would result in more careful attention to communicating effectively with children about research, and ensuring that they may have a more central role in decision-making about participation.

Research involving children raises complex and well-documented ethical questions and challenges that extend far beyond the reach of formal review and governance systems, where these exist. However, researchers collectively have a wealth of knowledge and experience in applying universal ethical principles in diverse social, cultural and methodological settings, which offers much potential for understanding how ethical concerns are responded to in situ. Through extensive consultation and research, the Ethical Research Involving Children (ERIC) project, discussed in this article, has drawn on this collective knowledge in generating evidence-based resources that highlight best practice while grounding ethical decision-making in lived experience.

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A large study in Australian schools aimed to elucidate understandings of 'wellbeing' and of factors in school life that contribute to it. Students and teachers understood wellbeing primarily, and holistically, in terms of interpersonal relationships, in contrast to policy documents which mainly focused on 'problem areas' such as mental health. The study also drew on recognition theory as developed by the social philosopher Axel Honneth. Results indicate that recognition theory may be useful in understanding wellbeing in schools, and that empirical research in schools may give rise to further questions regarding theory.

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