So round the spiral again: a reflective participatory research project with children and young people

Abstract

Historically the voices of children in research have been silent. They are often seen as victims or beneficiaries of research rather than co-researchers or partners. This is beginning to change with rowing awareness that involving children in the design, delivery and evaluation of services can make services more accessible to them and their peers. This article reviews the processes involved n a research project commissioned by Children's Fund, which investigated the use and non-use of services within a local area. The involvement of children was paramount and resulted in the recruitment f nine young researchers between the ages of 7-13. Various cycles of participatory action research evolved throughout the project and this article focuses specifically on two-recruiting the researcher and training young researchers. We consider the cycles of reflection and action crucial to any participatory project and discuss how lessons were learned to inform further stages of the process. Themes such as challenges, power and participation are discussed throughout.

Championing Choice—Lessons Learned from Children and Young People About Research and Their Involvement

“…Where participants are accessed through organisational settings, such as schools and other human services access has to be negotiated to determine the way that potential research participants will be approached and invited to participate. Our experience has been similar to other children's researchers (Christensen and Prout 2002;O'Brien and Moules 2007;Punch 2002;Walker et al 2008) and observe that these 'gatekeepers' often come in the guise of ethics committees and organisations through which children and young people are accessed as well as parents and carers. From our experience it is clear that gatekeepers both family members and practitioners exercise substantial influence on whether children and young people are given the opportunity to give their consent to participate in research and, where opportunities might be made available, how this works.…”

“…By providing children and young people with opportunities to make choices challenges traditional constructions of children as being subservient to adults and researchers as being in a more dominant position to the research subject (Christensen 2004;O'Brien and Moules 2007). Allowing children to stop tape recorders to ask questions, to refuse researchers to take their artwork with them or to share particular stories with others requires the researcher to firmly believe in the child's right to make decisions even when the researcher believes this might reduce the efficacy of the study.…”

Using an ecocultural approach to explore young children’s experiences of prior‐to‐school care settings

“…O'Brien & Moules, 2007;Ridge, 2002). Research with younger children has proceeded with significantly more caution with some researchers expressing a concern that the cognitive levels of young children may pose an obstacle to the gathering of meaningful data (e.g.…”

Polyphony in the classroom: reporting narrative action research reflexively

“…As Morrow and Richards (1996, 101) put it, 'the challenge of the researchers is to develop research strategies that are "fair and respectful" to children as the subjects rather than the objects of the research'. Students are typically tested, surveyed, observed and interviewed; rather than treated as active agents in the research process (O'Brien and Moules 2007;Leitch et al 2007). Within participatory action research, the goal is to work with, not on, participants and to see all the individuals as co-researchers (Ledwith 2007).…”