Engaging children and young people in research

Literature review for

The National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund (NECF)

October 2004

Dr. Jane Coad (School of Health Sciences, The University of Birmingham)

Professor Ann Lewis (School of Education, The University of Birmingham).

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Karen Peckings, Research Assistant, who carried out, with care and enthusiasm, a substantial part of the search for relevant literature.

We are very grateful to Lin Walsh who provided valuable secretarial support enabling the project to progress smoothly.

Felicity Shelton kindly gave us various useful documents including the Investing in Children reports, Co.Durham, cited in the review.

Priscilla Alderson allowed us access to a pre-publication draft of the revised edition of Alderson, P. & Morrow, G. Ethics, Social Research and Consulting with Children and Young People.London: Barnardo's.

Finally, our thanks to members of the National Evaluation of the Children Fund (NECF) team who provided a valuable sounding board for ideas and a recurrent review of the issues.

Contact details

Dr. Jane Coad

School of Health Sciences, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT

Tel 0121 414 2272/6893; e mail

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Executive/user summary

  1. Introduction1
  2. Conduct of the review
  3. Background to the review1
  1. Children as research participants: Policy and research context5

2.1 Policy context 5

3. Children as research participants: Ethical concerns and children’s rights9

3.1 Social responsibility9

3.2 Access/gatekeepers 10

3.3 Consent/ assent11

3.4 Confidentiality/ anonymity/secrecy 14

3.5 Recognition and feedback15

3.6 Ownership16

4. Children as research participants: Researcher-researched relationships18

4.1 Building relationships 18

4.1.1 Entering the field19

4.1.2 Balancing differential power relationships20

4.1.3 Sharing control 23

  1. Children as research participants: Methods and techniques used with 25

children to explore their views

5.1 Guiding principles 25

5.1.1 Authenticity 25

5.1.2 Credibility27

5.1.3 Trustworthiness 28

5.2 Overview of possible methods 29

5.2.1Interviews29

5.2.2Questionnaires33

5.2.3Observation34

5.2.4Mapping 35

5.2.5Drawing and posters36

5.2.6Photographs and video38

5.2.7Role play, drama and story telling 39

5.2.8Journals and diaries 40

5.2.9ICT-linked 40

6. Children as research participants: Analyses and Dissemination 42

6.1. Introduction 42

6.2. Children as data analysts?42

6.3. Dissemination and impact45

7. Summary and conclusions

48

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 Conduct of the Review

The purpose of this review is:

1. To provide background information in the relevant fields, about the perspectives and issues surrounding engaging children as participants in all phases of a research/ evaluation project

2. To provide a review drawn on a systematic examination of the key literature pertaining to potential methods and techniques used when exploring children’s views.

The review comprised of two distinct phases. Further details of the conduct of the review are included in Appendix 1.

1.2 Background to the Review

Participation of children and young people in service design, delivery and evaluation is central to the Government’s agenda for addressing social exclusion. This was reinforced in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) and Every Child Matters; The next steps (DfES, 2004), which flagged up the bringing of children’s perspectives to bear on all aspects of government policy (see section 2.1 for further discussion of the policy context).

The Children’s Fund is a major government initiative targeted at children aged 5 – 13 years, who are at risk of social exclusion. A key feature of the Children’s Fund is children’s active involvement in the development of preventive services reflecting the then, Children and Young People’s Unit (CYPU) advocacy of children’s participation (CYPU, 2001; Sinclair et al, 2002). CYPU also supported the development of associated research-based guidance (Kirby et al, 2003) building on perceived good practice. Therefore, there was a clear expectation that local Children’s Fund partnerships would actively seek out the opinions of children living in the community, in order to ensure that, their views directly influence the shape, delivery and subsequent evaluation of services.

The success of this initiative will be heavily dependant upon the development of strategies which both engage with, and facilitate, meaningful input from children and young people aged 5 to 13 year olds. Particularly, there is a clear expectation that the voices of marginal groups are represented. One way in which children and young people can have their say is through the use of methods which successfully elicit their views and beliefs and which enable them to influence how initiatives are developed and evaluated. [1]

One can discern two important trends in research with children in this context over the past two decades. One trend, echoed in the policy changes noted above, is the development of research-based approaches to explore the views of children and young people (Kirby, 1999; Lewis and Lindsay, 2000). A second trend is the emergence of what have been termed variously ‘emancipatory research’ or ‘participatory research’ approaches (Oliver, 1997; Minkler, 2003; Suarez-Balcazar and Harper, 2003). Central to both these sets of approaches is recognition of the nature of traditional power relationships between researcher-researched and attempts to re-balance these away from the researcher (discussed further in section 3 below). However, advocates of ‘emancipatory research’ or ‘participatory research’ approaches would argue that there are substantial philosophical differences between the breaking down of traditional power relationships, and research which remains controlled by researchers (but still aiming to seek the views of children).

We may ask ourselves why there such contrasting views about the concepts used when engaging children and young people in research. Firstly, the legacy of multiplicity of research approaches and techniques has meant there has never been so many paradigms from which to approach a problem or given project. It is a time of discovery and re-discovery and new ways of looking, interpreting and writing are integral to this discovery. Indeed, Denzin and Lincoln (1998) note that the considerable debate about the various merits of particular epistemological positions in terms of child centred research is inevitable due to the evolving historical nature of research. It is thus part of our philosophical positions and fields from which we have evolved. What is also clear is that it is from such contrasting epistemological positions that we approach children’s participation. This will inevitably affect the basis on which the researcher-researched relationship is formed and will impact upon the chosen methodologies, methods and tools for data collection. Whilst such debate is relevant, it was decided in the literature review here outlined, to refer to these trends collectively under the umbrella term ‘child-centred approaches’.

The remainder of this report begins by outlining how the review was carried out, then moves on to locating, in the current policy context, the enthusiasm for exploring children’s views and involving children at all stages of research. The next section reviews power relationships and ways of redressing potential researcher-researched imbalances with children. A variety of methods and techniques are examined in the light of guiding principles for involving children as co-researchers. Finally, we give a brief discussion about two relatively unexplored aspects of involving children as co-researchers: their roles in analyses and dissemination.

2. CHILDREN AS RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS: POLICY AND RESEARCH CONTEXTS

2.1 Policy context

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

calls for State parties to: ‘assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’ (Article 12).

These rights are aspirational and conditional. In discussions, the UN noted the important proviso that these children’s rights must respect the rights and reputations of others; rights could not be exercised in ways that would harm others. The UNCRC has been ratified by all except two nations, Somalia and the US (the US has signed, a lesser step, but not ratified the Convention). Ratification of the Convention leads to close monitoring by the UN and the semi-public nature of the subsequent reports has provided an important lever for campaigners across the world.

A huge international body of policy makers and pressure groups (government and voluntary) has grown up in response to Article 12. These groups are united in a firm conviction about the importance of involving children in decision-making; this agenda overlaps with democratisation and citizenship. Web-based groups such as CRIN (Children’s Rights Information Network), CAPA (Children as Partners Alliance) and 4NCPN (4 Nations Child Policy Network) link groups and individuals world-wide in pursuit of this aim. Their agenda falls beyond the scope of this review, and whilst our review provides a research-based set of guidelines for practice (see also Alderson and Morrow, in press; Porter and Lewis, in press), we have not reviewed the very extensive sets of material available through such groups. These sites and groups provide access to a wealth of resources but tend to be collection points for information, rather than providing critical overviews or critiques of individual projects and resources. Similarly, within the UK, children’s pressure/ information groups (e.g. Article 12. Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CREA); Action for Sick Children; Funky Dragon; HeadsUp; National Voice; Voices from Care etc), while relevant to our focus, take in a broader agenda than addressed here.

The UK submitted progress reports to the UN in 1994 and 1999. The UN response to the first of these reports noted concerns that ‘insufficient attention has been given to the right of the child to express his/her opinion …. In this as in other decisions, including exclusion from school, the child is not systematically invited to express his/her opinion and those opinions may not be given due weight, as required under article 12 of the Convention’ (UN CRC/C/15 Add.34 15 Feb 1995; reprinted in UK, 1999 p208). These concerns were reiterated, although progress was acknowledged, when the following UK report was received: ‘The Committee is concerned that the obligations of Article 12 have not been consistently incorporated in legislation, for example; in education ... schoolchildren are not consulted in matters that affect them’ (UN 2002: Para 29). (Note the UK’s 2nd report was submitted in 1999, discussed by the UN in June 2002 and the UN’s formal response issued in October 2002.).

Participation by children and the explicit attempt to include their views in matters of UK social and public policy have increased markedly in recent years (Stafford et al, 2003; Willow, 2002). Contexts in which children’s views have been formally sought (in addition to the now more conventional areas of education, health, public care and child protection) include caring for parents with a mental illness (Aldridge, 2003), the Family Court Welfare Service (Buchanan, Hunt, Bretherton, and Bream, 2001), area regeneration (Crowther et al, 2003) and domestic violence (Mullender et al, 2002). Perhaps in anticipation of the UK’s quinquennial review to the UN (January 2004), there was a torrent of government initiatives, particularly from the Department of Health, involving hearing children’s views in matters that concern them. This theme is evident too in recent policy proposals (DoH, 2003; Audit Commission, 2003; DFES, 2003). Similarly, the revised Special Educational Code (SEN) Code of Practice (DFES, 2001a), associated SEN Toolkit (DFES, 2001b) and the Government’s strategy for SEN (DFES, 2004) stress the importance of building a ‘listening culture’ in organisations.

The emphasis from the UK government has been on formally hearing children’s views and, for many campaigners from the children’s charities, this is a very weak response. It stops short of empowering and involving children and young people as partners in developing their services. For example, Save the Children (2000) argued that the UK response has been piecemeal, welfare- rather than rights- based, lacking support in law and failing to give all ‘vulnerable’ children the right to independent legal advice. Responses to particular documents have highlighted the nuances; for example, Young Minds response to the draft Mental Health Bill noted that decision- makers must take 'proper account' of parents' views but only 'consider' the child's views.

Sociologists of childhood (Prout, 2000, 2001, 2002; James and Prout 1997; Christensen and James, 2000) provide several fascinating critiques about the rationale behind these policy changes. Why, we might ask, have we recently become so concerned about hearing children’s views that doing so is an imperative for child-related policy initiatives and research endeavours? It is beyond the scope of this review to explore this whole area but two points warrant attention here. One response takes a strong generational perspective and it is argued that generational order is of equal importance to gender, ethnicity or class as a social axis (Alanen and Mayall, 2001). From this perspective children can be seen to represent human capital (the next generation) and that by ‘controlling children’ (including the ways in which we access their views) adults are trying to control the future- a land where despite adults’ best efforts the children will, in due course, rule. In support of this, some writers have noted the contrast between the abandoned private realm of children within the family and the increasing controlling, constraining and corralling which goes on around children in the public sphere. From this perspective, hearing children’s views is emphatically not about, as some rhetoric would have us believe, empowering children or devolving adult power.

A different emphasis from this has been on childhood as a conceptually autonomous arena. From this perspective children are viewed, not merely as a prism through which to see adulthood and adult-led institutions but as social actors in their own right. Here, children’s multiple interactions and the ways in which children make sense of these become the focus of interest without requiring any recourse to adult perspectives.

3.

2.CHILDREN AS RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS: ETHICAL CONCERNS AND

CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

There is, rightly, concern about the ethical aspects of involving children as researchers and in hearing their views (Beresford, 1997; Lindsay, 2000; Moore et al, 1998; Alderson and Morrow in press). Lewis and Porter (in press) provide a series of associated guiding questions to act as the basis for self-review for researchers and service providers. Concerns have revolved particularly around six areas; each of which is considered in more detail below.

3.1 Social responsibility

One of the intellectual virtues embodied in the process of carrying out research is the pursuit of truth. This links with Lindsay’s (2000) discussion about the social responsibility of the researcher. The strong rights arguments around many policies concerning children and the strength with which personal value positions are held may make it difficult to sustain research endeavours that threaten to produce findings at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy. Researchers have a responsibility to acknowledge both their own value positions and whatever issues or accounts that emerge from the research process. This resonates with Pring’s (2000) reference to the ‘integrity of the research’. Complex ethical questions arising in the course of a project (such as whether a respondent has the right to alter the record of an interview) may be best answered by the researcher asking themselves what would be consistent with maintaining the integrity of the research.

3.2 Access/gatekeepers

Unless the researcher is interviewing their own child then someone acts as a gatekeeper, providing or withholding access, to the child to be interviewed. In most cases this direct (1st level) gatekeeper will be the parent or carer. Somebody else may in turn act as an indirect (2nd level) gatekeeper to the parents and carers. In school contexts this may be the headteacher, school governors or LEA; but, depending on the focus of the research, it may, also or instead, be health, legal, and/or social service agencies.

There are ethical committees and protocols designed to protect children from unwarranted intrusion by potential researchers (e.g. British Educational Research Association, 2004; McIntosh et al, 2000; Lindsay, 2000; Royal College of Nursing, 2004). These procedures and their interpretation will shape the nature of the group of children involved as researchers and hence the range of views ultimately collected. A clear illustration in the policy context occurs when a school / hospital chooses to opt out of involvement in an evaluation consequently removing a particular group from those whose views are accessed. This may also occur through tangential circumstances rather than by design, as when an organisation withdraws from the study due to, for example, staff illness or prioritising of inspection arrangements. Decisions about sample have repercussions for access (and vice versa) with consequent implications for the interpretation of the findings of the work.

3.3Consent/assent

The continuum from informed consent – through assent - to failure to object, highlights the distinction between consent and assent. Consent may be given by the child or by another on the child’s behalf for (a) the child to be interviewed or (b) the researcher to ask the child to be interviewed. Assent is generally used to refer to the child’s agreement to participation in the process when another has given consent. In the more conventional context of interviewing adults these two aspects are conflated, that is the adult being interviewed both consents and assents to the interview.

Consent is not in itself sufficient; informed consent/assent is needed. In order to give informed consent the person needs the four aspects outlined in table 1.

Table 1: Four aspects of informed consent

  • The person needs information about the chance to participate
  • The person needs to know about a right to withdraw from the activity,
  • What the participant’s role will be
  • What the outcomes are intended to be

To be able to respond to all the above four aspects of informed consent the participant (or someone on their behalf) has to receive the information, understand it and respond to it (Alderson, 1995). Spelt out in this way it can be seen that obtaining informed consent may be a considerable undertaking and daunting to achieve. Some writers have argued that, while involving children and young people in research and evaluation is important, it may be very difficult genuinely to obtain their informed consent (McCarthy, 1998; Clegg, 2001; Homan, 2001).