Samskapande forskning med barn och unga: Främja barns röster, rättigheter och utveckling

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The symposium will focus on methods for participatory research with children and young people in social scientific research. Following the Convention on the Rights of the Child, research with children is in a path of transformation: From viewing children as research objects – and thereby relying on observing their behaviour – to addressing them as individual subjects, for instance through in-depth interviews, and, more recently, to inviting them as active contributors to the research. It has been argued that studies with a focus on children and youth have not seldom overlooked the children’s own wishes and desires, and that the children and young people's own voices and perspectives are often missing in research. 

Participatory research with children can be motivated for several reasons. First there is the child rights’ aspect: According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) article 12, children have a right to express their views in all matters affecting them, including having the same rights as adult stakeholders to participate with their experiences and views, as co-researchers in a research context. Also, there are arguments of quality: research results become more accurate when stakeholders are given the opportunity to share their views on the phenomenon in focus, and how it should be studied. Not least, children's participation as co-researchers may directly promote a sense of empowerment and secure that results are communicated in a way children can understand and relate to.

However, how to involve children and young people as co-researchers is in practice not unproblematic. Pitfalls and difficulties have been identified and discussed among scholars, relating to questions of representation of “children’s voices”, ethics, and methodological procedures, to name a few. It can also be noted that participatory research with children and young people is still uncommon in Sweden. The symposium gives an opportunity to learn more about methods for participatory research with children through invited talks and panel discussions, research presentations and hands-on practice on how to involve children in participatory research.  

About the research network “Children’s voices, rights and development: Future practices for a resilient childhood”.

Do you have ongoing research where children/youth are engaged through participatory research? If your affiliation is within the Faculty of Social Sciences at LU and you would like to make a short presentation from this work at the symposium, please, contact elia [dot] psouni [at] psy [dot] lu [dot] se (elia[dot]psouni[at]psy[dot]lu[dot]se) no later than the 30th of May, 2024. Please, include in your email your affiliation and a short abstract of what you would like to present. 

Organisers are:

Elia Psouni & Amanda Angelöw, Department of Psychology, and
Sara Eldén & Linn Alenius Wallin, Department of Sociology

Programme

09.00-09.15  Introduction and welcome: Elia Psouni & Sara Eldén
09.15-10.15    Keynote: Kirsten Elisa Petersen, Ass. Professor of Educational Psychology, Aarhus University  
10.15-10.45    Coffee
10.45-11.45    Keynote: Caron Carter, Senior Lecturer in Childhood & Early Childhood Education & Postgraduate Research Tutor in Education, Sheffield Hallam University 
11.45-12.45    Lunch
12.45-13.15    Practical guidelines for meaningful and ethical youth participation: Elia Psouni & Amanda Angelöw
13.15-14.30    Participatory research with children and young people at LU: experiences and reflections
14.30-16.00   Workshop and coffee – children as co-researchers: Linn Alenius Wallin. A creative exercise to encourage solutions that enhance children’s and young people’s contribution to participatory research.
16.00-17.00   Concluding panel – Thinking ahead. Discussants: Olu Jenzen Professor of Media and Digital Culture, Southampton University; Kirsten Elisa Petersen; Caron Carter; Coordinator: Helena Sandberg

Last day to register for this event was 20 September.

Presentations

Kirsten Elisa Petersen

Children and young people’s active participation in research 
- perspectives on participatory research with children and young people

The purpose of this presentation is to contribute to discussing the importance of children and young people’s active participation in research, including the increasing ethical-methodological literature that discusses the situated, contextual, and often very complex ethical issues arising from participatory research with children and young people – in this case children and young people considered vulnerable due to exposed life situations.

In this presentation, actively involving children and young people in research is associated with exploring how children and young people contribute to developing research methodological work through participation in the development of e.g. questionnaires and interview guides for focus group interviews and individual semi-structured research interviews. Actively involving children and young people contributes to the fact that the knowledge developed is based on children and young people’s perspectives on their everyday life, and thus developed subjectivized and contextualised. 

Research methods and ethics are closely connected and in this context ethics-in-action is also discussed focusing on research ethical dilemmas associated with sensitive and dangerous research when dealing with participatory research with vulnerable children and young people.

Suggestions for readings

Focusing on children and young people:
Petersen, K. E. (Accepteret/In press). Youth clubs working with children and youth at risk for school failure – how to prevent exclusion from school. International Journal of Inclusive Education.

Petersen, K. E. (2021). Leisure and youth clubs’ work with young people of ethnic minority background living in socially deprived housing areas: creating processes of hope and empowerment through social pedagogical work. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ijsp.2021.v10.x.010

Petersen, K. E. (2021). Fritids- og ungdomsklubber i udsatte boligområder: Pædagogers arbejde med ustyrlige unge, eller unge i ustyrlige problemer. Nordiske Udkast, 49(1), 40-51. http://nordiskeudkast.dk/

Focusing on ethics in action:
Petersen, K. E. (2018). Farlige unge eller farlig forskning: om udviklingen af strategier for etiske situationer og dilemmaer i forskning sammen med unge mænd i bandegrupperinger. Dansk Sociologi, (4), 31-53.

Petersen, K. E., & Ladefoged, L. (2020). Etik i dybdegående forskningsinterview sammen med unge. I K. E. Petersen, & L. Ladefoged (red.), Forskning med børn og unge: etik og etiske dilemmaer (s. 155-166). Hans Reitzels Forlag.

Törrönen, M., & Petersen, K. E. (2021). Ethical reflections on sensitive research with young people living in conditions of vulnerability. Social Work and Society, 19(1), 1-15. https://ejournals.bib.uni-wuppertal.de/index.php/sws/article/view/703/1318 

Biography

Kirsten Elisa Petersen, Associate Professor, PhD, kepe [at] edu [dot] au [dot] dk (kepe[at]edu[dot]au[dot]dk), Head of research programme Social Exclusion and Pedagogy in the Welfare State (SEP), DPU, Aarhus University, Denmark (https://www [dot] au [dot] dk/kepe [at] edu [dot] au [dot] dk) (https://dpu.au.dk/forskning/forskningsprogrammer/social-eksklusion-og-p…) 

Researching within a multidisciplinary research field that is concerned with children and young people’s everyday life, development, learning, well-being in the Danish (and Nordic) welfare state, including children and young people considered vulnerable due to exposed life circumstances, e.g. upbringing in socially disadvantaged housing areas, children and young people at risk of decline of well-being and diagnoses, as well as processes of stigmatisation, exclusion and marginalisation. 

The methodological basis deals with the qualitative research tradition with the use of fieldwork, focus group interviews, and individual in-depth semi-structured research interviews, and with the active involvement of children and young people in the research processes. Theoretically, research, among other things, is inspired by the tradition of critical psychology and social practice (Holzkamp, 1998, 2005; Dreier, 1997, 2003; Schraube & Osterkamp, 2013), as this tradition unfolds within the field of pedagogical research focusing on children and young people’s everyday life, as well as inspiration from urban and housing sociology research, which is particularly represented by Wacquant (2008, 2009, 2013), and which frames children’s and young people’s upbringing, well-being and opportunities for development in the urban and housing contexts - living an everyday life in the institutionally organized welfare state.

Caron Carter

Researching how children maintained their friendships during the Covid‐19 pandemic: methodological opportunities and challenges.

Friendship is a central focus in children's lives and is important for healthy development, learning and wellbeing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, children experienced restrictions on their interactions with friends. This paper heard the voices of 10 children (7–11 years) in England regarding their friendships, drawing on data collected through creative participatory methods including drawings, photography and collages, and accompanying unstructured interviews. The Covid restrictions enforced an online research experience that required researchers to reflexively navigate the interplay between responsiveness and responsibility to ensure that children’s voices were heard. Findings provide new insights into how children endeavoured to maintain their friendships through virtual interactions, street/doorstep visits, and artwork, and how friendship disruption affected their well-being. This paper argues for educators to heed the implications for the period of ‘Covid recovery’.

Suggestions for readings

Carter, C., Barley, R., & Omar, A. (2023). ‘I wish that COVID would disappear, and we'd all be together’: Maintaining Children's friendships during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Children & Society, 37(6), 1791-1810.

Barley, R., Carter, C. & Omar, A. (forthcoming). Researching children’s Covid-19 friendship experiences online: methodological and ethical opportunities and challenges. Qualitative Research (Special Issue – Children & Ethics).

Carter, C. (2023). Navigating young children's friendship selection: Implications for practice. International Journal of Early Years Education, 31(2), 519-534.

Carter, C. (2023). Supporting young children’s friendships: the facilitating role of the lunchtime welfare supervisor. Pastoral Care in Education, 41(2), 191-210.

Carter, C., & Bath, C. (2018). The pirate in the pump: children's views of objects as imaginary friends at the start of school. Education 3-13, 46(3), 335-344.

Carter, C., & Nutbrown, C. (2016). A Pedagogy of Friendship: young children’s friendships and how schools can support them. International Journal of Early Years Education, 24(4), 395-413.

Biography

Caron Carter is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Early Childhood Education and Postgraduate Research Tutor in Education at Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield. Prior to joining Sheffield Hallam University in 2007, Caron was a teacher for eleven years, firstly in a Primary School and then later in two Nursery Infant Schools. During this time, she had five years as a Deputy Headteacher and one year as an Acting Headteacher. Caron has been a Vice-Chair of Governors at a Junior School for over six years, being the link Governor for Safeguarding and Inclusion. She is also a member of the National Association of Pastoral Care of Education Executive Committee (NAPCE), Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Pastoral Care in Education and the lead of the Childhood and Early Years Research Cluster at Sheffield Hallam. Caron has a long-standing interest in children's friendships, and she has written papers on friendship contributing new ideas, methodologies, and knowledge to the field to influence both practice and policy. Much of Caron's work has involved looking at ways to develop a listening culture through creative participatory methods, providing opportunities for children’s views and perceptions to be heard and to exercise their agency. A critical element of this activity is ensuring that her research impacts on school and setting practice. Caron is currently focusing her research on how schools and settings support children's friendships and wellbeing in ‘new times’. She is also part of a team from Sheffield Hallam University working on funded projects focusing upon improving outcomes for children in specific areas including friendship, wellbeing, play and transitions. Caron also has a podcast series entitled ‘Children’s Friendships Matter’. For links to the podcast series visit this website and for more information about Caron’s work see LinkedIn and her University profile. 

We look forward to seeing you September 30^th!

Elia Psouni & Amanda Angelöw
Sara Eldén & Linn Alenius Wallin

Arrangeras av: Samhällsvetenskapligt metodcentrum