In the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of key writers within sociology and anthropology criticised much of the existing research on children within the social sciences as 'adultist'. This has subsequently provoked attempts by academics to define new ways of working with , not on or for, children that have been characterised by a desire to define more mutuality between adult and children in research relationships and to identify new ways that researchers can engage with young people. This (...) paper aims to address some of the ethical complexities that this work has generated by focusing on five areas of ethical concern in relation to research with children in the environments of home and school: consent; access and structures of compliance; privacy and confidentiality; methodologies and issues of power; and dissemination and advocacy. While most of these issues are not necessarily unique to working with children, but underlie many research projects, they are refracted in particular ways in child-oriented research because of the unequal relationships of power between adults and children; the way that adults mediate access to children; the legal complexities of children's position as minors; and the particular nature of the environments—school and the parental home—in which researchers usually encounter young people. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt - and a plea - to get real about the ethics of practising social science 'with children rather than on or for children'. It is written from and in response to a troubling question: why (when I am 'police cleared' and my research is 'ethical' in terms of legality, professional codes of practice and notions of.

This paper is an attempt - and a plea - to get real about the ethics of practising social science 'with children rather than on or for children'. It is written from and in response to a troubling q...

This paper outlines some of the moral issues I faced when working in the field with homeless children and children with cerebral palsy. Bill Bunge argues that the 'immediacy' of fieldwork requires that we divest ourselves of theoretical and philosophical pretensions to attend the urgency of our participants' context. I use personal examples of powerful and contradictory experiences from working with young people in the field to highlight the importance of a moral integrity that recognizes vulnerability and the needs of (...) the moment. (shrink)

This paper outlines some of the moral issues I faced when working in the field with homeless children and children with cerebral palsy. Bill Bunge argues that the 'immediacy' of fieldwork requires...