Addressing Disparities in Knowledge Creation: Opportunities and Pitfalls of Participatory Research Methodologies

Despite remarkable developments to actualise children’s rights, children continue to be an under-researched population across several disciplines in academic research; thus, their views are often not solicited. To address this breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a growing wave of scholars from a diversity of disciplines, including sociology of childhood, have developed and promoted participatory methodologies to ensure the effective participation of children in research, from respondents to co-researchers to lead researchers. This presentation will discuss current participatory research discourses and methods that seek to address the disparity in knowledge creation by facilitating children’s involvement and addressing issues of power in research. Within this landscape, we will explore the intersection between the conception of children as competent social actors, participatory research methodologies, and decolonisation movements relating to knowledge generation with children.