Of Specific Children and Seperative Institutions: A Model Case of Research Ethics in German Childhood Studies

Taking up Monika Krause's concept of "model cases" in Sociology, recent literature from German-speaking childhood studies explicitly reflecting research ethics was inductively analyzed. Thus, the "specific child in institutionally segregating contexts" embodies the respective model case in those applied research ethical considerations.

The empirical basis of the sample mainly consists of qualitative, primarily ethnographic or interview-based research with individual children or smaller groups of children in educational and care institutions. These children are thus sought out in social contexts that allow the researchers easy access, precisely because these institutions remove children from wider social srenas (e.g. from their families and friendship networks) and transfer them into areas that are spatially, temporally, functionally and symbolically tailored to childhood.

Based on this model case, four primary epistemic objects were identified, which govern the research-ethical reflection of research on children and childhood:
- the relationship between adult researchers and participating children,
- the complicity of participants with the generational order,
- a research ethical stance for research with children, and
- scientific authority in childhood research.

While these considerations are highly self-reflective in nature, they value ethical stance/habitus over standards of procedures.