5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Childhood sociologists have been addressing how children experience societal tensions, from environmental challenges like the Anthropocene to political conflicts and wars, using creative research approaches and methodologies that empower children as participants, co-designers and co-researchers. This session aims to provide a platform for researchers to share, propose, and learn from each other's best practices in utilizing narrative, playful, and arts-based approaches in childhood research addressing various social phenomena across diverse geographies.

Through various art forms and genres, researchers can acknowledge children's agency and dignity while holding space for them to articulate their experiences and perspectives in their own ways. This session seeks to explore how engaging with art, particularly through stories and narratives, facilitates children’s expressions of how they make sense of the world.

We invite paper presentations that explore the interconnections between narrative theories, techniques, creative research approaches and methodologies, in their broadest sense, and childhood research. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the imaginal, imagination, storytelling, artful and relational activities in hearing children's voices and fostering their inclusion and participation in research as co-producers.

By sharing experiences, recommendations, and innovative practices, the session brings together inclusive, decolonial and creative research examples in different contexts to contribute to the broader efforts in childhood studies in acknowledging children’s agency in research processes.