Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Fieldwork with Children (Part I)

Monday, 7 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: FSE006 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC53 Sociology of Childhood (host committee)

Language: English

Integrating children into the research process is now a key concept within childhood studies, aiming to involve them in knowledge production about their living conditions, life worlds and social relationships. Methodological traditions that have advanced this approach of involving children in meaningful ways in knowledge production, are qualitative studies of children that draw from well-established traditions of interpretive social science, phenomenology, and hermeneutics, and which were foundational in informing the central principles of the ‘New Sociology of Childhood’ (James and Prout 1990).

A range of challenges meet researchers in their approach to be participatory, to critically assess their positionality within the research relationship, to avoid an extractive ontology that views children as objects or data, of interpreting children’s perspectives as a complex product of their everchanging social realities. However, such challenges provide a rich source for further methodological developments in research with children and qualitative research more generally.

In this session we invite researchers using child centred approaches to qualitative research with children, to present their scholarly reflections on ethical and methodological challenges encountered in qualitative field research with children from conceptualisation and design through data collection, analysis and interpretation. The aim is to engage in dialogue about the asymmetries sometimes encountered in the use of qualitative participatory approaches to engage with children in research, and how despite being prepared, having expertise and good protocols, researchers may be confronted with difficult social realities, ‘messy’ situations, or ethical dilemmas that may spur adaptations to research or changes to practice.

Session Organizers:
Lise MOGENSEN, Western Sydney University, Australia and Tobia FATTORE, Macquarie University, Australia
Oral Presentations
Navigating the Methodological and Ethical Dilemmas in Child Field Research
Joyce Serwaa OPPONG, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Questioning Participation: Reflexivity, Silence, and the Limits of Knowledge Production in Research with Children
Laura SEGARRA-AYLLON, University of Lleida, Spain; Aida URREA-MONCLÚS, University of Lleida, Spain
Unpacking Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Research with Justice Involved Youth
Christine GOODWIN DE FARIA, Trent University Durham, Canada; Daneilla BENDO, Kings University College at Western University, Canada; Madison MOORE, Trent University Durham, Canada
Ethics of Participatory Research with Children on the Topic of Violence
Maria ROTH, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania; Eva LASZLO EVA, UBB, Romania; Agnes DAVID, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania