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

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.