Ethical and Inclusive Research with Children

The imperative to include children and young people in educational research, and in more participative ways, is educationally important when exploring policy and practice contexts. It is also critical to recognise that children have the right to contribute to debates, and can express their views through educational research, on matters that affect them. However, the freedom to research alongside young people is only afforded if we continue to unmask the illusion that well-intentioned research is always ethical. This book presents an international set of storied experiences, where researchers have been challenged and have changed the way they think, incorporating and exploring ethics in research. The contributors highlight the ethical dilemmas that can arise when children and young people are included in research agendas, and their reflexive approaches to these dilemmas include being responsive to the cultural, political and social contexts of the lives of the children and developing child-friendly research approaches to ensure their ‘voice’ is accessed in multiple ways.

These solution-focused and local approaches facilitate a more ethical, deliberative process where the establishment of trust is central to an ethical engagement with young people and their families and where the explication of ethical dilemmas can improve research practice. This book is a critical resource for researchers and practitioners researching with and alongside children and young people.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

Roseanna Bourke is an Associate Professor of Learning and Assessment, and a registered psychologist, in the Institute of Education at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. She researches and publishes in the area of children’s learning, how people learn in formal and informal settings, sustainable assessment in higher education, student voice, and applied professional ethics. Roseanna is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Student Voice, and Section Editor of ‘Student voice and partnership in practice’ for the Springer Encyclopedia of Teacher Education.