Researching Children?s Experience: Approaches and Methods

How should the researcher approach the sensitive subject of the child? What are the ethical issues involved in researching children′s experiences? In essays written by a collection of key international authors, Researching Children′s Experience addresses these questions, and examines up-to-date methodological and conceptual approaches to researching children. This book serves as a practical, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary guide for advanced students and researchers exploring a range of studies, and the theoretical and ethical motivations behind them.

The book is divided into three coherent sections:

• Conceptual, methodological and ethical issues in researching children′s experiences
• Methods for conducting research with children
• The generation and analysis of text

Researching Children′s Experience provides examples of how researchers from a variety of social science perspectives have set about carrying out research into children′s experience. Useful to students embarking on a research project, and to experienced researchers wishing to explore new methods, Greene and Hogan′s book is an essential addition to anyone doing research on children. It will be especially useful to those in developmental psychology, education, nursing and other disciplines interested in studying children′s experience.

Sheila Greene is co-founder of the Children′s Research Centre (with Professor Robbie Gilligan). She has been actively involved in the Centre in various capacities since 1991 and became the Centre′s Director on 1st October 2004. Sheila graduated from Trinity in Psychology and Philosophy and trained as a clinical psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. She was the Head Psychologist on the Maternal and Infant Health Study at the Children′s Hospital in Boston and a staff member of Harvard Medical School before returning to the Psychology Department in Trinity as a lecturer. She has been involved in the establishment and direction of postgraduate courses in clinical and counselling psychology and women′s studies. She was elected to serve as Dean of Arts (Humanities) on two occasions and from August 2001 to July 2004 held the office of Senior Lecturer (chief academic officer) of the College. In March 2005 she was appointed to the AIB Chair in Childhood Research.

Research Interests:
Developmental psychology, parenting and parent-child relationships, research methods with children, developmental psychopathology.