Ethical considerations of children’s involvement in school-based research: balancing children’s provision, protection, and participation rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the rights to which all children should have access. Included in the Convention is children’s right to participate and have a say in matters affecting them. This right is equally applicable within a research context as it is in children’s everyday lives. This desk-top study reviews published ethics guidelines and university ethics documents associated with research involving children in school contexts, to determine the presence of children’s participation rights. It draws attention to how growing understandings of children’s participation rights, and the ethical issues associated with these, are inadequately encompassed within ethics guidelines and documents.