Children as Participants in Research

Abstract As researchers in of social work and with the conditions of childhood and children as scientific field of interest, we are bound by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the ethical principles stated by the International Federation of Social Workers to pursue a child-inclusive practice. This means to develop activities through which children as participants in research projects have a safe space from which they can express their thoughts and opinions, but also that there is an audience receiving their accounts and that the knowledge of child participants is taken into consideration in decision-making and policy production. This article explores how research design can enable and complicate such ambitions. Through theoretical models of participation, four research projects are scrutinized in a self-reflexive discussion on ethical standards and assumptions on childhood. The conclusion is that social work research, to facilitate participation, should not settle with principles on an abstract level, but explore these concepts as everyday practices in which the child participants can lead the process with the researcher as advocate. This means to challenge both personal, professional, and societal assumptions about age, gender, citizenship status, functionality, and other power relations.