Becoming-with research participants: Possibilities in qualitative research with children

Childhood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-497
Author(s):  
Silke Daelman ◽  
Elisabeth De Schauwer ◽  
Geert Van Hove
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Ethics In Research ◽  
Active Research ◽  
Children’S Voices

This article takes a post-qualitative stance upon the construction and taking up of certain positions in research by children and adults, and explores how emergent assemblages of (non-)human agents shape how children’s voices are expressed and genuinely listened to within intra-active research encounters. Plugging in post-qualitative concepts as ‘listening’, ‘response-ability’ and ‘becoming-with’, this article analyses key incidents (that emerged during a research process in Flanders) in order to reconfigure voices, discourses, methodologies and ethics in research with children.

scholarly journals Research with Children: Context, Power, and Representation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Lane ◽  
Jolyn Blank ◽  
Phyllis Jones
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Children’S Voices ◽  
Researching With Children

In this article, we examine methodological issues qualitative researchers encounter when they engage in research with children. Within this view, qualitative research is employed with children but not on children and focus is placed upon children’s voices, agency, and the ways they participate with researchers in the research process (Einarsdóttir, 2007). Our discussion draws upon a study we conducted with four- and five-year-old children on the preschool playground. We reflect upon methodological issues pertaining to researching with children; issues of context, power, and representation.

Thinking About Data With Grounded Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 743-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Charmaz ◽  
Linda Liska Belgrave
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
Deductive Research

This article examines qualitative data in an era of neoliberalism and focuses on the place of data in grounded theory studies. Neoliberal values of individual responsibility, self-sufficiency, competition, efficiency, and profit have entered the conduct of research. Neoliberalism fosters (a) reifying quantitative logical-deductive research, (b) imposing surveillance of types and sources of data, (c) marginalizing inductive qualitative research, and (d) limiting access to data in grounded theory studies. Grounded theory relies on data and resists current efforts to abandon data. The method resides in the space between reifying and rejecting data. Data allow us to learn from the stories of those left out and permits research participants to break silences. Data can help us look underneath and beyond our privileges, and alter our views. Grounded theory is predicated on data, but how researchers regard and render data depends on which version of the method they adopt. We propose developing a strong methodological self-consciousness to learn how we affect the research process and to counter the subtle effects of neoliberalism.

Embodied Research in Migration Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Vacchelli
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Invasive Approach ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
Embodied Research ◽  
Definition Of

The definition of data in qualitative research is expanding. This book highlights the value of embodiment as a qualitative research tool and outlines what it means to do embodied research at various points of the research process. It shows how using this non-invasive approach with vulnerable research participants such as migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking women can help service users or research participants to be involved in the co-production of services and in participatory research. Drawing on both feminist and post-colonial theory, the author uses her own research with migrant women in London, focusing specifically on collage making and digital storytelling, whilst also considering other potential tools for practicing embodied research such as yoga, personal diaries, dance, and mindfulness. Situating the concept of ‘embodiment’ on the map of research methodologies, the book combines theoretical groundwork with actual examples of application to think pragmatically about intersectionality through embodiment.

scholarly journals The unequal power relation in the final interpretation

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pernille Almlund
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Power Relation ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Final Interpretation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Meta Theory

This article addresses the power relation in qualitative research and especially the importance of taking into consideration the problematic aspects of the power relation when executing the final interpretation of qualitative research. The methodology literature examines the unequal power relation in qualitative research by focusing on how society has become an interview society and on the lack of equality in interviews. Although the literature recommends being aware of asymmetry between research participants, it fails to look at how to address the final interpretation of qualitative research if the interpretation also takes the unequal power relation into account. Consequently, interpreting the researched in a respectful manner is difficult. This article demonstrates the necessity of increasing awareness of the unequal power relation by posing, discussing and, to some extent answering, three methodological questions inspired by meta-theory that are significant for qualitative research and qualitative researchers to reflect on. This article concludes that respectful interpretation and consciously paying attention to the unequal power relation in the final interpretation require decentring the subject, dissociating from the ideal of intersubjectivity, being descriptive instead of normative, accepting the unconquerable distance between the researcher and the researched and looking at the entire research process and analyses as an undeniable coproduction and interpretation.

Learning through a Reunion of Mind-Body-Emotion-Spirits

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-431
Author(s):  
Chizuru Nobe-Ghelani
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Critical Qualitative Research

While reflexivity has been taken up as an important concept in critical qualitative research, there are few texts that illustrate explicit approaches to practicing reflexivity. Drawing on my doctoral research experience, this article fills this gap and explores how the practice of mindfulness may guide us to a rich engagement with reflexivity during the critical qualitative research process, in particular within the context of interactions with research participants. More specifically, mindfulness is put forth as a practice to invite an embodied and holistic form of learning that goes beyond cognitive knowing. I argue that a mindfulness-based reflexivity has the potential to open up a space to learn from the messiness and discomfort experienced in the research process and deepen our understanding about the operation of power relations in critical qualitative research and beyond.

scholarly journals Listening to Children’s Voices: Reflections on Researching With Children in Multilingual Montreal

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Alison Crump ◽  
Heather Phipps
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Creative Methods ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Children’S Voices ◽  
Researching With Children ◽  
Children's Stories

In this paper, we discuss methodological and ethical issues related to researching with children in a way that respects and validates their voices. Drawing on vignettes from one of the author’s inquiries with young multilingual children, we share strategies we see as central to positioning children as knowledgeable and active agents in their own and our learning. We propose three main criteria for doing qualitative research with children: fostering respectful relationships; using creative methods; and listening attentively to children’s stories. We discuss what these criteria can contribute to early childhood education, both in formal and non-formal settings.

scholarly journals Privileges of Power: Authenticity, Representation and the “Problem” of Children’s Voices in Qualitative Health Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 160940692095859
Author(s):  
Grace Spencer ◽  
Hannah Fairbrother ◽  
Jill Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Qualitative Health Research ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Children’S Voices ◽  
Relations Of Power

The widespread privileging of children’s voices in recent times has triggered expansion of differing forms of qualitative enquiry that aim to “give children a voice.” Engaging children in research and eliciting their voices on matters that affect them is often showcased as being a more “authentic” way to capture children’s lived realities and afford their agency. Yet, the uptake of voice in qualitative enquiry, and how it may contribute to the privileging of particular ways of knowing (some) children’s lives, is rarely interrogated. Drawing on examples from our own research, in this paper we critically reflect on the frequent invoking of the term voice in qualitative health research with children. In doing so, we challenge claims of authenticity by exposing the tricky epistemological tensions and relations of power that are embedded within the production and legitimation of particular voices as being “correct” ways of knowing about health—including the ways our research intentions and methods contribute to these processes. We reflect on the methodological and epistemological value of silences, dissenting voices and other modes of expression to highlight forms of resistance to adult-led health agendas. We conclude by illustrating how dominant relations of power are (re)produced within and across research spaces, and through the mobilizing or pathologizing of particular young voices through research. Possibilities for advancing ways to harness children’s preferred modes of expression in qualitative research are also considered.

scholarly journals Recognizing research participants’ fluid positionalities in (post-)conflict zones

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412090488
Author(s):  
Philipp Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Key Informants ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Research Relationship ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Data Collection Process ◽  
Personal Experiences

This article re-conceptualizes the highly ambivalent relationships between researchers and research participants in conflict zones, with a focus on recognizing respondents’ multiple and fluid positionalities. Standardized and dominant approaches to qualitative research are largely based on essentialist and infantilized portrayals of research participants and neo-colonial assumptions regarding the research relationship: informants are presumed to be inevitably vulnerable and in need of external protection, while the researcher is positioned as the omnipresent expert in control of the research process. In reality, however, research participants rarely exclusively occupy the ‘oppressed victimhood’ axis of identity and frequently take on active roles in the research and data collection process in a myriad of ways. I elucidate how especially in (post-)conflict zones, research participants frequently re-shape power dynamics by exercising agency over the researcher and the research process. While previous studies have considered how informants’ agency can shape processes of knowledge production, in this article I expand this focus by examining how key-informants can, and frequently do, facilitate the researchers’ safety and security. I specifically draw on personal experiences of empirical research in Northern Uganda. I demonstrate how in a particular moment of post-conflict insecurity – while being trapped in-between the exchange of gunfire between the Ugandan police and an armed group – one of my key-informants ensured my physical protection and safety, thereby exercising power over me and the research relationship. The key-informants in this context thus occupied multiple positionalities – ranging from informant to protector, evidencing that research relationships are never static but rather contextual, shift and fluctuate. Such ambivalent and fluid power dynamics are more reflective of the lived realities of qualitative research and can influence the research process by positioning researchers and research participants on more equal terms.

‘Keen as fuck’: youth participation in qualitative research as ‘parallel projects’

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Arnold Lohmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Young People ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Ethics Review ◽  
Active Research ◽  
Participation In Research

Youth researchers continue to pursue the ideals of youth participation in research. This pursuit reflects a broader concern for the problems of participant-researcher power dynamics in qualitative research. Youth researchers develop and adopt a variety of techniques and ethical principles that attempt to position young people as active research participants. However, these methods and principles have not solved the challenges of participation. In this article, I argue that there is a need to accept that some of the power asymmetries of participation might be unsolvable, and to reposition the power relationship between young people and researchers. A central concern in this article is the paradoxically unethical outcomes produced by adult-centric ethics review processes. I argue that youth participation in qualitative research can be understood as parallel projects and that in doing so researchers can value young people’s reasons for participation. In fact, young people might be ‘keen as fuck’ (participant quote) to participate.

scholarly journals Deafening Silences: Researching with Inarticulate Children

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Boggis
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Augmentative And Alternative Communication ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Research Process ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Alternative Communication ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Research Participants

<p>Keywords</p><p>children, disability, mediated communication</p><p>Abstract</p><p>This paper is based on in-depth, qualitative research with disabled children who use mediated communication in the form of high-tech Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems (AACS). The study was carried out over a period of 18 months as part of the author's PhD research. Key methodological issues for qualitative research are discussed within the paper, which is founded on the sociological understanding of childhood that recognises disabled children as competent research participants. The paper outlines specific issues that arose during the research process in relation to gaining access to disabled children and the challenges of interviewing inarticulate participants. Within this context, the methodological issues of consent and authenticity of voice are discussed, as they are considered particularly relevant to researchers who seek to include disabled children in qualitative research.</p>

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