Ethical challenges: doing research with children

2016 ◽  
pp. 49-66
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Research With Children

Ethical Research in Global Child Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 299-320
Author(s):  
Deborah Dewey ◽  
Eveline T. Konje ◽  
Elias C. Nyanza ◽  
Francois P. Bernier ◽  
Mange Manyama
Keyword(s):  
Child Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Ethical Research ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Child Health Research ◽  
The Many

Global child health research plays a pivotal role in addressing inequities in children’s health and development worldwide. To achieve this goal, research must be based on sound scientific and ethical principles. This chapter focuses on ethics in child health research in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. It reflects on the key principles underlying ethical research in general and in global health research and child health research in particular. This is followed by a detailed discussion of 3 core principles underlying child health research: respect, benefit, and justice. Research with children poses important and universal ethical issues across world contexts, including establishing consent, protection from harm, privacy, and payment and gifts. Cultural, social, political, and economic factors that can interact to pose particular challenges with regard to these issues in different contexts, especially in low- and middle-income settings, are explored. As methodology and ethics are integrally linked, this chapter also examines the ways in which children have been included in health research studies: research on children, research with children, and research by children. This is followed by a brief discussion of ethical mechanisms that are in place to ensure that ethical standards are met and maintained in research on global child health. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the many positive changes in ethical research involving children in recent years. Emerging ethical challenges in the fields of genetics and genomics are highlighted.

Recognizing the Voices of All Children, Including Those with “Cognitive Impairments,” in Research

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Montreuil ◽  
Gail Teachman ◽  
Franco A. Carnevale
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Cognitively Impaired ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Respect For Autonomy ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Children’S Voices ◽  
Impaired Children

Research ethics norms are primarily centered on respect for autonomy operationalized through informed consent. Significant ethical challenges can arise when conducting research with persons who have “cognitive impairments” that may limit their decisional autonomy. These challenges are additionally complex in research involving children with “cognitive impairments.” We outline dominant norms in pediatric research ethics, highlight current debates regarding these norms, and discuss considerations that arise when conducting research with ”cognitively impaired” children. Building on interdisciplinary research in childhood ethics, the authors argue for a shift in childhood research ethics norms toward participatory approaches anchored in the recognition of all children’s voices and agential capacities. Concrete strategies for recognizing agency in research with “cognitively impaired” children are shared. Rather than presenting a limitation for research with children, “cognitive impairment” affords opportunities to consider how to better recognize agency in research with all children.

scholarly journals Not Seen and Not Heard: Ethical Considerations of Research with Children of Prisoners

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicky Saunders ◽  
Morag McArthur ◽  
Tim Moore
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Parental Incarceration ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Australian Capital Territory ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Children Of Prisoners ◽  
Sensitive Issues

The ethical complexities associated with research with children are well recognised and have been debated extensively within the childhood literature. However, ethical issues occurring in research with children about sensitive issues, such as parental incarceration, and the practical solutions required to address such issues, are less well described. This paper draws on recent experiences of a research project conducted in the Australian Capital Territory exploring the needs of children of prisoners. It discusses three key interrelated methodological and ethical challenges observed by the researchers. While there is no doubt that considerable care needs to be taken to identify ethical and effective ways to undertake research with this group of children, we argue that applying a process of ethical reflexivity will assist researchers in planning and conducting ethical and methodologically valid research with children of prisoners.

scholarly journals Ethical questions in children sexual victimization research

Temida ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-38
Author(s):  
Irma Kovco-Vukadin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Victimization ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Vulnerable Population ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Epidemiologic Research ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Victimization Research

Ethics in the research with children has become a very important topic due to an increasing number of research involving children resulting in an increasing number of academic papers on this topic. Conducting social research in the field of child sexual victimization presents double vulnerability: firstly, it involves research with a vulnerable population, and secondly, the topic itself is sensitive. This raises numerous ethical questions and can result in researcher?s unwillingness to explore this particular field. The aim of this paper is to answer the question of specific ethical challenges in researching sexual victimization of children. The specific questions addressed in the paper include the following: 1) Are there any specific ethical guidelines for researching child sexual victimization, and 2) What ethical questions are specifically addressed in child sexual victimization research? The answers provided on the basis of the analysis presented in the paper are: 1) There are no specific ethical guidelines for conducting epidemiology research of child sexual victimization, and 2) It is difficult to single out ethical questions specific for this research area from available literature (only few authors are addressing specific ethical issues in this type of victimization research). Therefore, it is concluded that more attention should be focused on ethical issues in epidemiologic research of child sexual victimization.

scholarly journals Negotiating the practicalities of informed consent in the field with children and young people: learning from social science researchers

2021 ◽  
pp. 174701612110149
Author(s):  
Gina Sherwood ◽  
Sarah Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Institutional Ethics ◽  
Research With Children

The real-world navigation of ethics-in-practice versus the bureaucracy of institutional ethics remains challenging. This is especially true for research with children and young people who may be considered vulnerable by the policies and procedures of ethics committees but agentic by researchers. Greater transparency is needed about how this tension is navigated in practice to provide confidence and effective strategies for social researchers, including those new to the field, for negotiating informed consent. Twenty-three social science researchers with a range of experience were interviewed about their practices for gaining informed consent from children and young people in social research and the development of their ‘ethics in practice’ over time. Main themes focused on navigating ethics protocols within institutions, practices to prepare for data collection, and a critical evaluation of the resources that can be applied to gaining consent and managing relationships. A range of methods and concrete steps that address ethical challenges are outlined to illustrate what can be done in practice to achieve authentic consent and appropriate participation.

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