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Presentation by:
Dr Carmel Smith
Presentation Title:
Qualitative Research with Children:
The Perspectives of Elite Researchers
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INTRODUCTION
This study investigated the researcher-child
relationship in qualitative research within
child psychology and the broader Childhood
Studies paradigm.
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Childhood Studies
Initially associated with sociologists of
childhood (James & Prout, 1990) the rapidly
evolving field of Childhood Studies now
incorporates a diverse range of disciplinary,
professional and practitioner perspectives
(Qvortrup, et al, 2009; Percy-Smith & Thomas,
2010).
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Qualitative Research
The research trend in Childhood Studies over
the course of the last 2 decades has been
towards qualitative approaches to research
that recognise children as sophisticated and
credible commentators on their own lives
(Christensen & James, 2008; Kellett, 2010).
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Qualitative Research
The Childhood Studies qualitative research
literature to date has focused on the
development of ‘participatory’ and ‘creative’
research methods rather than an examination
of the relationships within which such
methods are deployed (Gallacher & Gallagher,
2008).
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Research Relationship
This study draws on feminist methodological
literature (Brown & Gilligan, 1996) that
emphasises the importance of the research
relationship within which qualitative research
methods are deployed:
(i) To address the power imbalance.
(ii) To attend to researcher subjectivity.
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Gap in the literature
This study examines the ways in which
children’s qualitative researchers position
themselves in their research relationships with
children in the growing field of Childhood
Studies.
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Sample
• 30 pioneers and opinion leaders from Ireland,
UK and USA.
• Multi-disciplinary (psychology, sociology,
anthropology, education, social work and
nursing).
• At least 10 years experience and minimum of
5 international peer-reviewed publications.
• The response rate was 95%.
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Method
• Face-to-face interviews to enable informal and
unpublished accounts of research practices.
• Participants asked to describe and reflect
upon their research experiences.
• Shared approach to data ownership:
(i) Editing of transcripts
(ii) Review of direct quotations
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Analysis
• Deductive and inductive coding to prepare
data for visual display, thematic analysis and
refinement (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003).
• Internal validation using the constant
comparison method of analysis.
• External validation:
(i) Inclusion of multiple analysts
(ii) Member checking exercise.
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Results
The Biography of the Researcher
• Researcher’s personal history
• Disciplinary background
• Professional training and practitioner
experiences.
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Quote
“I think the question of what we bring from
our own experience of childhood into those
encounters is an interesting one and one that
people don’t really talk about very much.”
(RP25)
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Fieldwork Experiences and
Children’s Contributions
• The contribution that children make to
informing
and
educating
childhood
researchers.
• The international perspective and insights
from children of other cultures and different
contexts.
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Conceptualisations of children and
childhood
• The adult-child dichotomy was at the heart of
conceptualisations of children and childhood.
• Distinctions between child/adult?
• Distinctions between childhood/adulthood?
• Referred to by 80% of participants.
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Adult-child dichotomy
Problems
1. Not helpful to children or children’s
researchers:
“...once you start marking out a group as
essentially different you have made a
reification of that group, a stereotypification
of them, that is not helpful either to children
or childhood researchers.” (RP22)
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Adult-child dichotomy
Problems
2. Theoretically unsound:
“...[Those who subscribe to such a distinction]
are still seeing children as a group separate
from humanity and they are working with
this deep-seated, modernist separation of
childhood from adulthood and they are just
taking that for granted.” (RP22).
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The Artistry of the Researcher
• None of the participants accepted a clear
divide between quantitative and qualitative
research.
• Practice of qualitative research inextricably
linked to personal skills of researcher to form
relationships with children.
• Learning of qualitative skills assessed as akin
to learning a craft.
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The Artistry of the Researcher
Quote
“It is important that you get skills and you
learn the craft in a research methods course
but the artfulness of it, that makes it into a
masterpiece, that is what you are putting into
it. It is partly to do with being systematic and
partly to do with just creativity: thoughts,
ideas, imagining, empathy and so on.” (RP07)
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Rigour and Reflexivity
• Rigour unequivocally assessed as fundamental
to high-quality qualitative research.
• Reflexivity most contentious topic in study:
(i) Relevance of material covered
(ii) How adeptly incorporated into thinking
(iii) Variations in quality, style and content.
(iv) Widespread confusion in research papers
between reflectivity and reflexivity.
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Rigour and Reflexivity
Quote
“Reflexivity is very important in kind of
problematizing scientism in psychology for
instance. [However, there is] a whole body of
reflective practitioner literature and actually, I
don’t really know what concept of reflexivity
that are working with?” (RP10)
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Power Dynamics
• Strongest and most consistent theme.
• Extent to which research methods can
alleviate the inevitable power dynamics that
infuse all research relationships.
• Strategies aimed at acknowledging, reducing
and minimizing power differentials seen as
paramount in research design and execution.
• Role of ‘unusual adult’ frequently adopted.
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Conclusion (1)
1. The personal biographies of researchers were
fundamental to the ways in which they
positioned themselves in their qualitative
research relationships with children.
However, the extent to which researchers
acknowledged and worked with subjective
influences, varied considerably.
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Conclusion (2)
2. The adult-child dichotomy
Understandings and interpretations of the
adult-child dichotomy were pivotal to how
researchers conceptualised and theorised
children and childhood.
This topic provides an important pathway to
examine key issues and debates in the field of
Childhood Studies.
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Conclusion (3)
3. Special methods of research with children
These findings presented a paradox:
Several participants questioned whether
‘participatory’ and ‘creative’ methods were in
danger of ‘othering’ children.
At the same time, such methods were seen as
more ethical and democratic in terms of
addressing power differentials.
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Conclusion (4)
Power dynamics in the research relationship:
• Power differentials heightened in children’s
research.
• Researchers need to be more aware of
strategies children may use to exert and keep
power in the research context.
• Adults continue to be the main beneficiaries
of research in which children participate.
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Conclusions
Unifying Threads
• The use of the term ‘children as people’.
• The need for researchers to both trust
children and to trust the research process.
• Qualitative research must be a systematic,
transparent and accountable process.
• A stronger body of methodological literature
to underpin the diverse range of qualitative
approaches currently being employed.
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Recommendations:
1. Researchers learning to trust children
Researchers trusting children to decide upon
their own level of participation, allows the
researcher to ‘let go’ and hand over the reins
in the research relationship. A trusting
researcher will empower children to lead,
find their own comfort level and give
direction to the research.
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Recommendations
2. Researchers forming a working alliance with
children:
Children should be actively included as
knowers, advisers and helpers.
Children’s researchers should form a working
alliance with children whereby research
agendas become a shared problem or puzzle.
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Recommendations
3. Researchers questioning their motives:
Researchers should ensure that they are open,
ready and able to receive children’s accounts
as distinct and separate from their own.
Encouraging researchers to examine the
cultural beliefs and assumptions that they
import into research encounters should be an
integral part of research training and practice.
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Recommendations
4. Being explicit about quality assurance
Rigour, transparency and accountability in
qualitative projects must be recognised as
integral to gaining credibility during the
dissemination of findings to wider audiences.
This is essential to ensure messages from
children’s research are influential in policy
and professional practice arenas.
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Recommendations
5. Measures to support the well-being of
children’s researchers:
To put in place protection and support for the
well-being of researchers in what emerged in
this study as a pressurised field of research.
To recognise the benefits of emotional
support in terms of researchers, children’s
experiences of research encounters and the
quality of the data yielded.
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Benefits of the study
Documenting the perspectives and qualitative
research experiences of pioneers and opinion
leaders in the field, at this stage in the
evolution of ideas about research with
children, provides an important resource for
the continuing development of children’s
research in the decades ahead.
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