Jan Mason

Developing a model for participation by children in research on decision making

This paper outlines a three-year collaborative research project which aims to involve children and young people, as well as other stakeholders, in exploring strategies to meet the needs of children in care. In this paper we identify some research findings which indicate the importance of children participating in the defining of their needs in care, if these needs are to be responded to more effectively than has been the case in the past. We describe the aims of our three-year project and identify some of the methodological issues of implementing stage one of the project in terms of children’s participation. A conceptual framework is developed to clarify issues related to children’s participation in research and decision making and as a basis for deciding on appropriate research methods to employ in the first stage. Rather than merely outlining the work we have so far undertaken, we have insteadfocussed on reflecting on and analysing the theoretical and methodological challenges to researchers in implementing collaborative and participatory research in decision making with children.

Researching with Families: Ethical Issues and Situations.

This article draws on an Australian project engaging with families with complex support needs as their children start school. The project itself is focused on developing collaborative research relationships between families, community support agencies and researchers with the aim of investigating what happens for families during the transition to school. In particular, the project has focused on developing strategies that promote recognition of family strengths, as well as challenges, and that support a positive start to school education. This article reports a range of ethical issues and situations encountered throughout the project. The aim of reporting these is to share some of the critical reflections about the assumptions underpinning the research, ethical engagement with research participants, and the responsibilities researchers have. In particular, the authors share reflections about the nature and implications of conducting research with families, accessing research participants and strategies for engaging with research participants. The approach taken in the project, and this article, reflects assumptions about research as an ethical process and the need for researchers to consider the ethical issues and situations they meet within research contexts.

Defining children's needs in out-of-home care : methods and challenges of a collaborative research project

The ‘future’ orientation of the out-of-home care research literature which has focused on outcomes of care has risked ignoring childrens experiences of care in their ‘present(s)’. In this paper we describe a project, the design of which reflects an alternative to the traditional way of looking at childhood, of which this ‘future’ (adult constructed) orientation is part. We discuss the use of qualitative research methods to identify childrens needs in care. The project has attempted to involve children as co-constructors of knowledge around their needs through participatory research methods. These methods have required us to recognise that children and their needs exist within a context of relational structures; to address the power imbalances between adult researchers and child participants; and to be flexible in responding to the consequences of a participative process. Challenges which have surfaced in the implementation of this research and our responses to them are described.

A children’s perspective on child abuse

Discourses about child abuse are usually adult centred. In the research described in this paper young people were asked to give their perspectives on abuse. They described abusive behaviour as that perpetrated by persons who use their power to control those they consider as lesser. The young people described two forms of abuse. One was feeling let down by those with whom they are in an emotional relationship. The other was feeling discounted because of their age. The children and young people considered the right to negotiate or to have ‘two-way compromise’ as essential to the prevention of abuse. The power to disclose or not to disclose abuse was described as an important issue for children in enabling them to maintain some control over their situation. The research process and findings highlighted the way in which the institutionalisation of adult power over children as legitimate, excludes children’s knowledge on issues concerning them by preventing their participation in knowledge creating forums, and by discounting their competency as children to contribute.

Activities as Autonomy and Competence: The Meaning and Experience of Leisure for Well-Being

In this chapter we explore the dominant adultist discourse on children’s structured and unstructured activities, as centred on preparing children for becoming adults and furthering the social order. We contrast the adultist discourse with the importance children place in their narrative on leisure activities as conducive to experiences of happiness and well-being In particular we discuss how children prioritise the use of leisure in their lives over formal education and link it with virtues and skills that are socially valued, especially those required for success in the labour market. For children, leisure is associated with well-being where it is an arena for autonomous action and provides opportunities for developing competence and being recognised for this competence.

Findings and Conclusions on Well-Being from the Unique Vantage Point of Children

This chapter presents some conclusions on the nature of child well-being, derived from considering, in totality, the implications of the standpoint on child well-being as aggregated from the findings conveyed in the individual chapters in this book. We identify the significance of constructing a child standpoint on well-being from qualitative research where a structural analysis is applied. We summarise the child standpoint arrived at—in terms of the overwhelming importance of sociality and meaning in life, for child well-being—the way children’s experiences of well-being stand in tension with the emphasis on child well-becoming and the way this tension reflects the generational structuring of adult–child relations. The significance in this context of intragenerational relations for children is identified. Our analysis illustrates that inter- and intragenerational relationships are characterised by potentials for both well-being and oppression (or ill-being) of children. In drawing out the policy implications of our construction of child well-being, we comment on the importance of cultural, economic, social and historical considerations. We end the book with the concretisation of policy implications in a set of ‘Indicator Concepts’ that can provide guidance for developing more specific and concrete indicators.

Children’s Health and Well-Being

In this chapter we illustrate how a child standpoint, in ‘looking up’ informs us of ways in which conventional adult discourses of healthism and developmentalism conflate health and well-being and place parents as the agents in promoting their childrens health. The children’s narrative in this chapter inform us that children mediate between different sets of health discourses when discussing the significance of health to their well-being. We show that children identify health as just one aspect of well-being. In discussing what is a healthy body, children emphasise the body as functional and as sense experiencing. While dominant health discourses emphasise individual responsibility for health, children discuss health practices as occurring in multiple social sites embedded within civil society. While children engage as agents intersubjectively, in furthering their health through eating and physical practices, when we look both ‘down’ and ‘up’, we gain some understanding of the multiplicity of network relationships in which children must engage in order to acquire a sense of well-being on issues of health.

Money, Markets and Moral Identity: Exploring Children’s Understandings and Experiences of Economic Well-Being

In this chapter we explore two themes regarding the relationship between children’s well-being and economic practices. We discuss how children’s economic well-being is deeply embedded in the economic well-being of their families. Children emphasise household standard of living as important to their sense of well-being but also discuss how it is children’s access to direct and indirect resources, intersubjectively negotiated within households, that is significant to their well-being. We discuss the importance that children place on being autonomous producers and consumers, a theme that has been taken up recently in economic sociology, but the realisation of which is deeply embedded in significant social relations. Underlying both themes is children’s emphasis on the importance of enacting moral practices as part of economic practices. In discussing these themes, we explore the implications of children’s experiences of economic well-being for understanding the relationship between market and society as it is relevant to the structuring of childhood and children’s well-being.

Researching Children’s Understandings of Well-Being

In this chapter we describe the epistemological approach in which our research and analysis of findings on child well-being has been situated. Our use of standpoint theory is explained in terms of our attempt to construct an understanding of child well-being based on children’s knowledge. We outline the methodological framework and methods we used for researching with children and for analysing what they told us. This framework is positioned within a tradition that has promoted the contributions of other marginalized, emic groups to knowledge-producing forums.

Overviewing a Child Standpoint on Well-Being

This chapter provides an overview of the elements of a child standpoint on well-being, as identified from what participants in our research project told us well-being meant for them. We attempt to convey something of the complexity and multifaceted nature of the child standpoint as identified in our research. We outline the importance of interlocking domains of agency, security and sense of self-identity for well-being and the salience children give to health, leisure activities and economic issues when describing how they experience happiness and well-being in their day-to-day lives. We attempt to convey the significance of emotions and relationships as they underlie children’s discussions of the meaning of well-being in all identified themes. In situating children’s narratives within the social science literature on these themes, it is evident that children place more emphasis on emotions and relationships, than has previously been reflected in the literature on child well-being. Their narratives give special significance to relations of care and also to friendships as experienced in child–child relations.