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CHILDREN SOCIETY VOLUME 10 (1996) pp. 145-154
Researching Children:
Methods and Ethics
Ann Mahon and
Caroline Glendinning
National Primary Care
Research and
Development Centre
University of Manchester
Karen Qarke
Department
of
Social
Policy, University of
Manchester
Gary Craig
School of Sodal Policy,
University of
Humberside, Hull
Address for correspondence:
Professor G ary Craig, School
of
Policy Studies, University
of
Humbers ide, Inglemire A venue,
Hull HU6 7LU
he appropriateness and desirability of researching children have
been issues of
some
debate. Children may be perceived as non-
competent or vulnerable, and proxies have been used as children s
representatives. Increasingly researchers ar e speaking to children
directly. Why
is
this so and w hat are the methodological an d ethical
implimtions of researching children s views? In this paper the
authors draw on their own experiences of researching children in the
fields of child carers and the im pact of the Child Support Act 1991.
A number of
social
political and legal trends are identified w hich
form a background to the growing interest in children as potential
and actual participants
in
th e research process. The
theoretical
methodological ethical and p ractical issues involved are then
identified and
described
using
examples
from two
separate
studies
conducted
by
the authors.
T
his paper reflects
on the
experiences
of
two research
studies involving semistructured interviews with
children. The first stu dy focused on the experiences
of children and y oun g people caring for a family mem ber an d
evaluated the impact
of
three projects specifically designe d
to
support young care givers and their families. Face-to-face,
semistructured interviews were conducted with children and
the person who they w ere caring for in 25 families. The
yoimg carers' ages ranged from nine years to mid-twenties,
although issues discussed here generally relate to yoimger
carers in this Scimple. Wherever possible, interviews with
children and parents were conducted on separate occasions.
The study was commissioned by the former Mersey Regional
Health Authority, which had funded the young carers'
support projects (Mahon and Higgins, 1995).
The second study focused on the impact
of
the Child Support
Act 99 on lone mothers and their children receiving certain
means-tested benefits. Sem istructured interviews we re carried
out with 12 children aged between 10 and 17, whose mothers
had already been interviewed earlier in the study. The
interviews explored the children's perceptions of family
relationships, their views on parental obligations and their
C C C 0951-0605 /96 /020145-10
© 1996
by
John WUey Sons, Ltd.
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146 Ann Mahon and others
knowledge of financial arrangements associated with the Child Support Act. Again,
every attempt wa s made to interview the children separately from other family m emb ers.
This was the last stage of a part-longitudinal stud y (Clarke, Craig and Glendinning, 1993,
1994,1996) and was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
In designing and undertaking these studies we had to address a number of difficult
ethical and methodological questions about involving children directly in research in this
way. The first was about the competence of children to provide answers to questions of
both fact and opinion: wo uld they know , for example, about the paym ent of ma intenance
and other sources of household income; would they have views on the respective rights
and obligations of parents and children in separated families? Could equally valid or
more accurate responses not be obtained from the adults involved? A second issue was
the particular vulnerability of children and their need for extra protection from potential
exploitation by researchers. Should not children be shielded from intrusive and
potentially distressing questioning, with proxies—parents, teachers, sodal workers—
representing the views of children instead?
In addressing these issues, we came to the view that in many research contexts it is
neither theoretically nor m ethodologically app ropria te to rely on proxies to represent the
views and experiences of children. On the contrary, children's views can an d o ught to be
taken seriously. However, accessing and understanding these views raise a number of
important issues for researchers across a wide range of disciplines.
Social̂ political and legal pressures
he trends outlined here, whilst not new, together create a set of imperatives for
researching children's experiences within a wide range of theoretical and applied social
research.
Chan ging family pat terns
Fundamental changes in the structure and stability of families in recent decades have
major implications for how we approach family research. Even so, there is considerable
discrepancy between official statistics on family status and the actual experiences of
women, men and children. For example, whilst numbers of both lone and single
(never married) parents appear to have increased rapidly, these mask growing trends to
cohabitation prior to or instead of marriage. Evidence firom birth registrations suggests
that increasing num bers of children are bom into stable cohabiting relationships (Kieman
and Estaugh, 1993). There is no official documentation of the breakdown of such
cohabitations—an increasingly common cause of lone parenthood (Bradshaw and Millar
1991;
Ford and others, 1994)—nor of the entry of wom en an d children into new cohabiting
relationships.
Official figures on remarriage are equally unhelpful, as they do not include growing
num bers of children who live in unmarried step-parent families. Nor do they reveal w ays
in which ad ults and children may experience a num ber of different family forms dur ing
their lives. For example, a fifth of the lone moth ers in the C hild Sup port Act study had
had children with more than one partner: some lone mothers had been m arried, divorced
and subsequently cohabited with another partner with whom they had had further
children; others had been married (and divorced) more than once; yet others had had
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Researching Children: Me thods and Ethics 147
children in a succession of short-term, non-cohabiting relationships (C larke, Glendinning
and Craig, 1994).
It is therefore not appropriate to rely solely on information about family structure and
status to tell us how children experience their families and, through them, their wider
social worlds. Assum ptions abo ut the impact of, say, marital break dow n an d entry into a
step-family— even about the effects of such basic characteristics as age an d birth ord er—
may be increasingly unreliable. For example, one lone mother in the C hild Support study
had had her first son while married to a violent partner. After this marriage broke dow n,
she had three m ore children with ano ther man who treated the older boy exactly the same
as his own children; whe n interviewed, the boy confirmed that he regarded his mo ther's
subsequent partner as more of a 'father' to him than his biological father. Even children
who share the same biological parents may have very different relationships with each
paren t; such differences in affection a nd allegiance become increasingly salient in shapin g
the childre n's experiences if the parental relationship is in difficulty. We therefore cannot
even assume similarities in the experiences of children wh o are currently m embers of the
same family. The diversity and fluidity of family forms as children move through
childhood th us impe l us increasingly to seek their ov m accounts and experiences, rather
than assuming that we can automatically know them from demographic and structural
information we have about their families.
Pol i t ica l t ren ds
The 1980s saw a political emphasis on 'consumerism' within public sector services,
reflecting the introduction of a market ethos as a mean s of promoting user responsiveness.
This has added to the pressures for the 'consumers' of public services—including,
potentially, young 'consumers'—to be involved directly in the evaluation of service
initiatives. Thus in the study of youn g care givers, the Regional He alth A uthority which
commissioned the research assumed that the evaluation of the young carers' projects
wo uld of course involve those service 'users ' whom the projects ha d been established to
support, rather than simply relying on reports from parents or social services
staff.
Concern to involve young people directly in the research also reflected the child-centred
approach adopted by the projects that were the subject of the evaluation study (Mahon
an d H iggins, 1995). This, in ti un reflects, i n t e r a l i a , the impact of legal trend s outlined later.
L e g a l t r e n d s
The rights of children and their status within the family have been addressed by several
major recent pieces of legislation— the C hildren Act 1989, the Child Su pport Act 99 and
the Criminal Justice Act 1991. These Acts originated from very different policy concerns
and have resulted in some marked inconsistencies in the current legal status of children
among the separate social security, criminal justice and child welfare systems.
Nevertheless, the flurry of legislative activity is itself a reflection of the rapid sodal and
political changes referred to earlier.
Of most significance here, the Children Act represents the culmination of a shift from
children being the passive objects of parental rights to becoming legal subjects in their
own right. In any decision und er the Act, the welfare of the child must be the param ount
consideration and his or her views and wishes must be ascertained. Although the latter
are to be 'considered in the light of his (sic) age and understanding' (S. 6.1), this never-
theless represents an impo rtant formalisation of children's rights to be heard within the
legal system.
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148 Ann Mahon and others
Theoret ical problems
N or m a l
childhood
and th e cons t ruct ion of
social
p r o b l e m s
Academic acceptance of diversity in family form is wides pread . H owev er, the funding of
applied research is still too often focused on situations and b ehaviours that are assu med ,
implicitly or explicitly, to be deviant and problem atic. For example , studies of the effects
of separation and divorce have tended to focus on the negative outcomes for children,
compared with that in children in intact families; only recently has research begun to
challenge this implicit accep tance of nega tive outco mes (Burghes, 1994) or to focus o n the
factors that might help children adapt and cope (Cockett and Tripp, 1994). Yet in view of
the diversity of family forms a nd re lationsh ips describe d earlier, the prefiguration of some
types of family experience as 'normal' and some as 'deviant' seems increasingly
inappropriate.
Similarly, much research on child carers has assum ed th at informal caregiving as a w hole
is necessarily problematic and may have pathological consequences for the people
involved. This model has itself been vigorously criticised by disabled people, on the
groun ds that it denies their autono my and agency by casting them as wholly passive and
dependent (Keith, 1992; Morris, 1991). It is equally debatable whether this is an
appropriate model to use when investigating the kinds of support that younger people
may give to adult family mem bers with physical or mental disabilities. Quite simply, we
know very little about the range of responsibilities that children feel and carry towards
their various family members, nor how these vary with age, gender and ethnic group. In
the stud y of child carers a wide range of caring scenarios we re encountered, including
variations in the illness or disabilities experienced by those being cared for, the t)rpes of
caring tasks and responsibilities being undertaken by the young people, and their
attitud es tow ards the tasks an d conse quence s of caring. Inde ed, one of the difficulties in
interpreting these sorts of findings is that of distinguishing those tasks considered
'norm al' from those that are out of the ordinary, both within the particular families being
studied and in the wid er social context.
Val idi ty
A second issue which emerged in our studies concerns the concept of validity. As
indicated earlier, the increasing diversity of feimily situations means that we cannot
assum e that adult 'pro xies' such as parents or teachers will be able to give valid accounts
of children's own social worlds. In the Child Support Act study, lone mothers we re often
awa re that their child had very different experiences of and feelings tow ards an 'absen t'
parent from those of their own. Moreover, these mothers knew that children would
sometimes conceal such feelings so as not to hurt them, even to the extent of hiding
appare ntly straightforward 'facts' such as recent contact with their father. Valid accounts
of children's attitudes and experiences could therefore only be obtained by engaging
directly with the children and treating them as independent actors who were engaged in
negotiating a complex set of relationships and loyalties.
Similar questions of validity arise in relation to the use of siblings as 'proxies' for each
other. Again, the Child Supp ort Act stud y revealed that siblings could have very different
relationships with each of their parents. Consequently, the attitudes of children within
the same family about parental obligations and the payment of maintenance could be as
polarised as those of some lone mothers and their former partners. The study of child
carers also found that children within the same family assumed different caring
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Researching Children : Me thods an d Ethics 149
responsibilities, held different views about their roles and experiences as carers and used
the support offered to them through the projects in different ways.
Methodological issues
A key issue in researching children is the extent to which the researcher is seen as som e
kind of expert—with the risk that 'public' accounts will be given that are thought to be
acceptable to the 'exp ert' point of view of the researcher (Com well, 1984). This distinction
between public and private accounts may have particular relevance for children and for
the relationship between researcher and child. Younger children m ay be more suggestible,
or more inclined to respond to an interviewer w ith answers that they think are expected
and wa nted than are adu lts; but the problem is essentially the same as that faced in relation
to adults. The options available in response to the problem are rather different howeve r.
With adults , the interviewer can be matched to the person being interviewed on a range of
social characteristics su ch as age, gende r or ethnic origin, in order to create a re lationship
in which the person being interviewed feels rapport and identification with the
interviewer. However, this is not always possible with (younger) children because of
one of the most salient social characteristics in the situation— age (and, derivin g from th is,
in most cultures, a uthority). Increasingly, how ever, children a re being involved in research
projects, not just as subjects of research, but as researchers in their own right (Alderson,
1995). The appropriatene ss of involving children a s researchers is not always appa rent and
should be judged on the basis of the research topic, the research me thods, and the degree
of skill and responsibility (and, hence, age or maturity) required of the researcher.
In the research conducted with the children of lone mothers, the two interviewers
employed both ha d extensive experience of working with and talking to children in social
work and legal context. We have n o way of knowing how the identity of the interviewers
that children constructed affected the kinds of issues that they were wiUing to talk about
or the way s in which they expressed their views. However, it seems very likely that the
nature of the conversations w hich took place were affected by the interviewers' identity
in the child's mind. The 'prob lem' of adult au thority in relation to children m ay be more
acute whe n the child and the researcher are together on a one-to-one basis. The ad option
of more varied and imaginative research methods may make it possible to overcome
these problems to some extent; for example, the use of group interviews and focus
groups, interactive research methods such as video and drawings, and the involvement
of young people themselves as researchers.
When interview ing children it is important that children understan d the que stions asked
of them and that researchers understand what children are saying; that the children are
understood as well as (literally) understanding. So far, we have referred to 'children' as if
they are a homoge neous group. Clearly, the problems that arise in relation to validity a nd
other aspects of research methodology are very different for children of different
chronological and developmental ages. The research with child carers, for example,
involved children across a wide range of ages from as young as nine years. Less
'successful' interviews, in terms of the depth of response and rapport established, were
conducted with those in younger age groups, and with boys. In retrospect, alternative
and more imaginative methods, perhaps including the use of a male researcher, might
have yielded richer and more valid data. For the older age group, face-to-face interviews
generally seemed an appropriate method. Obtaining iriformation from children in
younger age groups may therefore require an approach different to that from older age
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150 Ann Mah on and others
grou ps and this involves different skills an d different research me thod s. Recent research
exploring children's and young people's perceptions of cancer, for example, devised a
'write and draw ' technique for the collection of data from children aged nine to ten years
(Oakley an d others, 1995).
Ethical issues
In some of the discussions w ith colleagues and advisers arou nd our respective studies, we
encountered anxieties that the children we planne d to interview wo uld not fully
appreciate wh at was being asked of them; or, as discussed earlier, that they wo uld
construct the researcher as an authority figure to whom they had to acquiesce, even
though it might not have been in their own best interests to do so. In other word s, it wa s
argued, children somehow needed extra 'protection' from the invasive questioning of
researchers, who otherwise risked exploiting or abusing the children's lack of under-
standing and/or lack of power. Thus, in the Child Support Act study, we were warned
about the risk of interviewing children about relationships with their (separated) paren ts
and their views on pare nts' continuing financial obligations, on the grou nds that this
would prove too upsetting for the children.
How ever, the researchers' view was that children are, in a variety of different way s,
capable of deciding whether or not they wished to be interviewed. The children were
given fuU information beforehand about the scope of the proposed interview and had a
num ber of oppo rtunities to decline. Children were approac hed directly for their consent,
with parents first being asked only for permission to make contact with the child. Parents
were given vratten information about the aims and scope of the interviews with the
children. A separate approach was then ma de to the child at which his or her consent wa s
sought an d each child wa s asked again at the start of the interview wh ether he or she was
willing to take part. At the end of the interview, in acknow ledgement of the time that they
had given, a small payment was made to the chUd, although care was taken not to
mention this paym ent in negotiating the child's consent. Children wh o did not wa nt to be
interviewed either refused outright or did not keep appointments (here the interviewer
had to exerdse a considerable am ount of discretion in deciding wh ether to call back an d
try and fix another interview).
In the study of child carers it was decided at the outset that the children involved s hotdd
be the main focus of the study rather than adu lts; indeed this was assum ed by the
com missioners of the research an d reflected the child-centred focus ado pted by the
projects. In this study pa rents a nd children we re contacted by letter at the same time a nd
both were asked for their consent to approach the child to request consent to be
interview ed. As the research also involv ed interview s v^dth pare nts or ano ther family
member, children were asked for their consent to approach their par ent/re lative for
interview. All of those contacted were m ade a ware of the right to refuse and it was ma de
dear by the researcher that participation was not something which was expected. Careful
reading of bod y language revealed some conflict at times with children's verbal consent
and further probing led to a refusal to be interviewed in at least one case in this study. As
experienced in the Child Support Act study, 'failure' to keep appointments may be an
indirect wa y of refusing to participa te.
Perhaps the greatest anxieties or concerns that emerged from our respective studies were
those relating to confidentiality and disclosure, both in relation to paren ts an d in relation
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152 Ann Mah on and others
Finally, it is important to bear in mind that children, more than adults, may have
expectations that issues and prob lems w hich they identify in the course of the interview
might somehow be put right as a result of taking part in the research. It is clearly very
impo rtant wh en explaining the purp ose of the research to spell out its limitafions and the
restricted role of the researcher in relation to the child's day-to-day situation.
Practical issues
Many of these m ethodological issues have imp ortant practical implications for research
with children. For example, the age and development of children should be considered as
part of the selecfion criteria for a stud y pop ulation becau se of the implication s that these
have for the choice of research m ethods and the skills and un ders tand ing required of both
researcher and child. Hav ing de dd ed on the study popu lation, the researcher mu st be
able to gain access to the children. Again the process of gain ing access will vary acco rding
to the characteristics of the children being studied. For examp le, child carers are often
referred to as a 'hidden' or 'secret army' and studies attempting to gain access to child
carers have often experienced difficulfies. In the study of child carers children were
recruited via supp orting projects; other studies of children have recruited them throu gh
schools (A lderson, 1995; Oakley and others , 1995).
The process of gaining informed consent and maintaining motivafion are of particular
importance when researching children and young people. In the study of child carers it
was m ade de ar on the first approach and at the beginning of the interview that the child
or you ng person was not und er any obligafion to parfidp ate. This wa s impo rtant because
the you ng people may have regarded the interviewer as an authority figure or
succumbed to parental pressure to partidpate in the research. Requesting consent from
children should , whenev er possible, be don e privately, away from other family mem bers.
In term s of mofivafion, the choice of research me thod ma y ha ve different implications for
the length of time that children with different interests, personalities, gender and so on
can con centrate and ma intain an interest in the interview. In the stud y of child carers, the
age of the child was directly related to the length of the interview, which in turn was
related to the dep th of response. Declining mofivafion du ring an interview could also be
und erstood as an indirect way of withholding or withd raw ing consent to parfidpate, if a
you ng per son found it difficult to do so directly.
Finally there are pracfical considerafions relating to privacy, location and the need to
conduct interviews away from paren ts or other family membe rs. This is impo rtant, bu t
not always feasible. W here should interviews with children be carried out? At hom e, at
school, in a bu rger bar? It is frequently desirable to interview peo ple in their ow n hom es
and this often provides important observafional data for the researcher. In the child
carers study , several interviews were conducted in burge r bars or other 'neu tral' settings,
as du ldr en did not wa nt to be interviewed at hom e. On other occasions interviews were
conducted under very difficult circumstances with constant interrupfions and back-
ground noise. The locafion and environmen t in which interviews are conducted has
implicafions not just for privacy and the quality of data collected bu t also for how the
data are recorded. In both the child carers study and the Child Support Act study,
interviews were taped and it wa s anfidpated that there migh t have been some problem s
in doing this. In practice no problems were encountered in gaining consent to tape-
record. Giving children control over the tape recorder—b y giving it to them to hold and
to turn o n and off as they wishe d— was found to aid not orJy the willingness to be taped
but also rapport between researcher and respondent.
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Researching Children: Methods and Ethics 153
Conclusions
We have started from the viewpoint that, for important theoretical, social and legal
reasons, children's perspe ctives on the issues and experiences which affect them can and
should b e investigated. It is no longer appropriate (if indeed it ever was) to rely on the
accounts of others or to try and make deductions from knowledge about children's
location within a given family structure. At this stage, we would like to draw two main
conclusions, although our work in this research area is continuing.
First, we d o not claim that an y of the problems w e have encou ntered a nd the solutions we
have described in this paper are particularly original to sodal research. The ways in
which we have been forced to think these issues through has brought home to us a
number of practical and methodological issues that are important and relevant to
research in other contexts as well. In other words, the experience has had an additional
heuristic value as well, in helping us to think our way more dearly through some of the
issues involved in a wider variety of research contexts.
Secondly, it has made us aware of the importance of drawing on and building on the
experiences of others. We we re lucky in that we ha d available to us work carried ou t, for
example, by the National Children's Bureau and the major national children's welfare
organisations, which have already developed guidelines on involving children in
research. We w ere able to recruit sldlled an d sensitive interviewers. We w ere also able to
talk to people w ith expe rience of carry ing out research o n very difficult subjects,
indu ding the immediate aftermath of marital breakdown. We we re also aware that there
is a wealth of experience of researching children to draw on in other disdp lines, such as
developmental psychology. These contacts should help us to develop good practice in
what is likely to become a growing research area. They may also prove valuable allies
against those who maintain that children's voices cannot or should not be heard.
References
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154 Ann Mahon and others
Contributors' details
Ann M ahon
is a research associate at the Nation al Primary C are Research an d Development Centre,
University of Manchester.
Gary Craig is Professor at the School of Social Policy, University of Humberside, Hull.
Caroline Glendinning
is a seriior research fellow at the National Primary Care Research and
Development Centre, University of Manchester.
Karen Clarke
works in the Department of Social Policy, University of Manchester.
Professor
Gary Craig, Caroline Glendinning,
an d
Karen Qarke
collaborated in the study of the
Child Support Act, 1993-96, and Ann Mahon conducted the study of young carers, 1994-95.
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