Course content

The course focuses on participatory methods, techniques and ethics, and how they are linked to other research methodologies. It takes its points of departure on the idea that children are knowledgeable human beings who create and use meanings and are subjects of human rights. It follows that they have the right to be properly researched, and enabled to share their knowledge, views and experiences through methods that are both scientific and ethical. The course is practical and experiential. Students will practice how to design and use a variety of participatory research methods that should be useful for data collection in their master research projects. They learn how they can engage children in all stages of the research process. The course also enables students to gain knowledge on institutional ethical demands and how to develop reflexive thinking in ethics and knowledge production with children.

Learning outcome

The student has:

Knowledge

• in-depth knowledge of a range of participatory methods to engage children in different stages of a research process.
• knowledge on how to critically assess current scholarships on the social, moral, ethical and practical challenges of undertaking scientific research with children and young people.

Skills

• advanced skills in how to design and carry out rights-based, participatory research with children and young people in diverse settings and contexts.
• competence in ethical requirements and how to reflexively navigate new ethical dilemmas in research with children and young people.

General competence

• understanding of the connection between rights and research with children and young people.
• appraised the potentials and limits of participatory research and how to engage children and young people in collaborative knowledge production.

Learning methods and activities

The course begins with an introductory lecture on perspectives and principles related to participatory research with children and young people. This is accompanied by a week-long training workshop that involves hands-on experience in engaging children and young people in different stages of the research process. The training workshop draws on a manual for participatory approaches and gives students the opportunity to develop a repertoire of methods and ethical strategies by means of concrete examples, as well as plenary and group discussions.

Additional lectures will be given by lecturers undertaking empirical studies with children in different parts of the world in order to exemplify the diversity and complexity of child-focused methods and ethics.

Total lecture hours: ca. 40.

Compulsory assignments

• Compulsory attendance in all the training workshop days. Attending lectures is also compulsory (minimum 80%).

Required previous knowledge

Bachelor's degree in the social sciences or equivalent.

Students in the master’s programme in Childhood studies will be prioritised.

Course materials

Information will be given at the beginning of the semester.

Credit reductions