Rights-based participatory approaches? Arts-based methods? Digital storytelling? Long-term ethnographic fieldwork? Intersectional or indigenous methodologies? Approaches in child research can take many forms and be based on a myriad of theoretical and methodological logics. Methodology, methods, and ethics have been key identity markers of Childhood Studies since the field emerged, emphasising the importance of children’s views as valid and valuable, and a plethora of literature has been produced to explore appropriate methods in child research and discussing ethical challenges when approaching the child as a research participant. As the field has consolidated, there seems to be a gradual decrease in focus on the exploration of methods and ethics. An exception is, perhaps, in research on, with and through emerging technologies. At the same time, new theoretical approaches have gained terrain, particularly those engaging non-western frameworks and de-centred subjectivity. These ontological shifts towards post-qualitative, decolonial and posthuman theoretical frameworks, among others, demand renewed discussions around both methodology and ethics. An increasing number of scholars also identify as activists, wanting their research to make a change, putting transformation on the agenda.

Although involving children in research is more commonplace today, a recent review of all articles in Barn reveals a continued tendency to value adult perspectives on children’s issues (Lorgen et al., 2025). Furthermore, when children are involved, researchers still rely heavily on the verbalised expressions of child participants through the qualitative practice of interviewing. Children are engaged in research across a continuum of participation, from having minor inclusion in the research process to being substantially involved as co-researchers. The quest for children’s voices has spread far beyond the field, and within both research and policymaking, we see an increase in contemporary buzzwords such as co-action/-construction/-creation. Parallel to this trend, quintessential ideas within Childhood Studies have been destabilised, for instance, in arguments for decentring the child (Spyrou, 2019), to bring back the adults (Wyness, 2013), or by questioning whether research with children is more ethical than research on them (Bodén, 2021).

Posthuman thinking has enormous implications for childhood studies, interrogating pivotal understandings such as child-centeredness, children’s perspectives, and even the category of childhood itself (Spyrou, 2019). Creative, affective, and playful methods are on the rise, seeking to tune into and take into consideration the entanglements of childhood. Creativity and play in research go beyond mere activity, creating space for experimentation and transformation. This posthuman shift is also ethic-onto-epistemological, with an understanding that ethics, being, and knowing cannot be separated (Barad, 2007). Likewise, a decolonial turn in Childhood Studies implies not only challenging the dominance of the global north’s onto-epistemologies (Abebe et al., 2022; Biswas, 2022) but also engaging with Indigenous methodologies. These emerging methodologies emphasising more-than human creativity are rooted in non-western Indigenous knowledge systems, values, and worldviews and often embrace storytelling to explore relationships between people, the land, animals and the cosmos while giving prominence to respect, reciprocity, and responsibility.

Standardised and institutional ethics do not always harmonise with the messiness of research encountered in the field. This highlights the importance of increased sensitivity and dialogue about relational ethics, and the relationships and responsibilities between researchers and participants, researchers’ positionality, as well as interpretation, power and representation. These elements of the research process all play crucial roles in ensuring that research with children is conducted with a deep understanding of the complexities involved. Additionally, formal ethical guidelines can contribute to reluctance towards researching so-called “vulnerable groups” and “sensitive topics”, such as gender identity, sexuality, racism and forms of violence. This clashes with seeing children as capable participants and occludes their role in knowledge production and politics. The review of Barn mentioned above disclosed a lack of research with infants and toddlers, suggesting not only a blind spot in knowledge production but also a hesitancy towards methodological and ethical engagement among childhood scholars (Lorgen et al., 2025).

Interpreting the world of another takes effort, requires humility and openness, and rigorous questioning of one’s own assumptions, research encounters and settings, methods and tools, as well as power dimensions related to age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and (dis)ability. Cultural, political, economic, social and historical aspects also come into play, not to mention disciplinarian fields and battlegrounds, scientific paradigms and epistemological struggles.

Methodology and ethics should continue to be central pillars in Childhood Studies, and it is necessary to re-turn to these topics in the wake of many ontological shifts and epistemological developments. In a field where myriads of methods, tools, and analytical and theoretical approaches constantly emerge and co-exist, there is a need to give time and space to reflect upon, critically discuss, and delve into methodological and ethical queries. It is increasingly important to share embodied research knowledge among childhood researchers and as an academic community to learn from new innovative, experimental and creative practices that have attempted to push established methodological boundaries. Given the changed theoretical and methodological landscape in Childhood Studies, and the political tensions and societal changes in contemporary Nordic societies (and beyond), readdressing the focus on methodology and ethics in child research is paramount. The journal Barn, therefore, invites researchers and practitioners to a two-day interactive and hands-on conference on methodology, methods and ethics in research with children and youth, 14-15 August 2025. The conference will consist of key talks bringing fresh perspectives, yarns on ethical challenges, hands-on workshops to present and test out methods, and traditional paper presentations. We strive to host a conference characterised by a friendly, safe and informal atmosphere, fostering fruitful, lively and inspiring discussions. We hope to provide an inviting conference venue and an exciting conference program, boosting renewed energy for scholars engaged in research concerning children and youth.

The conference will also serve as the source of papers for our forthcoming special issue: “Methodological Humility and Ethical Conundrums: Collaborative Explorations in Nordic Childhood Studies” in the journal Barn 2026.

References

Abebe, T., Dar, A., & Lyså, I. M. (2022). Southern theories and decolonial childhood studies. Childhood, 29(3), 255-275. https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682221111690 

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (1 ed.). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822388128 

Biswas, T. (2022). What takes ‘us’ so long? The philosophical poverty of childhood studies and education. Childhood, 29(3), 339-354. https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682221111642 

Bodén, L. (2021). On, to, with, for, by: ethics and children in research. Children’s Geographies, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.1891405 

Lorgen, L.C., Ursin, M., Lyså, I.M., & Jensen, M. R. (2025) The Published Child: Absences and presences in 40 years of knowledge production in the Nordic journal Barn. Barn – Forskning om barn og barndom i Norden. 42(4).

Spyrou, S., Rosen, R., & Cook, D. T. (2019). Introduction: Reimagining Childhood Studies: Connectivities ... Relationalities ... Linkages ... In S. Spyrou, R. Rosen, & D. T. Cook (Eds.), Reimagining Childhood Studies (pp. 1-20). Bloomsbury.

Wyness, M. (2013). Children’s participation and intergenerational dialogue: Bringing adults back into the analysis. Childhood, 20(4), 429-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568212459775

Yunkaporta, T. (2020). Sandtalk – How Indigenous thinking can save the world. San Fransisco: Harper.

Registration for the conference is now open. You can register for the conference and the conference dinner via these webpages. 

Conference

Conference dinner

Important dates:

• 1 March registration opens
• 15 April deadline for submissions (abstracts for paper presentations, ethics yarns or method workshops)
• 30 April notification of abstract acceptance
• 1 June deadline for registration

Conference fee is 2800 NOK excluding VAT.

Conference dinner is 600 NOK excluding VAT.

Contact info and abstract submissions: email barnconference@ipl.ntnu.no

The conference encompasses inspiring keynote talks, paper sessions, ethics yarns and method workshops.

Paper sessions

The paper presentation sessions take place in smaller groups. Each paper session lasts 2 hours and encompasses four presentations (30 minutes each) to have in-depth, engaged, and constructive discussions on each paper presentation. 

To present a paper, please email us an abstract (max. 200 words) by 15 April 2025. 

Abstracts may be conceptual, methodological, ethical or empirical, but must be connected to the conference theme and have a well-defined scope and structure. 

Ethics Yarn Sessions

Experimenting with new conference forms, Ethics Yarn Sessions attempt to create collective, bottom-up and curiosity-driven discussions. Inspired by Aboriginal communication forms and knowledge systems (Yunkaporta 2020, 14), the yarn sessions aim to generate deep exploratory conversations about research ethics. A yarn could be initiated by one or more participants (for instance, a research group) by suggesting topics around ethics that are uncertain or unsolved or perhaps filled with tensions. Curiosity-driven yarn is a powerful tool for addressing ethical dilemmas. Through open and honest conversations, researchers can explore different perspectives, discuss uncertainties, and collaboratively increase our ethical awareness, competence and sensitivity. 

Each yarn will consist of a maximum of ten people, take place in a relaxed ambience, and be designed to generate authentic conversations and new insights into research and practice. We will encourage participants to develop yarns into co-authored conceptual, ethical, methodological and/or reflexive papers for our forthcoming special issue.

To organise a yarn, please email us a short introduction (max. 400 words, by 15 April 2025) with a dilemma, a case or perhaps a question related to research ethics that will trigger people’s curiosity, ideas, and engagement. 

Hands-on Method Workshops

In intensive method workshops, conference participants can either lead or participate in hands-on activities, trying various methods, tools, and approaches for research with children and young people. These workshops have a dual purpose: researchers showcase and test their methods while participants learn and experiment with new research techniques, expanding their research toolkit. Everyone involved will be able to dive into practical, interactive activities that bring research tools to life. By experiencing these methods firsthand, the participants gain a more profound, embodied understanding. This sets the stage for engaging debriefing sessions, discussing each method's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.

A method workshop can be initiated by scholars with experience with tools that suit research with children and young people and who wish to explore methods with conference participants.  

We also encourage the practice field to run method workshops, including practitioners from governmental, non-governmental, and/or child and youth organisations, and we would warmly welcome young people to participate. 
To organise a method workshop, please email us a short introduction (max. 400 words by 15 April 2025) describing the method, its aim, and how it will be organised. 

Rose Martin

Title keynote: “Harder than you think”: Recalibrating methodologies for radical hope in education

Rose Martin (PhD) is dean of the Faculty of Education, Arts and Culture at Nord University and a professor of Arts Education. Rose was a dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Prior to joining Nord University she held academic positions at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. Rose has extensive experience in research and teaching in the Middle East, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. Her research interests include dance education; arts and politics; and inclusive arts practices. Rose has authored over 70 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and books.

Linnea Bodén

Title keynote: Research on, to, with, for, by children – Where do we go from here?

Linnea Bodén is Associate Professor at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research integrates theoretical and empirical approaches, often engaging with posthumanist and post-qualitative perspectives. A central part of Bodén’s academic work concerns relations between methodologies and ethics in research involving young children. She has recently published the open access book Development and Postdevelopmentalism in Studies on, to, with, for, by Young Children (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), co-authored with professor Hillevi Lenz Taguchi. The book takes a new approach to the concept of postdevelopmentalism and discusses how collaborative forms of inquiry can involve the stakeholders and actors whom the research concerns, specifically the participating children.

Iram Khawaja

Title keynote: Methodological othering – on (colour-)blind angles, (de)colonial gazes and an ethics of discomfort

Iram Khawaja is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Her research primarily focuses on ethnic and religious minoritized children and youth, exploring the processes of othering, racialization, and inclusion within diverse communities and educational settings.

Methodologically, Khawaja is dedicated to developing and employing qualitative methods that emphasize the dynamics of researcher positioning, engaged pedagogical strategies, and participatory methods auto-ethnographic and visual narrative methods such as memory work and identity mapping.

A significant aspect of Khawaja's work involves creating critical spaces for dialogue and reflection with students and research participants, addressing the ethics of discomfort surrounding sensitive topics like racism, discrimination, and othering.

The venue of the conference is the ISAK centre, located at Prinsens gate 44, 7011 Trondheim. The ISAK centre, which comes under the Culture Department of Trondheim Local Authority, is a cultural centre for young people who want to perform, create or experience culture.

The ISAK centre has lots of room in one of the stylish town houses connected to the wharves. The centre has a labyrinth of rooms and floors which provide facilities for the conference activities. In the middle of the centre is the café, Coffee Annan, the heart of the house.

The conference dinner will be held at Rockheim Panorama, located at Brattørkaia 14, 7010 Trondheim.

Rockheim Panorama is located on the 5th floor of Rockheim, Norway's National Museum of Popular Music. The restaurant has a stunning view of the city and the fjord which can be enjoyed from the large outdoor terrace, and a menu prepared with care and creativity.

The conference dinner fee will be NOK 600 ex VAT (NOK 750 including VAT) and consists of a three-course meal, including two drinks and coffee.