Empowering voices: Implementing ethical practices for young children’s assent in digital research.
Mirabella, A. M., Berson, I. R., & Berson, M. J. (2025). Empowering voices: Implementing ethical practices for young children’s assent in digital research. Education Sciences, 15(5), 571. This is an open access article. The full article is freely available to view and download via the Publisher’s Link below. This article examines how young children express […]
‘Wow, it were like wow’: The importance and opportunity of researchers feeding back research output and being fed back upon with care experienced young people.
Matthews, T. (2026). ‘Wow, it were like wow’: The importance and opportunity of researchers feeding back research output and being fed back upon with care experienced young people. Children & Society, 40(4), pp. 621-629. Abstract: Research involving young people has become increasingly common and is widely regarded as good practice, though the ‘how-tos’ of this […]
Beyond compliance: Reframing research ethics with children in vulnerable positions through recognition and moral duty.
Blessed-Sayah, S. (2026). Beyond compliance: Reframing research ethics with children in vulnerable positions through recognition and moral duty. Childhood, 33(3), pp. 511-528. Abstract: Procedural ethics often proves insufficient for research involving children in vulnerable positions, risking superficial engagement and extractivist practices, and neglecting participant dignity. The article moves beyond compliance, presenting a framework that integrates […]
Ethical considerations: Play for fun and play for data collection.
Dockett, S. (2021). Ethical considerations: Play for fun and play for data collection. In Arnott, L., & Wall, K. (Eds.). Research through Play: Participatory Methods in Early Childhood. London: Sage. In a broader book exploring play as method in rights-based research, this chapter critically explores play and offers important guidance from an ethical perspective, including […]
‘What do you do if they all say no?’: (Re)negotiating ongoing assent with young children.
Paxman, T. (2025). ‘What do you do if they all say no?’: (Re)negotiating ongoing assent with young children. Ethnography and Education, Published On-line Ahead of print, pp. 1–14. This paper offers an insider view and honest, reflective account of renegotiating on-going informed consent (or assent) with young children in a school setting in the UK. […]
Tensions, assumptions and situated ethics: Attuning to the unpredictability of ethics in early childhood research participation.
Hendry, H., Teszenyi, E., Rodriguez-Leon, L., Maynes, M. L., Dorrian, J., & Edwards, T. (2025). Tensions, assumptions and situated ethics: Attuning to the unpredictability of ethics in early childhood research participation. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 33(3), pp. 483–496. In this paper, members of the Open University Early Childhood research group share and discuss […]
Ethical considerations of children’s involvement in school-based research: balancing children’s provision, protection, and participation rights.
Robinson, C. (2025). Ethical considerations of children’s involvement in school-based research: Balancing children’s provision, protection, and participation rights. Research Ethics, 21(3), pp. 480-502. Abstract: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out the rights to which all children should have access. Included in the Convention is children’s right to participate and […]
Picturing informed consent: Exploring participatory visual methods to enhance meaningful consent conversations with young people.
Thompson, J. A., Gonzalez, E., & Ruiz-Casares, M. (2025). Picturing informed consent: Exploring participatory visual methods to enhance meaningful consent conversations with young people. Research Ethics, Published Online Ahead of Print. Abstract: Informed consent (IC) is a cornerstone of ethical research, ensuring participants are informed and provide voluntary agreement to participate. Yet IC remains complex, […]
The Research Ethics Tree: engaging children and young people with research ethics using an interactive tool.
Robinson, L. (2025). The Research Ethics Tree: engaging children and young people with research ethics using an interactive tool. Journal of Creative Research Methods, 1(1), pp. 158-166. This open access research note shares the ‘Research Ethics Tree,’ a tool created to meaningfully engage children and young people in on-going, interactive conversations about informed consent and […]
“It helped me feel like a researcher”: Reflections on a capacity-building program to support teens as co-researchers on a participatory project.
Nelson Ferguson, K., Coen, S. E., & Gilliland, J. (2025). “It helped me feel like a researcher”: Reflections on a capacity-building program to support teens as co-researchers on a participatory project. Journal of Adolescent Research, 40(4), pp. 827-858. In this paper the authors describe the Teens Talk Vaping project which took a by-youth-for-youth research approach […]