Ethical Research Involving Children

The adult in the room: The push and pull of parental involvement in research with children.

Wiedenman, E. M., Lee, K. M., & Hunleth, J. (2023). The adult in the room: The push and pull of parental involvement in research with children. Childhood, 30(3), pp. 317-333.

Abstract: Parental involvement in research where children are the primary study participants is frequent but under-analyzed. To understand such dynamics in research with children, we examined children’s (ages 8–14) interactions with parents who came in and out of view during our virtual interviews in our study, Photographing Health by Rural Adolescents in the MidwEst (PHRAME). We identified the pull and push of this adult involvement — a choreography in which children were active participants. Our analysis demonstrates that such interactions provide important data about how children navigated power dynamics, and also offer integral insights on how they were doing health and care. (Abstract reproduced with permission. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Childhood, 30/3, August 2023 by SAGE Publications, Ltd., All rights reserved. © SAGE Publications, Ltd.).