CCJHR Seminar To Focus on the Challenges & Opportunities Arising From Undertaking Research With Children & Young People From Challenging Backgrounds

31 May 2019

The Seminar will take place on 4 June at UCC.

This seminar will provide insights into the challenges and opportunities that arise when carrying out research in challenging environments, with a particular focus on research with children. The event will showcase research carried out by three invited speakers:

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Dr. Cath Larkins, Japan-UK: Investigating the rights of disabled young people in Japan and the UK through an international collaboration of young researchers

Over the past 20 years, concerns have been raised in UN Concluding Observations regarding violations of the rights of disabled young people in both the UK and Japan. This prompted a UK-based group of young community researchers (aged 12-24) to initiate participatory research investigating disabled children and young people’s rights to education, work, leisure and travel. Interviews were undertaken with 77 disabled children and young people (aged 9-26) in Japan and 33 in the UK. Data was analysed by 23 young community researchers and 3 academics in the UK and Japan. Finding have informed the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child Recommendations to the Japanese government. The study, approved by the UCLan Psysoc ethic committee, enable a youth-initiated approach to designing, conducting, analysis and disseminating a participatory research process. Data generation methods involved providing information as well as eliciting views through drawing, graphics, focus groups and interviews. The methods were chosen by young researchers based on their experience of using a range of methodologies in previous related studies, and further piloting of these in a training session they delivered in Japan. Co-created data analysis tools were also utilised. The findings show the impact of neoliberal parenting cultures and the role of professional relationships and friendships through which rights are and are not fulfilled.

 Marie Hutton, Research with Prisoners: Getting In, Staying In and Getting Out

In this talk I will draw on my doctoral research conducted in two medium security prisons in England. Each prison was, unsurprisingly, a complex institution with specific day-to-day practices and emotional landscapes and yet, common themes around the practicalities, the perils, the pitfalls and the pluses of undertaking research with prisoners on this topic arose. Alongside a brief overview of some of my findings, here I will discuss these recurring concerns beginning with how to ‘get in’ and the specifics of navigating both academic and prison service ethics procedures. I will also discuss the rationales for, and the opportunities and challenges of the different methodological approaches; specifically undertaking observations and conducting semi-structured interviews and collecting. How the choice of methods influenced the ultimate findings will also be discussed. Finally I will consider how I exited the prison and what protocols were put in place to ensure as smooth a post-research transition as possible.

Martin Manby, COPING Research 2009 - 2013 : Methodology and Challenges

The COPING Research, led by the University of Huddersfield and funded by the European Union, was a four-country study (UK, Romania, Germany and Sweden) resilience focussed study into the impact of parental imprisonment on children and young people. Martin’s presentation will explore ethical dilemmas in directly involving children in research interviews, and the challenges of conducting the research in different countries with distinctive cultures about the role and rights of children. Children’s contributions to presenting the research findings and influencing policy and recommendations will be covered. COPING used adopted a fairly structured approach to qualitative interviews to ensure consistency across the 4 countries. Martin will reflect on whether a more open- ended approach would have been possible.

Event details:

The seminar will run from 17:30-19:00. Registration will be open from 17:00 and tea and coffee will be available. 

This event is kindly supported by the College of Business and Law Research Strategic Fund, UCC.

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