La ricerca con i bambini: una systematic review

What role do children take when they become part of a research process? The scientific literature shows that inquiries has been conducted for a long time on children (Hill, 2006). The “research on children’s” approach considers children as vulnerable, incompetent and incapable of providing reliable accounts; therefore children are passively involved in a research process, confining them in a position of minimal involvement in the various activities of the research. In the last decades this approach have been criticized by a significant moment, which works on the recognition of children’s participation. The perspective of this movement found an important moment in the publication of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). The Convention represents a turning point in the way of considering childhood. The sociology of childhood (Mayall, 1994) has opened new perspectives for the participation of children in research processes and, in this way, it has made a significant contribution to the definition of a new approach, named the research with children. This new approach recognizes children as important social actors, rights holders and competent, indeed they are considered key informants of their worlds. The competent child takes an active role in a research process, particularly through the adoption of methods that enable him/her to be heard and there has been an increase of attention to the ethics dimension in the child involvement. Starting form this paradigms’ shift, it is interesting to investigate if and how this new approach has impacted the research landscape on childhood. In order to identify the possible changes I conducted a systematic literature review (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006): following an interdisciplinary perspective I analyzed the researches reported in 4 scientific journals to see whether and to what extent they are conducted with reference to research with children and, in particular, the features that define this approach. The systematic literature review is a type of research synthesis: a systematic and rigorous analysis of secondary sources composed by specific procedures with the aim of producing new knowledge on a particular subject; in my case, the research with children. The articles chosen for the review were scientific articles, which describe researches involving children and from different discipline perspectives (psychology, anthropology, sociology, pedagogy). For each of these disciplines a scientific journal has been identified, respectively, Child Development, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Childhood and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. The identification of the sources for analysis was therefore carried out through hand-searching of these key journals, following by the application of selection criteria. The results of the systematic review is a picture on the extent and the ways in which the research with children has been carry out. In particular, the results outline the principles promoted by this approach: participation, listening to the children and attention to ethics. The data show that most of the children are actively involved in research as a primary source for data’s collection, indeed they are the key informants directly interviewed by researchers. However only a small percentage of the researches analyzed follows a real participation process in which children have the opportunity to express their point of view on the matter. In most of the researches, children respond to suggested stimuli and in accordance with the instructions given to them and, in some case, with a defined range of given responses. The "children's voices" are mostly heard in natural settings, particularly through the use of the interview and on issues that affect their experiences, firstly school and family. The ethical attention of researchers, expressed in percentage, is discreet and it is particularly focused on issues related to ethical codes: informed consent and ensuring data confidentiality. The results point out the complexity of the principles promoted by the research with children, indeed they represent a significant framework for the reflection on the methods used in doing research with children and an useful tool for designing new researches on childhood.