Building capacity for ethical research with children and young people: an international research project to examine the ethical issues and challenges in undertaking research with and for children in different majority and minority world contexts

The Childwatch International Research Network is a global, non-profit, non-governmental network of institutions that collaborate in child research for the purpose of promoting child rights and improving children’s wellbeing around the world. In April 2010, the Childwatch Board approved the establishment of a new Thematic Study Group to undertake an international scoping project entitled Building Capacity for Ethical Research with Children and Young People. This project aimed to identify the ethical issues and challenges in undertaking research with and for children and young people in different majority and minority world contexts; and to identify and collate existing ethics guidelines and resources. It was anticipated that the findings would extend existing knowledge and provide information and resources that could usefully contribute to promoting the conduct of ethical, respectful research in different cultural and social contexts. This report presents the findings from the Childwatch project. To the best of our knowledge it is the first international project of its kind to identify and explore the ethical issues facing researchers, in a range of contexts, when undertaking research with children, particularly in relation to participatory research with children