Child-Centered/Child-Led Research

There is a growing agreement within childhood studies to involve children as participants. Researchers engaged in the social studies of childhood, early childhood, and primary school education; human geography; or social anthropology seek to establish research practices that are child centred or even child led. The methodology of child-centred and child-led research indicates a fundamental shift from treating children as objects to including them as important actors within the research itself. Traditional methods of developmental psychology, sociology, and education are admonished about reducing children to objects of interest who have little to say about themselves.

Whereas the adult researcher remains the transcendental signifier, children are often seen as having deficits both substantively and methodologically. Against this critique, child-centred and child-led research practices are valued as alternatives ...