Overview
This module is designed to provide a fundamental grounding in a range of appropriate research methods and research skills along with the opportunity to specialise in more advanced training in qualitative participant centered research, ethical frameworks and in practical applications of research techniques. Children and young people have become a central feature within social science challenging previously held notions of competence. The discourse of child and youth advocacy and participation rights for children are now at the forefront of childhood and youth studies and increasingly recognised in globalised childhood and youth policy and legislation.
These developments have necessitated alternative child/young person centred research methods that provide opportunities for the active participation and meaningful inclusion of children and young people as social agents. The idealisations of children and young people as ‘beings’ rather than as ‘becomings’ and as ‘experts in their own lives’ have gained consideration attention in the conceptual research ‘new paradigms’. This module enables students to become familiar with the methodological approaches and developments in research with children and young people but it also provides opportunities for a reflexive approach. The critical approach adopted encourages students to question the political, cultural, economic and social context in which research is situated. Students critically examine the previously dominant approaches in research, to evaluate research methodologies and methods deemed ‘appropriate’ to understanding children’s and young people’s experiences in a variety of contexts. However, the module also critically examines the approaches of these more reflexive, creative and innovative ‘child/young person-centred’ participatory approaches which actively attempt to challenge notions of adult ‘expert’ knowledge and questions how child/young person centred these approaches actually are.
In addition students will have knowledge of the historical, theoretical, and philosophical issues underlying the development of research paradigms in childhood and youth studies. In exploring methodologies that draw on children’s strengths rather than focusing on assumed incompetence, issues of power and social exclusion can allegedly be addressed but whilst this facilitates a more reflexive approach to understanding children’s and young people’s participation in research, it is questioned whether methodological reflexivity can overcome the more traditional power relationships and conceptual dualisms that still dominate the research arena.
Aims
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To provide students with a comprehensive understanding of and practical experiences of a range of research methods, approaches and methodologies appropriate to undertaking ethical research in a variety of contexts.
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To introduce students to the underlying epistemological, methodological, political and ethical dimensions of the research process.
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To allow students to develop and discuss key debates and issues in the advanced scholarship of childhood and youth studies.
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To encourage the acquisition of skills to enable students to work with a high level of independence and originality and to provide opportunities for feedback and development.
Learning Outcomes
To complete this module successfully, a student will have demonstrated their ability to:
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Exhibit a systematic understanding of knowledge of various research approaches, designs and methodologies appropriate to undertaking ethical research;
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Critically evaluate contemporary debate in relation to conceptual developments in childhood and youth studies and in the related new paradigm of childhood and youth research;
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Critically evaluate and analyse methodologies and previous/contemporary research to propose new research directions and future directions;
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Exercise independent learning and work with originality and to communicate conclusions accurately and clearly.
Further Information
The Research Methods module brings together a range of approaches and indeed the practical experiences of academics and research projects where social and sociological research has been undertaken, their theoretical and conceptual underpinnings and the policy/practice applications that these research endeavours have had. The module covers a range of methodologies including participatory and ethnographic approaches; critical discourse analysis; material culture/analysis; researching sensitive topics; biographical and life history research; virtual methodologies and secondary analysis of archived data sets.
Particular topics/issues are explored from different research approaches, for example; educational perspectives, exploring fathering and mothering; adoption; online and gender identities in late modernity, youth justice, and childhood transitions; children and young people with disabilities and children’s perceptions of death.