[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Ethical Issues Concerning Children
Concerns with the ethical and moral implications regarding children have been widely discussed. These concerns have been related to the appropriateness and desirability of involving children directly in research, in terms of their competence and vulnerability as research subjects. Based on adultist assumptions, the view of children as incompetent and in need of protection and control has underpinned much research involving children. In this regard, the research focus governed by adult interests has resulted in children being perceived as ‘either at the mercy of or posing risk to adult social worlds’. To these ends, children’s own interests, experiences and knowledge have often been excluded from the research enterprise because they have been perceived as poor informants, not able to fully understand ‘many of the issues which confront their daily lives’.
While the validity and accuracy of children’s responses have been questioned in conjunction with debate over the issue of protecting children from researcher exploitation in the form of intrusive or potentially distressing questioning, there is now strong consensus that ‘children’s views can and ought to be taken seriously’. There is also strong consensus on the significance for researchers to consider particular ethical and moral issues when working with children, with concern for the issue of researcher intention and the notion of research with or for children, rather than on children.
In this regard, ethical questions concerning researcher intention and justification such as ‘Why am I doing this study?’, ‘What is my relationship to the participants?’, ‘Who benefits from this study?’, ‘Who may be at risk in the contexts I am studying?’ and ‘Should I intervene on behalf of those at risk?’ are seen as critical assert that the justification for the research - for collecting the data - should be ‘to help make children heard.....
