The ‘Dear Researcher’ workshop that I facilitated at the 2024 BERA Conference, had developed through years of research working alongside children and young people as co-researchers. The intention of the workshop was to ask attendees to think about the central processes, characteristics and responsibilities involved when undertaking research with and not on children and young people. This blog post shares some insights and practical examples into how researchers can ethically work alongside children and young people in participatory research spaces.

Usually, I work with small groups of youth co-researchers, around four to eight, so initially I set one table for six delegates. Imagining that people may not have found my abstract among the many other wonderful presentations and workshops that day, I had brought enough playdough, handouts and LEGO for 10 people. I had vastly underestimated the interest in engaging with conversations about participatory research with children and young people, and as more delegates entered, I felt encouraged and excited about what kinds of conversations and insights would fill the room. Each table had a brilliant mix of post-graduate researchers, university and school staff, all ready to engage in conversations about youth co-research.

‘Our “thoughtful naming” approach enabled attendees to consider how it feels to choose names within research, to consider pseudonyms in relation to their engagement with the workshop, and offered a tool that researchers could practically apply with children and young people in the future.’

When all 34 members of our session had a much-reduced piece of playdough, everyone set about making research avatars. We adopted the approach of choosing pseudonyms described as ‘thoughtful naming’ (Allen & Wiles, 2016), where researchers respectfully work with participants to choose names that honour the participant and their relationship to the research. Many delegates took great care in sculpting and shaping their playdough, some identifying specific characteristics and others sharing traits that reflected their own personalities (see figure 1). This enabled attendees to consider how it feels to choose names within research, to consider pseudonyms in relation to their engagement with the workshop, and offered a tool that researchers could practically apply with children and young people in the future.

Figure 1: Photo of one member’s research avatar

Continuing through the session we took the opportunity to consider the ‘how’ of constructing research spaces with children and young people. As a group we explored:

• standing and imagining what spaces of collaborative and creative co-research could look and feel like (Inspired by Michelle Fine^[1] and Rob Hopkins (Hopkins, 2024)
• using LEGO to build models of co-research spaces and collaborative partnerships (see figure 2)
• discussing ‘rights in research’ and what this meant for members by drawing around our hands and filling them with rights based upon our values and principles as researchers, educators and academics
• creating a final piece of reflection and exploration about research processes by engaging with an emotion-word resource adapted from Dewer et al.’s (2009) research (see figure 3).

Figure 2: Photo from the workshop taken by BERA

Using the emotion-word resource, and considering all the discussions held throughout the workshop, each member of the workshop collaborated on a letter entitled ‘Dear young person’. We finished the session by reading out these meaningful invitations to young people interested in engaging within spaces of co-research. Members acknowledged the exciting, yet complex, nature of engaging with research and all shared similarities in their underpinning values and principles of the way in which they wanted the experience to feel like.

Figure 3: Guide to using emotion word resource

Some of the conversations I overheard during the ‘Dear Researcher’ workshop included school staff imagining how they could transform physical spaces within school to enable engagement with research practices, and researchers discussing their own positive and negative emotions as they are about to embark upon research projects and how they could work to capture these. Many delegates also shared that they would take some of the practical examples away to work with children and young people within their own practice.

The workshop, and this blog post, are intended as a call to action for academics and educators who undertake co-research with children and young people, to collectively broaden the conversation and enhance practice within participatory research spaces.

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ9I8CZaW6I

References

Allen, R. E. S., & Wiles, J. L. (2016). A rose by any other name: Participants choosing research pseudonyms. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 13(2), 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2015.1133746

Dewar, B., Mackay, R., Smith, S., Pullin, S., & Tocher, R. (2010). Use of emotional touchpoints as a method of tapping into the experience of receiving compassionate care in a hospital setting. Journal of Research in Nursing, 15(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987109352932 

Hopkins, R. (2024). Introduction. In The profile of imagining (pp. 1–16). Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198896173.003.0001