This blog post documents the journey to co-author outcomes of a Students as Researcher project (Fielding & Bragg, 2003) as a perspectives and reflections article for the Curriculum Journal (see Wall et al., 2023). We were pleased to find that authentic involvement of young people in academic research dissemination was broadly welcomed by people we spoke to, but the academic publishing systems provided multiple unexpected stumbling blocks along the way. We suggest these may hinder inclusive authorship, and innovative, participatory co-researcher methodologies.

The project

In our project, 28 young researchers (aged 11–13 years) at a Scottish secondary school engaged in research projects that explored improvements to their school community. The university team provided 10 research training sessions and a university visit to guide the Students as Researchers process. Throughout, the young people were positioned as experts with facilitated autonomy over the research design, intent, process and outcomes (Thomson & Gunter 2007). Young people and adults shared the locus of control for the research as equitably as possible. Therefore, the students and our team desired to maintain a co-researcher approach at the dissemination stage. The young people wrote up their projects, created several social media posts, and filmed a video shared by the school. As a result, their voices shaped dissemination of their projects. We wanted to continue this practice when publishing for academic audiences. To do so unaccredited to the young people felt disingenuous and unethical given their expertise and efforts.

Writing and submission

The academic team led the article writing with two student groups’ written contributions. The journal’s word limit was 1,000 words. We committed 250 words to each group’s verbatim, unedited writing – half the article. We supported the young people in drafting, but they had final say. We framed their contribution with the project context and our own reflections. We all, including the young people, had oversight of the finished piece – a true collaborative writing experience.

The real challenges started when we submitted to the publisher’s online system, which required authors’ forenames and surnames, affiliations and email addresses. We couldn’t provide surnames nor email addresses for the young people, as we had no ethical clearance for revealing their identities. A forenames-only approach kept them relatively anonymous, yet accredited. (We still felt this signalled an inequality in authorship: maybe we should have all been first names only?) We relied on a note to the editors to state our intent about the full author list, and asked for these names to be added at publication stage.

‘Throughout the process of publication, we met repeated challenges about the status of our young co-authors … The system itself created issues.’

Publication

Throughout the process of publication, we met repeated challenges about the status of our young co-authors. Their names were omitted in pre-publication proofs or formatted differently from the adults. These errors were not wilful, but the result of the journal systems and constraints of what counts for verified ‘academic’ authorship. We persisted in ensuring students were named as authors, and the journal staff were supportive of our intent, if a bit surprised. The system itself created issues.

Questions arose like, how do you cite a paper when some of the authors are listed without surnames? Automated citations processes didn’t work for our paper, and as a result we added a ‘how to cite this paper’ section on the advice of the editors. When we went to enter the paper on the university system, the same issue arose: the young people’s names had to be added manually. (The trick, for those people heading down a similar path, is to add the forenames in the surname field, although affiliation can still be problematic.)

Concluding thoughts

We were trying to do something unusual – there is little precedent we know of to attribute co-authorship to young people in this way. However, current work in student voice and participatory methodology shows an increasing range of research leadership from marginalised groups (see for example Mitra, 2006). A more flexible authorship system could amplify such voices. Our six-month road to accurate authorship made us consider a related cultural assumption. To presume authors will always have forenames and surnames is a marker of Northern hemisphere dominance (Openjuru et al., 2015). Academic authorship attribution systems are not set up for varying global naming practices, including single-name persons – they are excluded by proxy.

We are very grateful to the editorial team at the Curriculum Journal who persevered to enable us to enact the ethical prerogative to name the young people as co-authors. We hope that this sets a precedent for more inclusive academic authorship practices.