Research “about” and “with” children from diverse cultural backgrounds in Poland – dilemmas and ethical challenges

  • Author: Urszula Markowska-Manista
  • Institution: University of Warsaw
  • ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0667-4164
  • Year of publication: 2021
  • Source: Show
  • Pages: 233-244
  • DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/em.2021.01.14
  • PDF: em/14/em1414.pdf

The text refers to contemporary research about children from diverse cultural backgrounds in Polish educational institutions. I reflect on the need to decolonise this research and to sensitise scholars to the ethics of research “about” and “with” children. I argue that this should be oriented towards participation and the right to be properly researched, as postulated by J. Ennew. Ethics is crucial in the search for non-discriminatory research strategies (also in the area of affirmative action) due to the dominating research “about” children rather than “with” children or from the perspective of children. I reflect on research practices with children from diverse cultural backgrounds in Polish schools and preschools. I also draw attention to the ethical need to verify research about this group of children in the light of protecting their rights in a new country, language, education system and new culture. The absence of children’s voices and the prevalence of narrations about them as well as the lack of participatory research with this group of children preclude a deeper insight into their situation and ways of looking at the world. With this article I aim at making children’s voices heard.

REFERENCES:

  • Alcoff, L. 2009. The problem of speaking for others. In: Jackson, A. and Mazzei, L. eds. Voice in qualitative inquiry: challenging conventional, in­terpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research. London – New York: Routledge, pp. 117–135.
  • Alderson, P. and Morrow, V. 2011. The ethics of research with children and young people: A practical handbook. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
  • Alderson, P. and Morrow, V. 2020. The Ethics of research with children and young people. Los Angeles: SAGE.
  • Alderson, P. 2001. “Research by children.” International Journal of Social Re­search Methodology. 4 (2), pp. 139–153.
  • Balogun, B. and Joseph-Salisbury, R. 2020. Black/White Mixed-Race Experi ences of Race and Racism in Poland. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 44 (2), pp. 234–251.
  • Balogun, B. 2020. Race and racism in Poland: Theorising and contextualising ‘Polish-centrism’. The Sociological Review. 68 (6), pp. 1196–1211.
  • Clark, A. and Moss, P. 2001. Listening to young children. London: National Children’s Bureau and Rowntree Foundation.
  • Christensen, P. and Prout, A. 2002. Working with ethical symmetry in social research with children. Childhood. 9 (4), pp. 477–497.
  • Cheney, K.E. 2018. Decolonizing Childhood Studies: Overcoming Patriar­chy and Prejudice in Child-Related Research and Practice. In Spyrou, S., Rosen, R. and Cook, D.T. eds. Reimagining Childhood Studies. London – New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 91 – 104.
  • Ennew, J. 1995. Outside childhood: Street children’s rights. In: The handbook of children’s rights: Comparative policy and practice. London: Routledge, pp. 201–215.
  • Ennew, J. and Plateau, D.P. 2005. I cry when I am hit: Children have the right to be properly researched. Paper contributed to UNESCO. Eliminating Corpo­ral Punishment–The Way Forward to Constructive Child Discipline.
  • Feuerherm, E. 2019. A researcher’s coming-of-age through participatory ac­tion research: The intersections of cultures, identities and institutions. In: Warriner, D.S. and Bigelow, M. eds. Critical reflections on research methods: Power and equity in complex multilingual contexts. Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, pp. 53–70.
  • Friedlander, F. 2001, July. Participatory action research as a means of integrat­ing theory and practice. In: Action Research Symposium, Alexandria, VA.
  • Foroutan, N. 2019. Die postmigrantische Gesellschaft. Transcript-Verlag.
  • Hart, R.A. 1992. Children’s participation: From Tokenism to citizenship. In­nocentii Essays. 4, pp. 3–38.
  • Hopkins, P. 2008. Ethical issues in research with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Children’s Geographies. 6 (1), pp. 37–48.
  • Huijsmans, R. 2011. Child migration and questions of agency. Development and Change. 42 (5), pp. 1307–1321.
  • Lahman, M.K. 2008. Always othered: Ethical research with children. Journal of Early Childhood Research. 6 (3), pp. 281–300.
  • Liebel, M. 2017. „Dzieci bez dzieciństwa? Konceptualizacje dzieciństw(a) w Krajach Globalnego Południa w świetle teorii postkolonialnych”. In: Liebel, M. and Markowska-Manista, U. Prawa dziecka w kontekście międzykulturo­wości. Janusz Korczak na nowo odczytywany. Warszawa: APS, pp. 182–202.
  • Liebel, M. 2017. Badania realizowane przez dzieci: doświadczenia z dziećmi „niedopasowanymi”. In: Liebel, M. and Markowska-Manista, U. Prawa dziecka w kontekście międzykulturowości. Janusz Korczak na nowo odczy­tywany. Warszawa: APS, pp. 221–240
  • Liebel, M. 2020. Decolonizing Childhoods: From Exclusion to Dignity. Bristol – Chicago: Policy Press.
  • Liebel, M. and Markowska-Manista, U. 2017. Prawa dziecka w kontekście międzykulturowości: Janusz Korczak na nowo odczytany. Warszawa: APS.
  • Liebel, M. 2012. The role of children in shaping new contexts of children’s rights. In: Liebel, M. Children’s Rights from Below. London: Palgrave Mac­millan, pp. 199–225.
  • Lundy, L. 2007. ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the Unit­ed Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal. 33 (6), pp. 927–942.
  • Markowska-Manista, U. 2018. The ethical dilemmas of research with chil­dren from the countries of the Global South. Whose participation? Polish Journal of Educational Studies. 71 (1), pp. 51–65.
  • Markowska-Manista, U. 2020. Clarity about the purpose of research, In: Alderson, P. and Morrow, V. The Ethics of Research with Children and Young People. Los Angeles: SAGE, pp. 22–23.
  • Morrow, V. 2008. Ethical dilemmas in research with children and young peo­ple about their social environments. Children’s Geographies. 6 (1), pp. 49– –61.
  • Nieuwenhuys, O. and Hanson, K. 2020. Navigating between research, teach­ing and activism in children’s rights and childhood studies. In: Budde, R. and Markowska-Manista, U. eds. Childhood and Children’s Research between Research and Activism. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 121–135.
  • Nigel, T. and O’kane, C. 1998. The ethics of participatory research with chil­dren. Children & Society. 12 (5), pp. 336–348.
  • Olszewska, A.I. 2020. Counter-Stories from Poland: Identities And Language Identities of Adolescent Refugee-Background Students, University of Flor­ida (dissertation).
  • Punch, S. 2002. Research with children: the same or different from research with adults? 9 (3), pp. 321–341.
  • Pietrusińska, M. J. 2020. Reprezentacje uchodźców w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej –przykład dyskursu prouchodźczego. Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny. 46 (175), pp. 47–66.
  • Paris, D. and Winn, M.T. 2014. Preface. In: Paris, D. and Winn, M.T. eds. Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 13–20.
  • Paris, D. 2019. Naming beyond the white settler colonial gaze in educational research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 32 (3), pp. 217–224.
  • Solórzano, D.G. and Yosso, T.J. 2002. Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry. 8 (1), pp. 23–44.
  • Spivak, G.Ch. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? Reflections on the history of an idea. In: Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. eds. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan, pp. 21–78.
  • Spyrou, S. 2011. The limits of children’s voices: From authenticity to critical reflexive representation. Childhood. 18 (2), pp. 151–165.
  • Spyrou, S. 2018. Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Twum-Danso Imoh, A. 2019. Terminating Childhood: Dissonance and Synergy between Global Children’s Rights Norms and Local Discourses About the Transition from Childhood to Adulthood in Ghana. Human Rights Quarterly. 41(1), pp. 160–182.
  • Walczak A. 2006. Koncepcja rozumienia Innego w kategorii spotkania, In: Marynowicz-Hetka, E. ed. Pedagogika społeczna. Podręcznik akademicki, vol. 1. Warszawa: PWN, pp. 130–139.
  • Wołowicz, A. 2018. Badania partycypacyjne jako odpowiedźna założenia spo­łecznego modelu niepełnosprawności? Studia de Cultura. 10 (1), pp. 165– –177.
  • Vandenhole, W. 2020. Decolonising children’s rights: of vernacularisation and interdisciplinarity. In: Budde, R. and Markowska-Manista, U. eds. Child­hood and Children’s Research between Research and Activism. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 187–206.
  • Viruru, R. 2005. The impact of postcolonial theory on early childhood educa­tion. Journal of Education. 35 (1), pp. 7–30.

ethics of research “with” and “about” children decolonisation of research “about” and “with” children research “about” and “with” children from diverse cultural backgrounds intercultural pedagogy

Message to:

 

 

© 2017 Adam Marszałek Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Projekt i wykonanie Pollyart