Are young children respected and cared for or overlooked by the practitioner or researcher’s personal goals in research? Are issues, related to ethics in relation to children’s consent and participation in research lost in translation especially in terms of expectations and interpretation in different cultural contexts. This paper explores the diverse perspectives of issues around ethics related to research with young children in early years settings.. It questions the perceived tensions around adults’ decisions about children’s participation in research. The issues related to children’s voice, gatekeepers of consent, participation, power and children’s rights will be discussed and the extent to which they influence the decisions which adults make about children’s participation in any research.
The topic of children's participation in various issues was updated in the second half of the last century. It was largely due to the adoption of an important international document such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children are as important participants in social life as adults so they have the right to express their opinions on various issues related to their activities, as well as to take into account these opinions by adults in decision-making in the family, in school, in the community, etc. Russian society is dominated by the traditional discourse of the perception of children as human becoming, socially and mentally immature, not-yet-an-adult. To study the parental discourse of children's participation in family issues, empirical material of the network discussion organized at the parental forum called Vladmama (Vladivostok, Russia) is used. In order to organize the discussion, an information injection was carried out. It was the description of the imagined problematic situation of child-parental relations on the issue of child’s participation in family affairs. The 81 messages received from 25 users were analyzed according to James Gee approach. Seven Gee’s “building tasks” (Activities; Identities; Relationships; Politics; Connections; Sign Systems and Knowledge) are researched on the materials of mother’s forum. The process of creating value is always connected with the exercise of power. In our case, mothers using their power as parents redefine the meanings of children's participation. The main resource that opens the way for adults to power is money. Earning money is interpreted by the participants of the forum as a way for a child to involve in the adult’s world, an opportunity to legalize the child’s right to express his/her own opinion and defend this opinion. Other sources of parent’s power are their own life experience, knowledge and social skills.
W dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym sytuacja dziecka, jego los i możliwości rozwojowe były wypadkową wielu czynników, takich jak stosunki społeczno-ekonomiczne, poziom cywilizacji i kultury, kondycja rodziny i oferowane formy pomocy i opieki, a także zabezpieczenia prawne dla jej funkcjonowania. Takie zjawiska społeczne jak bezrobocie, bezdomność, nędza, głód, choroby zakaźne rozwijające się przede wszystkim w rodzinach robotniczych, rzemieślniczych i wiejskich powodowały wiele zagrożeń dla rozwoju fizycznego i psychicznego dziecka. W najgorszej sytuacji znajdowały się dzieci nieślubne, osierocone, bezdomne, włóczące się, niczyje, zwane „dziećmi ulicy”, których dotykały przewlekłe choroby (gruźlica, krzywica i inne), wymagające intensywnej opieki i pomocy ze strony państwa i organizacji społecznych. Ogromne potrzeby pomocy dzieciom realizowane były w takich instytucjach jak ochrony, ochronki, sierocińce, przytułki sieroce, domy dziecięce, pogotowia opiekuńcze, domy matki i dziecka, schroniska dla podrzutków itp., tworzone przez osoby prywatne, organizacje kościelne, stowarzyszenia społeczne oraz władze państwowe.
EN
During the interwar decades the living conditions of children, their future fate and the chances of their personal and intellectual development were dependant on various factors, which in turn were determined by the actually prevailing socioeconomic situation, the cultural and civilizational level, the status oft the family and the kind of care and support they could rely on as well as on the range of protection Law would provide. Social phenomena such as unemployment, homelessness, pauperism, malnutrition, contagious deseases which afflicted mainly families of the working class – e.g. artisans and industrial workers as well as rural laboureres - constituted a permanent hazard to the physical and mental development of children and adolescents. The worst fate met illegitimate children, orphans, the homeless ones and vagabonds, who nobody cared for, commonly referred to as „street urchins“, who more often than not were harassed by chronic deseases, such as tuberculosis and rickets, and who badly needed constant care and support from public or other social relief organizations. Formidable work to meet the children’s needs was accomplished in child custody homes, orphanages, refuges for orphans, day care centers, children’s homes, emergency care services, foundling hospitals, shelters for mother and child, refuges for outcast children, just to name some. They were founded and sustained by private initiative, church organizations, charitable societies and partly staterun.
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