This chapter addresses researcher positionality within the field of childhood studies in social sciences and humanities targeted by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme project. Path2Integrity is an educational project, funded...
moreThis chapter addresses researcher positionality within the field of childhood studies in social sciences and humanities targeted by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme project. Path2Integrity is an educational project, funded under the Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society (SwafS) programme.
Path2Integrity’s overall objective is on research integrity and education. The project has developed formal and informal pathways for teaching research integrity in a learner-centred manner. Both the formal and informal pathways are evaluated on an ongoing basis throughout the 36-month duration of the project. Consequently, this chapter’s focus is on the formal and informal pathways evaluation, which includes the main ethical issues encountered. In particular, the Path2Integrity project aims are: (1) to equip teachers in high schools and educators in universities with cutting-edge, user-friendly tools to teach research integrity in a learner-centred manner, and (2) to raise awareness about the importance of research integrity in high schools, academia and in society (Inguaggiato and Lindemann, 2021).
An essential part of the Path2Integrity project is the evaluation of the training programme and of the campaign material used in informal learning exercises. Following the project’s grant agreement guidelines, all researchers involved in the evaluation have been clearly informed that ‘the evaluation will be designed as a formative mixed method evaluation combining qualitative (semi-structured interview, feedback sheets) and quantitative (structured questionnaire) elements to monitor the complete development and improvement process of the Path2Integrity ‘Handbook of Instructions for learning pathways’ (Prieß-Buchheit et al, 2020a: 4). Based on the reliable, objective and valid evaluation (Prieß-Buchheit et al, 2020b), the evaluation’s main focus was on the short-term efficiency of the innovative methods and learning pathways in comparison to teacher-centred methods. The evaluation design was a quasi-experimental, non-randomised trial with participants and ‘non-participants’ or rather participants taught with teacher-centred methods.
Path2Integrity research includes over 300 participants, aged between 16 and 18, who are in a full-time schooling. Due to the involvement of participants who are aged 17 years and younger, one of the main ethics requirements to the Path2Integrity Consortium from the independent ethics experts within the European Commission (EC) ethics appraisal scheme, was to ensure the opinions/approvals by ethics committees and/or competent authorities for the research with humans (ethics approvals from research ethics committees (RECs) or institutional review boards (IRBs)). This basic requirement, turned out to be a big challenge for the Path2Integrity Consortium. The guidelines of the research institutions of the Path2Integrity researchers are very clear about when opinions/approvals by ethics committees have to be provided for. Prior to starting the research, each researcher was instructed to check in advance whether their research subject has fulfilled the applicable standards and whether any risks are foreseeable. Therefore, it was clear that an initial ethics assessment must have been conducted by the researcher themself. Should potential risks be identified in the risk assessment, a formal research ethics procedure will be conducted by the project’s ethics committee.
In acknowledging the gap between the research ethics requirement from the EC, on the one hand, and the institutional guidelines of the Path2Integrity partners, which was responsible for the carrying out of the evaluation, on the other hand, the authors of this chapter (and also a partner in the Path2Integrity Consortium) understood the urgent need to specifically focus on the legal and educational aspects of research with children and young people in social sciences and humanities. By clearly addressing legal and educational aspects of research within the field of childhood studies in social sciences and humanities, the authors strongly believe that this chapter offers a critical perspective on researcher positionality.
Where a researcher involved in research with children and young people is solely responsible for ethical considerations without institutional support, the importance of guiding interactions and relations of power between adult researchers and younger participants, including ways to guide the researchers’ actions at both national and international levels, is extremely compelling. The authors note that the researchers’ power over the children and young people during the actual research potentially could lead to false or even misleading research outcomes and results, where a researcher, as the adult in the situation, is either unaware or does not recognise their own positionality prior to starting the research. By adopting a critical approach to ‘researcher positionality’, this chapter provides useful recommendations aiming at contributing to a better understanding of policymaking processes and, crucially, the relationships between adult researchers and children involved in the research. Hence, we drive to a conclusion offering some recommendations to policymakers and research institutions that can also support and inspire researchers to remain on an ethical track while conducting research with children and young people.
