Conducting research with, by or forchildren rather than onor aboutthem is a topic that has been explored by scholars in the field of Childhood and Children’s rights studies. In this matter, it has been shown that children do not have less competencies than adults, rather, they can be considered as the experts on “what it is like to be a child” (Kellet, 2005, p.9) and on their everyday lives (Mayall, 2000; Mason & Danby, 2011; Christensen & Prout, 2002). Conducting research with children can provide an original contribution of knowledge in Childhood and Children’s rights in a transdisciplinary perspectiveon the one hand (Kellet, 2005; Mason & Danby, 2011) and ensure an insider perspective about child experiences on the other (Bradbury-Jones & Taylor, 2015). Indeed, children have different conceptualization about their actions and social worlds and like Kellet (2005) argues “[they] observe with different eyes, ask different questions – they ask question that adults do not even think of -, have different concerns and have immediate access to peer culture where adults are outsiders” (p.8). Children’s participation in research also promotes the development of various skills – communication, reflection, judgment, work with and respect of others, etc. and the expression of individual agency in the context of collaboration. Moreover, it is considered as an effective manner of respecting and implementing article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): “assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting [him of her]”.

In the growing literature about involving children actively in research, the focus has progressively been directed towards theorizing the concepts of participation and voice (Kellett, 2011; Lundy, McEvoy & Byrne, 2011). This focus is a means to overcome only listening to children, which can be considered as a form of tokenism where children’s views are strongly impacted by unequal power-relations between themselves and researchers. Numerous participatory methods have thus been developed and the related ethical issues considered, improving the opportunity for children to express freely their views and having these views taken into account (Bradbury-Jones & Taylor, 2015). Tokenism is also a risk when children are invited to express their views on research questions, methods and/or collected data, in the context of a solely adult-led project in which they remain unequal partners (Kellett, 2005; Gillett-Swan & Sargeant, 2017). Researchers therefore strive to involve children as active co-researchers, alleviating the power barriers and providing them with genuine participatory conditions.

This contribution aims to present and question the work undertaken with a group of children as experts in a transdisciplinary research project “Exploring the way to and from school with children: an interdisciplinary approach of children’s experiences of the third place” supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (n° request CR11I1_166050). This group comports 10 children (11-12 years old), involved in various stages of this research project: finalizing research questions, refining methodological tools, data discussion and elaboration of final recommendations. When and under what conditions can the children genuinely act as co-researchers(e.g. give informed views on the topics, take an active part in the data generation, organisation and analysis)? What allows researchers to alleviate the power balance? Finally, what ethical aspects of children’s participation as experts have to be taken into account?

In our research project, an external group of 10 children between 11 and 12 years old, comprised of 5 females and 5 males, was actively involved to provide us with expertise in regards to their own experiences, in a transdisciplinary perspective (Hirsch et al, 2008). This expertise was required at several stages of the project: refining the research questions and the methodological tools, as well as analyzing data and formulating final recommendations. All children came from the same school and the same classroom, and therefore knew each other well. This increased the comfort of the group, encouraged children to express freely their opinions amongst their peers and helped them to have successful outcomes (Lundy, McEvoy & Byrne, 2011). The group’s work was organized in four 45-minutes sessions, spread over one year, combining different playful activities and pedagogical tools, across two years in a classroom. The sessions took place outside of their normal school environment, in our university, which allowed the children to feel more engaged in the project and taken seriously as co-researchers. Two researchers were present in each session as they supported children in open discussion and sometimes encouraged their communication with opening questions. The involvement of this external group was approved by the ethical committee of the Faculty of Psychology and Education sciences of the University of Geneva. The participation of the ten children was voluntary and the school director, the children’s parents and each child gave formal consent. Moreover, at the beginning of each session, the children were informed on their right to discontinue the research at any moment, without consequence (Morrow, 2008) and their consent was required again. The four sessions were recorded, transcribed and analyzed by the team. This data was completed by non-participative observations of each sessions. Focus was mainly placed on the interactions between the children, the group dynamic and the emergence of specific roles amongst the children (e.g. leadership role), the creative process leading to new ideas and the ways (or conditions in which) children worked round what the adults had planned. An individual logbook was also provided by the team, in which each child could write down his/her impressions about the activities and his/her engagement in the research. At the end, an assessment about their role as co-researches was proposed.

We will first present the device that was set up to enable the group of children to give informed views on the research as well as take an active part in the data generation, organisation and analysis. Each of the four meetings in which the children took part as co-researchers will be described considering their aims, progress and outcomes as well as the children’s feelings. Then, an analysis of the group interactions and productions will highlight the situations in which the children could genuinely act as co-researchers -when the device would alleviate the power balance- and when not. Finally, the ethical aspects of the children’s participation as co-researchers will be explored, underlining benefits and disadvantages for both the children and the researchers.

Bradbury-Jones, C. & Taylor, J. (2015). Engaging with children as co-researchers: challenges, counter- challenges and solutions. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(2), 161-173. Christensen, P. & Prout, A. (2002). Working with ethical symmetry in social research with children. Childhood, 9(4), 477-497. Gillet-Swan, J. & Sargeant, J. (2017). Unintentional power plays: interpersonal contextual impacts in child-centred participatory research. Educational Research, 60(1), 1-16. Hirsch Hadorn, G., Hoffmann-Riem, H., Biber-Klemm, S., Grossenbacher-Mansuy, W., Joye, D., Pohl C., Wiesmann, U., Zemp, E. (Eds). (2008). Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research. Berlin: Springer. Kellet, M. (2005). Children as active researchers : a new research paradigm for the 21st century ? ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. Kellet, M. (2011). Researching with and for children and young people. Centre for Childhood Development and Learning: Background Briefing Serie, 5. Lundy, L., McEvoy, L. & Byrne, B. (2011). Working with young children as co-researchers: an approach informed by the United Convention on the Rights of the Child. Early Education & Development, 22(5), 714-736. Mayall, B. (2002). Towards a Sociology for Childhood: Thinking from children’s lives. Buckingham: Open University Press. Mason, J. & Danby, S. (2011). Children as experts in their lives: child inclusive research. Child Indicators Research, 4, 185-189.