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This paper reflects on the appropriateness of using focus groups with young children, based on a real life study carried out in Liverpool, UK which used 12, single‐sex focus groups (n=50, mean age=7) to explore children’s perceptions of smoking. The technique proved both useful and appropriate for young children, although in practice the groups needed more direction by the moderator than is thought to be ideal with adults. The findings produced by the study were comparable to those attained by other research methods. There was no evidence of over conformity as a range of responses were given, and the children appeared to enjoy the exercise, which encouraged spontaneity. We conclude, with certain preconditions, that focus groups with young children are a viable method for exploring young children’s perspectives but need to be small in number, homogenous and interactive, to maintain a high level of interest.

One common feature of different variants of participatory and action research is rejection of technocratic, undemocratic elements in science and inquiry, aiming to break the dominance of traditional academic views of science. These variants open up broader participation of people, and emancipate knowledge creation for the production of actionable knowledge with transformative potentials. The purpose of this chapter is to recognize and clarify a striving for knowledge democracy in these explicit or implicit democratizing ambitions and tendencies in the sense of broadening the participation of concerned parties in research and development work on open and equal terms. This recent concept, still in the process of formulation, has been proposed as a global mobilizing and unifying thinking for distributed networks and movements for participatory oriented research. The concept and movement had an initial embedding in the First Global Assembly for Knowledge Democracy in June 2017, Cartagena, Columbia. The purpose of the chapter is to elaborate on the meaning of knowledge democracy as a vision for the participatory and action research community. Particularly I will distinguish between different orientation to knowledge democracy, and the character of the logic of a more, open, democratic and coproductive science that can be a carrier of it.

This article reports on a literature review of interventions specifically identified as emanating from a mental health promotion (as opposed to prevention) paradigm. A number of recurring debates in the field were identified, including language and terminology, defining ‘mental health’, models of mental health promotion, the use of overgeneralised concepts, values, beliefs and assumptions implicit in mental health promotion interventions, and diversity in what gets called mental health promotion and who does mental health promotion. The paper concludes by highlighting key issues critical to the future development of mental health promotion: the implications of mental health promotion being at an embryonic stage of development, the need for greater reflexivity, the need for integration, and issues concerning professional identity and practice in the mental health promotion field.

The purpose of this paper is to present an exploration of parents', teachers' and childrens' perspectives on children's understanding of wellbeing with the aim of illuminating and comparing the conceptualisation of wellbeing from these three perspectives.

The participatory method developed to undertake the study in this paper stems from the adoption of the “draw and write” technique, with children taking photographs rather than drawing and participating in data analysis. Children aged eight to 12 years took 723 photographs representing wellbeing, while a second set of children grouped the photographs into categories. A third set organised these categories, developing and illustrating through schemata the pattern of relationships between categories. This process was repeated for parent and teacher groups drawing on the photographs taken by the children.

The findings in this paper show that differences emerged between parents and teachers and children and adults. Parents provided a more detailed conceptualisation than teachers. Children included pets where adults perceived school as being more important in children's wellbeing. The identification of the differing perspectives between children and adults suggests that this approach has enabled children to illuminate their own unique perspective on wellbeing. The paper also demonstrates that children can express complex understandings of abstract concepts.

In the paper the findings reinforce the need to gain children's perspectives rather than relying on adult perceptions of children's perspectives, in order to inform quality service, practice and policy developments.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a three‐stage process for engaging with students to develop school level indicators of health; in sequential class groups students first generated, then categorised indicators and finally developed schematic representations of their analyses. There is a political and practical need to develop appropriate indicators for health‐promoting schools. As key stakeholders in education, students have the right to be fully engaged in this process.

The sample in this paper comprised 164 students aged 16‐17 years in three medium‐sized Dublin schools. In the first classroom, students answered the question “If you moved to a new school, what would it need to have to be a healthy place?” on individual flashcards. In the second classroom students classified the flashcards into groups using a variation of the card game “snap”. In the third classroom, students discussed the relationships between the developed categories and determined how the categories should be presented. These procedures were repeated twice in three schools, resulting in six developed schemata.

The paper finds that the six sets of categories showed remarkable similarity – physical aspects of the school predominated but emotional and social health issues also emerged as potential indicators. The schema demonstrated the holistic perspectives of students. They illustrate the importance of relationships and the physical and psycho‐social environment within schools.

The paper illustrates that students can productively engage in the process of indicator development and have the potential to act as full stakeholders in health‐promoting schools. The methods enabled student control over the data generation, analysis and presentation phases of the research, and provided a positive, fun experience for both students and researchers.