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Children's marginalisation in research limits their opportunities to create meaningful social change. This project explored children's meaningful participation in Participatory Action Research as a tool to empower children as change makers. An adult and child co-researcher collaborated to conduct a literature review on a social issue chosen by the child: helicopter parenting. Highlighting that children and adults have access to different knowledge based on their status in society, the co-researchers wrote about helicopter parenting from three different perspectives: media, psychology and childhood studies. Through a reflection on the research process, the co-researchers offer insight into the impact of mutual relationships, power imbalances, and emotions on children's meaningful participation in research. They also present the value of children's voices in research and research as a learning opportunity for adults and children. Ultimately, the co-researchers aim to challenge readers to reflect on creating more equitable research practices with children to enhance children's opportunities to make change through research.

Sexual violence’s alarming prevalence demands action to challenge the gendered and generational relations that sustain injustice. This chapter introduces a nuanced model of consent that, if utilised to inform adults’ everyday practices with children, could empower children to identify and engage in healthy relationships and manage sexual victimisation. Inadequate sex education in adolescence engenders harmful beliefs about consent, which hinder young people’s abilities to navigate sexual relationships and limit the extent to which sexual assault survivors can understand their trauma. Accordingly, effective consent education is critical to protect and empower all human beings. Drawing on decades of childhood studies research that exemplifies the ways in which children learn through experience, this chapter argues that, by practising consent with children, adults can facilitate children’s knowledge of this moral concept. To equip adults with the thorough understanding of consent necessary to engage in truly consensual relationships, this chapter presents a theoretical explanation of children’s agency, recognising that structure, personal elements, and relationships collectively influence, and are shaped by, children’s participation. Based on a recognition of parents’ distinct role in children’s education, this model is examined in the context of children’s experiences in the home. Specifically, this analysis considers the ethics of corporal punishment and explores parental practices that could better facilitate children’s learning. The themes in this chapter emphasise the dangers of assumptions and raise fundamental questions about the ways in which society approaches human dignity and justice.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold: first, to demonstrate that the use of creative methods with children and young people is less important than creativity in the data analysis process; and second to introduce a framework for analysis which takes into account structure and agency and reveals the multi-layered context of the research encounter. The argument presented here has implications for those working within the “new” social study of childhood in the ongoing endeavor to understand children’s experiences and childhood in a social context. The model presented here is of potential value as a tool in data analysis and more widely in helping us to conceptualize childhood agency and the relationship between structure and agency. This chapter problematizes the call for creative methods with children and young people and instead focuses on creative data interpretation. An original model is presented which researchers can apply to the analysis and interpretation of data gathered in research with children and young people. The creative ways in which children and young people use the research encounter are a multi-layered response to context, which additionally demonstrates the creation of “other” spaces in and through their shared talk.

In many societies, children tend to be seen as morally immature and predominantly as objects of parental care. In this chapter, these habitual views are questioned from the perspective of childhood studies; children’s moral reflexivity in regard to their parents’ wellbeing and the care children provide them are highlighted. From two discursive studies carried out in Chile in different socio-economic strata and with children aged from 10 to 11, the children’s concerns about their parents – whom they perceive as being overwhelmed and irritable and how best to support them in these conditions – are revealed. This involves the children in concrete actions of care as well as efforts to become a good son or daughter, and a good child, by sparing their parents difficulties and making them happier. The moral reflexivity shown by the children in these studies must be understood in the current context of intensive parenting, a growing trend in Chile, as in other countries. At the same time, such reflexivity involves complex and subtle relational processes and identities. Thus, care goes beyond material or emotional support to parents; boundaries are blurred between individualism and altruism, as well as between an ethic of care that is context-sensitive and one that is more abstract and universal in nature.

Children in many societies are often seen as immature in issues and therefore should be dependent on adults for provision of basic needs participation. This gives the impression that it is only at adulthood that members of society can make contributions to personal, family and societal development. This is particularly so in African societies. Most African societies consider children as omo kekere (small people/children) and inexperienced people and therefore should be under watch and socialisation of adults who often compromise their rights particularly to participation even when the United Nations’ advocacy guaranteeing the right of children to participate in decision making and other issues concerning them exists. This chapter therefore examines the real experiences of children in a traditional but modernising setting of Ibadan, Nigeria. This is a very relevant research setting since traditional and modern socio-cultural values and forces moderate child rights. Hence, this chapter exposes ways and manners children are treated and, possibly, negotiate cultural systems in the contexts of families to exist within family rules and cultural ethos that define their belongingness and participation in decision making and associated issues. This chapter is placed within the policy framework of implementation of UN Child Rights Charter and Nigerian Child Rights Act which have been found to be largely ineffective in most African societies and Nigeria. This chapter benefits from many years of primary insights and scholarly engagements with children’s experiences and participation in families in Africa. Families with children within the ages of 5–10 in Ibadan were also systematically and extendedly observed. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 children in their family environments after getting informed consent of their parents. Findings show that culture, traditions and institutionalised gerontocracy remain negatively formidable and hold sway in perpetuating systemic child disempowerment and alienation in families. This chapter provides theoretical, professional and policy settings and environments of child rights and childhood in Nigeria with implications for Africa and globally.

This chapter will explore the development of a research project which seeks to capture the experiences of young disabled people who are undertaking a programme with The Comedy Trust. The programme seeks to address the barriers encountered by disabled young people when entering the world of work and to encourage more inclusive recruitment practices. The authors seek to highlight how comedy can be used not only as a tool to promote social justice but also as a research method. The chapter is based on co-produced piece of research which brings together a young disabled person (Harry Georgiou), a careers lead and inclusion mentor based within a special school (Sarah Spoor), a community operations and fundraising manager based within The Comedy Trust (Charlene Davies) and a university academic (Marie Caslin). For all of the team the authors' central aim is to ensure that young disabled people's voices are heard throughout this chapter and the authors will outline how they hope to achieve this. The authors are currently at the very early stages of their project, and with this chapter, the authors hope to provide an insight into the lessons we have learnt so far.