Roseanna Bourke – författare

The imperative to include children and young people in educational research, and in more participative ways, is educationally important when exploring policy and practice contexts. It is also critical to recognise that children have the right to contribute to debates, and can express their views through educational research, on matters that affect them. However, the freedom to research alongside young people is only afforded if we continue to unmask the illusion that well-intentioned research is always ethical. This book presents an international set of storied experiences, where researchers have been challenged and have changed the way they think, incorporating and exploring ethics in research. The contributors highlight the ethical dilemmas that can arise when children and young people are included in research agendas, and their reflexive approaches to these dilemmas include being responsive to the cultural, political and social contexts of the lives of the children and developing child-friendly research approaches to ensure their ‘voice’ is accessed in multiple ways.

These solution-focused and local approaches facilitate a more ethical, deliberative process where the establishment of trust is central to an ethical engagement with young people and their families and where the explication of ethical dilemmas can improve research practice. This book is a critical resource for researchers and practitioners researching with and alongside children and young people.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

The imperative to include children and young people in educational research, and in more participative ways, is educationally important when exploring policy and practice contexts. It is also critical to recognise that children have the right to contribute to debates, and can express their views through educational research, on matters that affect them. However, the freedom to research alongside young people is only afforded if we continue to unmask the illusion that well-intentioned research is always ethical. This book presents an international set of storied experiences, where researchers have been challenged and have changed the way they think, incorporating and exploring ethics in research. The contributors highlight the ethical dilemmas that can arise when children and young people are included in research agendas, and their reflexive approaches to these dilemmas include being responsive to the cultural, political and social contexts of the lives of the children and developing child-friendly research approaches to ensure their ‘voice’ is accessed in multiple ways.

These solution-focused and local approaches facilitate a more ethical, deliberative process where the establishment of trust is central to an ethical engagement with young people and their families and where the explication of ethical dilemmas can improve research practice. This book is a critical resource for researchers and practitioners researching with and alongside children and young people.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

Learning and personal development are integral to being a person, and learning and teaching are integral to life as a social being. Understanding Children’s Informal Learning presents children’s informal learning out-of-school and explores how this knowledge can enhance teaching and learning practice in the classroom.

The authors focus on the richness of children’s everyday learning, and in what ways children, teachers and schools can work to bring more of the everyday learning strengths that all children have into the interactional framework of the classroom. Offering practical applications for teachers and other education professionals, the chapters work to ensure children’s voices are heard and actively influence understandings of learning, so that out-of-school learning is legitimised as a critical constituent of in-school learning.

Addressing the need to provide a strong ‘student voice’ component and strategies to support children’s learning both in-school and out-of-school, Understanding Children’s Informal Learning furthers comprehensive education research, policy, and practice.

Learning and personal development are integral to being a person, and learning and teaching are integral to life as a social being. Understanding Children’s Informal Learning presents children’s informal learning out-of-school and explores how this knowledge can enhance teaching and learning practice in the classroom.

The authors focus on the richness of children’s everyday learning, and in what ways children, teachers and schools can work to bring more of the everyday learning strengths that all children have into the interactional framework of the classroom. Offering practical applications for teachers and other education professionals, the chapters work to ensure children’s voices are heard and actively influence understandings of learning, so that out-of-school learning is legitimised as a critical constituent of in-school learning.

Addressing the need to provide a strong ‘student voice’ component and strategies to support children’s learning both in-school and out-of-school, Understanding Children’s Informal Learning furthers comprehensive education research, policy, and practice.

This book celebrates the rights of the child, through including student voice in educational matters that affect them directly. It focuses on the experiences of children and young people and explores how our educational policies, practices and research endeavours enable educators to help young people tell their own stories. The respective chapters illustrate how listening to young people can help them attain new positions of power, even though doing so often creates discomfort and requires a radical change on the part of the adult establishment. Further, the book challenges researchers, teachers and practitioners to reconsider how students are involved in research and policy agendas, and to what extent radical collegiality can create fundamental and positive changes in the lives of these learners.