The Narrative Approach to Informed Consent: Empowering Young Children’s Rights and Meaningful Participation

The Narrative Approach to Informed Consent: Empowering Young Children’s Rights and Meaningful Participation is a practical guide for researchers who want to engage young children in rights-based, participatory research. This book presents the Narrative Approach, an original and innovative method to help children understand their participation in research. This approach moves away from traditional paper-based consent to tailor the informed consent process to the specific needs of young children. Through the Informing Story, which employs a combination of interaction, information and narrative, this method enables children to comprehend concepts through storytelling. Researchers are stepped through the development of an Informing Story so that they can deliver accurate information to young children about what their participation in research is likely to involve. To further inform practice, the book documents the implementation of the Narrative Approach in four case studies demonstrating the variety of settings in which the method can be applied. The Narrative Approach to Informed Consent addresses the rights of young children to be properly researched, expands opportunities for their active and engaged research participation, and creates a unique conceptual ethical space within which meaningful informed consent can occur. This book will be an invaluable tool for novice and experienced researchers and is applicable to a wide range of education and non-education contexts.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Part 1: Theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the Narrative Approach Chapter 1. Positioning the child as competent in the research process Chapter 2. The conceptual model underpinning the Narrative Approach Part 2: Developing and implementing an Informing Story Chapter 3. Developing and delivering an Informing Story Part 3: Adapting an Informing Story Chapter 4. "Yes, he gets it". Enhancing 3- and 4-year-old children's reserach participation through a digitally interactive Narrative Approach Informing Story Chapter 5. Using a Narrative Approach Informing Story to engage 4- and 5-year-olds in research in the context of a study on the use of an augmented reality sandbox to enhance spacial thinking Chapter 6. Using a Narrative Approach Informing Story video to gain informed consent from 6–12-year-old children on their experiences in youth care Chapter 7. Parental roles in supporting their young children’s participation in research through a Narrative Approach Informing Story Part 4: Future directions for the Narrative Approach Chapter 8. Possibilities and challenges of the Narrative Approach Chapter 9. Examples: The Toymaker Informing Story and the Toymaker Participation Story

About the Author :
Fiona Mayne is a lecturer and researcher in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Western Australia. Fiona’s PhD in early childhood research ethics and participation won the international European Early Childhood Education Research Association Student Research Award in 2017. Her current research is in children’s voice and agency, enhancing the quality of young children’s research participation, digital influences on children’s learning environments and associated pedagogies, and use of digital technologies and mixed reality in pre-service teacher education. Christine Howitt is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Western Australia. Her research interests focus on young children's science learning, science identity, learning in informal contexts, participatory research and rights of the child. She has worked extensively with Fiona Mayne to produce a range of papers on young children’s active involvement in the research process, exploring appropriate ethical and methodological approaches.

Review :
"This valuable new text positions the child as competent in the research process and introduces the Narrative Approach, and its associated Informing Story, as an appropriate method for engaging young children in the informed consent process. Through various case studies, readers can deepen their understanding of how this innovative approach can be used in different contexts. Use of the ideas presented in The Narrative Approach to Informed Consent: Empowering Young Children’s Rights and Meaningful Participation will ensure that children are respected in research processes; are empowered to speak, be and feel in their participation roles; and that researchers can be supported to make this happen." Dr Natália Fernandes, Associate Professor, Institute of Education, University of Minho, Portugal "The Narrative Approach to Informed Consent: Empowering Young Children’s Rights and Meaningful Participation offers fresh theoretical and methodological perspectives on young children’s informed consent in research. The research-based Narrative Approach presented here provides an innovative conceptual and procedural framework for designing, doing and disseminating ethical research with children." Emeritus Professor Ann Farrell, Adjunct Professor, School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Australia