The Scottish Government

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Chapters 4 to 6

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PRACTICALITIES OF INVOLVING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

The first three chapters of this report situated the issue of children as researchers in the context of (a) current government policies and in particular Scottish Executive strategies and (b) theoretical debates around participation, consultation and research. They also summarised key practical lessons from previous studies that have actually involved children in this way. The next two chapters expand on these themes and focus more explicitly on how they apply to Scottish Executive-funded research through an analysis of a series of interviews with young people who have experience of carrying out research, researchers outside of government who have experience of involving young people in the doing of research, Scottish Executive research managers and Scottish Executive policy makers. Specifically, in this chapter we look at these stakeholders' perspectives on the practicalities of involving children and young people in research and in Chapter Five we consider rationales for this involvement and the understandings of research that inform their accounts - a recurrent, if largely implicit, theme in the interviews for this project.

IINVOLVING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE RESEARCH: INSIDER AND OUTSIDER PERSPECTIVES ON CURRENT PRACTICE

Before looking in detail at the practicalities of involving young people in Scottish Executive funded research, it may be useful to review briefly perceptions of current practice within the Scottish Executive in relation to this issue. As is clear from the mapping exercise (summarised in Chapter Three and reported in the annex), there is currently a wide spectrum of practices relating to children and young people's involvement in the doing of research in Scotland and the UK more generally, ranging from children and young people being advisers or consultants to acting as co-researchers or taking the lead on child-initiated projects. But it is also clear - from interviews carried out both within and outside the Scottish Executive - that this diversity of practice does not exist within government-funded research in Scotland. Interviewees for this project acknowledged that, in this context, thinking about involving children and young people - even as a respondents in research - is at a much earlier stage.

We are just getting to the stage now when we're thinking `oh wouldn't it be a good idea to have a pupil survey'. (…) The fact is that that's what we're getting to now, so moving beyond that is still something that we need to think about more carefully.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager1)

Although some examples were given of the involvement of children and young people in the 'doing' of Scottish Executive-funded research, this was usually, as noted earlier, at an early stage and usually in a consultative role (see the annex). For example, one policy maker highlighted the way in which children were sometimes involved in advising researchers about how to phrase questions so that other children can understand them, sometimes by participating in focus groups before large studies or surveys start. Other than examples like this where children have limited involvement in an advisory capacity, policy makers and researchers within the Scottish Executive admitted that children were usually involved as research subjects or consultees rather than 'active' researchers.

I think enabling voices of young people to be heard is always important (…) and I would argue that (…), certainly in this division, we've more experience of consulting with children to enable their voices to be heard, than using them as researchers.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

Indeed, we only identified one recent Scottish Executive project in which young people were engaged more fully in the research process (the Rural Voices project - see annex), and this took place within a community development rather than research agenda.

This perception of the role of children and young people in Scottish Executive-funded work was, for the most part, shared by interviewees in the wider research community, some of whom felt that they had not been given the impression in the past that it was a priority to involve children and young people in such research. In the extract below, the researcher is referring to the involvement of young people even as research subjects please clarify this statement- was there a particular example of the Scottish Executive not involving young people as research subjects that the researcher interviewed was thinking of or cited?

Working for the Scottish Executive, that wasn't a problem, because whenever we approached the idea of young people, like at advisory groups, being involved we received very little encouragement so it was easy not to do it as it were.

( Researcher 3)

There are examples given by non-government researchers of Scottish Executive-commissioned research which did involve children in the research process. However, most of this involved children and young people in an advisory/consultative role of the kind described by the Scottish Executive interviewees cited above.

So they [young people acting as consultants] made quite a lot of suggestions at the time. I made some quite big changes to the wording of things, in particular.

(Researcher 1)

They also advised us about things like how to ensure that we safeguarded the well-being of the participants and made sure that they felt they didn't have to answer questions if they didn't want to and stuff like that.

(Researcher 4)

There are also examples of the Scottish Executive being involved in the funding projects which have, in turn, involved children and young people in more imaginative ways - for example, in developing web sites or using video diaries (see work of LGBT Youth Scotland and Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health in the annex). Overall, however, stakeholders' awareness was less about these initiatives than the raft of consultation initiatives aimed at children and young people, examples of which include the Trojan project, the Debate Project for young care leavers and consultation on the delivery of the Children's Hearing System. The role of Youth Link, Young Scot and the Youth Parliament are identified by some respondents within the Scottish Executive as key to these consultation practices and young people are clearly one of the key 'target groups' whose voice it is considered important to include. As a result, consultation was a key reference point for Scottish Executive interviewees in discussion of how to involve young people in Scottish Executive practices more generally.

So when big consultation exercises take place, I'm thinking of delivery of the Children's Hearing system, additional efforts will be made to do something different to try and target groups that are felt to be under represented. So for example there was a youth event, a specific youth event held in conjunction with Young Scot for that.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 3)

I think the history of anything to do with young people is through just consultation, rather than getting them actively involved in the decision making process other than that. Because of the areas we work in being focused on children and families, there has always been a need to include them, children themselves, as what we term [..] stakeholders.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 2)

Researchers and policy makers also referred to a few key research projects in which children and young people have been involved as respondents which have shaped their understanding of the importance of accessing such perspectives. In keeping with much research outside government, however, most of these studies have been with older children.

When we undertook the audit and review of child protection a couple of years back, we undertook a research exercise, again using the Voluntary Sector, with individuals and small groups of young people to find out their views of their experience within the child protection system. The learning from that was absolutely huge, not just about child protection but about how difficult it is to engage young people in a very, very difficult matter.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

In the policy area that I work in, particularly in relation to younger children, certainly pre-primary aged children and maybe even primary aged kids, I don't think researchers tend to go to ask those children about their experiences, they will ask the adult carers or teachers or whoever.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

In summary, then, the perception of stakeholders inside and outside government is that there is little evidence to date of Scottish Executive-funded work that has directly involved young people in the doing of research, though there is awareness of a handful of projects that have given young people an advisory role. This contrasts with the wide range of consultation activities and mechanisms aimed at this age group and with an increasing emphasis on the involvement of young people in carrying out such work. It also stands in tension with an acknowledgement of the importance and relevance of studies through which young people's voices have been articulated as respondents. In principle, then, there would seem to be much to build on in terms of the development of a 'children as researchers' perspective within such a setting. But how is such a possibility viewed by the various potential stakeholders - researchers, research managers, policy makers and young people themselves? In particular, what do they see as the practical issues relating to the development of such a perspective?

INVOLVING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE RESEARCH: THE PRACTICALITIES

We have already looked in some detail (see Chapter Three) at lessons emerging from existing research literature about the potential benefits and problems of involving children and young people as researchers. Many of these themes - for example, how to address concerns about quality control, payment, sustainability, funding and ethics - were also present in the interviews conducted for this project and so are not repeated at length here.

Much of what follows is drawn from interviews with adult researchers, but - as will become clear in the next section - just as young people may not share adult researchers' reasons for becoming involved in research, neither can it be assumed that they have similar concerns about it as a practice. [1] Adult researchers' concerns about anonymity, for example, may be shared by some young people - one researcher, for example, noted that a young researcher did not wish to be publicly identified at a dissemination meeting with Scottish Executive officials where the media were present. However, other young people might wish to be identified as research participants but not necessarily realise that this might lead to them being 'used by the media in particular ways that in the end that they're not very happy with.' (Researcher 2)

Rather than reiterate the whole range of potential ethical and other difficulties already noted in Chapter Three, we focus here on two issues that have particular relevance for government-funded research and which were raised by respondents both inside and outside the Scottish Executive: resources and representativeness.

Dealing with the basics: time and money

The resource-intensive nature of research involving children and young people was repeatedly highlighted by respondents inside and outside the Scottish Executive. The key point being made here is that involving children and young people in research takes time and resources if it is to be done properly, since it may involve the use of youth participation/support workers as well as researchers, development of research training programmes and longer timescales to encourage participation at different stages of the research process. If projects are nationwide, as was the case with the Scottish Millennium Awards project, there are particular time and cost implications associated with travel and accommodation for young people across Scotland. Some of the practical and ethical implications of issues connected to time and resources - particularly in relation to government funded research - are explored below.

Time

As with the research literature, a common theme arising from interviews with respondents with experience of involving children and young people in doing research - particularly if this involved more than just contact at the design stage of the project - was that the whole process simply took much longer than expected: as one respondent contacted as part of the mapping exercise put it, 'I set aside 6 months for fieldwork and it ended up taking eighteen months'. This was true even for those organisations that had existing experience of working in a participative way with children and young people. Children in Scotland, for example, noted that - even with pre-existing contacts through their participation networks - the negotiation of access to schools, whether to recruit young respondents or researchers, remains highly time consuming. Some projects working with young researchers within school settings, such as the Liverpool Children's Fund, have, therefore, recommended tying research projects into learning/educational outcomes, though there are issues here about young people's research being assessed as an educational output.

There are also ethical implications linked to the issue of time: partly to do with the level of commitment that can reasonably be expected from children, many of whom already have busy lives; but also to do with asking for input from children and young people at the proposal stage, before it is known whether or not the project will actually happen - an issue which would be particularly pressing if young researchers were involved in a proposal that required to go through Scottish Executive procurement processes.

Keeping going back to young people and negotiating things, but you don't know if you're going to get the funding - I find that's an ethical dilemma.

(Researcher 2)

One way of addressing the time demands placed on young people involved in research might be to have more fluid arrangements where different young people could come in and out of projects depending on their other commitments, rather than the same group being involved over an extended period. However, comments made by an interviewee for this study who was involved in setting up a project involving large numbers of young people suggest there might be problems with both approaches. Setting up a central board of young people to carry out this type of work can lead to the young people having a considerable amount to do and the dangers of overload. On the other hand, while having regional boards with more members who could come in and out of projects as required might spread the workload, it would not address the reality of young people's participation being a developmental process - one in which young people develop over time the skills and confidence needed to do the research or consultation work.

One respondent involved in a peer research project funded by DfID argued that the research process should, therefore, be seen through a 'pedagogical rather than purely a research lens' - though, in reality, it is difficult in the case of young researchers to separate the two. However, comments from other (adult) interviewees who have been involved in 'young researcher' projects suggest that there may sometimes be a gap in expectations about time between adults who are facilitating the research and adult commissioners and funders. For instance, one respondent described how members of the body funding a project were frustrated by the length of time young people spent determining how they wanted to work together. From the perspective of the adults facilitating the project, as well as that of the young people themselves, this was a key part of the process of consultation and essential to the young people taking ownership of the project.

The experience of respondents from the voluntary sector who were interviewed for this study suggests that time and resources are a key consideration for them too. Costing realistically for youth support as well as researcher involvement, and for research taking longer than usual, can be a particular concern for voluntary organisations - some of whom have traditionally disguised their true research costs in order to remain competitive in relation to government research.

The trap the voluntary sector gets into is that they do deliver, whereas they should say the timescale is not realistic.

(Researcher 7)

While research by young people is frequently initiated within the voluntary sector, research is often only one part of the remit of such organisations and, as such, they rarely have the time or money - unless, like the National Children's Bureau, they are operating on a larger scale - to train and support young people to become researchers or even to develop a research strategy of their own with young people.

So the research stuff was maybe just a quarter, or a fifth, of the workload. (…) So its not like we have got a full-time pool of young folk that we can say 'right, we will train you to be young researchers'.

(Researcher 6)

This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that young people's involvement in such organisations is often transient. If, however, the involvement of young people in research is seen as a form of citizenship - a means of 'learning to be involved' (Researcher 8) - then this sense that projects are re-inventing the wheel with each new group of young people is not necessarily problematic.

Respondents within government, understandably also identified time as a crucial factor. First, and perhaps most obviously, the time demands of training and supporting young people to be involved properly in research does not sit comfortably with the requirement for research information to feed quickly into the policy process.

A big issue with the relationship of policy and research is timing (…) so in terms of actually doing something that's about children controlling a whole process or more involvement (…) you're looking at expanding the time. (…) I think it's naïve to think anything otherwise, particularly if you want to do a good job of involving young people. So I suppose that's a difficulty in that often (…) you know information is needed by a particular point (…) I think there is an impetus to get the job done, that would be my perception, so I think some of those things would be quite difficult.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

I mean I would say the big difficulty we have is timing, that (…) the policy needs to be developed before you can really reasonably expect a comprehensive research project to have reported (…) A piece of work (…) where you're developing policy over a longer period of time can perhaps draw more on research but I would say quite a lot of what we're doing is on a shorter timescale than that.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 4)

From researchers with experience of bidding for government research, there was also an acknowledgement that it would be difficult to work alongside young researchers in responding to tenders within current tight timescales unless there was a pre-existing pool of trained young researchers that could be drawn upon.

It would seem to me, unless you had a standing group of young people such as CRC [Children's Research Centre], it would be quite a challenge to work to a tender in quite the time frame.

(Researcher 2)

Researchers interviewed for this study who had experience of working for the Scottish Executive as an external contractor, perceived existing systems and structures as not easily accommodating the more flexible arrangements necessary to involve children and young people as researchers.

For example, it's usual practice at present for them to allow just three weeks between issuing a spec and the deadline for submission of tenders. This means it is virtually impossible to involve young people meaningfully in helping shape the proposal, or even talking to them about how they might be involved during the research. A minimum of 6 weeks would be needed I'd suggest (…) The Scottish Exec would also have to adopt a less rigid approach to managing research projects. (…) If children were to be involved in giving advice or helping make decisions about studies as they develop, the Exec would have to be open to taking these seriously and be prepared to be flexible and responsive which in my, and others', experience, is not always the case. There would also have to be greater flexibility about deadlines, or perhaps more sensibly, more time should be allowed to complete studies from the outset.

(Researcher 1)

A similar view was expressed from a voluntary sector organisation with experience of working with a Whitehall government department in relation to young researchers.

Government departments are interested in ticking boxes and having an output at a particular time and there is an issue about meeting deadlines given what else is going on in young people's lives.

(Researcher 7)

The flexibility often required of adult researchers undertaking government research, for example in responding to issues not included in original specifications, could also add considerably to the time demands placed on young researchers. The tensions between the broad participation aims of government and government's use of young people as a resource, in other words as a means of demonstrating consultation, are to the fore in such situations. The role for children's organisations and/or adult researchers, depending on the nature of the project, in protecting or negotiating on behalf of young researchers in such instances is clear. In general, in describing the structures, systems and values of government research practices, there is a perception among stakeholders outside of government that these fall some way short of the standards discussed in Chapter Three for promoting a culture of participation.

Sustainability

Another issue identified by respondents which is again connected to temporal matters is that of sustainability. This includes the question of how to ensure young researchers' involvement across the lifespan of particular projects.

The length of (…), say, ESRC research projects is three years and if you think about the sustainability for children and young people through that, it's no doubt possible but it's a challenge as people and young people move on.

(Researcher 2)

But perhaps of more relevance in terms of government funded research which, at least in a Scottish context, tends to involve shorter term projects, is the issue of what happens to young researchers at the end of projects.

It's their one opportunity to come and feel part of something and then it comes to an end (…) and where do they go from there because there's still nothing in their local area? So there's real ethical issues there, as far as we're concerned, in terms of trying to sustain some kind of support afterwards.

(Researcher 5)

I think for me (…), the gap for me was no one from the Scottish Executive has followed through on this. They [young people] went down, (…) they said their piece, there were criticisms whatever, positive or negative. And then they had the letter and then that was it. They haven't been kept up to date on that piece of research or anything from that committee meeting.

(Researcher 6)

The last extract raises the issue of keeping young people informed about research outcomes and again there are potential resource implications arising from this. The issue of feedback is also connected to the question of if, and how, young researchers need to be - or should be - treated differently from adult researchers and whether or not young people's research is understood primarily as an exercise in participation, a point we return to when looking at understandings of research in the next chapter.

Sometimes the lack of follow-up with young people who were involved in carrying out research may be a result of the time it takes for some research reports to be cleared by government for publication. In the case described below, however, the researcher notes a share of the responsibility in needing to have re-contacted the young researchers before the end of the study.

They actually sat on it for two years before they cleared it and (…) when we did try to make contact again, through writing, we found that the (young researchers) had moved on (…) and I really had no means of contacting them but really, probably I should have contacted them before we got to the end of the study.

(Researcher 1)

Staff turnover within the civil service may also create issues in terms of the continuity and sustainability of projects involving young researchers. Again, this reflects one of the standards noted in Chapter Two about how to promote a culture of participation: the importance of staff whose specific remit is to support participation. In relation to Scottish Executive practice, this standard does not seem to be applied to the research context. One non-government researcher, for example, noted that there was initial interest expressed about young people having a greater participatory role in relation to a particular Scottish Executive research project but 'that there was considerable staff change so that sort of died'(Researcher 2).

Payment

The issue of payment also needs to be understood within the context of debates about the time young people give to research and the reasons why they get involved. Both the researchers outside government and young people themselves highlight payment as a difficult issue. For the young people there were the practical difficulties of being paid cash in hand and not being paid enough.

I would change the amount of money we get paid. A wee bit more for what we have done. (…) You choose to do it. You didn't have to do it. So I suppose it was like a bonus, but at the same time …

(Young researcher 1)

If it was paid into a bank account you would have been less likely to spend it. Being paid cash in hand in the middle of town, by the time you go through town it is gone.

(Young researcher 2)

The Scottish projects covered by the mapping exercise described a range of reimbursement practices. For those young people whose benefit would be affected by being paid, other rewards were used ranging from gift vouchers, to field trips, to accreditation. In the latter case, the project manager involved recognised that if accreditation for participation had been thought about from the beginning, existing SVQs could have been tailored accordingly. One project described the paying of young carers who had been involved in a consultation exercise for the Scottish Executive after their involvement as appropriate, both because it removed, as the manager put it, 'the pressure to perform' while at the same time recognising what young carers - a group of young people who have had to 'prioritise time their whole lives' - had contributed to the consultation.

Which young people?: Issues of representativeness

The discussion above about having access to a 'standing group' of young researchers links to the second point we wish to focus on in this chapter: the issue of recruitment of young researchers and the concomitant tensions between the aims of inclusiveness, representativeness and quality assurance. These are, in turn, linked to the justifications for involving young people in research in the first place and to assumptions about the nature of research - both of which are discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Researchers outside government and research managers and policy makers inside the Scottish Executive repeatedly focused on these interrelated issues.

(…) to me someone who is prepared to spend five minutes and tell you their view on something, their view is just as legitimate as someone who is prepared to engage in a six months process to be a peer researcher, so we have to be very careful that we don't involve a layer of people - young people who choose to be involved at that level - and we neglect the wider needs of other young people.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

There's a really fine line between young people being a voice, their own voice and actually truly a representative voice of young people.

(Researcher 4)

One of the big issues for us (…) is about getting the voices of all young people heard and it being truly representative (…) I mean the criticisms have been made of the youth parliament. Is it only representing a certain sector of young people? So ensuring good representation from minority ethnic groups, from young people living in rural areas, there are obviously particular challenges and the youth parliament is working to address those.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 4)

There would be a wariness about ensuring that it (research involving young researchers) was a sort of representative voice, they weren't excluding any of the young people.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 2)

One initiative which attempted to attract a wider range of young people from schools to carry out their own research noted that schools still sent their 'most able' pupils because they were concerned that to do otherwise would reflect badly on the school (Researcher 9). Another participation worker contacted as part of the mapping exercise referred to needing to ensure it is not just the 'keen beans' that are recruited. There appears to be a conflation of two concerns in these discussions - reflected in the above extracts: the concern that young researchers themselves should be representative of a larger group of young people and the concern about the representativeness of any research work they may do. As another (non-government) researcher noted:

There are a lot of excuses that are thought up, (…) a lot of objections that I think are just excuses, […]. For example there's a big thing about representativeness […] But I mean […] adults, professionals, we're constantly doing things where we're not representative, we're not representing anyone. It's like a double standard and trying to apply a much high(er) standard to this kind of research involvement than we set ourselves.

(Researcher 1)

While there may be fewer questions asked about the representativeness of adult researchers, it appears to be the idea that research by young people is itself a form of participation which leads to this concern in relation to young researchers. The debate about young researchers then becomes, for some people, either one of promoting inclusiveness and valuing experience or of promoting expertise.

Make it as inclusive as you can. It's great having a group of young folk who can be researchers, but if they're all A grade students who are going to go on and [be] post-graduates, (…) what's the point (…)? For that group of young folk it's great but (…) unless they [Scottish Executive] want it to be a career development opportunity they need to think about the broader social issues.

(Researcher 5)

For one project this tension was illustrated in a physical way when the first cohort of young researchers, recruited through a local training centre, voted with their feet and 'did a runner' at lunch time during the first day. The project, as a result, then decided to recruit older young people from the local college.

The younger ones didn't come back after they went out for a break. Then they got on to (…) the college.

(Young researcher 2)

The organiser of this research noted that the training was intensive and possibly difficult for young people with more chaotic lifestyles to engage with. He also noted that, although the ideal might have been to recruit people from such backgrounds and offer them enough support and training to enable them to do the research, in practice there was neither the time nor the resources for this to happen.

A researcher from another project that involved young people in evaluating a service they were also users of, noted that, while there was a need to support young people in learning about evaluation research, too much training might lead to the 'creaming off of the most academic youngsters' and, consequently, the loss of innovative ideas that come from experience, in this case, of using a service. To the extent that user-involvement in evaluations is viewed as essential to user-led services, training in this case could be perceived as a 'barrier' rather than an opportunity.

This touches on the fact that how respondents talk about involving young people in research is shaped by what they understand the purpose of the research to be. For example, in the case just noted, the purpose of research is framed in terms of promoting user involvement and improving services for young people as a result. In the next chapter, we explore this further by looking in more detail at respondents' justifications for involving young people in research and at their understandings of research.

In this chapter we explored stakeholders' perceptions about the practicalities and limitations of involving children and young people in research. We highlighted that respondents inside and outside of government both perceived the Scottish Executive, to date, as mainly having experience of involving children and young people through consultation rather than research. We concentrated on two issues in particular - resources and representativeness. In terms of resources, there was a perception among those outside government that the existing systems and structures of the Scottish Executive do not easily accommodate the more flexible arrangements necessary to involve children and young people as researchers, while those within the Scottish Executive were concerned about how the time-intensive nature of research involving young people would sit with the demands of policy makers to work to a tight timescale. Other issues connected to time and resources included the impact of staff turnover within the civil service as well as the question of how to keep young people involved during the course of a research project and also what, if any, responsibility the government might have to young researchers on completion of the research. In relation to the issue of representativeness, there seemed to be a conflation of the concern that young researchers themselves should be representative of a larger group of young people and concern about the representativeness of any work they do. This touches on whether or not research by young people is itself primarily understood as a participation opportunity and a means of encouraging inclusiveness. We explore further these issues about how to understand the nature of children and young people's research in the next chapter.

Key points from this chapter

· The perception of stakeholders inside and outside government is that there is little evidence to date of Scottish Executive-funded work that has directly involved young people in the doing of research, though there is awareness of a handful of projects that have given young people an advisory role.

· This contrasts with the wide range of consultation activities and mechanisms aimed at this age group and with an increasing emphasis on the involvement of young people in carrying out such work. It also stands in tension with an acknowledgement of the importance and relevance of studies through which young people's voices have been articulated as respondents.

· Although there was widespread support in principle for projects giving young people a more direct involvement in the research process, there was also concern about some practical and ethical issues, in particular around resources and representativeness.

· Such projects were seen as both time- and resource-intensive, since it may involve the use of youth participation/support workers as well as researchers, development of research training programmes and longer timescales to encourage participation at different stages of the research process. It was widely felt that Scottish Executive procurement processes, budgets and time pressures all meant that such approaches would be difficult to accommodate.

· Other issues connected to time and resources included the impact of staff turnover within the civil service as well as the question of how to keep young people involved during the course of a research project and also what, if any, responsibility the government might have to young researchers on completion of the research.

· Concern about the representativeness of the young people involved in such projects was also evident - in particular, a concern that less able and more excluded young people would not be represented.

CHAPTER FIVE: UNDERSTANDING THE INVOLVEMENT OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT FUNDED RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

As Chapter Three and the mapping exercise make clear, a whole spectrum of practices are covered by the description 'children and young people doing research'. The interviews carried out for this study suggest that possible justifications for these different practices are also wide-ranging. The Scottish Executive research managers and policy makers interviewed for this study were shown Dyson and Meagher's (2001) table and asked to discuss, drawing on their own experiences and beliefs, the justifications noted in the table: enabling the voices of young people to be heard, generating safe knowledge about young people, the possible impact on decision making and the empowerment of young people. The respondents outside government were not shown this table but it was used as the basis for asking them about the rationales for involving children and young people in research. The research managers and policy makers were also shown examples of different models for involving children and young people in research, including the co-researcher and child-initiated models.

Figure 1: Relationship between aims, tests and involvement (taken from Dyson and Meagher, 2001)

In this chapter, drawing on Dyson and Meagher's categories, we look at how respondents talk about rationales. Not surprisingly, as the focus was on government-funded research, there was a concern to explore the rationale of involving young people in research in order to impact on decision-makers. We also suggest, drawing on Dyson and Meagher's own description of these rationales as a 'loosely related family' (2001:71), that rather than treating 'enabling the voice of young people to be heard' as a discrete category, it is perhaps best thought of as informing the other three rationales. In what follows, we consider it particularly in relation to the empowerment of young people.

INVOLVING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE RESEARCH: JUSTIFICATIONS AND RATIONALES

Before looking at these rationales in detail, it is worth noting that when respondents justify the nature and level of young people's involvement in the doing of research they tend to position themselves somewhere on a spectrum that ranges, in the words of the respondent below, from the purely 'ideological' to the purely 'pragmatic', with most people not assuming a strong position at either end.

The better question is, if you were the policy maker, would you involve children and young people at every stage in the research for every study? And my answer to that would probably be no, I would consider (it) but (…) I would have to know why we do consider using them and why we consider using them at different points? Is it just purely ideological, in which case that's easy, (…) you just go for it every time. And I don't think that's where I am and I'd be amazed if the policy makers were there (…) You need to know what this is about, is this ideological, pragmatic or a bit of both?

(Researcher 3)

In general, from the interviews we carried out, there was a concern to link the level and nature of young people's involvement less to an overarching ideological belief that young people should be involved in all research about issues affecting them as a right than to the appropriateness of their involvement in relation to the nature of particular projects and the interests of the young people themselves. In the following detailed extract, the respondent illustrates this general approach.

In principle, I can see lots of advantages to all of those models [for involving children as researchers] depending (…) on what it is that you're looking to secure from it. (...). I think if you were looking at something like (…) options for the expansion of out of school care in rural areas. (…) Whether children would necessarily be able to analyse the feasibility of those options? It's a hypothetical example, but I would expect in research not just to have 'and 17thly here is another option'. (…) I would want to see those options appraised, evaluated and an explanation of 'this one is more feasible than that for these reasons'. (…) Depending on the age of the researchers that might be possible, but I think the ability to do that, because of their limited knowledge and experience of that kind of wider world, would limit their capacity to deliver the kind of product that I would want if what I was wanting was something that was virtually an option appraisal (….) I mean if you're wanting to secure something which is about children's perceptions of whatever it might be, then where else to go and who better to access those perceptions than other children it seems to me and that's great. But you could argue that I was unnecessarily limiting the scope for using children as researchers by that example. (…) Presumably if you want to use children you want to use them for a reason, not just so that you can tick the box and say `hey guys we've used children'.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

For some, however, confusion about why young researchers are being asked to be involved does lead to ethical problems. In one case, for example, researchers had not made it clear that they wished to recruit only those young people as research consultants who shared a similar life experience to research respondents. This led to one young person being disappointed that she had not been picked to become a research consultant.

we did our best to be clear about why we were involving them and what the research was and what it would be used for but just from the discussion we're having now I'm aware that we didn't make that distinction about their own experience rather than as researchers.

(Researcher 4)

For some respondents being clear about what lay people - or in current terminology, 'citizens' - are being asked to bring to research, also means being realistic about what they might not bring.

I think also that you don't assume that people have a research mindedness (…) if you drag somebody in off the street with no previous experience of research, you wouldn't expect them to know what to do.

(Researcher 1)

Key rationales: Empowering - and 'hearing the voices of' - young people

The rationale that young people should become involved in the doing of research because it gives them a voice and is in itself empowering was one that featured in discussions with the young researchers we interviewed. To some extent, this related to how they perceived adults' rationales for involving them in research: some young people we interviewed clearly understood adult researchers to feel that involving young researchers would be an empowering experience for the young people who undertook the research and, as the extract below suggests, allow access to young people's particular life experiences.

Researcher: Why do you think they wanted young people involved in doing the research? I think they did that so they could hear from us and get help from us to hear it from other young ones.

(Young researcher 2)

But when young researchers described the benefits they felt had arisen as a result of their research involvement, it was clear that they, too, from their own perspective, saw it both as an opportunity to have their voice heard in policy areas that they have experience of and also as empowering on a personal level.

Because it was to do with ourselves, with our views in housing so we could be heard and hopefully get a job.
And it is good on your CV as well.

(Young researcher 1)

I think I have learnt report writing because I wasn't very good at writing reports before…I am still not brilliant but …ideas of how to start them and stuff. Like putting together a questionnaire, before I wouldn't have known like the right sorts of questions to put in and how to word it, and how to set it out.

(Young researcher 5)

I could stand up in front of any crowd of young people and feel confident I knew what I was talking about […] and I know that it's the peer research that made me dead, dead confident of that.

(Young researcher 3)

I was quite pleased with myself that I did stand up and talk especially in front of people like councillors who can make a difference to what I was talking about.

(Young researcher 4)

Interestingly, for at least one young person, the benefits of taking part really only became apparent upon completion of the project - a point which may have implications for how involved young people are in the research process or the extent, as noted earlier, to which they are kept informed of research outcomes.

I didn't realise at the time where it was going to go but when you see it all coming together, the report and the presentation based on the report. It was good to see it. As you are doing it you don't always realise what is going on but as it comes together and there are reports based on your findings that is when you realise how important the research actually was.

(Young researcher 2)

You don't really know if you are going to be going out questioning people if it is going to be used. When you see that it is used, you see that it is not really a waste of time.

(Young researcher 2)

In terms of other possible rationales or justifications for getting involved, as with the lessons from previous studies, interview data from this project suggests that most young people do not take part in research because they want to be researchers; most get involved through their existing participation in organisations such as youth clubs, because they are encouraged to do so and/or because they are interested in a particular issue.

Just through living in this kind of area - that's why when I done the peer research. I was right into the fact that it was drugs and that it was about drug awareness but I didn't really know too much about peer research.

(Young researcher 3)

Interviews with adult researchers support this conclusion

Young people are motivated by issues, not to be researchers.

(Researcher 7)

They've got that specialism and that interest and that's who they are and so it's something that they want to get involved in. (…) there is a line in the volunteer strategy [Scottish Executive's], I can't mind what exactly it says but it's like `people need to not volunteer for volunteering sake, they need to volunteer because there's something they've got a common goal... a common interest'. So unless you want to be a researcher why would you be a researcher for just being a researchers sake? Why would that excite a young person? (…) in my opinion they would get involved in a particular research project because they are interested in it. The only other reason that they would get involved in, (…) is if there was loads of other really good things happening round about that (…) really good social opportunities.

(Researcher 5)

They'd say `oh cause I really like everybody and I've got really good pals' and `yeah we're making a difference but it's really good fun'. And it's the support around that rather than `well what I really desperately want to do is go and find out the transport issues for young people'.

(Researcher 5)

It's hard to tell why did they choose to become involved. I couldn't say other than perhaps they were interested intrinsically in the sort of thing, in the subject. (…) the way we presented it to them it was very much about us finding out from them so we were very much focusing in on them as the experts, they know what their own lives are like and they can help us and I think that appealed as well. The recognition of them as being the people who we could learn from and that kind of generally turns it on its head doesn't it?

(Researcher 4)

It is also worth remembering that the rationale of hearing the voice of young people may be understood differently by different people. For example, two people interviewed for this study described situations in which the young people they were working with were asked to comment on policies or documents where central or local government required young people's input. However, the young people themselves did not always want to comment on these adult-created policies and were more interested in bringing their own issues to policy makers. In one case, an invitation for young people to join a predominately adult board concerned with policies for children and young people was rejected by young people, who expressed little interest in sitting through the meetings. These situations illustrate the way that 'involvement' framed as 'hearing the voice of the child' may be enacted by young people and adults in very different ways and of the tensions that can emerge as a result.

One policy maker expressed a similar concern that those within government might also be unclear about whose voice they are being given access to. In particular, this policy maker asked questions about how those models which appear to give children a greater say - such as the co-researcher model - would actually operate in practice.

…the co-researchers, I kind of feel a degree of scepticism creeping over me about that and I wonder to what extent that is truly co-research of equals or whether it's more in the way of guided research, or perhaps even mentored research. (…) If you were talking kids in their young teens, I think there might be some dubiety about the nature of the equality there, frankly, so I can see that there would be value in that but I think I would be sceptical (…) that it is truly co-research, as I would understand that - you know, the sort of community of equals who are sharing the decision making and whose views are given equal weight (…). The imbalance of management and expertise is likely to come to bear anyhow, so even if the adults didn't intend to control the agenda, I can see that unless you had really quite, quite determined and confident children or young people, it would be very easy for them to kind of defer to the adults.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

It is worth bearing in mind, too, that young people may feel differently about different projects; they do not necessarily wish to be involved in the same way in each one. Research projects that they initiate or are closely involved in from the beginning may feel different from those that they are simply asked to contribute to. In the following extract, for example, young people are responding to a question about how they would feel working on a research project designed by someone else.

We kind of felt as though that was our project and we should have input in everything, so I don't think I'd mind so much because it's not my project, it's like somebody else's thing, I'm just kind of helping out wherever they need me.

Aye that's right, it wouldn't bug me if it was somebody else's project but I would definitely do it, I would help them.

(Young researchers 3 and 4)

Key rationales: Creating safer knowledge?

Some of the data above also draws implicitly on the argument that young people's involvement in research necessarily improves the quality of data or makes for 'safer' knowledge because it is directly informed by young people's experiences. Policy makers and research managers also acknowledged that this justification could be important but, at the same time, pointed out that it could not be assumed that involving young people in the doing of research necessarily achieved this. In the first extract, it is interesting to note that 'safeness' is equated with the issue of interviewer bias rather than the more general issue of research being informed by young people's knowledge and 'voice'. In the following extracts, a policymaker acknowledges that where it could be shown that there were significant differences as a result of young people being interviewed by young as opposed to adult researchers, the implications of this could be far-reaching.

I mean, I don't think that the fact that you use young people or you invite young people to act as peer researchers makes the knowledge any more safe. (…) we know that when we act as interviewers and we know that when we act as respondents that we all kind of respond to the situation that we're in and another young person could have just as much influence over a young person as an adult could. I mean equally there might be issues where maybe having people who have similar experiences does mean that a young person feels more able to express certain things.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

If, say for example, you're asking young people about drug misuse, you may get a different response if the questions are being asked by a young person than if the questions are being asked by an adult but you can't assume that it's safer necessarily, because it's being asked by a young person or that young people are more able to express their views. Some young people will feel safer with adults in doing that than they would with other young people, so it would give a different dimension but it's no less, no more valid than other methods. And if it was found that certain types of research elicited different views when undertaken by young people then that would need to be borne in mind for the construction of any future research because you couldn't continue as business as normal by (adults) asking those sort of questions.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

Key rationales: Impacting on decision-makers?

Having considered how different respondents think about rationales such as empowering young people, creating safe knowledge about young people and hearing the voice of young people, in the remainder of this section we focus on the justification that research by young people could and should have an impact on decision makers. There were a range of perspectives on this issue with some, as a result of their experience, expressing optimism about the possibility of young researchers having such an impact.

[A policy maker] was in tears at the launch because I think two of the young people gave very moving speeches about their experience (…) and their experience of doing the research, and what it meant to them to be involved in it. And she…I think…she went up to them afterwards and kind of thanked them and said that she had never been so moved by something, and she really was going to try and do something about it. And I believed her, yes. So I mean having them there made an enormous impact. I mean I could never get the senior management in tears just from what I say. It really needs to come from the horse's mouth. I think they were surprised, the young people were surprised by how much of an impact they had on them - I mean that was an eye opener for them.

(Researcher 10)

Others were more pessimistic. For some, the fact that policy making in general still has a 'haphazard' approach to the involvement of young people leads them to be sceptical about the potential influence of young people's research. The following observation was made during the mapping exercise by a respondent from a children's organisation

There has been a shift in the Scottish Executive towards taking on the views of young people, but how these should be understood or actioned in the policy making process is still haphazard rather than strategic.

Illustrating a point made at a recent stakeholders' meeting about children and research organised by SEED [2] that ministers act on 'trust' (personal notes), some policy makers in this study are also mindful of the complex range of influences that act on policy makers and are, therefore, reluctant to single out the impact of young researchers.

I don't think you can really make a generalisation at that level (…). For example, a Minister might be more affected by a five minute conversation with somebody in a school than they are by an entire piece of research.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

This links to the more general theme of how respondents in and outside of government view the relationship between policy and research. Some policy makers, as noted in the above extract, were reluctant to endorse an understanding of the relationship between research and policy as linear and emphasised instead how impact is perceived to be linked to the 'quality' of the research. This, in turn, begs the question of how quality is understood - a point developed in the next section.

Impacting on decision makers? The impact would depend on the quality of the information or advice that's generated, I mean that's the reality of it and most decision makers will not necessarily think 'oh this is .. children, therefore, it's absolutely right', they would want it to be kind of reasonable, sensible (…) I think the voice of children, particularly in the development of policies relating to children does impact, but I don't think we should necessarily assume that it has a kind of automatic impact.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

Some adult researchers expressed concern that, given such a context, young people might either see the process of involving them in research as tokenistic or have unrealistic expectations about the likely influence or impact that their research might have.

They [young people] know that it's a tick box exercise. But also a lot of the time with consultation…there is the consultation but then there is no feedback about (…) where that information has went to or anything. And it devalues the whole experience and makes them cynical about it and totally jaded, you know. And I just…I wouldn't like to see that happening with something that was going to involve young people in a more proactive way.

(Researcher 6)

They worried also that they would be…that their work wouldn't be taken on board seriously. And I suppose there was an element of scepticism about tokenistic participation.

(Researcher 10)

The following extract from an interview with a Scottish Executive research manager, however, suggests that an apparent lack of action following a piece of research is a fact of life for adult researchers and something that young researchers may have to accept too.

Nothing may seem to happen in terms of what they've done. I just think that's the way that research is and that's part of learning how to be a researcher - sometimes we're very disappointed.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 1)

Some policy makers shared a concern that young people's experience of involvement might ultimately turn out to be disempowering because of the less than direct relationship between research and policy. There were also concerns expressed about the risks for young researchers - and for the credibility of their research - if research conducted by young people was to be assessed within a wholly traditional research framework.

You have the issue about whether they're just being manipulated into an adult agenda or whether the research world is really going to change in order to have a different perspective on research (…). I think it would be very easy to pick holes in the research where young people have had a major involvement and I think getting other people to change (…) people like us and people who would use the research and researchers themselves.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

I think that if young people generated research findings that were quite negative and presented them in a way that wasn't traditional I think it would realistically be easier for people in government, (…) to say 'oh well that's very interesting, of course we'll take that into account' (…) and of course [there is] a question about that. (…) I think it's certainly harder to ignore research findings that are generated by a nationally-reputable research company.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 1)

As a response to this, one policy maker raised the possibility of using a different discourse - one focused on responsibility and citizenship rather than influence or empowerment. This is interesting because, like the earlier extract from a non-government researcher (page 36), it draws on involvement as a form of citizenship - a way of learning about civic life - although, in this case, the focus is on the responsibilities attached to this involvement.

I think it's good to provide children with the opportunity to speak their minds, to express their views, I think arguably that is empowering. It's empowering if children feel that what they have said is then being taken account of and if they don't immediately see it reflected in whatever happens thereafter then maybe that isn't empowering. In any consultation, you don't necessarily end up agreeing with what some of the consultees say and research will often throw up ambiguities which lead you not necessarily to go down a particular route, so I think we have to be careful about this notion of empowering. Because I think if people are consulted or engaged or feel a part of a process but then don't see something at the end of it which reflects the nature of their engagement or consultation, then that potentially is actually quite disempowering (…) It kind of leaves you with 'oh well who cares', 'why did they ask them if …' or `why did I do this if the answer isn't whatever I thought it should be' (…). But also I think giving young people the opportunity - and I don't see this as being about empower[ment] really - but providing children with opportunities to take responsibility and (…) responsibility is the key word here. This kind of notion of citizenship (…), engaging children and young people in the debate about the whole business of developing decisions which impact on civic life.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

The issue of who addresses perceptions of tokenism is an interesting one. If those outside government do not think that involving young people in research - either as respondents or researchers - is taken seriously by government, then the costs of involving young people in a competitive-tendering environment may be deemed too high by adult researchers.

Say the Scottish Executive say `we'll put this out for tender and you may or may not engage children' (…) you're going to be saying `oh well that's going to take double the time and they're not going to pay extra and they're going to give it to (name of University) because they only put in 25 percent overheads and they don't go and see children and young people', so I think there are real nitty gritty crunch questions for the Scottish Executive'.

(Researcher 3)

At the same time, some policy makers position the potential for the involvement of young people in research as primarily as a methodological decision rather than a decision about how best to promote participation and, therefore, as more the remit of research managers and researchers.

I suppose one of the limitations here is our procurement process, it's that we tend to decide what we want done and then put that out to tender and there are a limited number of providers that really tender for Scottish Executive research work so our ability to influence is more about determining the outputs of the research than about how it's done (…). I'm not sure how much through that procurement process we can really influence the methodology of the researchers.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 4)

We are quite led by how researchers suggest things are proceeded with, particularly methodology. We're usually pretty clear about the outcomes that we want to the questions that we're concerned about. I think we would be influenced by researchers building into their methodology greater involvement by young people. If they were sure that it would work then we're not likely to argue too much, I think that that's the most likely way rather than us demanding […] that children are much more active in the process. In fact, I think we would get a rather rude response from researchers if we suggested that we knew better than they about how they should go about their work.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

I can't imagine that researchers would think, well it would be unacceptable with the Scottish Executive. I think we give quite participatory messages but we couldn't lead it.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

Researchers outside of government, however, might not hear the message coming from the Scottish Executive as being as 'participatory' or open to new ways of conducting research as the extract above suggests some of those inside assume it to be. Alternatively, those on the outside might find that participatory messages are mixed up with - or even drowned out by - louder messages concerned with the evaluation of outcomes. We return to these themes when looking at assumptions about the nature of research in the next section.

While the above concerns about the likelihood of impacting on policy are clearly important, it is worth being cautious about whether all young people share these concerns. Young people not only have their own rationales for being involved which, as we have seen, may or may not sit with adult justifications, they do not necessarily share adult researchers' concerns when adult rationales for involving them in research are not prioritised. For instance, while professional researchers may emphasise the need to see policy consequences arising from research - and having an impact on decision makers is one of the justifications frequently noted in the literature - not all young researchers judge the value of their involvement in those terms. One adult respondent noted, for example, that the young researchers they worked with did not have a clear idea of policy or other changes that they wished to see arising from the research: 'we were more able to generate a good discussion of the findings but not necessarily move to action that they felt that they wanted' (Researcher 2).

Impacting on policy through consultation or research

Some respondents compared the indirect nature of the research-policy relationship with the possibilities afforded potentially through consultation. One researcher, for example, describing a particular consultation exercise, noted that consultations might allow for particular arrangements to be negotiated with policy makers 'upfront' in a way that might not have been possible through research.

They [Scottish Executive] made agreements (…) that they would have to get back to the young people. The young people were wanting to meet with ministers so the minister would have to meet with them and they would have to have a chance to feedback.

(Researcher 2)

A policy maker interviewed for the study, however, drew a distinction between consultation on 'concrete' or 'tangible' issues and higher level strategic policy development, particularly in relation to younger children.

We undertook a series of focused consultations with children using [a named] service so again (…) the engagement was around what's it like for you? What do you like about what you're currently doing in these services? What would you like to do? What do you think other children who maybe don't come to this club would like to do and why don't they come? So those kinds of fairly concrete questions were explored with children, really quite young children. I mean some of them were only about kind of seven or eight, reasonably successfully. (…). I don't know how readily replicable that might be. That was quite good because we were talking about something at a fairly tangible level. When you're talking at a higher level around policy development, seriously strategic stuff, I think it can become quite difficult as I was saying earlier for that to have resonance particularly for very young children.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

There are also questions raised about the type of research that the Scottish Executive is increasingly interested in commissioning. The move towards using data gathered through the information systems of provider agencies and the increasing focus on evaluation research - with a strong outcome focus - suggests that the opportunities currently for involving young people in research, and, therefore, influencing decision makers, may be restricted. It is worth noting, however, that some of the examples from the mapping exercise of young researchers' involvement in central or local government-funded research involved evaluation research. (See, for example, reference to the evaluation of Children's Fund projects in the annex.)

I mean a significant chunk of the research we fund would be evaluation probably of different funding projects or of different pilots and I suppose there are interesting questions there, I mean in terms of who does the evaluation, at what stage it's done, what's internal, what's external (….) Certainly a significant chunk of what we're doing is looking at different ways of evaluating and how you get the data that's going to help you make long terms funding decisions or decide what's sustainable and what you can rule out.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 4)

Local or national research?

This understanding of research as answering concrete policy questions leads some to argue that there is potentially more value - in terms of policy impact - in young people becoming involved in research at local as opposed to national level.

Increasingly, within policy, there is more interest in things like action research and service user involvement, ways of developing practice locally and there might be something there about looking at more participative ways of working which can help people through projects at local level to develop their practice (…).

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

At the same time, local research might not only provide better opportunities for young people to inform policy, it might also be perceived to be more relevant to young people themselves.

Thinking about what's actually important in a child or a young person's life, quite often it will be what's happening in their area, what's available in this area, what support they're getting and what the school is like, what support they're getting at school. (…) Actually the kind of bit that they need to feed into isn't necessarily the national picture, it may be in that gap between the policy stuff and how that's actually implemented locally.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

Examples of just this sort of impact were found in the mapping exercise, both in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

One other piece of work (…) involved supporting 11 youth peer leaders to undertake 7 pieces of peer research exploring what health means to young people in their own right and according to their own terms of reference (rather than policy agendas). This was insightful both as a process as well as what it revealed as findings. We then supported young people in communicating their findings (using visuals) to practitioners and decision makers in a large scale event with 100 people as an alternative approach to policy learning. What was interesting was that whereas professionals were expecting to hear about diet, physical activity, smoking, drinking, sexual health, teenage pregnancy, young people were saying that 'Yes these are issues but what really affects us is pressure and stress'. We then facilitated dialogue between professionals and young people around these issues and started to think about how to respond to these issues. This whole piece of work exposed the policy learning gap between where policy and provision are directed and what matters most to (these) young people, and as such demonstrated the value of alternative forms of research and development involving young people (…). Again the value here was in working with adults, engaging and interacting rather than writing up research in a report.

(Personal communication from a researcher contacted as part of the mapping exercise)

Others pointed out, however, that while change may be more likely at local level, involving children and young people only at this local level leaves the national picture dominated by an adult-centric view. In thinking about the experience of Whitehall in relation to involving children in research or consultation, a key development here - and one not replicated in Scotland - is, as the mapping exercise shows, the Children and Youth Board. As noted in the annex, the first board involved 25 young people across a fairly wide age range advising on five specific policy areas. These policy areas were relatively complex and the experience of Children's Express, the organisation responsible for recruiting and setting up the first board, was that it was challenging to consult with quite young children in some cases on such themes. A key issue here was that the policy areas the board was required to explore were identified by the DfES, rather than by the young people on the board.

Another example from the mapping exercise of involvement in central government-funded research came from an organisation that ran a young researchers group. Young researchers from the group were involved in assessing research proposals for a Whitehall department. In this instance, the researchers involved commented on the need for government departments to provide information that is accessible and for them to be clear about what is needed, noting that 'translating government information for young people is very time-consuming' (Researcher 7 ).

Shaping the research agenda

Finally, in terms of this question of impacting on decision makers, it is interesting to note that some respondents both inside and outside of government argued that the most significant way children and young people could impact on policy through government-funded research is less through the doing of the research than through young people becoming involved in shaping the research agenda.

It doesn't necessarily have to mean peer research but there is something useful I think about involving young people in defining research questions. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have to then go on and do the research but I suppose that's a way of looking at enabling young people's voices to be heard.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

I think the big power is defining the question (…). I think really if you've already set the question, that's the agenda.

(Researcher 3)

In the extract given below, for example, it is recognised by a Scottish Executive policy maker that involvement at the agenda-setting stage might lead to a completely different research agenda within parts of the Scottish Executive.

Adults do have a sort of political process through which they can express a lot of their concerns and then Governments are responsive to that and yes I think that the minority views of children (…) get lost because they are a minority view. But at the moment our criminal justice agenda, of which youth justice is a part, is an adult's agenda, it's what adults are concerned about not what young people are concerned about(…). If [young people] were more involved in setting the agenda on the research side that would then influence policy then we would possibly have a different youth justice and criminal justice agenda.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

In some ways, managing young people's involvement in processes that aim to shape research agendas might be easier - and fairer to young people - than having young people involved in research after projects have already been designed. In one research study covered by the mapping exercise, for example, the researcher discussed the young researchers' decision to talk with other children about issues that they themselves were interested in. On the one hand, this led her to note that 'when you ask children to do research the fun takes over, and why not? Why must they act like adult researchers?'. On the other hand, she commented on the 'huge dilemmas' for the researcher in meeting the needs of the funding body for reliable data while also giving children power to do things/pursue things that they are interested in.

Compared to other concerns that young people face, involving young people in the doing of research might not seem, at first, like a key participation issue. Giving young people access to some of the avenues adult researchers have for shaping research agendas - avenues which in the case of adult researchers are already limited - might, however, have a trickle-down effect that means, in practice, research by young people has the potential to be a significant participation issue.

If I had to worry on the scale of nought to ten about young people's participation I would be more worried about the 15 years they spent at school than I would be on whether they actually said something at an advisory group in a research study. (…) I was slightly reluctant I think at first to think this was the priority and actually I think participation in much bigger things like pocket money and what school you go to as a young person was probably a bit more important. Although of course they are connected because if they start framing research questions then research might more reflect what they think should be discussed or asked.

(Researcher 3).

The argument of the Children's Research Centre, noted in Chapter Two, that teaching young people research skills is one way of encouraging young people to think about what sort of research agenda they might want is relevant here, as it is not necessarily the case that young people, without support, would be able to identify such an agenda:

It is a big question to say to young people 'what do you want to research?'.

(Researcher 7)

In a Scottish context, there are examples of those involved in promoting children and young people's participation in public decision-making increasingly seeing research as a key part of a broader participation agenda. Recent developments at the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People are a case in point (see the annex). There is, however, as the above discussion about rationales has made clear, a balance which needs to be struck between the process of participation and outcomes arising from the research itself:

But if they really and truly want to involve young people and they really and truly are committed to the participation of young people in the whole process (…). There has to be an acceptance that (A) the process will be longer and (B) it may not be that hard and fast (…). But it's still…it's valid.

(Researcher 6)

if you are going to come from it at a purely participation level (…) you are not going to be actually interested in the information. (…) You are not going to be interested in the end product, the report or the evidence itself. You will just be interested in the fact that the young folk are going through that whole process. So there has to be a balance somewhere.

(Researcher 6)

The above extracts illustrate an emergent point from this discussion: rationales for involving young people in research are inextricably linked to understandings about research more generally. To conclude this analysis chapter, therefore, in the following section we look at respondents' understandings of research in more detail.

UNDERSTANDING OF RESEARCH: A SPECIFIC SET OF SKILLS OR A VEHICLE FOR PARTICIPATION?

It is not surprising to find that those respondents working within participatory organisations emphasise different aspects of research from those working within a government setting, a setting which is increasingly influenced by the discourse of evidence-based policymaking.

The advent of evidence based policy-making has really shifted, I think, everyone's understandings of the nature of that relationship between policy makers and researchers in particular. Although the evidence base that we would draw on wouldn't just be research it would obviously involve information from statisticians, from economists and a whole raft of other professional advisors. But I think it has shifted our understanding and certainly we are, I think, taking some pains to try to develop policy on the back of evidence wherever there is that evidence and sometimes that does mean commissioning the research yourself.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

For policy makers and research managers, in relation to young people being involved in the doing of research, this brings with it a renewed focus on the 'robustness' of the data' and 'quality assurance'.

There is an issue of robustness in size of work and things like that which obviously are important as well and to get that level of quality in peer research, unless you're looking at paying people and at a much more formalised process, then you're probably looking at small scale work.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 2)

the problem for me is about skills and quality assurance and I guess those are the things that worry me.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 1)

Awareness of these concerns led the National Children's Bureau (NCB), in their work with young researchers on the DfES funded projects 'Building Cultures of Participation', to pursue not peer-led research but a model where young researchers were working alongside adult researchers at all times. In other NCB projects, where young people have conducted telephone interviews, the organisation has used telephone conferencing to allow an adult researcher to listen in and to ask follow-up questions or support the young researcher where necessary. While this was done primarily for support, it also assisted with quality control.

Others working in the participation as opposed to the research field appear less likely to emphasise the need for research skills or training or, at least, are less likely to distinguish these from other skills such as 'community development' (mapping exercise respondent), 'good community work', 'citizenship' (Researcher 8) or, as one respondent framed it, 'skilling up for life'(Researcher 6).

there is a set of skills but I think that they are transferable skills. So…they are necessary and obviously if the Scottish Executive or other organisations wanted young people to do a piece of research they would want to know that the capability was there within that group, or the adult supporters or whatever, to go through the process. But I think the issue (…) is not about that boxing of things (…) it would be part of the bigger picture, part of the whole. And I think that's what kind of has to be recognised. So it's about skilling up for life.

(Researcher 6)

Indeed, young people, as one voluntary sector researcher noted, are often involved in finding out about the needs of young people in their area, but this often takes place under the rubric of 'development work' and would not necessarily be written up as 'research'. Some of the young people interviewed for this project, too, described having a vague notion of what research actually is and saw it mainly in terms of getting 'feedback'. Others who were also involved in peer education work did not necessarily distinguish between the two.

Yet, at the same time, there was a recognition that research can involve many tasks and some young people, it was argued by some respondents, might be better equipped to undertake some of these tasks more than others. Whether experienced questionnaire designers would necessarily agree with the following description of questionnaires as 'not that big a deal' is another question.

People make assumptions that young folk are incapable of doing something based on their age, and their experience. I mean for me it's not that big a deal to do questionnaires. It's not like (…) the young folk are doing something that does take a lot of experience (…). Like if you are doing an observation study, or if you were doing some sort of analysis [of] documents, or something like that. That's stuff that you are sort of saying well you should have a skilled person because you need to have that sort of skill level (…). There are ways of adapting research methods so that young folk can (use them).

(Researcher 6)

Another research respondent noted there were distinctions to be made between technical research skills, such as running statistical tests, and skills which are useful in research but which could be better thought of as 'accumulated common sense' such as knowing that if you 'ask a leading question you will get a led answer' (Researcher 2).

Those working in the participation field who did not themselves advocate research training, did not, however, necessarily reject more formal approaches offered by other organisations such as that provided by the Children's Research Centre described in Chapter Three. Indeed several researchers described the need for a diversity of research practices to reflect the diversity of young people who may wish to be involved in doing research. For some, however, there was a concern that structured research training programmes for young people might be experienced as a form of co-option - 'to join in our debate, you have to be like/sound like us' (Researcher 8). The difficulty, as discussed in Chapter Two is that these less structured, 'more anarchic' (Researcher 8) approaches might struggle to get the funding necessary for young people to even have the option of becoming 'strategic' players.

While there are differences in understandings of research between those working within participatory and government settings, there is also evidence of a crossover of concerns between the two: some research managers were apparently open to less traditional research approaches - albeit, as illustrated by the third extract, still informed by concerns about 'competence' - while some academic researchers were, like their government colleagues, also troubled by the notion of research expertise.

It's about making sure that [the research] fits the purpose which doesn't necessarily mean to say they look and sound like a researcher. There are many ways of doing research, some of them bear very little resemblance to what we commission on a daily basis and as long as I was confident that the team involved thought very carefully about it and could explain why they were doing what they were doing then I would be very happy (…).

(Research Manager 1)

I think people would have to become less concerned about things like sample size, I think they would have to become less concerned about how questions were asked (…) the language and structure of questions but also the questions being asked in the sort of same way. (…) I think there are probably a number of assumptions already made about how if you engage a bona fide research institution about how they conduct their work (…). If those methods were changed and the people receiving the research would have to understand how those methods had changed and what the impact of those changes was likely to be on the validity and so on and that they would get a different product, which may be great maybe add huge value, but it would be a different product to what they're sort of currently used to. Certainly I think it would add a different dimension.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

I think providing one (…) could be reassured of the competence of the children and young people to undertake the particular task in hand, there shouldn't in principle be any real obstacles (…). It ought to be like any other form of research, you don't let a research contract to people that you think have not got the ability to deliver it. It should be no different whether you're engaging with adult researchers or children and young people as researchers. The kind of notion of competence and confidence in that competence seems to me to be the critical factor.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

I suppose I don't necessarily share the - and this is very non-politically correct - the notion of non expertise. I do actually think I'm better at research than a lot of people cause I've done it for ten years in the same way that I think my plumber is better than I am [at plumbing].

(Researcher 3)

Relatedly, respondents noted there are points of divergence and convergence between young researchers and adult researchers commissioned to do Scottish Executive research.

My guess is that the challenges are no different to any other form of research - sort of authority, validity and all the rest of it - but trickier to achieve I suppose.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 3)

You probably wouldn't be looking at their track record in quite the same way, but I would be looking to identify an understanding of what the aims of the research were so not just 'it will be fun doing this' but 'what is it we're trying to get out of this and why'. So an understanding of that to inform the nature of the work that was then undertaken and I think you would want to talk to them (…) in the first instance and suss that out and suss them out in the same way that we invite researchers in to give us a presentation. I mean you might tackle that in a slightly different way, you might not want to do it in that kind of formal way that we do with experienced adult researchers. You would want to engage with them before you commission them to do it and reassure yourself in various ways that they have a notion of what they were going to do, how they were going to do it and why they were doing it. I think those are the fundamental elements of it to me.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

It would seem, then, that there might be a danger in conceiving all research done under the rubric of evidence-based policy as highly concrete and geared to the provision of definitive answers to specific questions and adopting a particular method. The above discussion with policy makers and research managers would suggest not only that research is not the only form of evidence drawn on by policy makers, but that even within the research arena, work is commissioned that is concerned with exploring new issues or generating fresh insights, rather than answering very narrow and specific questions. As a result, there might be room for methodological pluralism, and even for less focus on rigour, as long as the role and limitations of such approaches are acknowledged. As one research manager summed it up:

It's the justification of doing what they're doing, and that doesn't necessarily have to be a traditional research justification, it just has to be a justification that can convince.

(Scottish Executive Research Manager 1)

In summary, this chapter continued the analysis of the qualitative data for this study beyond that of the practicalities of involving children as researchers in government funded research - the focus of Chapter Four - to look at the justifications for this practice and the understandings of research that these are based on. It is clear from this that the stakeholders interviewed share similar rationales for involving children and young people in the doing of research to those identified in the research literature. Given the concern with government-funded research, however, a focus on the potential for such work to impact on decision-making was, not surprisingly, a key consideration. There was considerable doubt expressed about the possibility of having this type of impact, given the nature of the research-policy relationship, and, therefore, a focus on other ways of impacting on government policy -whether through consultation, concentrating on local issues or finding other means of children and young people shaping the research agenda - was evident. Young people interviewed for the study did not necessarily share adult concerns about impacting on policy or at least they also expressed other justifications for still wanting to be involved in doing research.

In terms of the understanding of research that is informing these positions, it is clear there is a spectrum of views, ranging from traditional perspectives concerned with validity and reliability and the training of research skills, to perspectives which do not seem to distinguish clearly between research and other participatory skills and which downplay the need for formal research training. While these differences in views, for the most part, reflect whether a respondent is informed by a government, academic or participatory background, there was some blurring of perspectives across these contexts - not least, perhaps, because respondents have moved between different settings in the course of their careers - and an acceptance that what was needed was clarity about what the justification for research was and what it can and cannot reasonably be expected to do.

Key points from this chapter

· This chapter looked at the justifications stakeholders offered for involving children and young people more directly in the research process and at the understandings of research that these are based on.

· The stakeholders interviewed share similar rationales for involving children and young people in the doing of research to those identified in the research literature - but there was a particular interest in and focus on the potential for such work to impact on decision-making.

· There was considerable doubt expressed about the possibility of having this type of impact on decision-making, given the nature of the research-policy relationship, and, therefore, a focus on other ways of impacting on government policy was evident - whether through consultation, concentrating on local issues or finding other means of children and young people shaping the research agenda.

· There is a spectrum of views, ranging from traditional perspectives concerned with validity and reliability and training in research skills, to perspectives which do not seem to distinguish clearly between research and other participatory skills and which downplay the need for formal research training.

· There was general agreement that what is needed is clarity about what kind of justification or rationale underpins any particular project.

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMENDATIONS

In this study we argued that to understand the possibilities and limitations of involving children and young people in the doing of government funded research, we first needed to locate this practice within the broader child participation agenda as well as a tradition of inclusive research. In thinking through what the implications of this exercise are for involving young people in the doing of research, it is worth considering an observation made by Pole et al in 1999. They argued that, if age is viewed as a form of 'research capital', children 'simply lack the required amount of capital which would give them a greater stake in the research process' (1999: 51). Children as researchers do not have the same legitimacy as children as research subjects now have and this study would suggest that, seven years on, Pole's observation that 'the prospect of giving over large amounts of public money to children to conduct their own research is likely to halt even the most committed child-centred researchers in their tracks' (50) still holds true.

While young people may not as yet hold research capital, the findings from this project suggests they do, because of media and government interest in them, already hold another form of capital - which might best be described as participation capital. Tisdall and Davis (2004) note that the prominence of participation within government ideology means that children's involvement in policy participation has become a 'strategic' as well as 'knowledge' resource. In other words, governments not only need access to children's experiences as knowledge, they now also need, for political reasons, to be seen to be accessing this knowledge. This could work in two ways for children and young people. On the one hand, if children's direct involvement in research, as participants never mind as researchers, comes to be perceived as a 'tick box' exercise - pursued for political reasons and, therefore, not properly integrated into research design and planning - then little has been gained and, indeed, the cynicism that could result from such an exercise might lead in the long term to a worse outcome than young people not being involved in the first place. On the other hand, it is this same participation capital which offers young people the potential not only to become involved in the doing of research but perhaps, more significantly, to become part of the community that negotiates the shaping of the research agenda.

Interviews with a range of stakeholders for this study suggest that the government - both at devolved and UK level - does appear to be committed to enabling the voices of young people to be heard through its broader participatory agenda. The rationale for involving young people in the doing of research is, however, still understood, within government in particular, less in terms of inclusiveness and more in terms of the requirements of needing 'robust' data to inform an evidence based approach to policy. In other words, interviewees' understandings about the limits of and rationales for involving young people in research are shaped by broader understandings about the nature and purpose of research.

There is, then, an interesting tension here: governments, including the Scottish Executive, may be pushing forward a participation agenda in policy terms in relation to young people, but in relation to research specifically, the strength of the evidence-based approach - ideologically if not always in practice - means that young people's research participation might be fairly tokenistic.

And there are other tensions too: those outside of government who are working with/for children, may - as we saw when looking at the participatory research tradition - invest in the rationales of impacting on decision making and empowering young people but young people themselves may not share all or indeed any of these rationales. Equally, these goals, in any case, may not always be best met through young people's involvement in research. There is, for example, some evidence in Scotland to suggest that young people may be more likely to influence policy makers through their involvement in consultation than research or at the very least, an indication that involvement in the latter helps establish a 'foothold' for young people in the policy community and moves them closer to the possibility of self advocacy (Tisdall and Davis, 2004).

Ways forward

In Chapter Two we considered recent work looking at how government departments and other public bodies can develop participatory cultures within their organisations and referred to standards for evaluating the extent to which such cultures exist. In so far as the mapping exercise and interview data for this study suggests that Scottish Executive is at an early stage in relation to all or most of these broader participation standards, it is not surprising that the role of children and young people in relation to research practices is fairly limited. In considering findings from this feasibility study in light of these standards, however, five potential ways forward emerge for the Scottish Executive, and for SEED in particular, in thinking about children and young people as researchers in relation to government-funded research.

1. The Executive could consider making it clear in research procurement that consultation with children and young people in the design of research is desirable, where appropriate

First, given that it is not clear that the wider research community shares the perception of some policy makers that the Scottish Executive would be open to hearing about more inclusive research practices with children and young people, there is the possibility for the Scottish Executive, like other funding bodies such as Carnegie, to make it explicit at the procurement stage that, depending on the aims of the study, consultation with children and young people in the design of research studies, is desirable. This could - again, depending on the nature of the study - allow for the possibility of young people becoming part of the research team. Given the Scottish Executive's focus on evaluation research, it might be useful to think in particular about how at the procurement stage, evaluation research concerned with children and young people could involve children and young people themselves in the carrying out of such research.

One obvious way would be for us to increasingly specify in our research outlines, an expectation that there will be some kind of engagement with or of children in the research. Again I think whether that's with, or of, would be dependent on the nature of the work (…). If nothing else it would begin to shape understandings in here of the potential for engaging in different ways with children and involving them in our research programme in rather a different way from what we currently are doing. So I think that would be the kind of biggy, the obvious one and I suspect you would take it from there.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

To make the involvement of children and young people a realistic possibility at this stage of the research, however, this study suggests there would also need to be greater flexibility, particularly around timing, in relation to tendering for projects.

Second, in terms of pre-existing structures, there could be opportunities for children and young people to become involved in applying, particularly in partnerships with children's organisations and professional researchers and academics, for monies through the sponsored research programmes. Indeed, using the sponsored research programme in this way could be a useful discreet pilot study for SEED on how to work with young researchers. In terms of pre-existing models outside of the Scottish Executive that might be usefully drawn on, the mapping exercise suggests that the research mentoring format adopted by SCARF (Scottish Community Action Research Fund) could be adapted by SEED. A couple of SCARF's projects, detailed in the mapping exercise, involved mentors working with peer researchers and there might be possibilities for research mentors to work in a similar fashion alongside children and young people to develop research proposals and to apply for sponsored research monies.

Third, in order to inform the above two points, it might be worthwhile looking to the Scottish Executive's current volunteering strategy as a way of developing thinking about young people as researchers. Not necessarily in terms of if and how young researchers should be paid, but rather in terms of recognising the need for SEED to look at its value basis in terms of involving young people in the doing of research.

Research is a volunteering opportunity (…). I mean it depends if you want to pay them but it's an opportunity for young people. The Scottish Executive need to read their own strategies (…). If it excites the young people, if they're going to get something out of it, you need to provide all of those things that they said in the volunteer strategy. They should provide information and support and accreditation and development and all those kind of things and training.

(Researcher 5)

Fourth, there is a need for the Scottish Executive to look at what opportunities there are for young people to inform government research agendas. As young researchers, these opportunities appear to be fairly limited at present. While the same could also be said to be true of adult researchers, they do, at least, have the possibility of using the sponsored research programme, becoming involved in policy appraisal work or - if anxieties about intellectual property rights do not get in the way - sharing research ideas directly with research managers. This study has suggested that it does not make sense to think of research by young people as separate from broader participation debates and agendas. Interviews within and outside the Scottish Executive suggest that there would be considerable advantages in the Scottish Executive reviewing, perhaps in a similar format to SEED's recent stakeholder meeting, how its participation strategies in relation to children and young people currently relate to its research priorities. In part, this could involve looking at the relationship between the Scottish Executive and other organisations - such as the office of the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People (SCCYP) - which are involved in thinking about young people's role in relation to policy and research - and thinking about how children's organisations, alliances or coalitions could work alongside academic researchers to involve young people in shaping the research agenda. The experience of Children's Express and the Children and Young People's Board, as well as that of Coalition4Youth, suggests that for young people to feel it is worth consulting with other young people on policy issues, they have to have some say, in the first place, in deciding what these policy issues should be. There may also be scope for learning from the work of the Carnegie Young People Initiative about models of more securely embedding children and young people's participation in the working practice of government organisations.

Finally, in term of practice outside the Scottish Executive, the feasibility study suggests that while there is a considerable range of practices involving young people in research in Scotland, much of this practice is taking place in isolation and in a piecemeal, one-off fashion. Developing a network of researchers with experience of this area might be a fruitful way of taking forward practice in this area not least because it would give young people with experience of doing research the further opportunity to act as mentors to newer younger researchers.

In thinking about all of the above, this study provides some evidence that there are considerable lessons to be learnt both from how other 'citizens' have become involved in research and how children and young people have been involved in government-funded research in other parts of the UK. It would also be useful for the Scottish Executive to look at how programmes such as Investing in Children have worked alongside local authority departments, such as police, education and health, to involve young people in the doing of research relevant to local policy. In this context, it is relevant to note that Investing in Children are currently in the process of 'rolling out' their initiative beyond Durham.

As the leading public body in Scotland, the Scottish Executive has a role in modelling best practice in terms of involving children and young people. Involving young people as researchers is just one part of this bigger responsibility. The findings from this study suggest that as much as systems and structures need to change, more fundamentally there is a need for a shift in mindset within government about the possibilities for children and young people's participation in relation to research.

I think probably the only reason in practice is because we haven't really thought about it, and there would be limitations around who you were able to access, which children [you] can access and when, which might mean that you couldn't kind of move as quickly as you might otherwise have wanted and that's always an issue. But I don't think any of those problems are insurmountable. I think as much as anything it's about really kind of shifting mindsets in here towards thinking that recognises increasingly the potential for involving children and young people. I think we've got quite a long way to go in shifting that mindset.

(Scottish Executive Policy maker 1)

Key points from this chapter

· This chapter summarised some of the key issues that will need to be considered in any move to introduce a young people as researchers' perspective to Scottish Executive Social Research and outlined five possible ways forward for the Scottish Executive in thinking about children and young people as researchers.

· In order to develop a children as researchers' perspective within the Scottish Executive, there appears to be a need for a shift in mindset within government about the possibilities for children and young people's participation in relation to research.

· In taking forward their thinking about children as researchers, the Scottish Executive could, first, make explicit at the procurement stage that, depending on the studies aims, consultation with young people in the design of studies and, possibly, their involvement in carrying out the research is desirable.

· Second, there may be opportunities for young people to apply for monies through SEED's existing sponsored research programme, particularly in partnerships with children's organisations and professional researchers and academics.

· Third, the Scottish Executive could develop its thinking on young researchers by considering them in the context of its volunteering strategy.

· Fourth, the Scottish Executive should examine what opportunities exist for young people to inform its research agendas and consider whether these could be expanded or improved, perhaps by holding an event on how the participation strategies of the Executive for young people currently relate to its research priorities.

· Finally, developing a network of adult and young researchers with experience in this area might be fruitful in developing ideas and practice in this area and would also create opportunities for young researcher to act as mentors to new young researchers.

[1] Is it worth making the point that a similar gap may exist between the concerns of researchers and those of research respondents in general. Current research about respondent perceptions of ethics suggests very different kinds of preoccupations from those presumed by existing ethical frameworks. (Graham et al, forthcoming)

[2] 'Children's Research in Partnership' : A One Day Seminar hosted by SEED Children and Young People and Social Care Analytical Services Unit. Edinburgh City Chambers Business centre 14/1/2005

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