Researching Children’s Morality: developing research methods that allow children’s involvement in discourses relevant to their everyday lives

Author: Sam Frankel

Institution: Institute of Education

Full reference: Frankel, S. (2007) Researching Children’s Morality: developing research methods that allow children’s involvement in discourses relevant to their everyday lives. Childhoods Today, 1, (1), 1-25. (Online journal)

Summary of key findings

This article is concerned with ways in which children’s voices can be heard in debates about childhood and morality. The author reviews some theories in the literature about children and moral development and competence, arguing that these are often based on adult assumptions about children rather than reliable knowledge obtained from them.

The article then reports on a specific piece of research that looked at the way in which children experience morality within their everyday lives. The research sought to understand how far children were capable of actively engaging with moral issues, how morals were expressed and what implications this might have for adults. A number of creative research tools were explored which were designed to be relevant to the children and inspire their enthusiastic participation. The research found that that the children in the study were actively engaged in developing moral meanings through which to make sense of the world around them.

These findings, the article argues, demonstrate that there is no need for children to be excluded from research in general, or specifically within discourses around morality. The author proposes that only by continuing to explore children within this context can ‘actual knowledge’ of children’s childhoods be obtained, thereby providing a solid foundation on which to develop policy and practice around such important issues as morality.

Research Questions & Methodology

The sample group was eighty-four children, of varying degrees of academic ability, aged between nine and eleven years. Approaches used included playing a scripted recording to the children in their classes that presented questions through a number of character voices and a fun-story board. During the recording the children completed a questionnaire. A second approach involved group drama work. In a third approach a smaller group of children kept diaries, choosing either to write on a template or make an audio recording. This step also included an interview at home with their parents.

Go to the journal article.