Dirk Schubotz - Participatory Research: Why and How to Involve People in Research

Why and How to Involve People in Research

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AIappreciative inquiry

AOassertive outreach

ARaction research

CAPIcomputer-assisted personal interviewing

CAQDAScomputer-assisted qualitative data analysis

CATIcomputer-assisted telephone interviewing

CBPRcommunity-based participatory research

CJScriminal justice system

CRAGchildrens research advisory group

CRYMChild and Youth Resilience Measure

CSEchild sexual exploitation

CSOCivil Society Organisation

IEinstitutional ethnography

IRBInstitutional Review Board

NABUNaturschutzbund

NCBNational Childrens Bureau

NGOnon-governmental organisation

NICCYNorthern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People

NSPCCNational Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

ODorganisational development

PARparticipatory action research

PLAparticipatory learning and action

PORparticipatory organisational research

PPAparticipatory poverty assessment

PRAparticipatory rural appraisal

RECResearch Ethics Committee

RSPBRoyal Society for the Protection of Birds

UNCRCUnited Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child

VIPERVoice, Inclusion, Participation, Empowerment, Research

YLTYoung Life and Times

I was approached to write this book by a representative of SAGE shortly after I had given a presentation at a conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) on a participatory research project that I was involved in. The project was a mixed methods study led by the National Childrens Bureau (NCB) with the aim to explore to what extent children and young people in Northern Ireland were involved in school policy making on bullying in their own schools (Schubotz et al., 2006). In the presentation I had talked about working on this study with children and young people of different abilities as co-researchers, including children from special schools, and how they all had different rationales for their active participation in this project. Some wanted to use their experience to support their applications to study social sciences at university, whilst others had experienced school bullying themselves and wanted to improve the way schools dealt with this issue. I talked about the need and the challenges to accommodate different perspectives of children in that study and how we tried to find different roles for all co-researchers which suited their diverse interests and abilities. I also reported back on some of the personal outcomes for the co-researchers and the participating schools, as well as the guidance to all schools that was published by the office of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) as a result of this study, encouraging schools to involve children and young people more proactively in the running of schools, including on bullying policies.

So, when I was approached about writing this book I was both delighted and hesitant. With many years of experience in community youth work in Berlin, my home city, and now many years of experience in participatory youth research and childrens rights-based research approached in Belfast, my adopted second home, I certainly felt confident that I could make a contribution to the field of collaborative and participatory research methods. Teaching qualitative research at undergraduate and post-graduate level at university has also helped me acquire a more comprehensive understanding of various collaborative research approaches. In the role as Chair of my Schools Research Ethics Committee I have gained a good understanding of ethical challenges faced by collaborative research practice and have tried to implement and facilitate sensitive and flexible approaches required to accommodate participatory research in university settings. Nonetheless, writing a textbook like this as a single author ultimately means that I am covering areas of research in which other people have a far greater expertise than I have.