Abstract

CARVALHO, Rodrigo Saballa de; SANTOS, Nathalia Scheuermann dos  and  TEBALDI, Lisiane Rossatto. Ethics in research involving children: theoretical input, reflections, and challenges in studies in Early Childhood Education. Rev. Diálogo Educ. [online]. 2023, vol.23, n.76, pp.18-46.  Epub Apr 05, 2023. ISSN 1981-416X.  https://doi.org/10.7213/1981-416x.23.076.ds01.

From the perspective of the field of Social Studies of Childhood, this paper results from state-of-knowledge research that aims to analyze the ethical discussions present in research involving children in Early Childhood Education. To this end, the article presents an analysis of studies carried out in the Graduate Program in Education, in the Childhood Studies research line, at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), from 2006 to 2021. The research corpus consists of 32 studies, of which 6 are doctoral dissertations and 26 are master’s theses. To analyze the material, content analysis procedures were used, making it possible to define the following analytical units: research contextualization (presentation of the research field and participants); ethical framework (discussions about institutional agreement, informed consent, children’s informed assent and degree of participation); researcher’s reflexivity (information about entering the field, research development, leaving the field, and research feedback). With the analyses, it was possible to deduce the indispensability of discussing in detail the ethical agenda in research involving children; the relevance of discussions about research methodologies as ethical choices; the importance of affirming children as social actors in their own right in research, as well as the researcher’s ethical reflexivity throughout the research process.

Keywords : Ethics; Research involving children; Early Childhood Education.

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