Using critically reflexive ethics in practice to address issues of representation in children’s rights-based research

Since the advent of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), concerns have been raised regarding tokenistic engagement with children’s participation rights as well as ethical considerations that must be addressed in research with children. This article explores how one particular ethical dilemma regarding representation and who can speak for whom in children’s rights-based research was confronted through critically reflexive ethics in practice. While publication of Ethical Research Involving Children and the ‘International Charter for Ethical Research Involving Children’ provide guidance for researchers, further illustration of how ethical dilemmas have been confronted and addressed within a particular research context could provide further guidance and insight regarding how critically reflexive ethics in practice can be utilised as a further contextual-based tool towards ethical research. Thus it is the intention that this illustrative example can encourage others who are engaged in research with children to continually undertake critically reflexive ethics in practice with their own ongoing research, consultation and engagements with young children.