[hre-asiapacific] RESEARCH WITH CHILDREN

Dear friends,

If ever, there will be a complete resource book on how to do research with 
children
AND  that is written in clear and logical language it will look much like 
the new
publication by Judith Ennew and Dominique Pierre Plateau: "How to research the
physical and emotional punishment of children", Save the Children SEAP 
region 2004.

The Resource Handbook is based on some earlier landmark publications, such as
Children in focus: A manual for participatory research with children 
(Boyden and
Ennew 1997) and the Save the Children toolkit on supporting children's 
meaningful
and ethical participation in research produced for the United Nations Secretary
general's Global Study on Violence against Children (Laws and Mann, 2004).

   Although the Resource Handbook has been produced in relation to 
researching the
physical and emotional punishment of children its value reaches far beyond this
particular topic. It has a mass of relevant information and tools on how to do
research with children. Starting from the basics of doing research the authors
proceed with twelve "straightforward" steps for scientific research, looking at
preparation, protocol design, data collection, analysis and report writing and
implementation. The toolkit part of the book contains more than 100 pages
of useful, simple to follow ideas concerning analysing secondary research 
data, research
protocols, research methods, children's involvement in research and more.

What is this book?

This Handbook is a state-of-the-art resource about research with children 
on the
difficult and sensitive topic of physical (including emotional) punishment. The
specific context is Asian societies, within the immediate context of Save the
Children programming in the region, inspired by the United Nations Study on 
Violence against Children
(UN Study) and the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non Violence for 
the Children
of the World (2001-2010: UN Resolution 53/25). It provides an easy to use, 
rights-based,
reference to research with children on a topic of immediate concern to 
them. It answers key questions about researching the physical and emotional 
punishment of children, including ethical and scientific concerns. It 
provides clear
information on how to plan, design and carry out research, together with 
examples of the various
tools and methods involved, largely drawn from the Southeast, East Asia and 
Pacific region.

Why has it been published?

The basis of the Save the Children position is children's rights, which 
includes the
right to participate in programmes based on adequate, scientific and 
ethical research.
This Handbook answers a pressing need for information about rights-based
research on the physical and emotional punishment of children, with clear
instructions about how to use methods and processes to produce results that 
can be
reliably used for planning,  programming and advocacy. After more than two 
decades
of academic child research and the promotion of participatory research 
processes,
much research about children still relies on using formal, structured 
surveys and
questionnaires with little reference to qualitative data either in 
designing surveys
or in analysing the results. The result is numerical information that bears 
little
relationship to the contexts in which it was collected. The methods are 
inadequate
because they reinforce adult power and preconceptions as well as failing to 
take
children's own ideas and language into account. In many cases, the research
participants are not children at all, but adults such as teachers, parents and
psychologists. Children are seldom asked about their own lives, much less 
consulted
about the way the research results are used. In addition, research about 
physical and
emotional punishment, like most research about disadvantaged children, 
tends to rely
on small samples, rarely compared with control groups, and fails to look at 
changes
over time or to consider differences between groups and places. Thus the 
data are
not very useful for planning either campaigns or programmes. (pp. 1 and 2)

The document can be downloaded at:
http://seapa.net/external/resources/punishment.htm
In case you would like me to send you the document in pdf file please let 
me know.
Note, however, that it is rather big: 1.31 MB zipped and 1.6 MB unzipped.
Hard copies of the publication can be ordered from

Thitikorn Trayaporn,  songbkk@cscoms.com at Save the Children Alliance
Southeast, East Asia and Pacific Region
Maneeya Center Building 15th Floor
518/5 Ploenchit Road, Bangkok 10330
ThailandTel: (66-2) 684-1046, 684-1047
Fax: (66-2) 684-1048

Yours sincerely,

Henk van Beers
Child Participation advisor
Save the Children Sweden, SEAP Region


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