Acta Sociologica 48(2)

Sandy Fraser, Vicky Lewis, Sharon Ding, Mary Kellett and Chris Robinson (eds)
Doing Research with Children and Young People
London: Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004, 294 pp.

Vicky Lewis, Mary Kellett, Chris Robinson, Sandy Fraser and Sharon Ding (eds)
The Reality of Research with Children and Young People
London: Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004, 306 pp.

I n recent decades, childhood studies have developed into a sociological – or interdisciplinary

– research field in itself within the social sciences. Children are regarded as social actors in
these studies, and childhood is studied as one of a number of structures within society. The
focus in these studies includes generational order, children as a social category, children’s
living conditions, children’s actions and perspectives etc. The new childhood studies are
related to a turn from researching on children to researching with children, opposing and chal-
lenging the views, assumptions and mechanisms of the generational order; however, how does
one conduct research with children in a scientific and ethical manner? What type of methodo-
logical and ethical considerations does this approach imply? During the past five years, in
particular, these issues have been addressed and discussed intensively in books and articles
as well as in meetings between childhood researchers.
Doing Research with Children and Young People and The Reality of Research with Children and
Young People are two books that can be regarded as contributing to the discussion on the
methodological challenges of the new interdisciplinary and participatory approach to
childhood studies. At the same time, they have been written as a kind of textbook concerning
childhood research for students and professionals in a range of fields, including ‘education,
health, welfare, childhood and youth studies, psychology and sociology’ (Fraser et al., back
page). To some degree, the contributors reflect on the interdisciplinary character of the new
childhood studies, because they hail from disciplines such as Education, Health, Social
Welfare, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Childhood Studies, Youth Studies and Law,
whereas disciplines such as Policy Studies, Economics, History, Geography and Linguistics
are not represented. I will deal with the books separately, as I argue that they differ in design
as well as in terms of who might benefit from reading them. I return to this point later.
Doing Research with Children and Young People introduces some of the key considerations
involved in researching with children and young people, and research in general, e.g. deter-
mining what is scientific, access, consent, ethics and power relations. The purpose of the book
is to present and promote acknowledgement, debate and reflection regarding different views
on the issues raised. In Chapter One, the introductory chapter, Vicky Lewis underlines that
the editors ‘have not sought to ensure that a united picture is presented of how to tackle the
different issues’, as there is no single correct answer (p. 1). The book is structured into four
sections, although some themes, e.g. ethics, are addressed in several chapters in different
sections.
The first section is entitled ‘Setting the Context’ and includes four chapters: ‘Situation
Empirical Research’ by Sandy Fraser, ‘Images of Childhood’ by Mary Kellett, Chris Robinson
and Rachel Buur, ‘The Legal Context’ by Judith Masson and ‘Paradigms and Philosophy’ by
Sandy Fraser and Chris Robinson. In Chapter Two, Fraser addresses the issue of what is meant
by empirical research with children. As a first step, she discusses the meaning of scientific
knowledge in opposition to other types of knowledge, subsequently contrasting empirical
knowledge with philosophical knowledge. This is done at a very fundamental level, under-
standable for students and practitioners. In the last section of the chapter she discusses what
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it means to research with children. While this part of the chapter is relevant for students and
practitioners, it is also for established childhood researchers, e.g. the discussion of the multiple
different meanings of ‘child-centred’ and the argumentation for participatory methods. In
Chapter Three, Kellett et al. thematize how different images of childhood, e.g. scientific
images, images in commercials, images in everyday language, influence childhood research.
The presentation is short, providing a very brief introduction for newcomers to the field. More
interestingly, the point is turned upside down in the conclusion. Here the possibility is posed
that new childhood images produced in the field of new childhood studies by participatory
methods might challenge and change the social structures of childhood. In Chapter Four,
the law as context for ethical considerations regarding researching with children as well as the
ethical considerations as such are thematized. The chapter does not pretend to have all the
answers; however, it does provide a valuable tool for reflection on ethical issues from the very
genesis of a research project to its conclusion. In the final chapter in the section, the issue of
scientificality is once again addressed. The reader is introduced to four paradigms: the scien-
tific, the structuralist, the interactionist and the poststructuralist and social constructionist. The
point here is that the research paradigm used has implications for research questions, nature
of the data and findings.
The second section of the book addresses power relations between the researcher and the
researched. Robinson and Kellett, drawing a line to insights from feminism and Foucault, thus
introduce the concept of ‘generational order’ in Chapter Six, and how this is present in the
research process researching with children in different and complex ways. Though brief, the
chapter is interesting not only for students and practitioners, but also for childhood
researchers, as this issue has not been elaborated upon to any great extent in other publi-
cations. In Chapter Seven, Alderson elaborates on the ethical issues, furthering the tools and
input for ethical reflections. In the conclusion to the chapter, she argues that while ethical
research practices might complicate research reflections, they might also improve the quality
of the results. Very interesting and convincing! Chapter Eight addresses how, in practice,
children and young people can be involved in the research process from beginning to end.
Many researchers involve children in the data-collection phase, but only rarely in the analysis
and presentation phase. In addition to a well-grounded thematizing of this issue, Jones
provides an inspiring example of how to involve children in the analysis and presentation
phase by employing theatre. The final chapter addresses the issue of power relations from the
gender perspective. Here, it is argued that the gender of the researcher will influence research
findings on gender relations and gender-doing among children and young people.
The third section of the book addresses the diversity within the social group constituted by
children and the range of methodological challenges to researching with different children.
The first three chapters thus address the specific methodological challenges of conducting
research with different age groups, respectively young children (Chapter Ten), middle children
(Chapter Eleven) and young people (Chapter Twelve), whereas Chapters Thirteen and Fifteen
address the methodological challenges of researching with disabled children and with
children of minority race and ethnic groups. One could argue whether it would have been
more appropriate to have included Chapter Fifteen in Section Two, because a fundamental
issue and point in this chapter is that other types of power relations, e.g. racial and ethnic
power relations, also play a significant role when researching with children from minority
groups. Chapter Fourteen addresses research with children in the Majority World. It is argued
that participatory research is a promising methodology, though neither uncomplicated nor
without ethical dangers. The considerations in this chapter are relevant for researchers in the
area of childhood studies and for anyone interested in participatory research and/or develop-
ment studies.
The fourth and final section of the book is oriented towards the relationship between
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Acta Sociologica 48(2)

research and practice. In Chapter Sixteen, Roberts thus addresses the problems of dissemi-
nating research findings and using them to make a difference, drawing on examples from the
field of health and social care. In the closing part of the chapter, she turns the issue upside
down with the argument that at times the most ethical course of action might be to withhold
findings from practical use, as research findings can also be used to attain more sophisticated
control – indeed a very relevant reflection, though not often observed. In Chapter Seventeen
the issue of the relationship between research and practice is addressed in a very different
manner. Here, Edwards argues, research must engage much more with practitioners, under-
stood as children and young people as well as the professionals and politicians, to ensure
relevant and useable research questions and findings. This is a relevant discussion within
childhood and youth studies as well as within many other fields. In the final chapter, McKe-
chinie and Hobbs thematize that research is not only informing practice and politics, but the
research approaches themselves are also informed by their context, including the practices,
politics and images of the research topic as well as images of good research and research policy.
Furthermore, this context sets the horizon for what research – and to what degree research as
such – will succeed in influencing practice and policy.
Together, the chapters of the book combine to provide a fundamental, manifold and rela-
tively accessible introduction to various important methodological and ethical issues in
childhood research, though some of the chapters are a little too short or banal from the
perspective of the experienced researcher. One can always find issues that have been
neglected, but what would be the point? I would rather welcome and recommend this book
as a textbook for students and practitioners alike, and further recommend some of the chapters
addressing issues such as ethics, participatory research and the relationship between research
and practice as being of relevance for experienced researchers as well.
The idea behind the other book in this review, The Reality of Research with Children and Young
People, can be regarded as genius or provocative. On the assumption that ‘published papers are
generally a polished account of research’, where the stressful, lonely and frustrating side – as
well as the uncontrolled, accidental and personal aspects of the research process – are forced
out and rendered invisible, the aim of the editors of this book is explicitly to address this
neglected aspect of research (p. 1). They have gathered together 13 items of already published
research and asked the author to ‘write a commentary on the various stages of carrying out the
research, from the origins of the ideas for the research to writing up’ (p. 1). These comments
are placed immediately following the presented paper. Some of them appear honest and openly
share the struggles and the uncontrolled and personal aspects of the research process, whereas
others appear polished. Nonetheless, the comments render the book very different in style and
content from any other scientific book I ever recall reading. Due to obvious space limitations,
I cannot comment on every chapter, and choose instead to make some general comments
focused on the many different ways and purposes in and for which the book can be read.
First, the book provides a well-selected extract of interesting research with children and
young people, including entirely new studies as well as some that could be considered classics
within childhood research, e.g. Barrie Thorne’s study on ‘gender play’. The subjects of the
chapters – in addition to the main thread relating to researching with children – vary consider-
ably. From the childhood research point of view, this can be regarded as either a strength or
an irritating lack of focus.
Second, the book provides brilliant insight into differences between the research process and
presentation of the research. Such insight can be of use for different purposes, e.g. as a textbook
on what to write about and what to exclude in research papers based on exemplary learning.
However, it also has utility for broader methodological leaning, e.g. providing insight
regarding the reality of the research process. Although other books on methodology address
these questions, my own experience from teaching is that it is a great relief and much more
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profitable for students not just to hear and read about researching in an abstract and didactic
manner, but in addition also to receive concrete examples of how even experienced researchers
struggle with methodological issues in practice. This book is a treasure chest of such examples
and therefore worth glancing through by those interested in academic practice and power
relations in the academic field.
In conclusion, I must admit that I genuinely enjoyed reading this book – it made me laugh,
identify and think. Distinct from other academic books, it is much more than a brilliant intro-
duction to important childhood research findings and methodology. I highly recommend it
not just to students and practitioners in the fields of education, health, welfare, childhood and
youth studies, psychology and sociology, but also to experienced researchers interested in
childhood and youth studies, methodology or academic practice and power relations in the
academic field.

Hanne Warming
Roskilde University, Denmark

Paul Jones
Raymond Williams’s Sociology of Culture: A Critical Reconstruction
London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004, 247 pp.

T he concept of ‘culture’ is at the heart of the study of human societies, anthropologically,

sociologically and historically. The classic definition is that of Sir Edwin Tylor, who, in his
pioneering work Primitive Culture, first published in 1871, wrote that: ‘[C]ulture or civilisation,
taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member
of society’.
However, in the over 130 years since Tylor, the concept has been defined and developed to
the point where it is difficult to identify a consensus on its meaning. In the mid-20th century,
Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn argued that it should be used as a tool of analysis and
explanation, rather than descriptively, after the manner of Tylor. This raises difficulties of
another type, according to whether we are concerned with normative values or measurable
means in considering culture as an identifiable abstraction from the pattern of shared human
activities and behaviour. Nevertheless, the concept of culture as a connected web of human
behaviour, maintained over time and space (for instance in the example of migrant communi-
ties) and sustained by the capacity for both language and symbolic communication, has
emerged as the practical consensus for social scientists generally. This may be seen as a cultural
code of acquired beliefs, which is both maintained and adapted by communities historically.
It is through this perpetual and usually subtle common process that individuals develop and
share their knowledge and beliefs. It is also seen as fundamental in social structure with
culture used as a descriptive word for networks or systems of social relations, the Chinese
concept of guanxi being an example. Anthropologists, in particular, argue that human
behaviour is largely culturally determined, moderating and channelling genetic human
instinct. This in turn has led to culture and civilization being used synonymously, especially
in Western Europe, though in Germany the concept of Kultur identifies human excellence and
achievement compared with general human progress through civilization. Finally, Anglo-
American sociology has questioned whether modern societies have a common culture, which
in turn poses the problem of how social consensus is maintained and, in Marxist terms, how
a dominant ideology or hegemony incorporates social classes.
Where does Raymond Williams stand in all this? In his celebrated series of interviews with
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