On Barriers to Accessing Children’s Voices in School Based Research
Published November 2020

Contributors
Author: Jacqueline P. Leighton, PhD
Publisher: Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights
Date: 2020
Geographic Coverage: International
Type of Resource: Academic Journal
Sector/setting: Education
Vulnerable groups: Children, Young People
Developed with children and young people? Not specified
Type of participation: Research
Availability: Open Access
Keywords: Children’s Academic Wellbeing, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Student Advocacy, Student Assessment, Student-Teacher Relationships
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to take a step back and hypothesize based on personal experience, as a research psychologist, the reasons for the relative absence of theoretically-driven empirical research. The motivation for this work stems from the following premises: Psychologists are naturally interested in studying children in a variety of domains. The school is one of the two most important domains in a child’s life; the other being the home environment. However, the study of children in school settings is controlled by school administrators and teachers.
As Urinboyev et al. state “some studies [have] found that there is a strong resistance among teachers to accept fully children as rights holders in many schools… .” Consequently, there are significant challenges for researchers in accessing children’s voices about matters that pertain to them in school settings.