Are Children Interviewees Just Like Any Others

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5776985
AutoresAlice Simon (Université de la Polynésie française, Tahiti, France, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen146
Número1
Páginas81-98
Fecha de publicación2020-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0759-1063 • E-ISSN: 2070-2779
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0759106320908223
OpenAlexW3016331808
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas21

Based on a study combining qualitative and quantitative methods on children's relation to politics, this article discusses the specificities of childhood as a research object in the social sciences. It raises two key issues. The first relates to the aptitudes required to participate in research (and thus the reliability of children's responses) and the second relates to the potential imbalance in the research relationship. The article demonstrates that the difficulties encountered depend on the social characteristics of the children and are not specific to this age group. They primarily result from the distance between the interviewer and the interviewee, in this case stemming from the age difference sometimes accentuated by social distance. Children can be considered social beings like any others, and their specificities can be usefully analysed using the traditional tools of the social sciences

Interview · Children's Rights and Participation · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Social and Educational Sciences