Screening for Parental Consent? Trans Youth and Informed Consent in Academic Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5671965 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sophie Atherton (0000-0001-8332-4139, The University of Edinburgh, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-07 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Research Online (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13607804251363123 |
| OpenAlex | W4414948314 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 36 |
Informed consent has been widely discussed and debated in methodological literature. When it comes to conducting research with those under the age of 16, the general rule that UK university ethics committees tend to follow is that parental consent should be sought. In this article, I discuss my experience researching with transgender young people: a group who may find parental consent particularly problematic. I discuss the ethical challenges involved in ensuring that young people are able to give informed consent when parental consent may not be safe to obtain. This article advances sociological research by evaluating the use of a 'screening process' to assess whether it is safe for a young person to obtain consent from their parents. While a screening process has ethical benefits as it avoids excluding young people who cannot obtain parental consent safely, I argue that a screening process is not necessarily the best way forward as it does little to overcome key inherent issues with mandatory parental consent: namely the assumptions about the age at which one is deemed as competent to give consent. I argue that more productive conversations are needed about how to ensure that young people can consent to taking part in research when parental consent is not possible, especially in the context of online research
Bioethics · Informed consent · Parental consent · Research ethics · Transgender · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Feminist Theory and Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
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Everyday ethics in professional life
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On ethical principles for social research
Against the ethicists
Visualising children’s participation in research
Rethinking Ethics Review as Institutional Discourse
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Children's Participation Rights in Research
Reflexivity in Research Practice
Ethical challenges in participatory research with children and youth
Including and involving young people (under 18's) in hate research without the consent of parents
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The sociology of medical screening
| Highly cited | No |
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