Ethical Issues in Community-Based Research with Children and Youth

Derek B. MacDonald is a research associate and ABD Ph.D. in an Adult
Education program through the University of Georgia.

Written in response to “a need for more guidance in ethics in
community-based research with vulnerable populations,” this collection
of essays is aimed at researchers and scholars concerned with children
and youth.

The definition of community-based research presented in the first
chapter provides a context for the variety of research designs (mainly
qualitative or survey-based) featured in the chapters that follow. The
ethical concerns addressed by the authors include access to participants
via Research Ethics Board (REB) approval; issues surrounding consent,
confidentiality, and anonymity in children/youth research projects;
Aboriginal people’s resistance to researchers because of previous
damage; attempts to work with different agencies that inconsistently
define the age at which consent can be given; and how one parent was
able to shut down an entire research project.

The populations addressed in the book include Aboriginal youth,
adolescent girls, youth sex trade workers, abused children, and suicidal
youth. The authors consider ethical issues arising from bullying and
victimization (in particular among older youth populations), the
difficulty of maintaining contact information on transient youth while
ensuring anonymity and confidentiality, children’s disclosure of
abuse, researchers’ responsibility to report suspected abuse, and
REB-related problems such as the approval of research involving passive
consent as well as seemingly narrow or unaccommodating REB ethical
guidelines.

Researchers who work with youth and are interested in improving the
ethics approval system should read this book.