8 August 2024

Conducting Research Together with Young People – How to Involve Children and Youth in Your Work

Section

The peer-learning journey “How to Involve Children and Youth in Your Work” is a series of online webinars organised by Philea’s Children and Youth Network throughout 2024 that aim to advance youth inclusion in the work of foundations by providing concrete pathways and tools to implement. Following each module, foundations that are willing to transform their way of working with young people can benefit from input from organisations with specific expertise on a given topic.

The third module explored “How to conduct research together with young people” on 26 June with the Bertelsmann Stiftung, which shared insights from its participatory research project Peer2Peer. Read on to discover the key points and recommendations from presenters/those involved in the project.

Aims and content

Participatory research is not particularly prestigious in Germany and is not used as commonly as in other (European) countries, especially not in child and youth research. This module presented Peer2Peer, a participatory research project in which educational scientists from two German universities and eight young people acting as co-researchers conducted research in cooperation with the Bertelsmann Stiftung. From 2020-2023, a total of 25 group discussions were carried out (virtually and in person) reaching 112 children and young people.

With Peer2Peer as an example, this webinar aimed at giving participants some insights from the experience of implementing a participatory research project, as well sharing main findings derived from the project, key considerations and recommendations on how to involve children and young people in research.

Learning topics covered

  • Exchange on (educational science) research practice
  • Implementing participation rights in research
  • Transferring scientific research findings into practice
  • Intergenerational understanding
  • Learning from young people and understanding their needs

The model project

“What do you need for a good life?” This question was discussed by young people from the Youth Expert Team of Peer2Peer in 25 workshops with 112 children and young people from all over Germany. The results of the participatory research project Peer2Peer presented in this module provided insights into the present needs of young people, their wishes, worries and fears.

TitlePeer2Peer
CountryGermany
Year2020-2023
Mode of participationIn Peer2Peer, children and young people were questioned by young people acting as co-researchers. All co-researchers had “full voting rights” throughout the entire research process.
Age of young people involvedChildren and young people surveyed were between 9-22 years of age
The 8 co-researchers were 17-20 years old at the start of the project (2020)

Point in philanthropic cycle

Peer2Peer involved young people at the following points in the philanthropic cycle:

  • Investigating the views of children/youth on the issues (research)
  • Reflecting on results (evaluation)
  • Sharing the learnings and following-up (dissemination, valorisation)

Recommendations based on this experience:

It’s important to keep in mind the following questions and considerations when embarking on such a participatory research project:

  1. Power constellations and hierarchies (e.g. differences between the “professional” researchers who get paid and sign official contracts for this kind of research and “co-researchers” who participate in their free time while being students or having just started their careers)
  2. Interpretation of sovereignty and ownership (e.g. author attributions or order of appearance of authors when you have several different authors with different roles)
  3. Time and costs (e.g. participatory work takes more time and costs more)
  4. Structures and operations (e.g. communications practices are different in participatory work, and the working time for the different participants must be accounted for)
  5. Self-reflection and ability to take criticism (e.g. difficulty to take criticism constructively and seriously at different ages)


Excerpt from Module 3 Q&A

How were the research results used and what was their impact?

From the foundation’s perspective, a crucial aspect from the beginning of the project was to clearly communicate to the young participants that their input would contribute to writing a report and creating a survey to gather more data from young people. Indeed, one of our starting points of this whole research project on Family Education, was precisely that if we wanted to design policies for children and young people in Germany, we needed to have actual data and evidence on what children in Germany need. The results of this participatory project signalled the lack of a comprehensive survey on children’s needs in Germany and proved the necessity of involving young people in the creation of such surveys.

The project led to the development of a questionnaire designed with input from young people, aiming to conduct a representative study across Germany. Efforts were made to share the findings with relevant institutions and political entities. A conference was organised in November 2022, where representatives from political institutions and other organisations were invited to discuss the interim report’s findings. This included inviting German Bundestag members and other stakeholders and key institutions who work with young people. This process made it clear that in the ongoing discussion on child poverty, children themselves were until then missing from the picture and it became clear how it would not be possible to design effective policies on this matter, without even knowing what young people considered as key on this issue. This study and project helped highlight and prove the essentiality of involving young people in research and policymaking processes to shape effective policies that genuinely reflect the needs and priorities of young people.

We also started an ongoing dialogue with other scientific institutions in Germany, which expressed interest in adopting similar participatory approaches. The results were shared on numerous occasions and in different formats, where for example, the first pages included a summary and simplified version accessible to children themselves, to honour our commitment to communicate the results to all participants Involved.

Quotes

“Over the years the Young Experts Team has become an essential part of our work. We wouldn’t have been where we are now without them and their contributions” – Sarah Menne, Bertelsmann Stiftung

“What should be discussed and reflected upon when we talk about participatory research or participatory processes more in general, is the relationship with power. Questions like who has the ownership? Who has the sovereignty of interpretation? Who decides what and when and why and on what bases?” -Nadja Althaus, Goethe-University

“To effectively engage with young people, we need to consider three key aspects: Where to ask, how to ask, and what to ask.” – Amir Sallachi, Youth Expert Team

Module recording

Resources: