Children as Experts on Their Own Family Lives: Feeding Back Research Results to Children Via Video

Professor Julia Brannen (University of London) spoke about her recent study of children's concepts of care and their experiences of and contributions to family life. One of the primary messages emerging from the research was that children are active co-participants and co-constructors of family life. Overall children had an extremely open view of what a family might look like, with children and love being common elements.

Julia discussed the use of video as a medium for the dissemination of research findings to children. Interestingly, Julia did not simply video research participants involved in the study, nor did she ask child actors to reenact participants' responses on camera. Instead she developed the key findings from the initial study into statements, and asked groups of children of a similar age to reflect on the statements. It was these group feedback sessions that were recorded.

The process provided an opportunity to feedback research results directly to children so that they could comment on the ways researchers had interpreted data concerning childrens' views and experiences of family life. The research moved from taking children as subjects of research, to seeing them as experts on research.

Julia produced an excellent video from the 'feedback' footage. The video used a number of key statements, each followed by a range of children's responses which further illustrated the statement. The findings could therefore be widely disseminated to younger and older audiences alike - including attendees at the McKenzie Centre's seminar.