Getting critical with children: empowering approaches with a disempowered group.
The study of children and childhood has historically been accorded a marginal place in the health, human, and social sciences. In part, this is due to prevailing Western ideology that constructs children as passive, presocial, innocent, and vulnerable. The dominant discourse is further characterized by the treatment of children as a homogeneous group, devoid of race, class, or gender. While many investigators have described strategies for the conduct of research that is situated in the interpretive paradigm, there has been no comparable articulation of ideas regarding the conduct of critically grounded research when our participants are children. The purpose of this article is to put forth a historical and contextual analysis of childhood, including a discussion of evolving perspectives about childhood. The manner by which changing social, political, and environmental landscapes have contributed to the marginalization and disenfranchisement of children is examined. Finally, strategies for conducting nursing research that is grounded in the critical paradigmatic perspective, with the simultaneous aims of action, change, and empowerment, are proposed.
Berman
Helene
H
School of Nursing, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. hberman@uwo.ca
D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002651:Child Advocacy / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D011057:Politics; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012929:Psychological Distance; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012922:Social Change; D012923:Social Class; D012945:Social Values; D014754:Violence / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D035862:Vulnerable Populations / Q000523:psychology*; D019366:Western World