This edited volume1 offers the field a range of studies, methods, and perspectives regarding child-parent research. The international authorship, representing four different countries on three different continents, provides multiple perspectives about meaning making while addressing important ethical and methodological tensions inherent in child-(grand)parent co-research. Across the volume, there is particular attention to the ethics of child-parent research, and each chapter ends with a section devoted to future research and ethical considerations. This section is particularly important in helping this line of inquiry gain traction. Furthermore, throughout this book, readers will hear the voices of children ranging in age from early childhood through early adulthood. At times, readers will hear the child’s words directly from him/her2; at other times, the parent researcher will convey the child’s words; and in other instances, the child has co-written with the parent.
Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope acknowledge in their foreword, The Problem of Empathy, that the methodological challenges noted across this collection plague the overall field: “The problem with research in general, which parent-child research brings to light with a particular poignancy, turns on a model of communication in which the researcher strives to meet the mind of the subject on terms which are true to the subject’s reality.” Kalantzis and Cope call attention to the quick reprobation that often obfuscate and sometimes belie epistemological questions and expressions of meaning. The authors also weave in stories of their granddaughter’s literacy practices and address the co-construction of meaning not only evident in their foreword, but also apparent throughout the volume.
In our introductory chapter, “Reimagining Child-Parent Research,” we contend that child-parent research appears on a continuum of participation and involvement; using the metaphor of a wheel, we explain that, with child-parent research the “research process and level of involvement and partnership can move forwards and backwards, can spin or turn in different ways, and can rotate with various momenta.” In other words, research is fluid and the role of the child and the parent can evolve over time in light of critical reflection, participation, dialogue, and, of course, the inherent tensions and ethics that accompany such research. Throughout this collection, there are various instances of involvement and partnership, and, even though the chapters align in various thematic ways, we have arranged the chapters according to the participatory stances they represent.
Chapters 2 and 3 feature studies that include a grandparent or parent examining his/her grandchild or child while learning, and the children offer clarifications. These children are involved in the co-construction of the research narrative. For instance, in his chapter, “Media Transformations: Working with Iron Man,” Guy Merchant comes to the research with the complex hybrid identity of an “off-duty researcher and off-duty grandparent” exploring his “immersion” in a context that his seven-year-old grandson explains to him. Sarah Prestridge, in “Re-Designing Teaching for Tweens in Times of Streaks, Likes, and Gamers,” draws upon her collaboration and communication with her adolescent son to learn about his social media and videogame practices, and, taking the stance as a mom, educator, and researcher, she offers ideas for curricula to draw upon students-as-producers and contributors.
Moving from involvement to participation, the children in the studies featured in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 also are co-authors of the manuscript. For instance, in “High Anxiety: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Inquiry,” twenty-something-year-old Cassandra Skrobot and her mother, Kathleen Alley, engage in a retrospective examination of the anxiety Cassandra experienced during her college years. Here, Cassandra’s full partnership in the collaborative autoethnography is essential, especially with regard to ethics and medical history. Readers also hear from an elementary schooler in “Remixing Digital Play in the Early Years: A Child-Parent Collaboration,” a chapter eight-year-old “E” co-created with his mother, Alaina Roach O’Keefe. The study, which took place over three years, when “E” was two-years-old through five-years-old, offers another approach to child-parent research wherein there is a shift from involvement to partnership over time. Finally, in “Career Development? What’s That: Engaging My Daughters in an Examination of their Learning Process and How it Can Inform their Future—Or Not,” teens Nora and Dahlia join their mother, Lourdes Rivera, to explore their own meaning making in relation to their future. Like Cassandra and “E,” the teens engaged in co-research and also co-authored the chapter with their mother, who also is an education researcher.
Chapters 7 and 8 offer another perspective of child-parent research, as the authors reanalyze their examinations of their children’s’ experiences. Joanne O’Mara and Linda Laidlaw previously examined each other’s child in a study about youths’ digital literacies. Their chapter, “Researching and Parenting in the iWorld: The Dialogism of Family Life,” provides a methodological retrospective for engaging in child-parent research. Likewise, Bogum Yoon revisits previous research of her then-teen sons in “A Parent-Researcher’s Reanalysis of Adolescent Immigrants’ Literacy Experiences: Methodological and Theoretical Insight on Parent-Child Research.” Through a literacy lens, Yoon considers her immigrant children’s learning experiences.
The final chapter, “The Last Word: Teen Reflections,” is written by three adolescents, who co-researched with us, their parents. The voices3 of Charlotte Abrams, Molly Kurpis, and Eric Ness offer readers insight into the child-parent research paradigm through the eyes of the adolescent researcher. This addition to the text showcases an authenticity and empowerment that accompanies the child-as-co-researcher role. Literally, the teens get the last word in the last chapter.
In his afterword, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie extends the conversation of child-parent research by contending that “all parental figures should be included in the definition of child-parent research, including step-parents, grandparents, and uncles and aunts.” We couldn’t agree more, and we envision this collection revitalizing the line of research and, more importantly, the voices of youth. Finally, Onwuegbuzie’s thematic overview of practices for conducting child-parent research underscores the features of the research presented throughout the edited volume.
This collection is intended to be provocative so that readers contemplate the methods, the discussions, and the questions explored and generated by the children- and parent-researchers. Perhaps this text will inspire other iterations of child-parent research and lead to refined methodological and conceptual practices. Perhaps this book will contribute to another arm of participatory research that omits the adult researcher’s filter. Perhaps the chapters will bring to light multiple perspectives of meaning making. Or perhaps the discussion of ethics will impress upon readers how child-parent research demands continuous reflection and layers of care not only to address inherent tensions, but also to uphold beneficence while considering the future of youth research and empowerment.