In questioning children, the ethics are complex. Permission to interview the child has to be obtained, and it might be unclear from whom it should be procured. The British Psychological Society in 1996 set down a code of ethics and conduct in which it was stipulated that if the research affects someone not able to give valid consent, i.e. a child under the age of eighteen, then it needs to be obtained from whomever has legal authority to give it (Lindsay, 2000:14-15). The first people deemed to be those with parental responsibility are the natural parents. Exceptions to this include a carer who has a resident order under the 1989 Children Act, anyone holding a temporary emergency protection order or the local authority if the child is in care (Masson, 2000:37). If the mother is in prison, as is necessary for his research, obtaining information regarding their children might be a contentious point. It will involve the co-operation of the prison management in addition to the parents, children, and the child’s’ place of education.
There being only sixteen prisons in England and Wales which house female prisoners (Flynn, 1998:57), I feel it would be easier to gain the information from a women-only establishment as the administration may be more familiar with the inmates and perhaps will be in a position to assist the research. This would require asking the prison to identify those prisoners with children, which I believe is a detail which would perhaps already be on a database. If this is not the case, it would then involve asking the women in the prison to come forward. This would undoubtedly cause difficulties, as they may not wish to do so, perhaps through disinterest in the research or an unwillingness to be set part from the others as a result of it. Women who have been separated from their children, for whatever reason, may be emotional as a result, and therefore sensitivity is an absolute necessity. The disruption to the prison is also something which needs to be taken into consideration, but:
‘…most prisoners find it a welcome change to talk to outsiders…’
(King, 2000:303).
Once women with children between the ages of two and seventeen years have been identified and approached, their permission to interview their children must be obtained. Authorisation should also be secured from the person caring for the child away from the prison, as it is actually ethically wrong to ask permission for such things from the parent not currently the full-time carer (Masson, 2000:38). I do not know the ethics on continuing on the sole permission of the carer rather than the mother. This is the only clear means of getting access to the information required, as it would be too difficult to poll schools for the information. They would not be able to divulge the data on the children without parental permission anyway. If permission is not given by the mother or the carer, the child will not be contacted in any way. It might be interesting, however, to ask why the parents did not want to take part.
Once permission has been gained, the next step is to decide where would be best for the child to hold the interviews. The parents may have suggestions themselves, as they may prefer to have the interview conducted in their presence. This is something which will have to be taken into consideration in the conduct of the project, as it may have a bearing on the behaviour of the child. The presence of a parent, teacher or carer may influence the way the child acts, albeit perhaps indirectly, so affecting their responses to the questions. It would undoubtedly be better to interview all the children under the same conditions, but this might not be possible so it would be advisable to be prepared to be flexible. The best place would be somewhere neutral to the child perhaps a local community centre, preferably interviewing the child twice – once with a parent, carer or teacher in the room, then once without them there. I believe this might show a variance in the child’s attitude and behaviour towards the researcher and their questions, as they will have ‘an audience to play to’ when someone they know well is in the room. It is essential, however, to interview the child in a setting in which they are comfortable. If the parents feel it would be best to interview at their home, then places such as the garden or even the stairs may provide a sense of security for the child (Masson, 2000:43). Otherwise another place to carry out an interview might be the child’s school. If the child is hostile to their school-life however, this may introduce elements of bias into their interview compared to other children who may have been interviewed at home or at a community centre.
The practicality of eliciting reliable information from a child (under eighteen years of age), is a point which quickly becomes clouded with other issues. The words of an adult may be too complex or the sentence structure poorly formed, so that a child become confused. This has been proven to be the case by several authors (Walker, 1994, Dockrell, Lewis & Lindsay, 2000), and includes children up to the age of eighteen. Minors, even those nearly eighteen, are not always proficient in language skills, and may have difficulty understanding the wording of questions or in formulating their own answers (Walker, 1994:4). There is a need to be sure of how a child is answering a question put to them, as they could be responding to a part of a question rather than the whole question. For example:
‘Do you remember / saying / that Jack had the knife / when Doug got hurt?
(1) (2) (3) (4)
This question has four prepositions – a yes or no answer could be answering
any of these’
(Walker, 1994:81).
Children do not necessarily hear what an adult is trying to get them to hear – they may only understand a part of the question. Research has shown that children can be misled by using leading questions, even if the question seems straightforward to the researcher (Dockrell, Lewis & Lindsay, 2000:55). Other research has been carried out only to find that children are actually quite capable of seeing through leading questions, although the age group was not stipulated (Bull, 1998:193). Interviewing children requires skilful use of many psychological techniques. Key to working with children includes the use of simple and unambiguous language, as indicated above. Other approaches can be introduced to obtain more detailed or insightful information such as asking the child to draw a picture. This would ideally be of something which can give a clear answer and is not beyond the capabilities of the child, such as a drawing of where their mother lives. The symbology of what is then drawn could be ambiguous, but asking them to include themselves in the picture may be able to tell something of the relationship between the child and their mother. Backing up the pictures with questions about the drawing will help to clear up any ambiguity which may occur. The use of indirect questioning in addition to direct will help to cover all the ground necessary to discover the intention of the picture (Jewett, 1984:83). Dockrell et al (2000:57), however do not advocate this technique, believing it to be unreliable, perhaps leading to misinterpretation of what the child intended to portray. They claim this is because children can be tricked into giving a distorted answer or false information, whether in writing, speech or drawings (Dockrell et al, 2000:202). In refutation of this notion, Jewett (1984:84), does point out that the picture only provides clues not answers, meaning it is necessary to back up your impressions with questions.
Observation techniques mean that the researcher will need to have permission not only from the parents, but also from the child’s place of education because they will need to spend a lot of time on the premises watching the children in question. This would make it into participant observation, as the influence of someone researching the children could bias their behaviour, so affecting the final outcome of the research (Browne, 1994:416). Becoming an accepted member of the school would be fairly straightforward for the researcher, as they could come in as an assistant to the teachers. This would naturally have to be someone other than the person doing the interviewing so as not to be recognised. The key problem with this sort of research is that it is very time consuming and expensive in wages for the researchers. Observation also presents other difficulties, primarily that the nature of the research means it is hard to verify the findings of the person doing the observing, and if the research subjects know the are being studied, their behaviour may differ in someway, whether it is then exaggerated or attenuated (Browne, 1994:416).
Appendix A
Suggested questions – bearing in mind the wording may have to be changed in accordance with the age of the child being questioned:
- Where does your mum live?
- Do you see your mum often?
- Do you know why your mum is there?
- When will your mum be able to come home to you?
- Do you go to school?
- Do you like going to school?
- What do you do there?
- Is school interesting?
-
How/why is it interesting? Or How/why is it not interesting?
- Do you like your teacher?
-
Why? Or Why not?
- What happens at lunchtime?
- Do you play/do anything in particular then?
- Do you have friends you would like to tell me about?
- What are their names?
- Do you see them after school as well?
- Do you play together/hang around together?
- What do you do with them?
- Do you all get along?
- If not, why not?
- Do you think you are well-behaved?
-
Why? Or Why not?
This list is not exhaustive, but I feel it indicates a certain amount of the detail this project would require from the children. The interviews would have to be fairly long, around an hour each time, which is time-consuming, but the researcher can then try to elicit details from the child regarding any answers which do not have enough information.
