the children. However, in order to interview children and young people
about their experiences, a certain relationship of trust needed to be built.
Consequently, I became emotionally involved with the children.
Contributing to my struggles is the fact that although children are recog-
nized as social actors in the social sciences, ethical issues in research follow-
ing from this new view have received less attention. Ethical considerations
are part of any research project, but it is often argued that research among
children raises some particular issues. This is because children are usually
seen as intrinsically different to adults. Children are often portrayed as
ignorant and incompetent, and therefore unable to understand and consent
to research. It is often argued that with research among children and young
people extra precautions are needed (Schenk & Williamson, 2005).This is
based on the assumption that children are more or less powerless in
relation to adults. Existing ethical guidelines for conducting research with
children are hence still mainly based on developmental discourses, such as
the socialization paradigm. Although I do not view children as powerless
or incompetent, my respondents lived in extremely difficult situations and
my research was sensitive as it ‘potentially posed a substantial threat to
those who are or have been involved in it’ (Lee, 1993, inDickson-Swift,
James, Kippen, & Liamputtong, 2009). As illustrated in the example of
Janin and Marc, their involvement in my research threaded the potential
support from neighbours. According toDickson-Swift et al. (2009), the
definition of sensitive research also implies that such research potentially
has impact on the researchers. My research not only affected the lives of
the respondents, but also highly affected myself. In this paper, I describe
how I dealt with my juggle not to get too emotionally involved and trying
to help the children at the same time. Furthermore, I describe the arising
ethical issues arising from the precarious situations and my view of children
as capable actors which often clashed with existing ethical guidelines.
I first discuss the research background. After that, I discuss how I intro-
duced myself to the children and young people and how they perceived me.
I proceed by discussing how I dealt with the ethical principles of informed
consent, benefits and protection. As I shall show, in dealing with each three
of these principles, I always tried to give the child as much autonomy as
possible.
RESEARCH BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
The number of child-headed households (existing of children below 18) in
South Africa rose markedly during 19952005, from 0.1% to 0.66%
64 DIANA VAN DIJK