Follow us
Log in
Much of the content on our site is available to our registered users only. If you're already registered, just click the 'Log in' button then enter your email address and password.
Register
If you're not already registered on the site, you'll need to do so in order to gain unrestricted access to all our content. There are two types of registration:
1. If you're a current subscriber, you can register for access to our protected content at no additional cost. You'll need your subscription number in order to complete your registration, which is on the polythene wrapper in which your journal is delivered. Click the Register button to begin your registration.
2. If you don't currently subscribe you can do so now by taking out a secure online subscription. Not only will this give you instant access to our protected online content, but you'll also get every issue of Nursing Standard - the UK's best selling nursing journal - delivered straight to your door. Click the Register button to begin your subscription and registration.
Revisiting Mandell’s ‘least adult’ role and engaging with children’s voices in research
Author: Duncan Randall
Date: April 2012
Journal: Nurse Researcher
Issue: Volume 19, Number 3
Keywords: Methodology, child, participatory methods
Aim: This paper is intended to re-examine Mandell’s classic work on the ‘least adult’ role and to show that the principles that underpin Mandell’s work are useful if combined with a reflexive approach to working with children.
Background: Researching with children (Christensen and James 2008) using participatory methods has become an accepted research methodology. However, research reports that claim to represent the views of children rarely detail how the research relationships between children and adults are managed.
Data sources: Mandell’s work on the least-adult role in studying children and other contemporary texts on researching with children.
Review methods: Re-examination of the principles of Mandell’s approach to conducting participatory research with children using other contemporary texts on researching with children and participatory research with children.
Discussion: The work of other researchers with children would appear to endorse the principles that Mandell suggests as useful when engaging children in research: to minimise the social difference between adult and child, to value the child’s social world, and to join with children in activities such as play or arts-based participatory methods. The issue of trust seems to extend beyond the relationship between researcher and participant to include building trust with other adults in whom the child has confidence. In applying these principles and building trust, researchers need to be reflexive about their understanding of children and childhood.
Conclusion: To evaluate research with children, research reports need to include discussions of how the researchers addressed Mandell’s principles and built trust. Data given by children are influenced by how social differences are minimised, the perceived value the researcher places on children’s social worlds and how children are engaged in the research process.
Implication for practice/research: Further research is required to understand how various approaches to minimising social difference, valuing children’s social worlds, joining children in activities and building trust can influence children’s participation and the data they give.
Registered users
If you're a current subscriber, and have already registered with us, please log in.
Current subscribers
Current subscribers can register for access to our protected content at no additional cost.
Non-subscribers
Take out a secure online subscription and gain instant access to our protected content.
Search tips
Focus your results by wrapping search phrases in quotation marks. For example, search "child health" to return results containing that exact phrase.
The RCN Publishing Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal College of Nursing, the world's largest organisation for nurses. RCN Publishing produces one weekly, eight monthly and two quarterly nursing publications. Nursing Standard, the flagship journal, is the UK's biggest selling weekly for nursing. It is produced by RCN Publishing Company along with a suite of specialist nursing journals - Cancer Nursing Practice, Mental Health Practice, Learning Disability Practice, Nursing Children and Young People, Nursing Management, Emergency Nurse, Nursing Older People, Nurse Researcher and Primary Health Care. RCN Publishing Company also produce the RCN Bulletin, a major source of up-to-the-minute information for RCN members in all specialities, grades and working environments. With the latest nurse vacancies from trusts nationwide, it has become the most cost-effective nurse recruitment magazine available.