BECERA 2025 THEME

Encouraging Ethical Encounters with Young Children

‘Ethics’, suggested Aristotle, may be understood as the personal and moral desire to do good and to act in a socially beneficial way. Given BECERA’s emphasis on ethics in our encounters and engagement with young children and those close to them, what well intentioned dispositions and characteristics most accurately describe our engagements? As policy and decision makers, managers, practitioners, tutors, researchers, students or parents, how might we explore and encourage ethical approaches to interacting with children, their families and their educator’s/carers, to better understand their perspectives and listen to their voices.

This year, following a decade of new technologies, new methods during a time of economic, political and ecological upheavals world-wide, the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal has updated its Ethical Code to include the range of innovative and developing techniques to create forums for, and listen to the voices of children and their educators/carers.

In her meta-analysis of articles, in 10 international and scholarly Early Years journals over a 3 year period, Fiona Mayne demonstrated how much research focused on young children neglects to consider ethics or even obtain the child’s consent (Mayne, 2014), let alone their ongoing assent.

Being included in decisions about their lives, researching ‘with’ rather than ‘a done to approach’, seems a reasonable and ethical position for all who interact with young children, and BECERA 2025 provides a platform for sharing and discussing those ideas and considering ways in which children’s perspectives and voices can be more ethically included. This is not without tension as we diversify methods and make use of the increasing technologies available. There is even the potential for tension within our policy as the UNCRC balances an adult view through best interests (article 3) with listening directly to the children (article 12).

Save the date to join us on Monday 17th February at the Studio in central Birmingham to network, present your own research and discuss alternative views, issues and ideas within our community of research and practice.

Sign up to our dedicated newsletter to receive more information as and when it becomes available, including updates on invited keynote speakers, when the call for papers opens.