Who is afraid of children's images in research? - Contributions to the use of images in research with children

Abstract

Research with children, within the scope of children's studies, has been consolidated over the last three decades, and significant steps have been taken in this path to respect the image of the child as an active subject of rights.

Some of these steps have emphasized the importance of respecting, in the research processes, both the authorship of the child, mobilizing for such friendly methodologies that are based on the different languages ​​that children use to communicate, or the necessary protection of them, being in this scope very significant  the discussion about responsible ways of respecting children, the visibility of their voices and images.

In this text we intend to bring a discussion about ways of developing research with children, by respecting their authorship and also respecting their integrity and well-being.

To this end, we developed an initial reflection on research methods with children in general and on visual methodologies in particular and the necessary articulations with an indispensable ethical relationship throughout the research process. We, then, question the ways in which researchers use images of children, advancing with some trends, resulting from the analysis developed to the way images have been presented in research reports, from which we highlight the image of the ghost-child and the image of child-subject, sustaining in this article the poignant need to defend the image of the subject-child.

Finally, we present a set of contributions that help us to think ethically about the use of images in research with children, in order to respect children as participants and authors, in a deep respect for their rights.