Children as researchers: issues, impact and contribution to knowledge

This paper explores the concept of children as researchers, positioning this from a rights perspective. It begins by tracing the historical context of children's research before establishing a rationale for this new paradigm. Consideration is given to methodological and theoretical issues pertaining to research by children and set within a context of participation and empowerment. The author acknowledges the importance of child voice, the uniqueness of insider perspective and the valuing of original contribution to knowledge that research by children can bring to our understanding of childhood and children's lives. The paper draws on the pioneering work of the Children's Research Centre at the Open University, UK – a centre solely dedicated to supporting research by children and young people – and features an example of original research by young people. Impact factors are examined along with how we value and position research by children in policy and practice contexts

Children as active researchers: a new research paradigm for the 21st century?

This paper examines the concept of research undertaken by children and the methodological and theoretical issues this raises. It begins with a rationale of research by children and sets this within a context or participation and empowerment, acknowledging the importance of child perspective and voice and valuing the original contribution that child researchers can make to our understanding of childhood and children's lives. It traces the historical and philosophical precedents that have led to this point and explores the question of whether research by children can be accommodated within existing research parameters or whether it requires a new approach even a new research paradigm? The paper also addresses issues of ethics, policy and power relations along with a discussion of the extent to which child research can be free of adult filters and adult influences. It draws on data from a 3-year ation research study empowering children as active researchers and features examples of children's original projects

Young people's voices on cyber bullying: what can age comparisons tell us

This is a report of a youth-led research study, commissioned by the Diana Award. It illuminates contemporary experiences of and attitudes towards cyber bullying, with a particular focus on age comparisons between older and younger youth. This is the largest survey carried out on cyber bullying in England to date that has been steered by young people themselves. It consisted of: one large survey, two online surveys and four focus groups, carried out from September 2009 to July 2011. In total, it encompassed the views of 1,512 young people in England (consisting of 1490 pupils who completed the surveys and 22 who designed the research). It provides a a clearer understanding of the nature and prevalence of cyber bullying among young people and recommends effective ways to strengthen preventative action

Children researching links between poverty and literacy

Two groups of six children (aged eleven) in two UK primary schools – one in an area of socio-economic advantage and one in an area of socio-economic disadvantage – were trained in research methods. They were supported to undertake their own research projects about aspects of literacy, which they identified themselves. Areas explored include: - homework experiences - learning environments and - how confidence affects literacy. These research studies provide rich descriptions of children’s own literacy experiences, generating data that is not easily accessible to adults. The absence of power relations in the data collection by having child researchers means that the responses are untainted by efforts to ‘please the adult’. This report will be of interest to teachers, educationalists, government bodies, policy maker

Capacity Theorems for the AWGN Multi-Way Relay Channel

The L-user additive white Gaussian noise multi-way relay channel is considered, where multiple users exchange information through a single relay at a common rate. Existing coding strategies, i.e., complete-decode-forward and compress-forward are shown to be bounded away from the cut-set upper bound at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). It is known that the gap between the compress-forward rate and the capacity upper bound is a constant at high SNR, and that between the complete-decode-forward rate and the upper bound increases with SNR at high SNR. In this paper, a functional-decode-forward coding strategy is proposed. It is shown that for L >= 3, complete-decode-forward achieves the capacity when SNR <= 0 dB, and functional-decode-forward achieves the capacity when SNR >= 0 dB. For L=$, functional-decode-forward achieves the capacity asymptotically as SNR increases.Comment: accepted and to be presented at ISIT 201

Functional-Decode-Forward for the General Discrete Memoryless Two-Way Relay Channel

We consider the general discrete memoryless two-way relay channel, where two users exchange messages via a relay, and propose two functional-decode-forward coding strategies for this channel. Functional-decode-forward involves the relay decoding a function of the users' messages rather than the individual messages themselves. This function is then broadcast back to the users, which can be used in conjunction with the user's own message to decode the other user's message. Via a numerical example, we show that functional-decode-forward with linear codes is capable of achieving strictly larger sum rates than those achievable by other strategies