Researching gender violence in schools: Methodological and ethical considerations

SummaryThis paper examines a number of methodological and ethical issues around research with children, arising from a recent study of the abuse of adolescent girls in schools in three African countries. The research used open-ended interviews and participatory workshops exploring visual representations of school life to uncover incidents of sexual, physical, verbal, and psychological abuse. It found that abuse was perpetrated mainly, but not exclusively, against female pupils by male pupils, teachers, and other adults in the community. The paper examines some methodological issues in doing such research and also some of the ethical dilemmas faced by the researchers when girls revealed sexual abuse by teachers and other adults.