Co-Researching With Palestinian Children and Youth: Rights-Based Knowledge Creation During Wartime

This study elucidates a rights-based participatory methodology of a qualitative research that explored the experiences with sociopolitical stress and coping strategies among Palestinian children and youth. The first author recruited and facilitated a Children and Youth Advisory Group (CYAG) of seven Palestinian adolescents (aged 13–19) from East Jerusalem, most of whom were enrolled in secondary education and demonstrated high levels of educational engagement. The Lundy Model for child participation (2007), which emphasizes Voice, Space, Audience, and Influence, guided the participatory framework. While the Model offers general principles, concrete mechanisms for involving children as co-researchers, as well as the facilitators and barriers to their meaningful engagement, remain underdeveloped. Concrete knowledge is particularly scant concerning co-researching with children belonging to marginalized ethnic groups during periods of protracted conflict and war. This article addresses that gap through a step-by-step analysis of work with the CYAG and offers novel insights into the challenges and ethical considerations in research with children during a critical period of war and restricted freedom of expression, including concerns around privacy, trust, and both legal and emotional safety. The findings underscore the value of a child’s cultural and generational expertise in shaping context-sensitive methodologies and in fostering authentic participation through power-sharing, aligning competence with advocacy, and maintaining safety without compromising spontaneity. These methodological insights aim to support researchers pursuing participatory and rights-respecting research with children in the context of conflict, oppression, and extreme marginalization.