Children’s ongoing and relational negotiation of informed assent in child–researcher, child–child and child–parent interaction

Contemporary considerations of childhood research ethics recognize children’s competence and agency, their rights to be informed about research and their capabilities to negotiate participation. There is also a recognition of children’s assent as ongoing and formed in the relationship with the researcher. Drawing on two different data sets, we investigate information and assent as they appear in child–researcher, child–child and child–parent interactions. We argue for the need to pay attention to participants’ own meaning-making with regard to informed assent, and show how the presence or non-presence of the researcher in data collection may affect information and assent.