Unique Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Interviews with Families and Children

Conducting qualitative research with families raises many unique ethical issues. In this paper, two researchers with decades of experience conducting research with families invite and engage with common ethical issues that uniquely confront qualitative family researchers. Ethical concerns related to respondents in family systems including consent, assent, remuneration, transparency about roles/responsibilities, duty of notification, and disclosure and family privacy are discussed, with the authors providing suggestions and illustrations from their prior work. Students new to research as well as seasoned researchers may benefit from the discussed strategies for conducting ethical research when conducting qualitative interviews with families.