"Research with children and young people is crucial. It can advance understanding of how they develop and live their lives, it can contribute to theoretical debates, and its outcomes can impact directly and indirectly on the lives of those researched and others in similar situations" (Lewis, 2004, p.1)
As Lansdown points out, “children have always participated in many ways within societies” (2011, p.3); however, involving children not only as participants but also as co-researchers is a fairly recent concept. Current literature seems to suggest that the ‘gold standard’ should be complete participation, in other words involving children at every stage of the research process, from pre-data collection to dissemination stage (Tisdall et al., 2009). However, I do not believe that there is such a thing as a ‘gold standard’ when researching children’s lives. I recognise that Hart’s status model of participation has had a major influence on changing the way we look at children and young people’s participation in research since its publication in the 1990s; however, I do agree with Kirby and Gibbs (2006) that thinking of participation in a hierarchical manner, and as if a research project will match neatly to one particular rung on Hart’s ladder, may not always be helpful. Treseder’s (1992) wheel of participation, where various forms of participation are considered different but equally valid, is more in line with my thinking.