Context-Informed Research on Child Risk and Protection: Principles and Challenges

This chapter offers an overview on methodological issues of the studies presented in the book. Those studies on child risk and protection utilized a qualitative approach aimed at a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomena by examining perceptions, worldviews, and the meanings of parents, children and professionals, which are influenced by different and multiple contexts and by the subjective interpretations of the participants. The studies also utilized a grounded theory methodology, aiming for the systematic development of a conceptual model grounded in data. Finally, the studies employed the constructivist version of grounded theory, which places the research process and product in historical, social, and situational contexts and adopts a more critical approach to the inquiry. In the first part of this chapter, the main methodological aspects used by the majority of NEVET-Greenhouse’s researchers in their studies were outlined, including an overall description of the research’s samples, data collection, procedures, and analysis. In the second part of this chapter, several methodological principles and challenges of context-informed research on issues related to child risk and protection were described and discussed. Several ways of overcoming those challenges and barriers in conducting context-informed research were also described (e.g., caution, contextual awareness, reflection processes, adaptation, working in a research group), hoping that this may assist context-informed research in becoming a potential strategy to destabilize binary and oppressive theoretical, methodological and practical boundaries and discourses with minority and silenced populations.