Ética na pesquisa com crianças: uma revisão da literatura brasileira das ciências humanas e sociais

Abstract

The debate on ethics around research involving human beings, in the national context, has intensified in the last two decades. Social sciences and Humanities researchers, with few advances and many hurdles, converge on the refusal of the biomedical model as a reference for all scientific work. The article seeks to give visibility to issues that researchers from these areas have been debating about the ethics in research involving children. For this purpose, Brazilian articles and book chapters that discuss on the subject were analyzed. The investigation was focused on links between politics and science, the unequal adult-child power relationship, the development of procedures that allow an effective listening to children and the children's participation in the research processes. The central position of the literature, with which we agree, defends that ethical standards are not enough to ensure children the role of social actors, requiring a new understanding of the role of children in research, as well as concerning the own researcher in this relationship. It is argued that the fruitful discussions on research with children can contribute to the more general debate on national ethics regulation in research involving human beings in the areas of humanities and social sciences.