Case Study 5 – Research Co-production with Young Women through an Out-of-School Residential Trip

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the learning arising from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) knowledge exchange secondment undertaken by a university researcher for a full academic year within a charity in a socio-economically deprived area of the North East of England. The charity worked alongside schools and other organisations to co-ordinate out-of-school learning activities, but there was a concern with the low levels of engagement by girls with the provision. A usual approach by the charity to finding out why the girls were not engaging with the activities provided might have involved asking the girls what provision they would like. Instead, we developed a participatory process where we – the researchers – worked with a group of young women to co-create a piece of research about their lives. As part of the process, we participated in a residential trip with them and their group leaders which provided a space – both physically and methodologically – for authentic dialogue and relationships of trust to develop. In this chapter, we outline the practical, methodological and ethical challenges (and opportunities) of engaging in this way in the context of a residential setting and conclude that this way of engaging with the girls led us to different kinds of insights that may not have been achieved with adopting more conventional research approaches.

Citation

Clark, J. and Laing, K. (2022), "Case Study 5 – Research Co-production with Young Women through an Out-of-School Residential Trip", Rose, J., Jay, T., Goodall, J., Mazzoli Smith, L. and Todd, L. (Ed.) Repositioning Out-of-School Learning (Emerald Studies in Out-of-School Learning), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-739-320211006