Research Methods in Child and Youth Care

The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:

• Research is the foundation of all child and youth care knowledge, informing how child and youth care pracititoners understand and engage with the world. 
• Knowledge creation is a political practice with material implications for children, youth, families, and communities.
• Knowledge creation has been dominated by privileged groups; de-centering white-Western theories and research encourages a more diverse understanding of CYC and our role as practitioners.
• Child and youth care practitioners need to be critical consumers of research to determine if they can trust research to guide their practice.
• Being a critical consumer of research requires an understanding of the relationships between worldview, positionality, research design, ethical considerations, and the strength of research findings.  
• Quantitative and qualitative approaches contribute to our knowledge of child and youth care.
• Practitioners experience tensions and practice problems in the field that can become significant research questions.
• Being a practice-informed researcher means contextualizing the research question in existing scholarship, determining appropriate research designs to explore the question, and ensuring an ethical approach to finding solutions.