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14 - Critical Methods for Studying Adolescent Sexuality

from Part II - How Do We Study Sexual Development?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Sharon Lamb
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston
Jen Gilbert
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Summary

Research about sexual development in childhood and adolescence is shaped by unequal power relations, making the use of critical methods necessary. This chapter explores several critical research methods that lead researchers to reflect on how power circumscribes and limits the questions that can be asked in research with and about children and adolescents. These methods create "methodological research points" – spaces in which researchers can work within the discursive contexts that frame their objects of study, and in which they can work to understand the political and historical processes of knowledge production as they themselves produce knowledge. This chapter argues for the use of critical methods in all stages of the research process, which are necessary so as not to overlook important aspects of young peoples' lives.
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The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development
Childhood and Adolescence
, pp. 281 - 299
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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