Participatory research with children presents a range of ethical challenges, particularly concerning power dynamics between adults and children in the research process. Factors such as the research setting, parental consent, the role of gatekeepers, interview dynamics, and the methods used can either facilitate or limit children’s participation. For migrant children and their families, specific issues like the language of communication, the materials developed for the study, socio-economic status, and migration-related vulnerabilities, such as sensitive experiences of (forced) migration, are especially important. This paper explores these ethical considerations through the lens of our research in the WoKidS project, which examines the subjective well-being of children (N = 84) aged 8 to 14, both with and without a migration background. The article is grounded in an ethical reflexivity approach, where multiple researchers involved in the study reflect on their experiences and practices while conducting research with (migrant) children.

In 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, resulting in one of the largest refugee crises in Europe. Switzerland took in around 60,000 Ukrainian refugees, many of whom were children. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Ukrainian refugee children (aged 8–14) who participated in the WoKidS (Children’s Well-being in German-Speaking Switzerland) project, we reconstruct the importance of family for their subjective well-being by addressing three interrelated aspects: home, objects and relationships. We argue that, despite experiencing adverse situations, refugee children are active participants in the processes of homemaking and the promotion of family co-presence and care across borders. Furthermore, the children’s perspectives expand our understanding of (transnational) families and (transnational) care, showing that well-being is relational and challenging the notion of family as ‘left behind’.

Much research has been carried out on (retirement) return migration, emphasizing the importance of family ties, infrastructure, the healthcare system and social relationships as factors that often boost non‐return. Less research, however, has looked at the biographies of older migrants from a phenomenological and social‐constructivist approach and how return is part of one's biographical narration and narrative identity in old age. In this article, we address this gap by discussing return and non‐return as a tópos that is woven throughout migrants' biographical narrations. We reconstruct how one's narrated life story is told, how socio‐historical contexts and discourses are part of older migrants' narratives and how (non‐)return appears as part of their lived life and narrative identity. We show that staying or returning is not a simple decision but rather a central theme to which the interviewees refer when giving sense to their life course.

Apresentação do Dossiê “Temas sensíveis na infância – diálogos interdisciplinares

This article critically examines the democratic potential of participatory approaches with older adults. Drawing on a workshop at the 14th European Conference for Social Work Research, we explore how such approaches can both (re)shape and (re)produce power relations between researchers and older co-researchers. Using case studies and theoretical frameworks, we argue that participatory research’s democratic promise lies not only in its methods, though they can support it, but also in the ongoing negotiation and reflexivity that shape equitable researcher–co-researcher relationships.