Joel Friis

Profile

I am a postgraduate researcher from Bradford, with a background in Childhood Studies. I arrived at this area of research after several years employed in pre-school nurseries. The interest this sparked in children’s abilities and social worlds led to me to my undergraduate studies at the University of Leeds, alongside which I continued to work part-time in a nursery in Leeds, where I conducted a small research project for my undergraduate dissertation. 

During my third year of studies I applied for and was awarded an ESRC funded 1+3 PhD studentship through the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership, on the Education, Childhood and Youth Pathway. This led me to my Master’s study in Social Research in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. During this programme of study I furthered my research interest in children’s rights by conducting a survey of teachers concerning their views on children’s right to participate in decisions that affect them at school, and the role the school plays in limiting or facilitating children’s access to this right. 

Research interests

My research will focus on using participatory research methods to co-produce a tool which can be used to measure children’s access to and experience of decision making spaces. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the participation rights therein, derived mainly from Articles 12 &13, state that children should be allowed to make meaningful contributions to the processes by which decisions which affect them are made. Despite this, research has often found that children are excluded from important decisions that affect them and that efforts to encourage their ‘voice’ are often tokenistic and unimpactful.

My research will aim to begin addressing this shortcoming in the realisation of children’s rights by first establishing where children feel they could participate more actively, and their present experience of these decision making spaces. Important to this process is the idea that the knowledge created during this research project should be derived from the contributions of the young participants.

Qualifications

• MA Social Research (Interdisciplinary)
• BA Childhood Studies