Explorative co-research with young people

There has been no large-scale co-research with vocational school students where they are as equals, not research subjects. There is therefore no protocol. The protocol was created by Meriläinen for her theoretical-empirical research (2020; 2021; 2022). The explorative co-research with vocational school students focused on power relations in the society. The purpose of the explorative empirical research method was to gain empirical research data from the students in an active manner – rather than just by observing or testing them. There were no hypotheses or expected outcome(s), in order to keep an open mind in the explorative research setting. The only expectation was, if the young vocational school students were willing to be voluntary co-researchers, that empirical data must be gained, though the nature of the possible empirical data was unknown. This further emphasised the explorative nature of the research. Naturally power-relations exists in the explorative empirical research, since the adult researcher has the education (PhD.) and experience to do research, while the young co-researcher may be unfamiliar with the research method, purposes, and topics. Indeed co-research was unknown to all n=213 voluntary co-researchers. The method, research and purpose were discussed on multiple occasions with the young people. As a premise, if researchers seek to gain insights from people, they should listen to people in their own surroundings and go where those people are. In this case: vocational schools. Research-workshops were chosen as a process for gathering research data because students can be engaged in schools, and workshops at their best can be conducted in open and free atmospheres and surroundings that are different from the setting of traditional classroom teaching. The workshops were designed to fit the existing curriculum in multiple municipalities and research subjects. The workshops lasted between 35 mins to almost 4 hours long, with some cases lunch breaks and the general freedom to move, drink and eat. Eventually there were seven different main ways for the co-researchers to participate: from independent research to simply discussing with the adult researcher in a free atmosphere. These seven ways were formulated in co-operation with the co-researchers in developing the research method. To ensure equal possibilities to participate online and offline, participatory methods were created to help those with various disabilities or language barriers or who experience anxiety. Help was also provided when needed. Few key issues must be addressed. Anonymity is crucial, since it allows young participants to express their opinions freely while producing empirical research data. Moreover, it is important to address ethical issues such as disabilities, differences in language skills, accessing information, and to consider time constraints, and the possible hurdles of using minorities as tokens in research. As two co-researchers said: “No one has ever come to question anything so profoundly. I feel like this should happen more often. It would be good for us to be listened to and we can talk about this.” “Really nice to be able to talk about how we see things. Nice that we are seen for once.”