Exploring young people’s experiences of growing up under COVID-19

With many countries still in some form of lockdown, young people stand to be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in quite specific ways. Children and young people’s voices have been notably absent in media coverage about Covid-19. Measures are being proposed, but often with little consideration of the views and perspectives of young people (Fox, 2020). Research highlights the role and value of children in responding to crisis situations (Ray 2010; Save the Children 2015) however, little is known about children and young people’s roles specifically in major public health crises such as pandemics. This chapter draws on early lessons from an international longitudinal participatory research project involving young people as co-researchers and experts in their own lives (Thomson, 2008; Abebe, 2009). The project seeks to understand the experiences and realities of young people living under Covid-19 according to their own priorities, concerns and terms of reference and puts forward recommendations for how to promote young people’s wellbeing, rights and participation during and after the pandemic. The chapter focuses on the challenges (logistical and ethical) of engaging young people from seven countries in participatory action research whilst working entirely online. It provides an overview of the research methodology and outlines how young people were recruited to the project. At the time of writing (July 2020), this project is ongoing. Thus we provide several reflections on our experience of designing an international study online and present a number of emerging findings.