Ethics and Research: Special Problems and Ethical Issues in Research

Research in child and family investigates dispositional, experiential, and environmental factors that contribute to physical, mental, emotional, and social development in human beings during the early years of life course. As Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development puts it “The overall goals of Child and Family Research are to describe, analyze, and assess the capabilities and proclivities of developing human beings, including their genetic characteristics, physiological functioning, perceptual and cognitive abilities, emotional, social, and interactional styles, as well as the nature and consequences for children and parents of family development, and children's exposure to and interactions with their physical surroundings. There are special problems and ethical issues to pay attention to due to the diversity of communities and their cultural settings, traditions and ethnic background that may hinder a researcher from accomplishing the investigation(s) for the benefits of advancing knowledge and other goals of the investigation. To ascertain that researches take place even where children become active participants, the Society for Research in Child Development, (SRCD) in 1990 came up with Ethical Standards for research with children to safeguard the researcher and also the child