PhD Courses in Denmark

Course description

• This PhD course deals with the ethical challenges, situations and dilemmas that PhD students encounter in their research - especially within the research environment covering human and social sciences.
• The PhD course focuses on how and in what ways ethical challenges and situations are handled in the actual research process – in particular aimed at children, young people and adults who are in vulnerable and socially exposed positions, e.g. research in children placed outside the home, farlig forskning, or young people/adults living under conditions of marginalization and exclusion.
• Ethics in research within the research environment covering humanities and social sciences traditionally relates to both moral, legal and professional considerations often presented in a number of formalized guidelines dealing with the importance of e.g. informed consent, confidentiality and protection of informants throughout the research process (Petersen, 2018; Petersen & Ladefoged, 2020).
• However, research about and with children, young people and adults in vulnerable and socially exposed positions - often does not hold sufficient answers to the critical and contextualized ethical situations that may emerge in the research process, although these are formalized in ethical guidelines within research. A number of traditions within the research environment covering human and social sciences have addressed central ethical approaches and understandings that will be included and discussed in the course. Research about and with vulnerable and socially exposed children, adolescents and adults identifies, for examples, ethical considerations that point to the importance of protecting and taking care of their informants (Swartz, 2011; Powell et al., 2012; Brooks & te Riele, 2013). While the tradition of situation ethics emphasizes the importance of ethics as contextual and the necessity to relate to the unexpected in the research process (Ellis, 2007, Mathiassen, 2020). Likewise, the feminist approach will be discussed (Piper & Simons, 2005), which focuses on ethics as affiliated with the importance of respect, care and the relationship between researcher and informant, as well as the subject-oriented approach, developed with inspiration from critical psychology and social practice theory, which has a focus on the collaboration between researcher and
  co-researcher (Petersen, 2018; Törrönen, & Petersen ,2021).
• The PhD course will both present and discuss ethics and ethical dilemmas / issues and challenges affiliated to the PhD students' own experiences from their line of work, 
  as well as a number of researchers”.

The following presentations will frame the PhD course
Kirsten Elisa Petersen, Associate Professor, PhD, (DPU) Aarhus University 

• What do we know about ethics and ethical challenges in social research?
• This presentation introduces different approaches and understandings to ethics in social research – specifically aimed at children and young people. The presentation will display key themes in social research, e.g. conducting research on sensitive topics, and the importance of doing good in research with vulnerable and marginalized groups. Several approaches in social research with vulnerable and marginalized groups have identified a number of ethical challenges and dilemmas that are illuminated as well as various ethical strategies that seek to address these ethical challenges in research – in particular within the qualitative research tradition in research with children and young.

Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Professor, PhD, Aalborg University.

• Ethnography of the forbidden, dangerous fieldwork and sensitive sociology
• The focus of the presentation will be on imparting a number of concepts and perspectives in relation to ethics and moral sense within research in vulnerable groups or sensitive areas of social life. These concepts and perspectives can form the basis for a subsequent discussion of the PhD students' own projects.

Hanne Warming, Professor, PhD, RUC

• This presentation focuses on ethics in qualitative research projects regarding children and adolescents in vulnerable positions. We will engage in – based on the philosophy of Levinas – ethics as a fundamental demand in all inter-human relationships. Thus, ethics is not something to be fully plan for or to read how to do. By contrast, it becomes a procedural demand for ongoing awareness and handling of ethical challenges and dilemmas.

Line Lerche Mørck, Professor, PhD, (DPU) Aarhus University

• Social practice ethics in participatory, emancipatory research with vulnerable groups
• We will discuss the relationship between institutional ethics, dilemmas in practice, and social practice ethical actions. Institutional ethics are understood as the norms that dominate universities' ethical boards, as well as many of the institutions you conduct research with. Based on Flinders (1992), we discuss how ethical standards have changed historically and how different paradigms characterize research currently across academic traditions and research fields. Examples of ethical dilemmas, including tensions between institutional ethics and lived ethics are introduced in and across selected practice and participant-oriented research projects. What is the difference between institutionalized ethics, as we know it from the ethical boards, and the situated ethics that we co-create in participant-oriented, practice-oriented research and intervention?
• Proposals are given for new possible standards for social practice ethics, which are particularly relevant in research and practice with vulnerable groups. We discuss ethical dilemmas in and across different research projects, including fieldwork at street level, exit processes and identity transformation in collaboration with former gang members, collective memory work with mothers of 'children in difficulties', as well as a participatory practice-oriented practice research and development project, where one dilemma is, that it can be difficult to anonymize projects and participants.

Thomas Ploug, Professor, ph.d., Aalborg University

• Protection in research
• In the presentation, central concepts and principles within research ethics are reviewed. The focus is thus placed on the protection of people's autonomy and, in relation to this, reasons for and requirements for informed consent for research. In addition, the non-harm principle and the concept of justice and their implications for research are addressed. International conventions are included in the course, including the Nürnberg Convention, the Declaration of Helsinki and the Declaration of Taipei and the Oviedo Convention.

Aim

• The PhD course focuses on how ethical challenges and situations can be understood and handled, partly through a number of presentations from researchers who present their own research methodological challenges and
  ethical-moral reflections from their own research practice, and partly through presentations from PhD students, affiliated with their own experiences in handling ethical issues and challenges through their PhD projects.
• The purpose is for the PhD students to develop their research competencies in relation to handling ethical challenges and issues, in their own research practice, and developing knowledge about different ethical approaches within the research environment covering human and social science, and how to use different approaches in their own research.

Target group/Participants

• PhD students within the research environment covering humanities and social sciences, and in particular PhD students who work within the social research field (social science) studying vulnerable and socially exposed groups in society.

Language 

• English. Danish if only Danish partcipants

Form

• Lectures, groupwork, presentations
• The course extends over three days. The first day holds an introduction to the understanding of and approaches to ethics within research environments covering the human and social sciences, as well as presentations from invited speakers who in different ways work with ethical challenges and dilemmas in their own research practice. On the second day there will be presentations and discussions based on the PhD students' own research experiences on ethics, and presentations from researchers. On the third and last day of the course, the PhD students' presentation and discussion are completed, as well as a presentation from researchers.
• The presentations will alter from invited researchers, as well as group work with the PhD students' own experiences and reflections on ethics and ethical issues in their research.

ECTS-credits

• 3

Lecturers

• Kirsten Elisa Petersen, (DPU) Aarhus University
• Line Lerche Mørck (DPU) Aarhus University
• Hanne Warming, RUC
• Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Aalborg University
• Thomas Ploug, Aalborg University

Literature

• Hilppö J, Chimirri NA, Rajala A. Theorizing research ethics for the study of psychological phenomena from
  within relational everyday life. Human Arenas. 2019; 2(4): 405-415.
• Recasting ethical dilemmas in participatory research as a collective matter of ‘response-ability’ Tine Friis
• (2021) PhD fellow, Medical Museion, Department of Public Health, and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for
• Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR), University of Copenhagen.
• Swartz, S., (2011) ‘Going deep’ and ‘giving back’: strategies for exceeding ethical expectations when
• Researching amongst vulnerable youth  Qualitative Research, 11(1), 47-68.
• Human Arenas (2023) 6:386–403 https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-021-00216-z 1 3 ARENA OF ETHICS Negotiating Ethics in Action in a Long term Research Relationship with a Young Child Niina Rutanen1  · Raija Raittila1  · Kaisa Harju1  · Yaiza Lucas Revilla1  · Maritta Hännikäinen1
• Powell, M.A., et al. (2012) International literature review: Ethical issues in undertaking research with children and young people (Literature review for the Childwatch International Research Network). Lismore: Southern Cross University, Centre for Children and Young People / Dunedin: University of Otago, Centre for Research on Children and Families. Available at http://childethics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Powell-et-al-2012.pdf
• Powell, M.A. (2018) Sensitive topics in social research involving children. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21(6), 647-660.
• Conolly, A. (2008) Challenges of generating qualitative data with socially excluded young people. International journal of social research Methodology, 11(3), 201-214. Petersen, K.E. (2018) Farlige unge eller farlig forskning: om udviklingen af strategier for etiske situationer og dilemmaer i forskning sammen med unge mænd i bandegrupperinger. Dansk Sociologi, (4), 31-53.
• Petersen, K.E. & Ladefoged, L. (2020) Forskning med børn og unge. Etik og etiske dilemmaer. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
• Törrönen, M., & Petersen, K. E. (2021) Ethical reflections on sensitive research with young people living in conditions of vulnerability. Social Work and Society, 19(1).
• Powell, M.A., et al. (2012) International literature review: ethical issues in undertaking research with children and young people. Southern Cross University. Centre for Children and Young People.
• Powell, M.A. et al. (2018) Sensitive topics in social research involving children. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21(6), 647-660.
• Swartz, S., (2011) Going deep and giving back: strategies for exceeding ethical expectations when researching amongst vulnerable youth. Qualitative Research, 11(1), 47-68. Daly, A. (2019): A Phenomenological Grounding of Feminist Ethics. The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 50 (1), 1–18: 17 s. (tilgængelig via biblioteket)
• Mathiassen, C. (2020). En feministisk tilgang til Etik. I: Petersen, K.E & Ladefoged, L. (red.). Forskning med børn og unge. Etik og etiske dilemmaer. København: Hans Reitzels forlag: 95 – 105 (10 s.)
• Alderson P and Morrow V (2011) The Ethics of Research with Children and Young People. London: Sage
• Gullemin M and Gillam L (2004) Ethics, reflexivity, and ‘ethically important moments’ in research. Qualitative Inquiry 10(2): 261–280.

Venue

• 9 April 2025: Emdrupvej 101, 2400 København NV. Building A, 7210-A214
• 10 April 2025: Emdrupvej 101, 2400 København NV. Building A, 7210-A412
• 11 April 2025: Emdrupvej 101, 2400 København NV. Building A, 7210-A412

Course dates

• 09 April 2025 10:00 - 16:00
• 10 April 2025 10:00 - 16:00
• 11 April 2025 10:00 - 16:00