In an inviting and conversational style, author Kiaras Gharabaghi offers a concise guide introducing foundational research methods for the study and practice of child and youth care, aiming to awaken a lifelong interest in how research can inform, improve, and evoke critical reflection on what child and youth care is, and can be, about. Presenting research as a relational tool, the text builds basic practical research skills, such as how to conduct interviews and focus groups, how to construct research questions and surveys, and how to select research designs to best serve each project. This essential volume highlights research as an important element of child and youth care practice, explores different qualitative and quantitative research designs, and examines how they are implemented, including various aspects of recruiting research subjects, the collection and analysis of data, and the limitations of research. Written from an explicitly anti-racist perspective, the text includes a chapter dedicated to Afrocentric and Indigenous research approaches and draws all its examples from the field of child and youth care. The rich in-text pedagogical features include a glossary of key terms and two appendices that detail an ethics protocol and describe a small research project from start to finish. Students of child and youth care, social work, and youth work/development programs are bound to appreciate this engaging and highly readable text. FEATURES • covers the politics of research, the intersections of research and advocacy work, and Afrocentric and Indigenous research lenses
• features text boxes showcasing research insights, interviews with child and youth care researchers, and ethical considerations
• accessible for those new to research in child and youth care, while offering insight into how to deeply understand research at more advanced levels of engagement “This text is a relational encounter an engaging conversation about the importance of research as practice and our ethical responsibilities as CYC scholar practitioners to disrupt, de-center, and dismantle dominant knowledges that reproduce oppression.”
—Meaghan Dougherty, Department of Child and Youth Care, Douglas College Table of Contents Acknowledgments
List of Textboxes, Tables and Figures
Preface
Introduction Part I: Research in Context Chapter 1: Party Words and Pick Up Lines: Situating Oneself in Research Chapter 2: Fake Presidents, Fake Research, Fake Practice: The Politics of Research Chapter 3: Stuff We Do Without Knowing: Value Driven Practices Chapter 4: The Wonder Years: Formulating Research Questions Chapter 5: You’re Never Really First: The Literature Review Chapter 6: Your Truth, My Truth, Everybody’s Lies: Research Versus Advocacy Part II: Research Designs, Methods and Tools Chapter 7: Celebrating Your Senses: Observation and Ethnography Chapter 8: I Know Because You Know: Afrocentric and Indigenous Research Methods Chapter 9: Awesome Researchers Don’t Always Look Like Researchers: Participatory Action Research Chapter 10: May I Listen to You?: Recruitment and Ethics Chapter 11: Relational Conversations: Interviewing and Focus Groups Chapter 12: I Bet You Can Count: Quantitative Research Methods Chapter 13: Romantic and Relational Variables: The Tools and Methods of Quantitative Research Chapter 14: Survey Says…: Asking Questions in Surveys and Interviews Chapter 15: So Then They Said…: Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Themes and Coding Part III: Research in Perspective Chapter 16: Are We There Yet?: Limitations of Research Findings Chapter 17: Because I Learned Something: The Interface of Research and Practice in Child and Youth Care Appendix 1 Elements of an Ethics Protocol
Appendix 2 A Small Research Project, Start to Finish
Glossary of Terms
List of References
Index About the Author: Kiaras Gharabaghi is a Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care and Dean of the Faculty of Community Services at Toronto Metropolitan University, specializing in child and youth care ethics, organizational change, residential care and treatment, and international practice. He has over 20 years of front-line experience in the child mental health, child welfare, and youth homelessness sectors. | 
