The Law in Children’s Lives (LICL) project has sought to investigate how far, if at all, children are aware of the various legal provisions that apply to them, and to assess in particular how far children perceive themselves to be empowered by these laws in their day to day lives. An unusual and pioneering feature of this study has been the creation and use of a digital game as a means of gathering research data from 634 children aged 8-11 years, from 8 primary schools in Leicester and Leicestershire. This project has sought to find out how far children understand law as an empowering force in their day to day lives. There are many laws and international treaties that relate to children and in most of the contexts in which children find themselves; at home, at school or in public spaces. And these laws frame and constantly influence children's behaviour, and the behaviour of the children and adults around them. Researchers gained an understanding of how far children are aware of these laws and perceive themselves to be protected and bolstered by them. An unusual and innovative feature of this study is the use of digital gaming as a means of gathering research data. Rather than interviewing the children and asking them directly about these issues, researchers asked children to negotiate a variety of virtual challenges that were designed within a gaming format and made available to the children on tablet devices. Children played the game in school, and a smaller number of children (randomly selected) played the game again at home, with their parent or carer. Researchers worked with 634 children aged 8-11 years from a number of primary schools in Leicester and Leicestershire. The research findings have been written up in the form of academic journal articles and the researchers hope that their work will stimulate discourse and further research in this area and that it may serve to provide the foundations for the development of legal and educational reform in the UK and elsewhere.
A particularly innovative feature of this research was the use of a digital game as a research tool. The game was developed using a participatory approach; via discussions with six focus groups of children from three different primary schools. Building on information gathered from these focus groups, the game was designed to consist of four everyday ‘worlds’ or domains; a school, a park, a shop, and a friend’s house. A range of law-related hypothetical scenarios or vignettes were incorporated into each of these domains; communicated through a combination of still and animated visual images, spoken words and text. Each scenario provided the context for a question, in response to which children were invited variously to drag and drop characters into categories; to choose a point on a sliding scale, or to press a button that corresponded to their choice of answer. Frequently, once they had selected their response, children were then asked to audio record their reasoning into the game. This provided the all-important opportunity for children to express their views; and to explain the thinking behind their quantitative choices. This multi-dimensional approach was facilitated by an alien character ‘Lex’ who asks the children questions such as ‘What can you do about this’? or ‘Why do you say that’? as they navigate the game. In addition, for a small number of scenarios, ‘quantitative only’ or ‘qualitative only’ data were gathered respectively through a fixed-choice response (without follow up) or through audio-recording the child’s response to an open-ended question.
