The Future of Education

This paper draws from a longitudinal study of 32 young people exploring the processes involved in their transitions into, through and beyond vocational education over a 10-year period. The findings provide information about a range of factors that shed light on opportunities, barriers, shifts, changes and emotions that young people experience throughout their transition through vocational education (Lyngsnes & Rismark, 2018; Rismark & Lyngsnes, 2022). Data was collected through five or six interviews with each young person throughout the ten year period. This paper focuses on the ethical dilemmas and challenges we as researchers met in the repeated meetings with the participants who were in a formative phase in their life. Some of these aspects could to a certain degree be planned for, mainly factors related to the ethics of consent, anonymity and confidentiality described in research guidelines and regulations. Other aspects of research ethics, however, came about in the current situation and were experienced as genuine ethical challenges that had to be dealt with by the researchers in the actual context. In retrospect we  have spent a lot of time reflecting on these ethical important moments, how we dealt with them in the actual situation, and what can be learned about research ethics involving young people in a longitudinal research design. The paper highlights the importance of reflexivity and critical reflection in doing this kind of research.