Social representations of children participating in a clinical trial, about the researcher: the holder of knowledge to the curious child

Abstract

Educational interventions are important tools to broaden scientific knowledge and, in clinical trials, must contribute to the decision making process regarding participation in research. Aiming to scientifically educate children residing in a hookworm endemic area, situated in a rural area of Minas Gerais state, where a clinical trial is being conducted, an educational intervention, based on storytelling through clowning performance, was developed. The present study endeavored to analyze the reverberations of this intervention on the children’s social representations concerning the researcher. The intervention has been shown to be very powerful in undermining (pre)concepts about the researcher that circulate among children. In children’s speech the representation of the researcher as knowledge holder and savior, a person distant from their reality has emerged. From the educational intervention onwards, new meanings were added to those representations: of a researcher who had once been a child, who is curious, asks questions and interacts, in a quest for knowledge. By enlarging children’s meanings concerning the researcher, the educational intervention may contribute to the decision making process in which children and those responsible for them are invited to participate in a clinical trial.