We collect and preserve cultural objects made by children, and we make those objects available for research purposes and for public interest. We believe it is important that children take part in the conversation about what they create, what they value, and whether they want to preserve or share memories or not.
For this reason, the CDIC’s board of directors has recently decided to publicly commit to upholding and promoting the principles laid out in the Ethical Research Involving Children (ERIC) Charter. The statements included in the Charter were collectively developed by the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University, Australia, and UNICEF’s Office of Research, Innocenti. It took several years of discussions and hundreds of researchers participated in the consultations that resulted in a compendium now available online in several languages.
Academic research in the humanities has increasingly used participatory methods, and the movement for open sciences has gained momentum in recent years. Meanwhile, children’s human rights have yet to become common knowledge and universally acknowledged. At CDIC, we believe it is important that collection contributors and collection users know that we care about children’s agency and well-being above all.
