The Children’s Delphi: A Participatory Methodological Framework for Conducting Research on Children’s Subjective Well-being in South Africa

If you want to know how children are doing, ask them. This is the central premise of the child indicator movement, with its genesis in the advancement of children’s rights (1970s) and the epistemological shifts in the sociology of childhood. From this epistemological position, childhood is a valid structural feature of society and children’s perspectives acknowledged as valid, their experiences as real, with the capacity to meaningfully reflect on their lives. The methodological upshot is that children transitioned from being absent in social research, to objects of research, to subjects of research; igniting the interest in children’s subjective well-being (SWB). This provided the momentum for the advancement of child-centred research, and participatory methodologies—with children now regarded as participants in the research process. We put forward the Children’s Delphi, a participatory methodological framework, advancing children as the authentic knowers and authoritative experts on their lives, offering a structured approach for the meaningful inclusion of children’s views. Consequently, their agency is located at the level of conceptualisation (foregrounding children’s intellectual input as programme designers) and practice (as programme implementers). We consider the application of the Children’s Delphi as a methodological framework for conducting research on children’s SWB in South Africa