Recent perspectives in childhood research have tended to emphasise the use of participatory techniques as a method of reducing the unequal power balance between researcher and researched. Increasingly researchers have been concerned with developing inclusive and participatory, young people centred methodologies which place their voices at the centre of the research process. But is the ideal of young people’s active involvement in the research process truly achievable or desirable with socially excluded young people in practice? This article reflects on a range of ethical, methodological and practical issues which arose from a study which investigtaed the lives of a group of young women who were excluded from secondary school. The article concludes with reflections on the necessity to overcome such difficulties for the production of in‐depth data on some of the most vulnerable, socially excluded young people.