Routledge

www.routledge.com
Ethics and Research in Inclusive
Education

The recent move towards inclusive education has radically influenced the way
educational research is conducted. Students need to become aware of the critical,
ethical and legal responsibilities that arise from investigation in this new and
expanding area.
Written from the perspective of inclusive education, rather than ‘special
education’, this carefully edited collection of articles from a wide variety of sources
will develop the student’s ability to

• identify and respond to ethical dilemmas that occur within their particular
research methodologies and settings;
• respond appropriately to the complex issues that are pertinent to their own
work.

The contributions to this book draw upon examples of inclusive practices from
around the world. Students taking postgraduate courses or diplomas in Inclusive
Education will find this an invaluable read.

Jonathan Rix, Katy Simmons and Kieron Sheehy, are all lecturers in Inclusive
and Special Education at the Centre for Curriculum and Teaching Studies, The
Open University.

Melanie Nind was formerly a Senior Lecturer in Inclusive and Special Education
at the Centre for Curriculum and Teaching Studies, The Open University, and is
now Reader in Education at the University of Southampton.
Companion Volumes

The companion volumes in this series are

Curriculum and Pedagogy in Inclusive Education

Values into practice
Edited by Melanie Nind, Jonathan Rix, Kieron Sheehy and
Katy Simmons

Policy and Power in Inclusive Education

Values into practice
Edited by Jonathan Rix, Katy Simmons, Melanie Nind and
Kieron Sheehy

This Reader is part of a course: Researching Inclusive Education Values into Practice
that is itself part of the Open University MA programme.

The Open University MA in Education

The Open University MA in Education is now firmly established as the most
popular postgraduate research degree for education professionals in Europe, with
over 3,500 students registering each year. The MA in Education is designed par-
ticularly for those with experience of teaching, the advisory service, educational
administration or allied fields.

Structure of the MA
The MA is a modular degree, and students are therefore free to select from a range
of options the programme which best fits in with their interests and professional
goals. Specialist lines in management, applied linguistics and lifelong learning are
also available. Successful study in the MA programme entitles students to apply for
entry into the Open University Doctorate in Education Programme.
Open University supported learning
The MA in Education programme provides great flexibility. Students study at their
own pace, in their own time, anywhere in the European Union. They receive
specially prepared study materials, supported by tutorials, thus offering the oppor-
tunity to work with other students. The University also offers many undergraduate
courses. Within the area of Inclusive Education there is an undergraduate second
level course Inclusive Education: Learning from each other.

The Doctorate in Education

The Doctorate in Education is a part-time doctoral degree, combining taught
courses, research methods and a dissertation designed to meet the needs of profes-
sionals in education and related areas who are seeking to extend and deepen their
knowledge and understanding of contemporary educational issues.

How to apply
If you would like to register for this programme, or simply find out more informa-
tion about available courses, please write for the Professional Development in Education
prospectus to the Course Reservation Centre, PO Box 724, The Open University,
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6ZW, UK (Telephone +44 (0) 1908 653231).
Alternatively, you may visit the Open University website http://www.open.ac.uk
where you can learn more about the wide range of courses offered at all levels by
the Open University.
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Ethics and Research in
Inclusive Education

Values into practice

Edited by
Kieron Sheehy, Melanie Nind,
Jonathan Rix and Katy Simmons
First published 2005
by RoutledgeFalmer
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2005 Compilation, original and editorial matter,

The Open University
Typeset in Bembo by
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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from the British Library
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A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 978-0-415-35205-5 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-415-35206-2 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-315-01817-1 (eISBN)
Contents

Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction: inclusive education and ethical research 1

K I E RON S HE E HY

PART I
A new context for educational research 7

2 Thinking about inclusion. Whose reason? What evidence? 9

G A RY T HOMA S A ND GE O R G IN A G L E N N Y

3 Taking curiosity seriously: the role of awe and Wanda in

research-based professionalism 28
MA RI ON D A D D S

4 What a difference a decade makes: reflections on doing

‘emancipatory’ disability research 43
C OL I N B A RNE S

PART II
New voices and relationships 59

5 Research by children 61
P RI S C I L L A A L D E R S ON

6 The ethical and methodological complexities of doing

research with ‘vulnerable’ young people 76
GI L L VA L E NT I NE , R UT H B U T L E R A N D T R A C E Y SK E LT O N
viii Contents

7 Children with special needs, teachers with special needs 83

R OS F ROS T

8 ‘Do you get some funny looks when you tell people
what you do?’: muddling through some angsts and ethics
of (being a male) researching with children 94
J OHN HORT ON

9 ‘This won’t take long . . . ’: interviewing, ethics and diversity 102

C A ROL VI NC E NT A ND SIM O N W A R R E N

10 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation:

methodological and ethical issues and solutions 119
S HE I L A WOL F E ND A L E

PART III
Methods and practices 131

11 The moral maze of image ethics 133

J ON P R OS S E R

12 Rants, ratings and representation: ethical issues in

researching online social practices 150
MI C HE L E K NOB E L

13 Ethics in quasi-experimental research on people with

severe learning disabilities: dilemmas and compromises 168
MA RY K E L L E T T A ND M E LA N IE N IN D

14 Owning the story: ethical considerations in narrative

research 176
WI L L I A M E . S MY T HE A N D M A U R E E N J. M U R R A Y

15 Methodological challenges in researching inclusive

school cultures 192
ME L A NI E NI ND , S HE R E E N B E N JA M IN , K IE R O N SH E E H Y ,
J A NE T C OL L I NS A ND K A T H Y H A LL

16 A guide to ethical issues and action research 205

J A NE Z E NI
 Contents ix

17 Reflections on interviewing children and young people

as a method of inquiry in exploring their perspectives
on integration/inclusion 215
A NN L E WI S

PART IV
The legal context 229

18 Researching children’s perspectives: legal issues 231

J UD I T H MA S S ON

19 Data protection issues in educational research 242

C L A R E WOOD

Index 251
Acknowledgements

The following chapters are reproduced with the permission of Taylor & Francis
Group, (www.tandf.co.uk/journals):

Chapter 2
Thinking about inclusion. Whose reason? What evidence?
Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny
International Journal of Inclusive Education (2002), 6, 4, 345–369

Chapter 4
What a difference a decade makes: reflections on doing ‘emancipatory’ disability
research
Colin Barnes
Disability and Society (2003), 18, 1, 3–17

Chapter 5
Research by children
Priscilla Alderson
International Journal of Social Research Methodology (2001), 4, 2, 139–153

Chapter 6
The ethical and methodological complexities of doing research with ‘vulnerable’
young people
Gill Valentine, Ruth Butler and Tracey Skelton
Ethics, Place and Environment (2001), 4, 2, 119–125

Chapter 7
Children with special needs, teachers with special needs
Ros Frost
From Doing Practitioner Research Differently, Marion Dadds and Susan Hart,
RoutledgeFalmer (2001), 13–26
 Acknowledgements xi

Chapter 8
‘Do you get some funny looks when you tell people what you do?’ muddling
through some angsts and ethics of (being a male) researching with children
John Horton
Ethics, Place and Environment (2001), 4, 2, 159–166

Chapter 9
‘This won’t take long…’: interviewing, ethics and diversity
Carol Vincent and Simon Warren
Qualitative Studies in Education (2001), 14, 1, 39–53

Chapter 11
The moral maze of image ethics
Jon Prosser
From Situated Ethics in Educational Research, edited by Helen Simons and Robin
Usher, RoutledgeFalmer (2000), 116–132

Chapter 12
Rants, ratings and representation: ethical issues in researching online social practices
Michele Knobel
Education, Communication and Information (2003), 3, 2, 187–210

Chapter 15
Methodological challenges in researching inclusive school cultures
Melanie Nind, Shereen Benjamin, Kieron Sheehy, Janet Collins and Kathy Hall
Educational Review (2004), 56, 3

The following chapters are reproduced with the permission of Blackwell

Publishing Ltd:

Chapter 10
‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation: methodological and ethical issues
and solutions
Sheila Wolfendale
British Journal of Special Education (1999), 26, 3, 164–169

Chapter 13
Ethics in quasi-experimental research on people with severe learning disabilities:
dilemmas and compromises
Mary Kellett and Melanie Nind
British Journal of Learning Disabilities (2001), 29, 51–55
xii Acknowledgements

Chapter 17
Reflections on interviewing children and young people as a method of inquiry in
exploring their perspectives on integration/inclusion
Ann Lewis
Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs (2001), 1, 3

The following chapter is reproduced with the permission of Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates, inc.:

Chapter 14
Owning the story: ethical considerations in narrative research
William E. Smythe and Maureen J. Murray
Ethics & Behaviour (2000), 10, 4, 311–336

The following chapter is reproduced with the permission of the Open University
Press/Mc-Graw-Hill Publishing Company:

Chapter 18
Researching children’s perspectives: legal issues
Judith Masson
Researching Children’s Perspectives, edited by Ann Lewis and Geoff Lindsey, Open
University Press (2003), 34–45

The following chapters are reproduced with the permission of the authors:

Chapter 3
Taking curiosity seriously: the role of awe and Wanda in research-based
professionalism
Marion Dadds
Educational Action Research (2002), 10, 1, 9–25

Chapter 16
A guide to ethical issues and action research
Jane Zeni
Educational Action Research (1998), 6, 1, 9–19
Chapter 1

Introduction
Inclusive education and ethical
research
Kieron Sheehy

This Reader is intended to support those embarking on educational research in the

area of inclusive education. It is designed as a text for Master’s level, and other
advanced, students and teacher researchers. Research about inclusive education
can raise complex ethical issues and the researcher needs to be aware of these and
the ethical and legal responsibilities that arise from current research practices.
This book also hopes to contribute to a broader goal that is encapsulated within
the following quotation.

good quality research, which develops our theoretical and empirical knowledge
of the world of education, is important, and if researchers are seen to conduct
their activities unethically then this research is less likely to get done and will
not be given the consideration it should receive. . . . research, as with any
other activity in a humane, open and democratic society, should be conducted
within a framework of values. . . .
(Foster 1999)

Discussing examples and sharing our understanding of ethical issues is one way
of working towards these goals. Good quality research helps us move our own
understanding and educational practices forward, and, in doing so, also contributes
to the wider activities of a democratic society. We would see research in inclusive
education as part of this process, developing inclusive educational practices and
thereby improving the educational experience of all learners.

The context of inclusive education

The definition of inclusive education remains a contested ground; the term can
mean different things to people who have varied investments in how it is constructed
and enacted, and hence researched. This context is considered in the opening
chapters (Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny, Chapter 2, and Colin Barnes,
Chapter 4) and sets the scene for examining subsequent issues.
The authors support the view that moving towards inclusive education should
significantly influence how we approach research and it has been forcibly argued
2 Kieron Sheehy

that inclusive education ‘must signify new times for educational research’ (Slee
1998: 440). A key part of such a change is developing an awareness of the eth-
ical aspects of our research and the impact that these have in understanding and
developing inclusive educational practices. This context means that certain issues
and interactions are more likely to be acknowledged and to be seen as challeng-
ing for the researcher and those researched. It is these issues and interactions that
are considered in the chapters. General ethical guidelines offer sensible advice but
these are often inadequate in the field of inclusive education, either through lack
of contextual information, detailed example or because the nature of educational
research has expanded to encompass new fields and relationships. The chapters give
examples of how issues that are ‘beyond the guidelines’ can be addressed.
Often research in the area of inclusion is a rearticulation of old ideas that fail to
do justice to the ‘new times’ (Slee 1998) and one issue in the design of this Reader
has been the degree to which it would concern itself with inclusive research, rather
than research into inclusive education. If inclusive education is seeking to develop a
situation where in ‘learning for all’ is achieved, then should the research process itself
be in the hands of those researched and primarily for the benefit of this group? We
would support this view, and recent changes in research practices have illustrated
how this can be achieved. People with learning disabilities are moving beyond
‘involvement’ to begin directing research that influences on their lives (Walmsley
and Johnson 2003). The Disability Activist movement has had a major impact
in the UK on who represents and researches disability issues, and the application
the social model of disability has contributed to and underpinned the construction
of, inclusive educational practices (Open University 2004). The concept of pupils
acting as researchers has recently emerged as an innovative practice in the area.
One might argue that research practices can either support existing segregationist
models of education and knowledge production, or support the development of
inclusive educational practices.
This Reader includes material that considers the ethical issues surrounding work-
ing with children who are researchers and there are also several discussions of the
ethical aspects of working co-operatively and in partnerships with different groups of
people. However, the balance of the book is not about the ethics of being engaged
in emancipatory inclusive research but rather about the ethical issues faced by those
carrying out research in the context of, and for the development of, inclusive edu-
cation. There is a danger that by adopting this stance we are simply reinstating old
special practices in a new field and ‘adjusting our language to fit newspeak’ (Slee
1998). The approach we have taken in addressing this issue is a consideration of
the relationship between the researcher and the researched – and hence reflexivity
is a theme that runs throughout this book. The professional and academic inter-
ests, and power relations of the research situation are discussed and made visible by
the examples offered. We also intend that the ethical practices and recommenda-
tions developed in this book act to support the voice and influence of those whose
educational lives are being researched. This approach would not sustain essentialist
views of disability, learning difficulty and diversity that have characterised much
 Introduction 3

Special Educational research. In contrast inclusive education is being developed

from ideas about social justice and human rights. Gary Thomas and Georgina
Glenny (Chapter 2) discuss how these values should provide the lead for new
developments in inclusion. They argue that inclusive education should reinstate
the importance of teachers’ own experience, insights, and values and restore the
significance of reflective practice. One way of doing this is described by Marion
Dadds (Chapter 3). She offers a rationale for research-based professionalism and
explores the problematic ‘real life’ contextual issues of using research as a means of
developing one’s practice. One criticism of using research to develop inclusive edu-
cation problematises having a priori agenda for a particular form of social change.
Colin Barnes (Chapter 4) tackles this issue in his discussion of emancipatory dis-
ability research and the social model of disability. Thus Part I provides perspectives
on the theoretical and practical context of research.

New voices and relationships

‘New Voices and Relationships’ (Part II) introduces examples of research perspec-
tives that feature different groups of people. As we have mentioned, there is a
growing movement to include pupils in projects as researchers themselves (Jones
2003). ‘New Voices and Relationships’ begins with an examination of the problems
and advantages that arise when children are actively involved in this process. Priscilla
Alderson (Chapter 5) offers an international perspective on children’s and teenagers’
activities at various stages of projects, their levels of participation, and their use of
a range of research methods. She reviews some of the problems and advantages
of children doing research. A significant issue when researching inclusive educa-
tion is that common methodological and ethical dilemmas can become much more
complex and significant when working with a ‘vulnerable’ group of children or
youth. Gill Valentine, Ruth Butler and Tracey Skelton (Chapter 6) discuss this sit-
uation, in this case in discussions with self-identified lesbian and gay young people.
The themes they identify have a relevance to a wide range of research situations,
particularly where marginalised groups are being consulted.
An important aspect of research within the classroom is the personal experi-
ence of the teacher researcher and the challenging everyday ethical decisions that
they need to make. In ‘Children with special needs, teachers with special needs’
(Chapter 7) Ros Frost gives a reflexive account of carrying out research in her own
classroom. The personal experience of research is also highlighted in ‘Do you get
some funny looks when you tell people what you do? Muddling through some
angsts and ethics of (being a male) researching with children’ (Chapter 8). John
Horton discusses aspects of research that are unpredictable and are not, and possi-
bly cannot be, addressed though general guidelines and legal boundaries. He also
draws out the importance of doing research with participants as opposed to ‘on’
them. Sensitivity to the relationship between the researcher and those researched is
a theme that runs through the book. The multiple and intersecting factors that affect
this relationship are discussed by Carol Vincent and Simon Warren (Chapter 9).
4 Kieron Sheehy

In the context of working with parents they consider the formation and devel-
opment of relationships with their respondents. In doing this they explore factors
such as differences and similarities of age, race, social class, language, and gender,
and suggest how these factors influence the research process. Other ethical issues
arise when working with ‘Parents as Partners’ and Sheila Wolfendale offers some
solutions to these in Chapter 10. Many of the chapters illustrate how the ethical
issues are context dependent and offer examples of how these have been addressed.
Context in this sense includes the relationships with whom we are working and
whose experiences we are researching and also the relationship with one’s own pro-
fessional and personal identity. Another important aspect of research context is the
methodology that is chosen and this is discussed in Part III. Research approaches
contain within them a model of what knowledge is, and how it is produced.
Positivistic and constructivist research methods hence give rise to different ethical
questions because of their methodology.

Methods and practices

‘Methods and Practices’ (Part III) looks at a range of methodological contexts
and highlights the ethical issues that emerge, in order to suggest potential ways
forward. Overall the section focuses on newer methods and approaches, and those
that have particular relevance to inclusive education. New technology brings new
opportunities both, as a tool for conducting research with, as a topic of research
itself and also as a context in which people interact. The ethical implications of using
visual images and video in classroom-based research is discussed by Jon Prosser in
Chapter 11. As with some other chapters it does not arise from within the literature
typically associated with ‘inclusion’, but rather focuses on the method, one that is
increasingly used within inclusive educational research (Mclarty and Gibson 2000).
Similarly, Michele Knobel (Chapter 12) explores education-related research that
is conducted online with reference to studies whose data is drawn solely from
cyberspaces, as well as those that have an Internet-based investigation component
(such as comparisons of in-class versus at-home activities). The world wide web
and online life presents challenges to some constructions of inclusive education
(Sheehy 2003) and researchers need to consider their research approach within this
new terrain.
Whilst ethical guidelines for conducting research are relatively well established
(BERA 2004; BPS 2004; SRA 2004) power relations and communication barriers
can shape how we enact established ground rules such as informed consent. Melanie
Nind and Mary Kellet discuss this in ‘Ethics in quasi-experimental research on
people with severe learning disabilities: dilemmas and compromises’ (Chapter 13).
The issues they discuss are pertinent to all situations where power relationships
and communications barriers affect participants informed involvement. Whilst the
degree to which this is achievable can be problematic in all research, Nind and
Kellett, as researchers committed to inclusive education, illuminate these issues in
an area that presents many challenges.
 Introduction 5

In the majority of situations people are able, and can be facilitated, to tell their
own stories (Atkinson et al. 2000). The narrative study of lives has become estab-
lished as a powerful way of understanding experiences of inclusion and exclusion.
Yet the traditional principles of research ethics are not adequate for the complex
and sensitive, ethical dilemmas that arise from this approach, for example, concern-
ing issues of narrative ownership and the attribution of meanings to a person’s life.
William E. Smythe and Maureen J. Murray (Chapter 14) analyse this situation and
make valuable recommendations about working with participants.
Research into inclusive education often seeks to capture and understand good
practice. Chapter 15 in this part discusses one such attempt to research ‘an inclusive
school’ using an ethnographic approach. Melanie Nind et al. describe the process
of beginning the research and its subsequent progress. They highlight how the
context of the research produced ethical and methodological dilemmas, unforeseen
at the start of the investigation, and they discuss the extent to which these can be
resolved.
Perhaps the two most commonly used methods within the field are action
research and interviewing, and these are considered in Chapters 16 and 17. A
framework of questions to support ethical practice for teachers and others using
action research to developing their own practice is given by Jane Zeni (Chapter 16).
The last chapter in this part discusses the use of a positivist approach wherein Ann
Lewis considers ethical practice in interviewing and exploring the perspectives of
children and young people. She focuses on the complexities of eliciting and inter-
preting children’s views and discusses the merits of different ways of initiating and
sustaining dialogue.

The legal context

Underpinning the practice of educational research are legal issues. It is vital that
the educational researcher is able to identify the legal requirements that are per-
tinent to their own research and this is the focus of the two chapters in Part IV.
Judith Masson (Chapter 18) provides an important overview of research with chil-
dren differentiating where appropriate between England/Wales and Scotland. The
topics themselves have an international relevance and include identifying who has
parental responsibility, legal viewpoints concerning confidentiality and the protec-
tion of participants. Masson concludes: ‘Research with children which does not take
on board legal dimensions is likely to harm both children and research’ (see p. 241).
Finally, ‘Data protection issues in educational research’ are considered by Clare
Wood (Chapter 19). A relatively recent development, the Data Protection Act has
significant implications for the way in which researchers work. This chapter consid-
ers the principles of good practice in relation to data issues, and highlight potentially
problematic situations that educational researchers can find themselves in.
As the Reader illustrates undertaking research in inclusive education presents
many complex ethical issues. There are some inevitable tensions between the view-
points that we have included in the Reader. The way the researcher resolves these
6 Kieron Sheehy

will be determined by the context of their work and their own beliefs about the role
and purpose of research in inclusive education. We hope that you will find the ideas
presented in the Reader both practically useful in your research and also thought-
provoking. The manner in which research in inclusive education is conducted is
important, and we would concur with Soltis’s (1989) view.

What purpose could be more worthy than to include in our educational

research a concern for the good and the rights of those we investigate and
the society of which we and they are a part.
(Soltis 1989: 124)

References
Atkinson, D., McCarthy, M., Walmsley, J. et al. (eds) (2000) Good times, Bad Times, Women
with Learning Difficulties Telling Their Stories, Kidderminster, BILD Publications.
British Education Research Association (BERA) (2004) Ethical Guidelines http://www.
bera.ac.uk/guidelines.html [accessed 21.02.04].
British Psychological Society (2004) Code of Conduct, Ethical Principles and Guidelines
http://www.bps.org.uk/documents/Code.pdf [accessed 21.02.04].
Foster, P. (1999) Some critical comments on the BERA Ethical Guidelines. BERA Research
Intelligence No 67 February. http://www.bera.ac.uk/ri/no67/ri67foster.html [accessed
21.02.04].
Jones, A. (2003) Involving Children and Young People as Researchers, in S. Fraser (ed.)
Doing Research with Children and Young People, London, Sage Publications.
Mclarty, M.M. and Gibson, J.W. (2000) Using video technology in emancipatory Research.
European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 138–148.
Open University (2004) E243 Inclusive Education Learning from Each Other. The Open
University ISBN 0749253061.
Sheehy, K. (2003) New Technology and Inclusion: The World (Wide Web) is not Enough,
in M. Nind, K. Sheehy and K. Simmons (eds) Inclusive Education: Learners and Learning
Contexts, David Fulton Publishers, pp. 115–128, ISBN 184312-065-8.
Slee, R. (1998) Inclusive Education? This must signify new times for educational research.
British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2, Dec, pp. 440–454.
Soltis, J.F. (1989) The ethics of qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies
in Education. Vol. 2, No. 2, Apr–Jun 89, pp. 123–130.
The Social Research Association (SRA) (2004) Ethcial Guidelines http://www.the-
sra.org.uk/ethics03.pdf [accessed 21.02.04].
Walmsley, J. and Johnson, K. (2003) Inclusive Research with People with Learning Disabilities:
Past, Present and Futures, London, Jessica Kingsley.
Part I

A new context for

educational research
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Chapter 2

Thinking about inclusion.

Whose reason? What evidence?
Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

Introduction
There is a strand in the argument against inclusive education that goes like
this: ‘Inclusive education is all very well, and it is engendered by the kindest of
motives, but there is a central problem: support for it springs from ideology rather
than rational inquiry, and it is untested.’ The assumption behind this position is
that there is a body of rational, informed knowledge accessible to those who possess
the right instruments for finding it, and that this is separate from the political, the
partisan, the value-laden.
Academics, blessed with the best methods of rational inquiry, should stick to
what they know in the debate about inclusive education – stick in other words
to reason, informed by near certainties furnished by empirical study – and decline
to meddle with the sentimental, the subjective, the sloppy and the politicized. It is
that position which this chapter challenges.
Take one example of this kind of criticism of the inclusive position – in
Wilson (2000) – which typif ies many. Wilson begins with the acceptance that
we all want to be kind and fair and that this is what motivates those who promote
inclusive education. However, the argument proceeds, kind sentiments and high
ideals are unsatisfactory as a basis for a large-scale change in educational policy,
since on the one hand they are insufficiently clear or well defined, and on the
other, evidence for them is unlikely to be of the right calibre to warrant any broad
move in the direction indicated.
Because of lack of clarity, discussion about inclusion is taken to be ‘vacuous or
mistaken’ (Wilson 2000: 298) – as are related notions, such as democracy in schools,
or the elimination of competition between schools, or the elimination of selection.
And because of the paucity of evidence in the area ‘careful and profound empir-
ical study’ (Wilson 2000: 304) is necessary to establish the outcomes of inclusive
endeavour.
There are some big assumptions here: that with the proper analysis, inclusion
can in some way be disambiguated; that with appropriate grounding in evidence
we shall know what is best. Without sentiment and with proper definition, it will
be possible to discuss inclusion clearly, rationally and disinterestedly.
10 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

The view taken in this chapter is that the assumptions behind such a position are
mistaken; it is that their acceptance during the twentieth century was responsible
for many of the wrong turnings in the development of special education. We argue
that it is time for a new epistemology in that part of education which concerns
inclusion. It is time, in other words, for a reappraisal of the precepts, presumptions,
tenets and methods of inquiry which stood behind the edifice of twentieth-century
special education. An argument is made that the ways in which during the twen-
tieth century the failure of children or the failings of schools were examined have
proved wanting. We make the case that inquiry has proved wanting because key
assumptions – about reason, about evidence and outcome – which led to notions
of correct (or at least better) forms of pedagogy and schooling are illusory.
We are arguing, to put it more broadly, for a questioning and an untangling of
what Charles Taylor (1984: 21) calls our ‘inarticulate assumptions’: we have to take
a new stance towards our practices. Instead of just living in them and taking their
implicit construal of things as they are, we have to understand how they have come
to be, how they came to embed a certain view of things.

Reason, ideology and rhetoric

Stanley Fish, makes the following case:

whenever Reason is successfully invoked, whenever its invocation stops the

argument and wins the day, the result will be a victory not for Reason but for
the party that has managed (either by persuasion or intimidation or legerde-
main) to get the reasons that flow from its agenda identified with Reason as a
general category, and thereby to identify the reasons of its opponents as obvi-
ously unreasonable. Like ‘fairness’, ‘merit’ and ‘free speech’, Reason is a politi-
cal entity, and never more so than when its claim is to have transcended politics.
(Fish 1994: 18)

Proponents of this or that position, in other words, seek to bolster their stand by
argument, by the invocation of what is supposed to be Reason. However, what is
therein so proudly identified is inevitably merely one brand of reason; one set of
reasons associated with one group’s agenda.
By being logical, apolitical, clearheaded, tidy, parsimonious, consistent – by
being supposedly rational – they seek to make their positions, their propositions
and conclusions stand in a superior light. Part of this process involves the deliberate
distancing from the political, the partisan, the value-laden, which is taken to infect
the process of Reason.
[. . .]
This is an important matter to address, for criticism of inclusion often pivots
on the notion that its proponents are motivated in large part by ideology rather
 Thinking about inclusion 11

than evidence. Proponents of reason and evidence, by contrast, are apolitical and
motivated by a dispassionate concern for the truth.
In fact, of course, there is no one truth – only arguments which are what
MacIntyre (1981: 8) calls ‘incommensurable’. Rival arguments, he suggests, are
each valid, and . . . the conclusions do indeed follow from the premises. But the
rival premises are such that we possess no rational way of weighing the claims of
one as against another. For each premise employs some quite different normative
or evaluative concept from the others, so that the claims made upon us are of quite
different kinds.
The mistaken belief is that one can in education unproblematically separate the
disinterested from the interested, the apolitical from the ideological, the objec-
tive from the subjective, the reasoned from the irrational, the evidence-based
from the arbitrary. It is a belief that in education there is a straightforward
set of empirical questions for which answers can be supplied by empirical
study.
A faith in this set of beliefs is bolstered by the manifest success of the investigative
methods of natural science, at which educational researchers of a certain hue –
whether they are looking at children’s weaknesses or at schools’ effectiveness –
gaze enviously. In recent years, there has been a popular resurgence in the faith
induced by science’s success. It is almost a new form of scientism and it is based,
interestingly, not on science’s scepticism and doubt, but rather on the perception
of almost magical understanding induced by the success of the natural sciences.
Science, far from embodying what Haldane (1965) called ‘the duty of doubt’ has
come to represent for many people, professional as well as lay, doubt’s antithesis:
faith.
There is no denying that the kind of rational and empirical epistemological world
crafted by natural science is valuable in approaching some questions. Its success
with certain kinds of question is palpable. However, whether it is valuable for all
questions – and in our case, most educational questions – is open to debate. As
Berlin (1979) points out, the sciences’ espousal of and successful use of rationalism
probably marks the major achievement of the human mind. But the problem arises,
as he goes on to explain, from the assumption that ‘the world is a single system
which can be described and explained by the use of rational methods’ (p. 81). It
comes from the assumption that rationalism, ‘while it may not lead to absolute
certainty, attains to a degree of verisimilitude or probability quite sufficient for
human affairs’ (p. 88).
Education, possibly more than any other field of inquiry, is concerned with those
‘human affairs’, and if Berlin is right we cannot be guided in our notions of the form
education should take by the methods of natural scientists. Many commentators
have pointed to this fallacy: the expectation that the methods of natural science
should be the methods of educational inquiry, attempting to impose, as Mouzelis
(1995: 42) puts it, ‘order and unity on the fragile, chaotic . . . character of the social’.
The aim here is not to replicate that wide discussion. Rather it is to point to the
12 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

interconnectedness of the questions we ask in education, particularly when thinking

about inclusion: it is to point to the indissolubility of questions about inclusion, to
stress that the political is mixed with the empirical, the subjective inseparable from
the objective.
Even for natural scientists, political is mixed with empirical for some of the
matters that they confront. As biologists Levins and Lewontin (1985: 4) point out,
‘The denial of the interpenetration of the scientific and the social is itself a political
act, giving support to social structures that hide behind scientific objectivity to
perpetuate dependency, exploitation, racism, elitism, colonialism.’ They go on to
note that ‘Of course the speed of light is the same under socialism and capitalism’
but that questions which arise about the way people live cannot be answered without
reference to an interrelated range of matters. Thus, the cause of tuberculosis may
be shown empirically to be a Bacillus, yet epidemiologists tell us that the disease
rarely takes hold where people’s living and working conditions are adequate. In
education, matters are no less complicated: the denial of the interpenetration of the
social and the scientific (or at least what is supposed to be scientific) in considerations
of teaching and learning has led us to forms of school organization which only too
readily discriminate against certain children and segregate them.
[. . .] The crude questions asked about an event disguise the multiplicity of levels
at which inquiry can occur.
The interpenetration of issues is no less complex when one comes to think of
the ways in which questions about the social world are themselves constructed.
Giddens (1994) notes that empirical information comes actually to create the social
world – not merely reflect it or explicate it:

Concepts . . . and the theories and empirical information linked to them, are
not merely handy devices whereby agents are somehow more clearly able to
understand behaviour . . . they actively constitute what that behaviour is and
inform the reasons for which it is undertaken.
(Giddens 1994: 42)

Giddens suggests that as we ‘discover’ new ways of making sense of phenomena,

these explanations in turn become inseparable from the phenomena themselves. For
example, the empirical and epidemiological information drawn on by the Warnock
Committee in the UK in 1978 (DES 1978) did not merely hold a mirror up to some
objective reality which could be used by educators. Rather, it actively generated
a ‘reality’ that had to be responded to. As can be shown with the identification of
reading difficulty (Thomas and Davis 1997), the construction of that reality meant
that practitioners sought ways of conforming to it and confirming it, identifying one
in five children, wherever their schools were situated. Such nominally empirical and
theoretical knowledge comes to be used in practices which mark out pupils as being
different. This has been particularly well discussed by those who have examined the
nature of research into disability, for example, Barton (1992), Finkelstein (1992)
and Zarb (1992).
 Thinking about inclusion 13

Complexity is the hallmark of the questions that are asked about education. This
is particularly the case with inclusion in education. It is the expectation that it will
be possible to reduce those questions to simple propositions stripped of political,
subjective or other unwelcome elements that leads to the notion that discourse
about inclusion is in some way ideological. And it is the assumption that this can
be done – that one can be objective and apolitical in these matters – which leads
those who make such claims to assume that their own thinking is not infected by
the ideology impostor. As Eagleton (1991: 2) notes, ‘Ideology, like halitosis, is . . .
what the other person has’.
Why is there this collection of allegiances to the empirical/rational dogma
amongst special educators? It is a legacy not just of the structural and theoretical
predilections of educational inquiry in general but in particular of a deficit-
orientated thrust – or what Jordan et al. (1997) call a pathognomonic orientation – of
special educators over the twentieth century.
Such a set of precepts sees some malady which has to be put right. Nowhere else
in educational discourse does this fealty to one way of looking at things occur quite
in the way that it occurs in special education. For example, when Hoggart (2001)
discusses the shape of another part of the education system, the universities, and
the desirability of more open access to them, he can make that argument clearly
in a cultural and political context. It is only in special education and inclusion,
where the delusions engendered by a scientistic and pathognomonic past have
been so overwhelmingly influential, that there is a danger posed that the social, the
political – the ideological – will infect proper rational debate.
It is our contention that far from bringing a feast of riches over the twentieth
century, the approach of special education – pathognomonic, and supposedly theo-
retical, empirical – has been profoundly distorting to the shape of special education
and currently to discussions of inclusion. Let us now look in a little more detail at
this. What have been the fruits of the dominant approach – the Weltanshauung of
special education?

Evidence and experience

Evidence
The consequences of the dominant approach are not impressive. (It is important
to distinguish here between the fruits of the approach itself – our focus here – and
the efforts of individual practitioners, which have been made with integrity and
conscientiousness; no one would want to deny the latter.) It is a salutary thought that
although there are some notable exceptions, academics in the fields most closely
associated with education have seldom proffered incisive insights into the ideas
which have shaped the ways in which we think about the schools children inhabit.
It would be a brave special educator who would venture to proffer for critical
scrutiny a putative advance in practice-from-research which has occurred over
the last one hundred years. Certainly there have been advances in thinking about
14 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

the proper form education should take (such as those which occurred in the UK
after the report of the Plowden Committee (DES 1967), recommending a more
child-centred education), and there have been advances in thinking about the care
and humane treatment of children and young people with physical or sensory
impairments. However, these are advances that have arisen more from changes in
the political and social climate than from research in special education.
The challenge we would put is to identify what beneficial effects have emerged
in special education practice from a particular piece of research – about assess-
ment, or pedagogy, or whatever – which have not, on evaluation, proved to be
as good as the effects emerging from the next non-research-based method, effects
emerging in other words from teachers’ own intelligence and reflective practice.
One of the problems about the practice which emerges from the dominant model
of research is that it becomes over-concerned with correctives: methods, tech-
niques – cures. The problem is that the correctives and cures which are derived
from such research are shown empirically to have effects, and these effects are
quite often dramatic. However, in the messy field of research about people and
their social environments, where it is difficult if not impossible to delineate vari-
ables for inspection of their effects, new techniques can acquire potency for any
number of reasons: the charisma of a pioneer; the energy of a dedicated research
group; the support of a government, or the publicity machine of a publishing
house (see Coles 2000 for a detailed analysis of the predilections and failings of
the research machine in education). Thus, special education has come up with
a panoply methods and techniques over the years, all of them claiming empirical
justification: instrumental enrichment, Doman-Delacato, conductive education,
Direct Instruction, behaviour modification, diagnostic/prescriptive teaching . . . the
list goes on.
The problem is that the high expectations that early work arouses later prove not
to have been fulfilled, as evaluation shows gains to slip away steadily over time and
reflection reveals the pitfalls in having single-mindedly followed a particular path.
Direct Instruction, for example, rested in a hyperrational set of ideas about
teaching and learning formal skills. Specifying exactly what should be taught, how
it should be taught and how learning should be evaluated, early forays into its use
showed great promise. Longer term evaluation, however, in the large US Follow-
Through project (DeVault et al. 1977) indicated that the great benefits attributed
to it may have been due as much to the generous resourcing allocated to it as to the
specific pedagogic elements. More worryingly, recent analysis has indicated that on
leaving school those children who were part of a Direct Instruction curriculum were
significantly more likely to have been involved in crime, were less well adjusted
and engaged in fewer community activities than those who partook at an earlier
age in traditional nursery activities (Schweinhart and Weikart 1997).
Similarly, great hopes were placed in the potential of behavioural techniques both
to help children learn and to help them behave appropriately. While there is no
doubt that these techniques provided some assistance in thinking about pedagogy
for some children, there can be equal certainty that they over-simplified the nature
 Thinking about inclusion 15

of learning and led, in widespread practice, to a kind of curricular desertification – as

sensible, cautious thinking about educational aims was replaced with the certainties
of behavioural analysis. [. . .]
Rueda and Mehan (1986), eschew simple deficit-orientated thinking, concep-
tualizing failure to learn in the social rather than in the individual context. They
found that those children who fail to learn, far from lacking ‘metacognitive skills’,
managed to do all the things they were not supposed to be able to do metacogni-
tively: checking, monitoring, evaluating and so on. And they also used sophisticated
planning in avoiding tasks expected of them. Rueda and Mehan conclude that sup-
posedly context-free metacognitive activities are in fact context bound: it is almost
as though the ability to use them is switched on or switched off by the surrounding
social circumstances.
Like Rueda and Mehan, Hart (1996) rejects explanatory models that posit deficits
as the causes of children’s difficulties with schoolwork, and in particular, literacy. In
a series of detailed case studies she makes a powerful case for a rejection of simplistic
deficit notions such as ‘weakness in phonics’ being at the root of children’s problems
with reading and writing.
Talking of one boy’s invented spellings (e.g. ‘Britten’ for ‘Britain’, ‘earmy’ for
‘army’ and ‘sore’ for ‘sir’), she points not to the lack of learning, but rather to
sophisticated understandings of phonics in the context of the boy’s own way of
speaking. She says, ‘we can see him working out spellings using the hypotheses he
had already formed about how the spelling system worked. Indeed, he had already
made considerable progress in discerning its rules and patterns’ (p. 80).
Present in the deficit → diagnosis → cure sequence is a surrender from the
challenge that reflective teaching poses. To yield to such deficit thinking is to
relinquish reflective thought in favour of a simplistic ‘solution’. Such solutions of
course have their allure, but such allure is illusory. In particular, these ‘scientific’
solutions look good to politicians, who are attracted by the possibility of the quick
fix in preference to tackling the roots of poor literacy in poverty and inadequate
funding for early childhood education (Coles 2000, Berlak 2001).
Despite the avowed unpopularity of the deficit approach in the last quarter of the
twentieth century, it keeps returning to haunt special educators. Models of peda-
gogy persistently seek to find deficiencies in children. More recent variants of the
approach seek to find deficiencies in schools, as Slee (1998) notes. The solution is
invariably to discover new ways of teaching to correct the problem (or to exclude
the child) or to impose ways of supposedly enabling schools to be more effective.
Why should the preference for such procedural routes persist? Skrtic (1991)
points to the imperatives of the professional bureaucracy continually turning analysis
back to the analytical predilections of established professions in education. Not
unconnected to this, the Canadian educator Frank Smith talks in his Book of Learning
and Forgetting (1998) about two models of learning – the official and the classical.
The official, promulgated by early psychologists – and preferred by educational
bureaucrats and politicians – sees learning as hard, rather like trying to squeeze
something (learning) into a box (the brain) that is too small. The classical model, by
16 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

contrast, sees learning as happening all the time, effortlessly. In schools, the official
model still prevails, and in special pedagogy it is overwhelmingly the case that the
official model (learning is about input and output) forms the tacit grounding for
deficit models of learning failure.
In other words this official model, bolstered by the mock scientific ballast of
a supposedly empirical approach, has come to displace the learned sensitivities of
what Schön (1991) called the reflective practitioner. We explore this further below
under ‘Experience and humanity’.
Why too, one should ask, does faith in the traditional approach persist in the
face of its less-than-outstanding success? The answer, as we explore in the next
section, is because it provides explanations. The explanations are empty and illusory,
but they suffice nevertheless for private satisfaction and for public consumption as
explanations. For practitioners who have been encouraged to place reliance in
the analytical tools of special education inquiry and have therefore lost confidence
in their ability to analyse for themselves – lost confidence in the ability to teach
reflectively – these explanations are bound to have much palliative appeal.

[. . .]

Experience and humanity

The argument we are making is that the assays of psychologists, researchers and
special educators have done little to provide direction and progress for children
who have found it difficult to cope with or adapt to the systems of education with
which they are confronted. [. . .] The thrust of their inquiries has been as resolute as
it has been simplistic: to discover what is wrong, or in the most enlightened cases of
the genre, what characterizes success. The latter has had its mark right to the end of
the twentieth century, as social scientific method has sought to find the essence
of the effective school, the effective teacher, the miracle pedagogies that gave rise
to the Tiger economies of the South East Asia rim. (The fact that the economies
were not so Tigerish after 1996 gives the lie to the causative imputations made to
the simplistic association in the first place.) This seeking of pathology, this seeking
of correction and its recent sequelae in the obverse, namely the seeking of the
correct, has been the dogged thrust of special education endeavour. Whether it is
a deficit in children, or more latterly a deficit in pedagogical technique or school
organization, the thrust is the same. The questions are resolutely of one character.
It has been left to others – artists, novelists, philosophers, historians, journalists –
to pose the most critical questions about the operation of institutions which care
for and educate people who do not readily fit. Partly, this is because artists and
those in the humanities come to social life with a different critical eye from social
scientists. Although there are some notable exceptions, academics in the fields most
closely associated with education have seldom proffered incisive insights into the
ideas which have shaped the ways in which we think about the schools children
inhabit.
 Thinking about inclusion 17

The social commentary of the novels of Dickens did more, incomparably more,
than the early special educators to reform understanding of the nexus of factors
which contribute to unhappiness and failure at school. The effects of poverty,
alienation, oppression, cruelty and a stultifying curriculum were well understood
and explicated by Dickens and stand in sharp contrast to the scientistic contri-
butions of his psychological contemporaries. Dickens’s contemporary, journalist
Henry Mayhew (1985), in a series of articles for the Morning Chronicle did more, by
exposing their living conditions, to improve the lot of the London’s child poor than
his generation of educators. The tradition has, of course, continued. More recently,
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Christy Nolan’s Under the Eye of
the Clock have arguably done more to shape contemporary public policy on how
people with differences are treated than all the academic research and writing of
the last half-century. [. . .]
It is a freedom to make a ‘close and detailed appreciation of what actually presents
itself ’ which a loosening of grasp on the methodological dogmas of special educa-
tion offers. If we are seeking to understand why one child is not reading, or why
another refuses to go to school we should perhaps trust less in the epistemological
shibboleths of twentieth-century special education endeavour and more in our own
knowledge as people – trust in our experience and understanding of fear, interest,
anxiety, friendship, perplexity, worry, loneliness and boredom. We know what
it is to be confident, over-confident or to feel self-doubt or paralysing fear. We
understand lying, openness and hypocrisy. We understand guile and the possibility
of being deceived. We have self-knowledge, and this is surely our principal tool
in helping us to understand others. As Joynson (1974: 2) puts it: ‘Human nature is
not an unknown country, a terra incognita on the map of knowledge. It is our home
ground. Human beings are not, like the objects of natural science, things which do
not understand themselves.’
Practitioners can use their understanding of these facets of being human, though,
only if they feel confident in the knowledge that using them does not restrict their
understanding – only if they feel that they are not missing out on some impor-
tant empirical knowledge or missing some key theoretical insight. And it is most
unlikely that anyone will have missed out on such knowledge or insight, for the
models, theories and intellectual castles created in the field of special pedagogy have
helped little in improving learning – helped little in understanding why children
fail at school. This is unfortunate enough in itself, but the even more unfortunate
corollary is that the existence of this kind of supposedly privileged knowledge has
persuaded teachers in ordinary schools across the globe to think that they may not
be sufficiently knowledgeable or sufficiently expert to help children who are expe-
riencing difficulty: that they do not have sufficient technical expertise or theoretical
knowledge to teach all children.
To say merely this, though, is to make the case too weakly: this privileged
knowledge, these theories and models have, by satisfying Oakeshott’s (1967: 2)
‘irritable search for order’ distracted attention from the ways in which we may use
our common humanity to understand others, and use our common sense to make
schools more humane, inclusive places.
18 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

When Foucault (1970: 49) said that ‘knowledge [has] closed in on itself’ he was
referring to the codification of knowledge into disciplinary compartments. It would
be a brave set of practitioners who would dare to move outside the professional
edifices and procedural imperatives generated by those codifications. Procedural
and professional responses and reflexes emerge from schools when problems with
pupils arise, but these are often no more than what Skrtic (1991) calls ‘symbols
and ceremonies’, distracting attention from more obvious and straightforward (but
probably less prestigious, and certainly less immediately credible) action based on
common humanity.

Experience and humanity versus theory: teachers are

people, not technicians
[. . .]
The legacy of positivistic science when transplanted to a focus on human beings
was that we should deny what we know, as people, and put faith in a certain
kind of disinterested knowledge. Behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner (1972:
160) exemplified this denial and showed his contempt for our own knowledge
of others when he said: ‘What, after all have we to show for nonscientific or
prescientific good judgment, or common sense, or the insights gained through
personal experience? It is science or nothing.’ Sadly, forty years of behavioural
technology enable the question to be turned on its head: What has the supposedly
scientific (some would say ‘scientistic’) approach to human behaviour given us
that we did not already know? What has it caused us to disregard? To quote
G.K. Chesterton, ‘So far from being knowledge, it’s actually suppression of what we
know.’ Indeed, it is worse than this, for it has not merely suppressed: it has distorted
what we know and has, in the process, relegated our own personal knowledge.
Take, for example, the notions of deficit and deprivation, which have been at
the forefront of educational psychologists’ analyses of school failure, presenting us
with what Labov (1973) – in discussing the educational problems of children in
ghetto schools – called ‘the illusion of verbal deprivation’ (p. 154). The analytic
frames constructed by educational psychologists, in their fascination with deficit
and disease, have distracted thought from more straightforward ways of explaining
difference. As Labov continues, ‘In the writings of many prominent educational
psychologists, we find very poor understanding of the nature of language’ – very
poor understanding of ‘the logic of nonstandard English’ (p. 154).
Especially rooted in the analytical systems of psychology, the methods and
predilections of special education provide an exemplar case of how explanatory
frameworks can be misleading. Especially worrying is how these frameworks can
seem to make us lose confidence in ourselves as teachers, and indeed, as people.
Frank Smith’s (1993) powerful narrative of his work on teaching at a South African
university documents the resilience of belief among his teaching colleagues there
in the canons of teaching and research method, and the way in which this belief
had subverted their own self-confidence as teachers, and as people.
 Thinking about inclusion 19

In a field like special education, there is the danger that ‘theory’ and ‘pro-
found empirical study’ (Wilson 2000: 304) – particularly that of a respected social
science such as psychology – may be used to add cachet to simple ideas or proposi-
tions. [. . .] But whether we are talking about children’s behaviour in a classroom, or
of the effectiveness of schools, there is no means in educational research of enabling
what the philosopher of science Canguilhem (1994: 41) calls the ‘elimination of
the false by the true’. In what Hamilton (1998: 15) calls ‘multivariate, nonlinear,
adaptive systems’ anything may happen. The technicist predilections of functional-
ist theory take no account of this: no account of these differences with the natural
sciences. In those sciences there is an eventual elimination of false by true or at
least (for those who balk at the starkness of false versus true) an elimination of less
reliable knowledge by more reliable knowledge (Ziman 1991).
In rejecting one’s own practical, tacit knowledge for the security of some scien-
tistic notion of failure or of effectiveness, one rejects also the kind of knowledge
which comes from friends and colleagues, alive and dead, who have not conformed
to the scientistic archive with its fondness for technical inquiry methods and solu-
tions. A consistent message – about stimulating interest, fostering security, gently
enabling growth – comes through the work of the great educators: Pestalozzi,
Froebel, Montessori, Rousseau. They were continued into the twentieth century
by others such as John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky and John Holt. The reason that
Vygotsky’s ideas have been so interesting recently is that they have presented an
alternative to the crystal-hard theorizations with which they were contemporary.
[. . .]
Vygotsky refreshingly returns to a kind of knowledge of learning which comes
from our knowledge, as people, of what it is to learn.
That knowledge is, then, by no means new to us: it has not been revealed
by some remarkable theoretical disclosure. It comes from Ryle’s (1990) ‘know
how’ which we gain of others (as learners, friends, deceivers, trusted colleagues,
or whatever) and that knowledge arrives from our experience as teachers and as
people. While Rousseau shocked the world with Émile (1762), he said only what
confident teachers know (and probably have always known) about learning:

Instead of keeping [Émile] mewed up in a stuffy room, take him out into
a meadow every day; let him run about, let him struggle and fall again and
again, the oftener the better; he will learn all the sooner to pick himself up. The
delights of liberty will make up for many bruises. My pupil will hurt himself
oftener than yours, but he will always be merry; your pupils may receive fewer
injuries, but they are always thwarted, constrained, and sad. I doubt whether
they are any better off.
(Rousseau 1993: 49)

The contrast drawn by Rousseau seems remarkably prescient, and rather like a con-
trast between good nursery education and that which might be offered by Direct
20 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

Instruction, Doman Delacato or one of the other miracle methods of special ped-
agogy. No miracle pedagogy has been discovered since his day, or is ever likely
to be revealed by the theoretical endeavours of educators or psychologists. Nei-
ther will the latter-day functionalist equivalents discover any formulae for imposing
‘effectiveness’.
[. . .]
If, in other words, practitioners are immersed in the practice and observation
of education, its traditions and literatures, there is no need for some external
validation of their action, no need for theoretical explanation. The methodol-
ogy, theory and disciplinary knowledge which have guided deliberation about
the form special education should take have proved to be more knave than
guide.

Reinstating local inquiry and personal

knowledge: toward social justice

Valuing personal knowledge; valuing being human

We should invest less dependence in the grand theoretical edifices and rigid castles
of metaphor constructed by special education’s intellectual heroes. And we should
place less faith in theory’s methodological handmaidens. In education in general
and special education in particular, there has been a tendency to displace value
from the end to the means as the legitimacy and value of research is determined
less by commonsense evaluations of its likely impact and more by notions such as
‘reliability’, imported from the natural sciences.
Not only does a focus on means rather than ends deliver a particular kind of
knowledge, one that may well distort the sort of practice we feel that it is right
to implement, it also may, in Andreski’s (1972: 116) words, provide ‘an alibi
for timorous quietism’. It may, that is to say, distract attention from important
yet challenging matters for the educator – away, in other words, from reflective
practice, critical inquiry and innovation about the curriculum.
Thus, for example, with the kudos which learning theory invested in behavioural
methods, more attention was devoted to the proper application of task analysis
procedures, or the correctness of behavioural objective specification than was given
to the question of what was actually wanted from an education of children for whom
the procedures were devised. It was only when critical voices reached sufficient
volume – from a number of directions (e.g. Stenhouse 1975; Wood and Shears
1986), and from the protestations of classroom teachers – that serious questions
began to be asked about what was going on.
If one does not think small, one is in danger of being guided by the safety of
prestigious theory, by the supposedly secure knowledge emerging from the findings
of empirical inquiry.
 Thinking about inclusion 21

We have made an argument here for a loosening of hold on the erstwhile the-
oretical knowledge behind special education, contending that less of our inquiry
into children’s difficulties at school – and, more importantly, less of our response
to those difficulties – should be defined and tackled in the way that it hitherto has.
An argument is made, if we are looking to the shape of an education system for the
future, for more reliance by all in education – practitioners, planners, academics,
researchers – on our own understandings of learning, and on ideas and ideals about
equity, social justice and opportunity for all. In pursuing these ideals, in improv-
ing the education system, we should accept rather than deny the insights which
emerge by virtue of being human – insights which emerge from our own knowl-
edge of learning; our own knowledge of failure, success, acceptance or rejection.
There is nothing to be lost in so doing, for as we noted earlier, there are no magic
fixes or startling insights to emerge from the traditional knowledge-base of special
education.
Oliver Sacks (1995) provides an excellent example of the change in research style
for which we are arguing. He sets aside the methods of the scientific discipline,
neurology, in which he was trained in favour of the tradition of the storyteller and
the anthropologist. In so doing, he offers a set of sparkling insights and understand-
ings into the worlds of a number of people who behave differently. Such insights
have been largely curtained off from us by the understanding offered by traditional
analyses. As part of Sacks’s discourse on our understanding of difference – of the
‘borders of human experience’, as he puts it – he quotes Chesterton:

I don’t deny the dry [scientific] light may sometimes do good, though in one
sense it’s the very reverse of science. So far from being knowledge, it’s actually
suppression of what we know. It’s treating a friend as a stranger, and pretending
that something familiar is really remote and mysterious.
(Sacks 1995: xvii)

When trying to understand people – people, as distinct from gases in a test tube –
we each have to use our own humanity, recognizing our ‘failings’, our frailties,
misunderstandings and prejudices.

[. . .]

It is special education which is the branch of education which has suffered most
from assumptions that have been made in the twentieth century about the proper
way to study the individual and social behaviour of human beings. If education as
a field of study has always suffered from something of an inferiority complex about
its academic status – borrowing its epistemological tenets and research methods only
too readily from its clever cousins psychology and sociology – special education
has suffered the inferiority complex even more profoundly. Not only have those
tenets and methods been eagerly snapped up, but also special education has always
seemingly been only too easily influenced by the prevailing cultural orthodoxy.
22 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

It has been vulnerable to such swaying in the wind since it has never had an
intellectual homeland of its own – no core beliefs or understandings. It has thus
been prey to passing intellectual fashion and transient cultural whim. It has occupied
a place on the periphery of education where its raison d’être has been as a kind
of service industry to mainstream education. There has been little in the way of
intellectual lead. Where movement has happened it has taken place as a result
of broader social movements. The knowledge produced by the scientific study of
psychology and psychiatry have merely buttressed our everyday constructions about
disability, difference or disorder.
The intellectual apparatus which has emerged ostensibly to add objectivity,
humanity and disinterested ‘science’ to an analysis of social structures in fact does
nothing of the kind. In the messy world of human beings and human relations, this
intellectual apparatus does little other than provide in new words and garb what
we already recognize and know.
Calls for a recognition of the validity of self-knowledge are not recent, though. It
is Hans-Georg Gadamer who is credited with transforming the idea of ‘hermeneu-
tics’ from one in which a person aimed to understand something in as disinterested
and unprejudiced a way as possible to one where human preconceptions or preju-
dices are at the heart of understanding (Outhwaite 1990: 25). These preconceptions
and prejudices, these ‘sentiments, imaginings and fancies’, as Oakeshott (1989: 65)
put it, are what go to construct our understanding of others. To deny their sig-
nificance in making sense of other people – their utterances, feelings, fears and
failings – is to ignore the most important research tool at our disposal.
How is all this relevant for special education and how we think about an inclusive
future? We quoted earlier from Oliver Sacks’s An Anthropologist on Mars in which
Sacks gave reasons for eschewing many of the procedural and methodological habits
of his own discipline, neurology. Neurologists are like special educators in many
respects: they try to help people who are, for whatever reason, uncomfortable,
unhappy, disaffected, unable or unwilling to ‘fit in’. Sacks’s insight is that the
methods which have been used to examine this discomfort or disaffection, while
they can be successful up to a point, fail to address the real issues at stake, which
are human issues. It is worth quoting from him:

The exploration of deeply altered selves and worlds is not one that can be fully
made in a consulting room or office. The French neurologist François Lhemitte
is especially sensitive to this, and instead of just observing his patients in the
clinic, he makes a point of visiting them at home, taking them to restaurants
or theatres, or for rides in this car, sharing their lives as much as possible. (It
is similar, or was similar, with physicians in general practice. Thus when my
father was reluctantly considering retirement at ninety, we said, ‘At least drop
the house calls.’ But he answered, ‘No, I’ll keep the house calls – I’ll drop
everything else instead.’)
(Sacks 1995: xvii–xviii)
 Thinking about inclusion 23

Maybe we need to keep the house calls. To study and to think about the shape
education should take for those who cannot or do not want to fit, maybe we should
leave aside the investigative methods which have been developed by psychologists
and educators during the twentieth century and look to new ways of understanding.
When children are excluded from the mainstream it is because someone feels
that they will not fit. To examine why people do not fit, and to help organizations
to enable them to fit we have to understand them as people and to understand
the people in the organizations which accept or reject them. The reductionist and
functionalist thrust of special education research has not in general led us to do this,
and this has meant that special education has followed a particular route – one that
has sought to analyse and fix instead of seeking to understand and include.
[. . .]
Our deliberations should undefensively and unapologetically put values first
instead of embarrassedly trying to conceal those values behind some taken-to-be
superior empirical knowledge.
If the latter is correct, where should we go for guidance on how to proceed?
There is much to be said for reliance on what Marquand (1996) calls ‘moral
activism’.

Moral activism: beyond redistribution

In talking about moral activism, Marquand (1996) draws a distinction between it
and what he calls ‘passive-hedonist’ collectivism, which he takes to be the predom-
inant characteristic of much searching for social justice in the twentieth century.
This distinction is instructive for considerations about the nature of inclusion. It
offers a way of thinking about inclusion more broadly than hitherto. It suggests that
considerations of inclusion are about more than the righting of the oppression of
individual groups (important though this is) and it is about more than redistribu-
tion of resources. Moral activism, as Marquand sees it, is about enabling people ‘to
lead purposeful, self-reliant and strenuous lives’ in an individual sense, and about
‘engagement with the common life of the society’ (p. 21) in a collective sense. There
is an extent to which without these considerations the agenda becomes dominated
with the righting of wrongs perpetrated against a particular group, whether that
group is defined by its disability, its language, its income, its gender, or its cul-
tural or ethnic origin. The distinction is important in broadening considerations of
inclusion, for injunctions to be more equal or to be fairer are insufficient without
this moral dimension.
A good example as far as inclusion is concerned comes in interpreting the
generally accepted axiom of John Rawls (1971) about the just distribution of
resources. Rawls argued for the elimination of inequality through the redistri-
bution of resources in his Theory of Justice, saying that in general there should be
an equal distribution of social resources, but that there should be a bias in this dis-
tribution in favour of those who are ‘disadvantaged’. This, however, is insufficient
24 Gary Thomas and Georgina Glenny

without a moral-activist dimension and the point becomes crystal clear in discus-
sion of special education and inclusion. Rizvi and Lingard (1996) make the point
that redistribution by itself is insufficient to achieve social justice. The thesis they
propound is that redistributive logic on its own obscures and thereby perpetuates
injustices in existing institutional organization. Emphasizing redistribution – what
Slee calls being ‘entrapped within a compensatory model of distributive justice’
(Corbett and Slee 2000: 138) – could mean merely shifting resources into special
education.
Roaf and Bines (1989) make an allied point: that an emphasis on needs in special
education detracts from a proper consideration of the rights of those who are being
educated. It is this emphasis on rights that a moral-activist stance encourages and it is
central to thinking on inclusion. Following Marquand’s reasoning, it is insufficient
merely to appeal abstractly to some kind of Rawlsian justice for this may lead merely
to formulaic, unguided attempts at redistribution. [. . .]
This is surely so in special education, where no claim could seriously be made
that positive economic discrimination is not provided for children at special schools.
The economic redistribution argument is not in other words sufficient on its own:
it is the way resources are used that is more important. Fraser (1996) avers that more
insidious and arguably equally powerful forms of injustice take the place of resource
injustice. They arise from non-recognition, that is to say being rendered invisible
by dominant cultural practice, and from disrespect – through routine malignment
or disparagement. To illustrate her point, Fraser draws on the work of Charles
Taylor (1992), who suggests that non-recognition or misrecognition can imprison
someone

in a false, distorted, reduced mode of being. Beyond simple lack of respect, it

can inflict a grievous wound, saddling people with crippling self-hatred. Due
recognition is not just a courtesy but a vital human need.
(Taylor 1992: 25)

It is thus only through seeing injustice through the lenses of non-recognition and
disrespect that redistribution makes any sense in the contemporary world. For
existing inequalities between children – in their behaviour, in what they can do
with their bodies, or in their cultural capital – cannot be compensated for simply by
shifts in resources, by the physical and personnel resources they are given at school.
Those inequalities lie importantly in opportunities to do the same as other children:
to share the same spaces as other children and to speak the same language as other
children. To be, in other words, part of the same culture. Reducing inequality is
thus about more than providing money and better resources: it is about providing
the chance to share in the common wealth of the school and its culture.
Without these additional dimensions, redistribution may remain hollow, leaving
in place practices that demean and disempower people. It is this demeaning and
disempowering to which so many who have passed through a special school system
have referred (e.g. Rieser and Mason 1992).
 Thinking about inclusion 25

Non-recognition and disrespect arise from the way that segregative systems han-
dle existing inequalities between children. Exclusion from the wider culture is the
consequence.
[. . .] To believe, then, that the kind of society we create emerges from the kind of
education we provide has a long intellectual pedigree. The quest for comprehensive
education and now inclusive education are part of that tradition. [. . .] In other
words, there are gains in greater participation and comprehensiveness not just for
the small minority who would formerly have gone to special schools, but there are
perhaps more importantly reciprocal benefits – benefits for all.
Demonstration is a misnomer when thinking about inclusion. To be asked to
show that inclusion works is like being asked to show that equality works. To
promote inclusion involves judgements based on values, and there is no reason
to be apologetic about this. As Amartya Sen (1996) puts it in the context of the
dilemmas of making a socially just society, ‘the choice of priorities is inescapably
a judgmental exercise’ (p. 21), and this is in the context of there always existing some
conflict of interests to be resolved. To quote from Stanley Fish (1994): ‘different
interests will generate different notions of fairness’ (p. 73).
That we should make judgements concerning these interests and these notions
of fairness and come down on the side of x rather than y is surely what has to be
accepted in our twenty-first-century discourse on the shape of inclusive education.

Concluding comment
We have argued here for a loosening of hold on the erstwhile theoretical knowl-
edge behind special education, contending that less of our inquiry into children’s
difficulties at school – and, more importantly, less of our response to those difficul-
ties – should happen in the way that it has hitherto. If this argument is valid, and if we
are looking to the shape of an inclusive education system for the future, it behoves
all of us in education – practitioners, planners, academics, researchers – to put more
reliance on ideals about equity, human rights, social justice and opportunity for all.
In pursuing these ideals, in improving education, we should as practitioners and
inquirers accept rather than deny the insights which emerge by virtue of human
experience – insights which emerge from our own knowledge of learning, our own
knowledge of failure, success, acceptance or rejection. There is nothing to be lost
in so doing, for the evidence is that there are no magic fixes or startling insights to
emerge from the traditional knowledge-base of special education.

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Chapter 3

Taking curiosity seriously

The role of awe and Wanda in
research-based professionalism
Marion Dadds

This chapter is written in two voices – the personal and the ‘academic’. It draws
on the author’s reflective experience as a research co-ordinator in teacher edu-
cation, trying to develop a research culture with colleagues in difficult national
and institutional circumstances. These personal experiences are set against wider
debates and issues about research-based professionalism. Wanda is a character the
author created to illustrate the responses and reactions of colleagues, with whom
she works, towards research-based work. Wanda is fictional, in that no one such
character exists, yet she is also ‘factual’, in that the events and conversations illus-
trated through the character actually took place at some time, with someone, in
the author’s workplace over the period in which the chapter is set. The fiction
is, thus, grounded in the data of the author’s own ‘reality’, although some poetic
licence has been applied in order to tell the story of Wanda with some theoretical
coherence and validity.

March 21st, 1998. The letter arrived from St Martin’s, inviting me to interview.
‘During the morning you will be asked to give a short presentation (10 minutes
maximum) . . . The subject of the presentation is ‘The role of research in teacher
education’.
Try as I may in the days running up to the event, I could not reduce my
talk to less than 12. I took the risk of being thought verbose and stayed with
my plan. Perhaps one day there would be chance to elaborate.
April 21, 1998. I was led into a darkened room. Some seven or eight faces
arranged in a semi-circle gazed at the lone chair. The Principal seated himself
in the shadows, stop-watch to hand. ‘I have a number of points’, I heard myself
declare, ‘and some afterthoughts – if time allows’.
The points fell out neatly, like bars from a chocolate dispensing machine. I
covered, in the first few minutes, issues about research for new knowledge
and understanding; research as a form of professional learning for ourselves
and those with whom we share it. At a pace, I alluded to research as a form
of professional improvement, underpinned by new self-understanding. The
Cook’s tour also raised issues about the role of research in challenging imposed
 Research-based professionalism 29

wisdom, or, what I chose to call, ‘oppositional’ research. In the short postscript,
my points embraced issues about new, inventive methodologies if we are to
be liberated to research creatively.
So there it was. My map of educational research in a twelve minute nutshell.
On my way home, I felt stunned by my own audacity; to have clarified,
neatened and made certain where no self respecting postmodernist would fear
to tread.

As my new role as education research co-ordinator at St Martin’s unfolded, I was to

return time and again to those issues. It was inevitable that the dire circumstances of
teacher education would help in the post-modern undoing of this tidy 12-minute
package for it was, of course, far from tidy in practice.
Also, the relevance of the issues was augmented by the current national debates on
research- and evidence-based professionalism. These discourses have already spread
across other professions, most noticeably health and medicine. They have also been
embedded within the practitioner research, action research and praxis movements
for several decades (e.g. Hollingsworth 1997). The Teacher Training Agency has
been offering research-based initiatives to the teaching profession for some four
years. However, despite these trends, there has been no serious discussion at policy
level of research-based professionalism in teacher education. Herein lies a great
anomaly, for it is not clear how teacher educators can contribute to the development
of teaching as a research-based profession if their own research development is not
considered seriously as an essential part of this venture.
Moving in this direction is far from straightforward. Working conditions for
teacher educators, as for teachers, are singularly unconducive to the systematic
pursuit of research (Morrison 1998). Constant politically induced changes, power
coercive strategies for reform, negating national climates of abuse have caused
unprecedented levels of work overload and stress (Campbell 1999; Dadds 2001). It
is miraculous that so many manage to surmount such adversity in order to produce
quality research when research funding is shamefully inadequate. ‘Unpaid slog sus-
tains research’, read the Times Higher Education Supplement headlines of the 12th
May, 2000.
Many in post-1992 institutions like St Martin’s have responded positively to
the pressure to engage in more research that the Research Assessment Exercise
(RAE) has generated. Yet, because they have not achieved high status in the RAE
and funding arrangements may now be adversely reviewed (Bassey 1999), such
institutions are in danger of becoming caught in the ‘massacre of the innocents:
the wiping out of those small research communities who have seen the vision
of research, but failed to grasp its substance’ (Bassey 1999: 23). This ‘crisis of
positionality’ (Goodson 1999: 277) with funding may, indeed, put our newly
developed research cultures at risk. Were such nascent cultures to be destroyed, the
education service would be poorer for the loss, as would the schools that research
in partnership with Higher Education institutions.
30 Marion Dadds

It becomes essential, therefore, in such hostile, fragile conditions for us to

have sound justification for doing research. Part of this means considering what
philosophies and methodologies might match our circumstances and desires. There
is no reason, for example, for us to follow slavishly established research traditions that
have emerged from far more favourable conditions than we can boast. So we need
confidence to seek alternative approaches that are situationally sensitive and feasible;
that nourish the rest of our work in beneficial ways. Small-scale, practice-related
methodologies such as action research, narrative enquiry, case study, experience-
based enquiry (e.g. Hart 1995; Ollerton 1997), critical-fictional research (Winter
1999) are available and are probably more appropriate. So, too, are collaborative
methodologies that help teachers and teacher educators to research in partnership
with each other, and with pupils, communities and other stakeholders so that we
can, together, study educational contexts in ways that can feed both teaching and
teacher education (e.g. Zeichner and Kler 1999). We are, in essence, working in an
overloaded, ‘hurry-along’ (Dadds 2001) context, where time has to be used wisely.
Research must support us in these conditions, not exacerbate the difficulties.
In addition, research is as politically important as ever it was, for these centralist,
‘hurry-along’ conditions have the tendency to mould us into obedient technical
deliverers of others’ political initiatives, engaging mostly in task-orientated work.
Hurry-along reduces time for deeper thought and democratic critique as we seek
to figure out the political game and learn how best to play it for the purpose of
institutional survival.
However, giving priority to compliant thought and action may, ultimately, cause
us to relinquish our traditional role as guardians of academic freedom, leading to
ethic-less, fearful organisations which, by default, collude in the ‘culture of silence’
(Freire 2000: 9), thereby becoming intellectually impoverished. Hurry-along is
dangerous for education if these are its consequences for we may become trapped
inside this pressurised ‘performance culture’ (Campbell 1999) with no principled
way out. So current bureaucratic and authoritarian excesses have to be counter-
balanced by thoughtful inquiry if our work is to be truly educative.
What follows, then, is my justification for the continuing growth of a strong
research culture in teaching and teacher education in today’s political circumstances.
Within this, I raise a number of issues, which I consider significant. These are sub-
sumed under three broad themes: research for new knowledge and understanding,
research for critique and research for improvement.

Research for new knowledge and

understanding
First and foremost, research can help us to create new knowledge and understanding
of the complex professional worlds in which we work. This is its first function. ‘An
essential characteristic of research is that the enquiry should aim to increase knowl-
edge’, wrote Michael Bassey. ‘Its purpose should be to make a claim to new knowl-
edge: to tell someone something that they didn’t know before’ (Bassey 1995: 3).
 Research-based professionalism 31

As members of one of the caring professions, our work is a moral enter-

prise. What we believe, know and do as educators are consequential for others’
lives – young people, families and their communities, student teachers. This brings
with it a responsibility for us to be not simply practitioners, but ethically orientated
scholarship practitioners (Zeichner 1998) seeking to underpin our work with well-
developed theories from our own and others’ research. This is one significant way
in which we can engage in ethically based professional learning.
The now well-established practitioner research movement has highlighted for
decades (e.g. Stenhouse 1975; Elliott 1993; Hollingsworth 1997) the need for prac-
titioners themselves to be at the heart of the research process, identifying questions
of significance for the learners in their care, conducting their own enquiries for their
own professional purposes. Insider practitioner knowledge about the challenges of
the classroom or seminar is seen to be crucial to setting a research agenda, which
burrows into the ethical heart of teaching and learning. New professional knowl-
edge, however, is not only a detached product of mind: the passions and humanity
that are a natural part of professional work are inexorably locked into practice-based
research. They are as significant as the more clinical logic and disengagement, which
some take, erroneously, to be the sole indicator of good research. The past 20 years
of research theory have done much to help us to re-think subjectivity and this is
useful for practitioner research. Feminist scholars have reminded us that education
involves ‘connected knowing’ (Belenky et al. 1986) within professional practices
that are ‘relational’ (Noddings 1994). Human bonds are involved.
Good quality practice-related research strikes a balance between this subjective
commitment and the more detached viewing needed in order to become ‘teacher
as stranger’ (Greene 1973) to our own work. This balance helps to guard against
‘emotional misunderstanding’ (Hargreaves 1999), where the human gap between
teacher and taught is hard to bridge in hurry-along conditions. Practitioner research
can help to bridge this gap. For example, when the teachers in one of our local
primary schools asked children what they didn’t like about writing and changed their
practices in response to the children’s feelings, we were offered a fine example of
research being used to enhance the pedagogical emotional understanding of which
Hargreaves speaks. When we research our own work, ‘we are concerned with the
development of a self-critical subjective perspective, not with an aspiration towards
an unattainable objectivity’ (Stenhouse 1975: 157). Forms of research that deny
the inevitability of subjectivity are not well matched to the needs of research-based
professionalism, for in the disciplined ‘self’ of the researcher lies the power that
drives the enquiry and determines its usefulness (Dadds 1995) for pupils and students.
So in this subjectivity, we must remember that we are, as researchers, stepping
into others’ lives – and our actions must make sense to them. In our research
ethics we need to move beyond an egocentrism into an empathetic perspective.
To this end, children and others with whom we research have a right to under-
stand, and have some control over, our subjective research intentions, however
honourable these may be. Different, and possibly conflicting, needs will arise in
different contexts (Simons and Usher 2000), so our empathetic moves may require
high levels of subjective maturity, insight and judgement.
32 Marion Dadds

In addition, subjective research knowledge is enriched in validity when it is shared

and critiqued with our research communities. ‘If we can say we know, rather than
simply I know, we can move towards an inter-subjectively valid knowledge which
is beyond the limitations of one knower’ (Reason and Rowan 1981: 242).
Moving from subjective to inter-subjective knowledge also blesses us with
research processes that become a form of professional conversation. In this, we
can learn from, and validate, each others’ research at one and the same time. When
research can embed itself in learning communities in this conversational way, then
it begins to work as it should, as a force for collaborative learning and for the growth
of valid practitioner theories. Research, thus, ceases to be reduced to a pitiful target
for the research assessment exercise.
Elliott has argued that such ‘conversation research communities’ (Elliott 1990: 3)
are essential if we are to strive for excellence in research. But we need to be
free from the pathology of ‘dogmatic institutional and political climates’ (Elliott
1990: 6) in order to think together with integrity. Climates of exchange that enable
growth and that do not abuse or demean are essential. Thoughtful research seminars,
institutional research conferences, internal dissemination meetings with colleagues,
learners, parents, governors and other stakeholders – these practices can help us
to build and sustain our conversational research communities and the quality of
our work:

October 14th, 1998

A colleague, who I shall name Wanda, pops in to my room, ostensibly to see if
I’m getting tidied up from the move. This social communion shifts effortlessly
into an energetic exposition by her about action research.
Wanda berates the problematics of traditional research and waxes eloquent
about the superior value of self-created knowledge for the understanding
of one’s practice. Furthermore, she explains, methods’ courses that suppose
research to be a set of cumulative skills are missing the point. ‘Research is not so
much skills’, she says, emphatically, ‘but attitude . . . research is an attitude . . . an
approach of mind . . . ’
‘Mind you’, Wanda adds, as she turns to leave, ‘we don’t have any time to do
any here . . . if they ask me to find any more time to do anything else, I think
I’ll just resign.’
I note this in my research diary that evening, suspecting that I shall hear more
from Wanda. I may learn if I listen.

Research for critique

If the debate were only about whether or not knowledge was a subjective creation,
research would be less vexing than it is. In recent years, however, post-modernism
has confirmed what our suspicious epistemic hearts knew all along – that research
 Research-based professionalism 33

knowledge, embedded for the most part in language as it is, is slippery, wafer thin
and readily self-destructing. Just when we feel we have found certain knowledge,
the post-modern phantom bids us to undo it (Stronach and MacLure 1997),
examine it from different linguistic angles, disrupt our complacency as we settle on
the single, authoritative reading of our research texts. Meaning is, thus, unstable,
contingent and questionable.
Post-modernists are quite exhausting friends to have. Yet their irritating theore-
tical presence saves us from the myth of the single meaning, the single interpretation,
the single solution; from the dangers of living unquestioningly within the grand
narratives of our day with the attendant spectres of fanaticism and unchallenged,
simplistic dogma.
To add to our troubles with myths and single meanings, we also have to battle
against public views that have been shaped more by tabloid newspapers (Goodson
1999: 293) than by verifiable, grounded, educational theory. Indeed, some believe
that the cultivation of negative public opinion about the state of education, through
tabloid newspapers, has been deliberate political strategy to help herald in educa-
tional reform. In his inaugural lecture of 1979, Stenhouse warned against the dangers
of according the status of ‘knowledge’ to views of the world shaped in such miscon-
ceived ways. He claimed that ‘what is represented as authoritative, and established
independently of scholarly warrant, cannot be knowledge . . . ’. Valid knowledge
has its own characteristics, he suggested, in that it ‘is questionable, verifiable and dif-
ferentially secure’ (Rudduck and Hopkins 1985: 116). The validity of knowledge,
he implied, rests in such scholarly qualities, not in the power it obtains through the
status of those who yield it. There are implications for education, here, for if we
do not convey this to those we teach then the learners, Stenhouse suggested, will
‘take from us in error: the error . . . that faith in authority is an acceptable substitute
for grasp of the grounds of knowledge’ (Rudduck and Hopkins 1985: 116). The
ability to appraise critically the status and validity of knowledge, must, therefore,
by implication, be a necessary part of being educated in a civilised democracy.
In an age of centralist certainty about the rightness of political knowledge, polit-
ically designed curricular and politically legislated pedagogy, Stenhouse’s words,
alongside the challenges of post-modernism, are relevant to us. More than ever,
our scholarship and research demands of us this pre-disposition to undo and quarrel
with the knowledge of received authority, both that of others as well as our own
as educators, and to treat knowledge as constantly problematic.
These ideas suggest the need not simply to produce new knowledge, but new
critical knowledge, which enable us to conduct an ethical commentary on the
practices and consequences of power. There is a need to de-construct the taken-
for-granted assumptions of power; ‘to stress educational research which acts as
a kind of moral witness to the initiatives that are undertaken’ (Goodson 1999:
296); to challenge the single story and offer alternative readings. What, for exam-
ple, were the consequences for children beyond improved test scores, of David
Blunkett’s decision in 1998 to focus more money on boys’ reading attainments in
a bid to pressure teachers and pupils to achieve his own political literacy targets
34 Marion Dadds

before the next election? Did this decision bring benefit or stress to targeted pupils?
What were the consequences for pupils who were not in line for booster class
funding? What has happened to the children since they received the booster funding
and made the transition to secondary school? These are our kinds of questions as
professionals whose responsibilities embrace the well-being of students and pupils
(Thompson 1997).
Such questions require ‘oppositional research’, which demands that we enquire
against the grain, both of our own realms of power and also that of others. Indeed,
according to Bridges (1999), we have, as professional educators, ‘a fundamental
duty of intellectual citizenship’ to engage in ‘the production of knowledge with
the potential for creating . . . alternative . . . views about the public sphere than those
that are officially sanctioned . . . ’ (Norris 1992):

March 9th, 1999

I head towards the photocopier with a small task for tonight’s MA group.
Here, to my surprise, is Wanda, copying what looks like, as I try to peer over
her shoulder without seeming to . . . yes . . . it is an interview transcript with
covering letter. She seems about to deny its existence as I try, nonchalantly, to
quiz her about it.
She explains to me, casually, that she thought she’d just try to find out how
a few people in the school/college partnership were experiencing one of the
latest innovations we’ve had to adopt with them, in response to government
edict. The neat packages of government policy might not appear that neat
when you scrutinise their adoption at school and college level, she said.
This explanation is backed by apologia galore about the quality, validity,
status of her interviews. They are even denied as anything to do with research.
‘Just curiosity,’ she explains. ‘Not really research at all.’
Our ensuing conversation roams over major issues about the nature of research.
As I turn to go, Wanda’s voice follows me up the stairs. ‘It’s just curiosity mind.
It’s not research.’
I note this in my diary later that evening
The following morning, as I negotiated the motorway junction, the analogy
struck me – that a researcher without curiosity is like a comedian without a
sense of humour. Wanda has what professional research needs. Curiosity – one
of the central driving forces. Research without curiosity is like a joke without
a laugh.

Gattegno, claimed that ‘there is only one instrument in research in order to

find answers . . . and that is to raise questions . . . you only need to open your
mind . . . And slowly, you educate yourselves . . . ’ (Brown et al. 1989: 11–14).
Stenhouse went further, defining research as ‘systematic self-critical enquiry’
(Rudduck and Hopkins 1985: 8), which is ‘founded in curiosity and a desire to
 Research-based professionalism 35

understand’. For curiosity to develop into research, it must, he claimed, be ‘stable,

not fleeting’ and become ‘systematic in the sense of being sustained by a strategy’.
Fertile contemplation is also needed if mature thoughts are to emerge. Yet we
speak little of the value of contemplation in these ‘hurry along’ times of compliance
and overload. One could suppose that the systems have been designed to jeopar-
dise contemplative thought, not enrich it. However, researchers need to retreat for
a while into some inner sanctum of intellectual creation to cultivate their ideas. For
it is in this space that preliminary thought becomes transformed as curiosity and
contemplation demonstrate their complementary powers in the creation of credible
ideas (e.g. Poincare 1924; Wallas 1926). Curiosity and contemplation are the com-
plementary bookends of a research process that leads to valid knowledge. Without
curiosity there would be no question; without contemplation, no response. ‘The
life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness’, wrote Tom Merton (1961)
‘first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer. Though these
are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are in fact an awareness
of the same thing.’
The indispensable power of curiosity must, therefore, be accompanied by moti-
vation and working conditions that allow continuity of questioning and thought.
Wanda has this vital curiosity, but does she also have the time, patience and
circumstance needed for persistent sequential enquiry? This, I do not yet know.

Research for improvement

The knowledge that research can offer us is not for its own sake, but to help
us to improve educational experiences for learners; to address issues of social and
educational injustice in our schools and colleges, for it is our role ‘to make a
difference in the lives of students regardless of background, and to help produce
citizens who can live and work productively in dynamic societies’ (Fullan 1993: 18).
We also hope that new knowledge can be created that helps us to work for a more
humane, caring and self-actualising life for those we educate.
The ethical focus of practitioner research is, thus, on improvement for ‘the
other’ (Noddings 1994). This is a continuous process if we accept the man-
tle of the professional. ‘Research is the constant striving for understanding and
improvement’, wrote Ken Thomas, ‘nothing is cast in stone’ (Thomas 1999: 4).
However, inasmuch as the focus is, by implication, also on our practices, a sec-
ondary spotlight shines on our professional selves. Our practices and our person
cannot be separated. To create new knowledge of our practices, we have to
disrupt our assumptions through self-critique. ‘If I am certain and never ask
questions’, wrote Ben Cunningham, ‘I can’t move forward, be transformed’
(1999: 253).
Such critical self-knowledge can be painful. Thus, practice-based researchers not
only need just curiosity and an ethical sensitivity, but also great courage if they
are to take relevant research questions into the heart of their work. There is no
research-based professionalism that does not touch on the identity of the researcher,
36 Marion Dadds

since identity is bound into practice. Psychologically safe communities are needed,
therefore, especially for new researchers who render themselves vulnerable in the
public arena of research (Dadds 1993):

20th April, 1999

After seven months in this new post, the frustrations of regularly cancelled
research meetings with colleagues are becoming hard for me to bear and my
sense of relevance is hovering over a void. Research, I have rapidly come to
understand, is the last priority in post-1992 institutions, easy to drop off the
agenda when other pressures bite hard. But if time were the sole explanation,
how is it that some manage to pursue their research, albeit in fits and starts,
whilst others do not? I seek Wanda’s angle on this, one late afternoon, by the
photocopier.
‘Seventy percent lack of time; ten percent time management, I would say’, is
Wanda’s hypothesis.
‘-yes-?-’ Her eyes fix me, looking for some trust. ‘The rest is fear’, she
confessed. ‘Fear of what?’
‘Fear of failure; of being judged; of feeling that you’re not as clever as all those
clever people who write fancy things in fancy journals.’
We talk on about the need for creative, innovative forms of research and
writing that go well beyond the traditional ‘fancy things’ for ‘fancy journals’.
We both become a little inspired. Some optimism is bubbling.
‘Mind you’, Wanda calls after me as we part, ‘if anyone tells me I need to
improve my time management, I’ll tell them where to get off.’. . .
As the record of this conversation goes in the diary that evening, I wonder
how the academic community has managed to find itself in this state. How can
we justify views of research that disenfranchise by creating false hierarchies of
knowledge and methodology? What valid and reliable approaches can we foster
that are inclusive of Wanda’s powers of curiosity and professional commitment,
that sustain her sense of self-worth and enhance it through the realisations of
writing and practice improvement? What will be the consequences for teacher
educators, the teachers they educate and the children who will be influenced,
if we cannot legitimate new, appropriate research methodologies? If research is
about improvement, how much longer can we tolerate a Research Assessment
Exercise that appears to Wanda to put a premium on clever people, researching
in more favourable conditions, writing fancy things in fancy journals?
At 2 a.m. I wake from a nightmare in which a menacing phantom figure bearing
a close resemblance to our Dean of Research, catches me red-handed stuffing a
box full of academic journals (which I have, against my better judgement, sys-
tematically ripped to pieces) into the works of the photocopying machine, with
 Research-based professionalism 37

the intention of blocking it forever. When I recover my nocturnal bearings, I

decide that a weekend away is needed – without my diary.

Constructivism teaches us that we cannot make sense of the world with another’s
voice or identity: we must employ our own vernacular. There is evidence that we
need to capitalise on existing inner strengths, predispositions, preferred cognitive
and artistic styles if research is to offer a secure foundation for practice improvement
(Dadds and Hart 2001). So we must think about building research communities
that legitimate individualised innovative methods (Mellor 1999) in order to develop
capability and success. ‘One of the biggest . . . constraints on one’s development as
a researcher’, wrote Elliott (1990: 5) ‘is the presumption that there is a right method
or set of techniques for doing educational research . . . Such a view is a recipe for
mediocrity.’
The national agenda for educational research is, now, more overtly an improve-
ment agenda (e.g. Hillage et al. 1998) and most of us, I guess, would want to
support that, providing there is still tolerance of ‘blue skies’ research that may lead
us into new questions that have not yet crossed our minds. However, where does
the person of the practitioner fit into this movement?
The current laudable notion of accumulating the knowledge base on the internet
(Reynolds 1999) for improving teaching will not be without major problems if
it privileges expert knowledge generated solely from outside practice. Who is
going to decide what and whose knowledge counts? There may not be consen-
sus about which knowledge base is the most appropriate nor a single, uncontested
view of what constitutes effective teaching or improved standards. And as yet,
we have little evidence that the knowledge base of the external researcher is as
powerful a force for change as critical self-knowledge. Others’ knowledge can-
not be ‘read off’ (Hamilton 1996) and ‘read in’ unproblematically to professional
practices like some supermarket bar code transaction. Judgement, critique, adap-
tation are needed to build bridges between one person’s knowledge and another’s
improvements. Conversational learning circumstances are needed for these pro-
cesses to take effect (Hargreaves 1999; Elliott 2000). We are deceived if we believe
that outsider knowledge can be downloaded. Only information can be passed
on in this way. Knowledge requires more complex transformations of mind and
heart.
We must be aware, too, of attempts by those with control over research funding
to define ‘improvement’ narrowly either in terms of imposed training standards,
measurable outcomes on national tests or the mind-sets of governments. Educa-
tion is infinitely broader than these narrow confines. So the quest for educational
improvement through research is similarly infinitely broad.
When outside authorities make central decisions about the appropriate knowl-
edge base for practice, we move towards blue-print solutions to improvement.
Whilst blue-print knowledge can act as a catalyst for instant change, its life is
short-lived if it is not mediated through the practitioner’s situational judgement
(Dadds 1994). The imposed authority of blue-print knowledge can also displace
38 Marion Dadds

the value of practitioners’ own experience since it privileges the knowledge base
of the outside, over that of the inside, expert. Many have suffered dysfunctional
crises of confidence because their own knowledge base has been de-valued in the
process of educational reform (Nias 1999; Osborn et al. 2000). For this reason
alone, research that creates good practitioner theories is essential for educational
improvement (Elliott 2000; Hart 2000).
We should be celebrating the fact that we have, at last, a government that is
serious about putting research on the improvement agenda. Yet there is a worrying
absence in the government’s education research policy of any reference to the value
of practitioner theories in educational improvement. The policy privileges, exclu-
sively, the role of government-sponsored projects in creating legitimate knowledge.
It also privileges exclusively the role of government in deciding worthwhile educa-
tional improvement (Blunkett 2000). We should be deeply concerned in the midst
of our ecstasy:
September 23rd, 1999.
‘How are things going with the interviews?’ I dare to ask Wanda in passing.
This apparently innocent question spontaneously sparks a very short fuse and
a lethal flea is sharply applied to my left ear.
What chance is there to attach importance to interviews, she fumed, when
the search for a timetable in advance of the students’ arrival is proving
fruitless; when the weekend ahead promises little but preparation, marking,
trouble-shooting, document repair in preparation for yet one more govern-
ment inspection, yet one more quality assurance scrutiny from the power
hierarchy!!!!
The rest washed over me in my panic to undo the tenor and damage of the
past few seconds.
This, I rapidly conclude, is not the best historical moment to discuss the search
for new knowledge about teacher educators’ practices. I hurriedly retreat to
the safety of my office, glad to have escaped with my life.
In my diary that evening I indulge (and comfort) myself by trying to imag-
ine different possibilities for Wanda. Just suppose we could turn more of the
time and energy that goes into overbureaucratised accountability systems into
time for powerful professional questions, deep reflection, transformative con-
templation and constructively critical research conversations. How different
our workplaces might be as learning organisations. How differently educated
our students and pupils might be if their teachers were given genuine oppor-
tunities to pursue powerful enquiry in their working lives, rather than being
harassed by outside certainties; if they were freer to cultivate inner knowing,
to build their practice on the careful foundations of personal theories, not on
obedient responses to the unremitting dead hand of outside power. In such
a professional world, curiosity would have a central place in professionalism,
 Research-based professionalism 39

professionalism would have educative roots – and Wanda would be avenged –

for ‘it is in wondering and questioning that learning begins’ (Greene 1973: 268).

Endpiece
So – research as curiosity, as attitude, growth, learning, transformation; as ethical
improvement, as critique, conversation, contemplation and creativity. These are
possibilities open to us, possibilities that can help to structure a vision for us as
research-based professionals.
Yet we work in systems that would burden with bureaucracy, dull with notions
of delivery, stifle with centralism and an often-unquestioned authoritarianism, limit
with privileged and under-privileged funding.
We have to be prepared to speak out against, and try to change, these adverse
conditions, for the minds, hearts and attitudes of teachers and teacher educators
have a crucial bearing on the education chain. Hurried, dominated and obedient
minds can impact on students. Students can impact on pupils. Pupils can impact on
democracy and society.
The key question, it seems to me, in these moves towards research-based pro-
fessionalism, is not about how external researchers can improve their ways of
communicating with user groups (Hillage et al. 1998). Rather, it is more impor-
tant to ask how the conditions of teaching and teacher education can be improved
to enable practitioners to become involved themselves in thoughtful pursuit of
research that contributes sound critical knowledge to practice improvement. If we
cannot tackle this question, then research-based professionalism has little serious
means of survival on anything but a limited or technical scale. If there continues
to be little time for the careful, systematic pursuit of professional curiosity by those
who hold the learning of the next generation in trust, then education as a form of
seeking and discovering, may, itself, be undermined.
This issue should be of concern to all who believe that we need research to
guard against the excesses of authoritarian knowledge in both the curriculum and
the political structures within which we work. Knowledge is political. Research,
therefore, political. Professionalism is, therefore, political. We need to understand:

whose questions are legitimated;

for whose research agenda government makes funding available;
whose reports of ‘reality’ could, and should, make a difference.

Taking curiosity seriously is a risky affair. Questions threaten to de-stabilise the

taken-for-granted assumptions of governments and educators alike. In the words of
Stenhouse, ‘curiosity is as ever dangerous, because it leads to intellectual innovation
which brings in its trail a press towards social change. To those who yearn for the
support of faith, authority and tradition, research presents a threat of heresy. Yet
without the organised pursuit of curiosity we could not sustain our social life’
(Rudduck and Hopkins 1985: 10).
40 Marion Dadds

Postscript
May 23rd, 2000
I swear she is masking a slightly satisfied smile as she intercepts me on the way
from the photocopier. Would I have time to look at her interview summaries?
She has to admit, she explains, that it’s amazing what people have said. So
much difference. Makes a nonsense of single views of standards. Many new
questions raised. Quite fascinating. Extraordinary.
(Here, I note, are a number of my favourite research words – amazing, fas-
cinating, extraordinary). But she doesn’t think her writing’s up to much, she
declares. Anyway, how would she write it up and for whom? Would I look at
it and advise? Would a journal be too ambitious or should she settle her sights
on the internal Education Research News? Is she good enough?. . .
I note that my breathing has suddenly become quite shallow as I hold back my
suppressed smile – and the desire to punch the air – yes!!!
‘Mmm, of course I will,’ (mumbled, trying to appear cool, fearing to lose the
advantage of this historical moment, as I mentally put Wanda to the top of the
list for today).
‘Mind you,’ her voice trots after me up the stairs – and by now I can read her
thoughts.
‘I know, it’s not really research,’ I chant, ‘it’s only curiosity.’
‘Well then,’ she retorts, by now knowing my paradoxical thoughts, ‘don’t go
getting too excited. You’ll not get me on your list of active researchers that
easily.’. . .
I end my diary that evening by inventing a new professional maxim to guide
me through the darker moments:
‘A research co-ordinator without a belief in the human spirit of curiosity has (if
I can return to the analogy of the comedian) definitely missed the punch-line.’

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Chapter 4

What a difference a decade

makes
Reflections on doing ‘emancipatory’
disability research
Colin Barnes

Introduction
It is now more than a decade since Mike Oliver used the term ‘emancipatory’
disability research to refer to what for many seemed like a radical new approach
to researching disability issues (Oliver 1992). Hitherto, of course, a great deal
has been written about this ‘new’ perspective; some of it positive, some of it
less so (e.g. Clough and Barton 1995, 1998; Stone and Priestley 1996; Barnes
and Mercer 1997; Oliver 1997, 1999; Moore et al. 1998; Truman et al. 2000).
Whilst most of this literature is on the whole supportive of the principles underpin-
ning the emancipatory research paradigm, it raises several important considerations
that need to be addressed when thinking about disability research. And, as a
consequence, casts serious doubt as to its desirability, practicality or indeed,
effectiveness.
As an advocate of the principles of ‘emancipatory’ disability research with several
years’ experience in the field, this, chapter represents a personal reflection on some
of the key issues that have arisen from these discussions without addressing directly
the work of particular individuals. The emphasis therefore is mainly on the British
experience although I would hope that the issues raised have some relevance to
people working on disability research in other countries. The chapter is divided
into two main sections; the first provides a brief introduction to the notion of
emancipatory disability research. The second part focuses on selected key charac-
teristics associated with this perspective. I will argue that the emancipatory research
model has made an important contribution to the disability research agenda, and
that in certain respects it is no longer that far removed from other more mainstream
research strategies.

Disability or not disability research?

It is important to recognise at the outset that social researchers and sociologists
in particular have, in various ways, been researching ‘disability’-related issues for
much of the last century. The idea of medicine as a mechanism of social con-
trol and its implications for doctor–patient interactions, for example, is rooted in
44 Colin Barnes

the work of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1951). Following Parsons a
veritable farrago of studies have appeared from a variety of social science perspectives
chronicling almost every aspect of disabled people’s lives. Important early examples
include research on the imposition and meaning of stigma (Goffman 1968; Scambler
and Hopkins 1986; Murphy 1987), institutional living (Goffman 1961; Miller and
Gwynne 1972; Alaszewski 1986), the role of professionals (Ilich et al. 1977) and dis-
ability and poverty (Townsend 1979). Furthermore, these have been accompanied
by large-scale epidemiological surveys documenting the prevalence of ‘disability’
within the general population (Harris 1971; Martin et al. 1988). Each of these stud-
ies has made important contributions to contemporary knowledge of disability and
related fields.
Nevertheless, all of these projects and the numerous others that were, and in
many cases are still being produced are in one way or another rooted in conventional
wisdom; namely, that accredited impairment, whether physical, sensory or intel-
lectual, is the primary cause of ‘disability’ and therefore the difficulties – economic,
political and cultural – encountered by people labelled ‘disabled’. Notwithstand-
ing, that some social scientists, particularly those influenced by interactionist and
labelling perspectives, such as Thomas Szasz (1961), Thomas Scheff (1966) and
Robert Edgerton (1967) had begun to seriously question orthodox explanations
for societal responses to ‘mental illness’ or ‘mental retardation–handicap’ in the
1960s. However, these insights were not extended to other sections of the disabled
population and in particular, people with physical or sensory conditions.
Of course this began to change in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the
politicisation of disability by disabled activists throughout the world (Campbell
and Oliver 1996; Charlton 1998; Driedger 1989). Of particular importance is the
redefinition of ‘disability’ by Britain’s Union of the Physically Impaired Against
Segregation (UPIAS) (1976) and the development of the social model of disabil-
ity. With a small but influential membership of disabled activists UPIAS made
the crucial distinction between the biological and the social. Thus ‘impairment’
denotes a medically defined condition but ‘disability is something imposed on
top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded
from participation in society’ (UPIAS 1976: 14). This socio-political interpre-
tation of disability provided the conceptual clarity and language that are the
foundations upon which the social model of disability, the theorisation of dis-
ability as social oppression, and the emancipatory disability, research paradigm
rests.
Employing the insights and terminology of the UPIAS, Mike Oliver (1983: 23)
coined the phrase the ‘social model of disability’ to refer to ‘nothing more or less
fundamental’ than a shift away from an emphasis on individual impairments towards
the ways in which physical, cultural and social environments exclude or disadvan-
tage people labelled disabled. Several theories explaining the oppression of disabled
people followed (e.g. Priestley 1998) and an alternative approach to doing dis-
ability research generally referred to as ‘emancipatory disability research’ (DHS
1992).
 ‘Emancipatory’ disability research 45

However, it is important to remember at this point that disabled activists have

criticised mainstream disability research since at least the 1970s (Hunt 1981; Oliver
1987). Moreover, in the following decade several studies began to appear, mostly
produced by disabled researchers, which drew on the experiences of disabled par-
ticipants to illustrate the extent of the oppression encountered by disabled people
and their families in the UK. Examples include, ‘Walking into Darkness’ (Oliver
et al. 1988), ‘Able Lives’ (Morris 1989) and ‘Cabbage Syndrome’ (Barnes 1990).
Significantly, as we shall see later, in 1989 the British Council of Disabled People
(BCODP), Britain’s national umbrella for organisations controlled and run by dis-
abled people, commissioned a large-scale study of the discrimination encountered
by Britain’s disabled population in support of their campaign for anti-discrimination
legislation (Barnes, 1994).
This was paralleled by a growing disillusionment with conventional social
research strategies by researchers working in the ‘developing’ nations of the major-
ity world, black writers, feminists and educationalists. Out of which emerged
a growing literature on ‘critical social research’ and/or ‘action research’ that pos-
itively allied itself with oppressed groups (e.g. Truman et al. 2000). All of which
contributed to the thinking behind the emergence of the emancipatory disability
research paradigm.
A series of seminars entitled ‘Researching Physical Disability’ in 1991 funded
by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ( JRF) provided a forum for the further
development of this new approach. These events brought together disabled and
non-disabled researchers working in the disability field along with representatives
of various research funding agencies and institutes to reflect on and discuss key issues
for disability research. This initiative culminated with a national conference and
a special issue of the international journal Disability, Handicap and Society (renamed
Disability & Society in 1993) on researching disability (DHS 1992) which ushered in
the concept of emancipatory disability research. Since its inception, however, this
approach has stimulated considerable debate within the disability research commu-
nity both in Britain and the rest of the world (e.g. Rioux and Bach 1994; Stone
and Priestley 1996; Barnes and Mercer 1997; Albrecht et al. 2001; Brown 2001;
Mercer 2002).
In essence, emancipatory disability research is about the empowerment of dis-
abled people through the transformation of the material and social relations of
research production. In contrast to traditional investigative approaches, the eman-
cipatory disability research agenda warrants the generation and production of
meaningful and accessible knowledge about the various structures – economic,
political, cultural and environmental – that created and sustained the multiple depri-
vations encountered by the overwhelming majority of disabled people and their
families. The integrating theme running through social model thinking and eman-
cipatory disability research is its transformative aim: namely, barrier removal and
the promotion of disabled people’s individual and collective empowerment. From
this perspective die role of the researcher is to help facilitate these goals through
the research process.
46 Colin Barnes

Not too long ago such ideas seemed utopian to say the least. Then, the
bulk of disability research was financed by large Government sponsored agen-
cies such as the Department. of Health (DoH), the Medical Research Coun-
cil (MRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In
many ways these bodies were dominated by traditional medical and academic
concerns and conventional assumptions about disability and disability-related
research.
Today, the situation is a little different. Although the growing critique of dis-
ability research coming from the disabled people’s movement was undoubtedly
a contributory factor, this transformation is almost certainly also due to other fac-
tors. Probably, the most significant is the growing emphasis of market forces within
universities and other research institutions (Barnes 1996). Other important consid-
erations include the increased use or misuse of research data, both quantitative and
qualitative, by politicians, policy makers and the media, and the consequential and
indeed quite understandable widespread disillusionment with anything that passes
for social research amongst the general public (Barnes et al. 2002).
Furthermore, it is evident that as we delve deeper into the twenty-first cen-
tury, a large number, if not the majority, of recent and current research projects
focusing exclusively on disability and related issues in the UK are funded by chari-
table agencies and trusts such as the JRF and National Lottery’s Community Fund.
Both these organisations prioritise user-led initiatives and concerns over those of
the academy and professional researchers (www.jrf.org.uk, www.Community-
fund.org.uk/research). Additionally, over the last decade or so there have been
several pieces of research produced which I believe, implicitly if not explic-
itly, do adhere, on several levels to an emancipatory research model. Notable
early examples include the BCODP research on institutional discrimination
against disabled people, cited earlier, Oliver and Zarb’s (1992) analysis of per-
sonal assistance schemes in Greenwich and subsequent BCODP research projects
on direct payments (Barnes 1993; Zarb and Nadash 1994), but more on this
later.
Equally important, although the rhetoric has yet to be matched with meaningful
outcomes, there is a growing emphasis on user participation, if not control, within
the research programmes of the various research councils, the National Health
Service (NHS), with the Consumers in NHS Research Support ‘Unit, and the
newly formed Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) (e.g. www.esrc.ac.uk,
www.conres.co.uk, www.scie.org.uk). Whilst these developments might not go
as far as some would wish, and certainly their impact has yet to be fully evaluated,
they do mark significant moves in the right direction.
However, since its emergence in 1992 several attempts have been made to iden-
tify the key characteristics of the emancipatory disability research model (Barnes
and Mercer 1997; Stone and Priestley 1996; Mercer 2002). For the purposes of
this chapter, these can be summarised as follows: the problem of accountability, the
role of the social model of disability, the choice of methods, and empowerment,
dissemination and outcomes.
 ‘Emancipatory’ disability research 47

Some key characteristics of an emancipatory

research model

The problem of accountability

Accountability is a major consideration for all those striving to do emancipatory
disability research. Yet this raises a number of important concerns for social
researchers that are not easily resolved (e.g. Barnes 1996; Bury 1996; Shakespeare
1996a). Probably the most controversial, relates to the contention that researchers
must be accountable to disabled people and their organisations. However, to be
accountable to the entire disabled population would be impossible. The issue is par-
ticularly problematic because the label ‘disabled’ can be applied to almost anyone
with ascribed impairment or impairments whether physical, sensory or intellectual.
Hence, the potential disabled population is vast. It is also the case that for a variety
of reasons, structural and interpersonal, many people with ascribed impairments do
not consider themselves ‘disabled’ or members of an oppressed group (Shakespeare
1996b).
But the same can be said of members of other oppressed sections of society such
as the working class, women, black people, and lesbians and gay men. John Swain’s
(1995) account of research in a segregated college offering vocational education
for 14–18 year olds with designated ‘special educational needs’ illustrates the point
well. Although most students were from ‘working class families and many were
from backgrounds of extreme poverty and deprivation’ and therefore could be said
to experience considerable oppression of different forms,

Few would have been identified by themselves or others, as disabled people

and few would identify themselves as having ‘special educational needs’. Nor
did they have a political agenda that they wished to articulate.
(Swain 1995: 76–77)

Hitherto, researchers making themselves accountable to organisations controlled

and run by disabled people have gone some way in resolving this problem. In my
view the standard for accountability was set with the BCODP anti-discrimination
project mentioned earlier. After securing funding from JRF and Charity Projects
research began in January 1990. The project was coordinated throughout by
a research advisory group of five people only one of whom was a non-disabled
person. The group met on a bi-monthly basis to comment on and review progress.
Moreover, besides collecting relevant data the first five months of 1990 were
spent discussing the aims and objectives of the research with key figures repre-
senting Britain’s disabled people’s movement. Data analysis and drafts of chapters
were periodically produced and circulated to the advisory group and represen-
tatives of disabled people’s organisations along with requests for comments and
recommendations. These were subsequently discussed at advisory group meetings
before amendments were made (Barnes 1994: xi–xix). When the final report was
48 Colin Barnes

completed a protracted process of dissemination was undertaken: discussed latter.

Similar levels of accountability have been achieved by other BCODP research
projects including the work on direct payments (Zarb and Nadash 1994) and the
more recent study of independent living services controlled and run by disabled
people (Barnes et al. 2000).
However, whereas a decade ago tile distinction between traditional organisations
for disabled people run by mainly non-disabled professionals and the more radical
organisations of disabled people run by disabled people themselves like tile BCODP
was quite evident, today it is less clear-cut. Due mainly to the successful politicisa-
tion of disability by the latter, many of the former have since adopted the language
of rights and amended their constitutions to ensure that their controlling bod-
ies include more disabled than non-disabled people, Whether this development is
viewed positively or not is now a highly contentious issue for some disabled activists
since it raises serious concerns about the clarity of organisational goals, claims to
representativeness and the potential neutralisation of disability politics (Barnes and
Mercer 2001; Thomas 2002). The problem can only be resolved by researchers
having more than a passing involvement with disability organisations. Through a
protracted process of engagement, they can then become familiar with organisa-
tional structures, their goals, the membership of their controlling body, and their
procedures for accountability to members.
However, such a strategy may pose particular problems for non-disabled
researchers, mainly because for some people within the disabled people’s move-
ment, social research and particularly that conducted by non-disabled researchers,
is still viewed with suspicion. But having a designated impairment does not auto-
matically give someone an affinity with people with similar conditions or disabled
people generally nor, indeed, an inclination to do disability research. Emancipa-
tory disability research is not about biology, it is about commitment and researchers
putting their knowledge and skills at the disposal of disabled people and their organi-
sations; they do not necessarily have to have an impairment to do this (Barnes 1992).
Neither Gerry Zarb nor Pamela Nadash were identified as disabled people when
they were conducting research for the BCODP.
Notwithstanding, protracted engagement with disabled people’s organisations
raises problems for all professional researchers working within a market-led envi-
ronment where continued employment and future career prospects are all too
often determined by an ability to secure lucrative and long-term research con-
tracts. Most of the organisations run and controlled by disabled people are local,
hand-to-mouth operations with very limited resources (Morgan et al. 2001). In
such organisations funding for research is usually accorded a relatively low pri-
ority and when it is needed, the demand is usually for small-scale locally based
projects that are relatively short term in character. The situation is equally dif-
ficult for those working within university settings. Besides the vagaries of the
market, they are subject to the demands of a traditionally conservative academic
community whose interests are often at odds with those of the disabled people
and their organisations. All of this makes meaningful ongoing relations between
 ‘Emancipatory’ disability research 49

researchers and disabled people’s organisations difficult to maintain (Barnes et al.

2002).

The social model of disability

The social model of disability is a core component of the emancipatory research
paradigm. A decade ago adopting an overtly social model perspective represented
something of a radical departure from conventional wisdom in discussions of dis-
ability and dependency. But this is no longer the case. Indeed, in some respects
the social model has become the new orthodoxy. Many of the traditional organisa-
tions for disabled people now claim allegiance to a social model outlook (Thomas
2002). Social model thinking underpins the work of the British Government ini-
tiated Disability Rights Commission (DRC) (www.drc.org.uk). Internationally,
social model insights are said to have been incorporated into the newly developed
World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Classification of Functioning
set to replace its outmoded and discredited predecessor, the WHO International
Classification of Impairment, Disability and Handicap (see Bury 2000; Hurst 2000;
Pfeiffer 2000; WHO 2002).
All of which has, rightly, prompted considerable debate within and without the
disabled people’s movement. It is important to remember therefore what the social
model of disability actually is, as it seems to mean different things to different people.
A model is what social scientists call a ‘heuristic device’ or an aid to understanding.

A good model can enable us to see something which we do not understand

because in the model it can be seen from different viewpoints . . . it is this
multi dimensioned replica of reality that can trigger insights that we might not
otherwise develop.
(Finkelstein 2002: 13)

Hence, the social model of disability represents nothing more complicated than
a focus on the economic, environmental and cultural barriers encountered by
people viewed by others as having some form of impairment. These include
inaccessible education, information and communication systems, working envi-
ronments, inadequate disability benefits, discriminatory health and social support
services, inaccessible transport, houses and public buildings and amenities, and
the devaluing of disabled people through negative images in the media – films,
television and newspapers.
Furthermore, the social model of disability does not ignore questions of impair-
ment and/or the importance of medical and therapeutic treatments. Several writers
from both sides of the Atlantic have centred on the cultural production of normal-
ity/nonmalcy and the consequential interpretations of, and responses to impairment
(e.g. Hevey 1992; Abberley 1993; Davis 1995; Thomson 1996). All of which
colours our views of self and others. A social model outlook therefore may be used
to highlight the interpersonal barriers within the context of personal and family
50 Colin Barnes

relationships. It also recognises that for many people coming to terms with dire
consequences of impairment in a society that consistently and systematically deval-
ues disabled people and disabled lifestyles is often a personal tragedy. But the tragedy
is that our society continues to discriminate, exclude and oppress people viewed
and labelled as disabled.
This of course raises important questions about the role of experience within the
context of emancipatory disability research. Whilst it may be argued that including
information about disabled people’s experiences in research reports is empowering
for some isolated disabled individuals and that the inclusion of participant’s narratives
is necessary to illustrate the social context in which the research was conducted, it is
important to remember that social scientists have been documenting the experiences
of powerless peoples, including those who could be defined as disabled, for most of
the last century. Moreover, in 1966 the disabled activist Paul Hunt pointed out that
much of the writing by people with accredited impairments ‘is either sentimental
biography, or else preoccupied with the medical and practical details of a particular
affliction’ (p. ix).
As already mentioned, there is also the problem of selection, and representative-
ness. Social researchers have yet to devise adequate ways of collectivising experience
(Oliver 1997) and experiential research alone has hitherto to yield any meaningful
political or social policy outcomes (Finkelstein 2002). It is important therefore that
within an emancipatory disability research framework, any discussions of disabled
people’s experiences, narratives and stories are couched firmly within an environ-
mental and cultural setting that highlights the disabling consequences of a society
organised around the needs of a mythical, affluent non-disabled majority.

Choice of methods
Since its inception, the emancipatory disability research model has generally been
associated with qualitative rather than quantitative data collection strategies. This
is almost certainly due to the argument that up to now large-scale surveys and
detailed quantitative analyses have never captured fully the extent and complexity
of the oppression encountered by disabled people. Additionally, these studies are
generally favoured by advocates of objectivity and value freedom, and therefore are
easily subject to political manipulation (Abberley 1992).
However, there are numerous debates: about the question of objectivity within
the social sciences and the sciences generally. The idea that ‘scientists’ of whatever
persuasion, social or otherwise, can interpret data without reference to personal
values or interests is one that has been promulgated by philosophers, scientists, and
later politicians, since at least the enlightenment. The reality is that all informa-
tion whatever its source and format can be interpreted in a variety of different
ways and those charged with the responsibility of interpreting it are influenced by
various forces, economic, political and cultural. If anyone is in any doubt about
this contention consider the recent ‘scientific’ debates over the causes of global
warming, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in cattle, Britain’s recent foot
 ‘Emancipatory’ disability research 51

and mouth outbreak, and/or the value/dangers of the MMR (measles, mumps and
rubella) vaccine for children (Barnes 2001).
In the social sciences, it is frequently argued that all judgements are coloured by
personal experience and that all propositions are limited by the meanings, implicit
or explicit, in the language used in their formulation. Furthermore, it is also sug-
gested that all theories are produced by and limited to particular social groups, and
that all observations are theory laden. Historically, medical and academic inter-
ests have dominated disability research. These were generally seen as objective
whilst alternate views, such as a social model perspective, were viewed as politi-
cally biased and/or subjective. As indicated earlier in many ways this is no longer
the case.
Moreover, whilst it may prove uncomfortable for some within the field of
disability research, there is much common ground between the emancipatory
research paradigm and some contemporary approaches to social research – including
positivism and ‘post-positivism’. Early positivism is founded on a ‘realist ontology’,
namely, the belief that there is a ‘reality out there’ that is driven by ‘natural’ laws.
Social ‘science’ is about discovering the ‘true’ nature and process of that reality
and, in so doing, aims to predict and control it. Contemporary or post-positivism
acknowledges that there are differences between the ‘natural’ and ‘social’ worlds in
that the rules that govern the former are regarded as universal. By way of contrast,
social realities are variable across time, place, cultures and context. Advocates also
acknowledge that values can enter the research process at any point from the iden-
tification of the research problem through the collection and interpretation of data,
and to the use of research outcomes. It is also recognised that knowledge generated
by social enquiry can also influence future behaviour and attitudes (Guba 1990;
Dyson 1998).
Those who adhere to a social model of disability whether traditionalists or
rectifiers and regardless of their theoretical leanings – materialist, feminist, or post-
modernist – all assert that there is a ‘reality’ out there, namely, the social oppression
of disabled people that is historically, environmentally, culturally and contextu-
ally variable, that research is influenced by subjective values and interests, and is
politically, and socially influential. The crucial difference between advocates of
post-positivism and supporters of an emancipatory research perspective lie in their
claims to political neutrality. For the former, although it is acknowledged that they
are not always attainable, objectivity and value freedom are the stated goals, for the
latter, political commitment and empowerment are the unequivocal aims.
Inevitably, this leads to accusations that politically committed researchers reveal
little more than a previous allegiance to a particular version of social reality, and/or
that by interpreting everyday life in a particular way they deny the significance of
other perspectives, actions and beliefs (Silverman 1998). Although similar criticisms
can be made of all social research, it is important to offset such censures. Therefore,
researchers must make their standpoint clear at the outset. This means stating clearly
their ontological and epistemological positions and ensuring that the choice of
research methodology and data collection strategies are logical, rigorous and open
52 Colin Barnes

to scrutiny and commensurate with the goals of the sponsoring organisation and
research participants (Barnes 1992).
Furthermore, all data collection strategies have their strengths and weaknesses. It
is not the research methods themselves that are the problem, it is the uses to which
they are put. Throughout the modern epoch, politicians and policy makers of all
persuasions have used figures and statistics to add weight to their arguments and/or
to justify particular actions or policy decisions and initiatives. Since its inception
in the 1960s, the disabled people’s movement has used similar, tactics to highlight
the various deprivations encountered by people with accredited impairments and
labelled disabled. The BCODP research on discrimination mentioned earlier, for
example, was heavily reliant on Government figures to underline the case for
anti-discrimination legislation. Moreover, Zarb and Nadash (1994) utilised both
quantitative and qualitative research methods to substantiate the argument for direct
payments for disabled people to employ their own personal assistants. Similarly,
the National Centre for Independent Living’s recent national study of services
controlled and run by disabled people employed a similar array of research strategies
and procedures (Barnes et al. 2000). The BCODP Independent Living Committee
commissioned both projects, the former was funded by the JRF and the Community
Fund financed the latter.

Empowerment, dissemination and outcomes

The rationale of the emancipatory disability research paradigm is the production
of research that has some meaningful practical outcome for disabled people. After
all, emancipation is about empowerment. Yet all research produces data. It could
therefore be argued that all research is empowering. The accumulation of data gen-
erates knowledge and knowledge is empowering, or so the story goes. However,
the new millennium is said to be the information age, but it is also the age of infor-
mation overload. Too much information can often lead to confusion, uncertainty
and apathy, and so be dis-empowering. Although this is a major problem for all
sections of society, it is especially so for disabled people such as those from minority
ethnic communities, people designated with learning difficulties, deaf people and
older disabled people, who are routinely disadvantaged by inadequate and inacces-
sible education, information and communication systems. Whilst this can generate
a general disenchantment with social research, it can also lead to a reliance on those
who generate research findings, namely, researchers. It is frequently argued that
the principal beneficiaries of social research are the researchers themselves (Hunt
1981; Chambers 1983; Oliver 1999).
Whilst this may be true for some sections of the research community, and I
include myself here, I’m not sure that this is the case for the vast majority of social
researchers. Due to the insidious but seemingly relentless encroachment of market
forces into the organisations that control research production, a career in social
research is more often than not characterised by financial and social uncertainty.
For most researchers, employment is linked to the length of the research contract.
 ‘Emancipatory’ disability research 53

It is however the case that, historically, many social researchers have undertaken
research on sensitive social issues without serious reference to the interests and needs
of those being researched, and critics have argued that this is especially evident
within the context of disability research (Hunt 1981; Oliver 1992).
But can emancipatory disability research offer anything different? I would argue
that it can and has. Partly because of all the reasons already mentioned but also
because as Oliver (1997: 20) has pointed out, empowerment is not something
that can be given, it is something that people must do for themselves. The salient
point here relates to ownership. Within an emancipatory framework, it is organi-
sations controlled and run by disabled people that devise and control the research
agenda and, equally important, to whom and how the research findings should be
disseminated. Advocates of this perspective recognise that research, outcomes in
themselves will not bring about meaningful political and social transformation, but
that they must reinforce and help stimulate further the demand for change.
Hence, the main targets for emancipatory disability research are disabled people
and their allies. Here again the BCODP research on discrimination provides a
useful example. The data from the project were disseminated in various forms and
formats. This included presentations by all those involved in the research project
at numerous venues and locations throughout the UK and Europe during 1992–
93, the production of various articles in journals, magazines and the popular press
and an eight-page summary leaflet: the latter was produced in Braille and on tape
for people with visual impairments. Two thousand leaflets were produced and
distributed free of charge to all BCODP groups and supporters during 1992–93.
(Some of the printed material is now available on the Internet via the disability
archive UK: www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/index). In this way, the
research made an important contribution to the further politicisation of disable
people both in the UK, and across Europe.

The book that BCODP produced in 1991 on disabled people and discrimina-
tion in the UK has been the basis for people’s thought throughout Europe . . .
It is a very important book.
(Hurst 1995: 95)

I would argue that this particular piece of research played a crucial role in getting
anti-discrimination legislation on to the statute books in the UK. I would also
contend that the production and dissemination of the numerous projects on direct
payments and personal assistance schemes generated by disabled people’s organisa-
tions, only some of which are cited here, provided substance to the argument for
the introduction of the 1996 Community Care (Direct Payments) Act. This is not
to suggest that these projects by themselves are responsible for these outcomes, they
certainly are not, but they did provide some credence to the growing demand for
the policy changes put forward by disabled activists and their confederates. And,
in so doing, they made an important contribution to the further mobilisation of
the disabled people’s movement. However, whether the policy outcomes in terms
54 Colin Barnes

of the changes to the law will live up to disabled people’s expectations is another
matter. There is now growing concern within the disabled people’s movement
over the incorporation of disability issues into the mainstream political process
and what is seen as the effective neutralisation of the radicalism that once char-
acterised Britain’s disabled people’s movement (Coalition 2000a,b). But whether
such concerns can engender the demand for further research is something that dis-
abled people and their organisations must decide for themselves. It is important
to remember here that doing emancipatory disability research cannot and should
not be conceived in terms of a unitary project or, indeed, a group of projects, but
rather as an ongoing process (Barnes 2001) the organisation and content of which
can only be determined by disabled people and their organisations.

Conclusion
Much has changed over the last ten or so years in the field of disability research.
There can be little doubt that the arrival of the social model of disability and
the emancipatory research paradigm has had an important impact on agencies
and researchers currently engaged in disability research. Where once the disability
research agenda was subject almost exclusively to the interests and whims of politi-
cians, policy makers and professional academies, now the situation is somewhat
different. Due to a combination of factors including the burgeoning disabled peo-
ple’s movement and the activities of a small but influential group of predominantly
disabled writers and researchers, the space has been created within the research
establishment for researchers to pursue an implicitly, if not explicitly, emancipatory
disability research agenda if they so wish. For the reasons identified here this is not
a particularly easy task. For researchers to espouse a specifically partisan approach to
researching disability, or any remotely controversial area of enquiry for that matter,
carries with it certain risks that must be carefully considered before the adoption
of such a position. Nonetheless, the argument presented here suggests that when
directly linked to disabled people’s ongoing struggle for change, doing emancipa-
tory disability research can have a meaningful impact on their empowerment and
the policies that effect their lives. Whether or not there is a future for this approach
depends on several factors, not least of which is the future of Britain’s disabled
people’s movement and, of course, the support available to those who choose to
adopt and nurture its development within institutions and universities that aspire
to conduct disability research.

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Page Intentionally Left Blank
Part II

New voices and

relationships
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Chapter 5

Research by children
Priscilla Alderson

Introduction
This chapter draws on a rapidly growing international literature about research
by children. There are a few examples from my work with children, but most
examples come from the semi-published ‘grey literature’ of newsletters and reports
by voluntary organizations. ‘Children’ is an awkward word to cover teenagers, but
is used to emphasize how young children can also be involved. Three main areas
will be discussed: stages of the research process at which children can be involved as
actors; levels of children’s participation; and the use of methods which can increase
children’s informed involvement in research, thereby respecting their rights.
For professional researchers to work with child co-researchers poses extra ethical
and scientific questions. Can they work together on reasonably equal, informed
and unpressured terms? How much should professional researchers intervene to
support children or to control the research? How can adults avoid exploiting or
manipulating children? Should children be paid? How much must or should their
gate keepers – parents or teachers – be involved? And who should have final control
over the data and reports?
The idea of seeing the previously ‘researched’ adult subject as a co-researcher,
who helps to produce and analyse data and validate research reports, has long been
acknowledged (Bloor 1976; Acker et al. 1983), along with the complications for
professional researchers who try to work with ‘lay’ people who have different per-
spectives and priorities. Arguments proposed by feminist and black researchers for
the new insights they can bring when they do research about their own group also
apply to children. However, Rhodes (1994) warned about problems of attempting
to match black researchers with black subjects. Such efforts risk marginalizing and
devaluing the researchers, black people and all their concerns. Other dimensions
of inequality between researchers and subjects may be more salient than colour,
thus limiting the matching attempts and possibly obscuring important inequalities.
Rhodes’ view that black researchers should be involved at all stages of research and
a general range of topics also applies to children.
Smith (1988: 181–205) did not treat her women subjects as co-researchers, but
she consciously showed the advantages and difficulties of taking their ‘standpoint’
62 Priscilla Alderson

as a mother herself like them. She challenged the ‘peculiar eclipsing’ of women
within men’s culture, in order to theorize and shed new light on mothers’ ‘hidden
work’ which supports their child’s schooling. Unconsciously, Smith also showed
how adult-centric research can silence children as powerfully as the male-dominated
research, which she criticized, silenced women. For example, mothers’ contact with
children is conceptualized as ‘work’, such as ‘getting the kids off to school’ (Smith
1988: 188), not as friendship, companionship, shared enjoyment or reciprocal sup-
port. Children then implicitly appear as dependent receivers of adult child-work,
and not as competent contributors. In Smith’s account, while mothers and teachers
‘work’ to ‘shape’ and ‘manage’ children, children reactively ‘perform’ and thereby
‘reflect’ the quality of mothering or teaching they receive, in a curiously mechan-
ical and non-interactive way. Children’s own views, their informed consent, and
the effects of the research on them, are not mentioned. Thus, inadvertently, Smith
makes a strong case for conducting ‘standpoint’ research about children and with
them, and illustrates how generation can be as vital a dimension for theoretical anal-
ysis as gender or ethnicity (Mayall 1994). Smith and other feminists such as Oakley
(1981) advocated research for and by women, and not simply about them. Lay
researchers may be adults or children although children are inevitably ‘lay’. When
they research their own specific sub-groups, they can further develop research
methods and theories with and by seldom-heard groups (Pratt and Loizos 1992;
West 1997).
Such research is sometimes justified because it addresses power imbalances in the
research relationship. Seven 16 year-olds, who did a short training and then tape-
recorded interviews about ‘my stay in hospital’ with children aged 10 to 12 years,
discussed these issues during their follow-up meeting. One interviewer commented:

The boy I talked to was brain damaged, and he kept jumping around and on
and off the bench. But he still kept talking and I think it was a good interview.
It didn’t matter, because I’m only 16, whereas if I’d been an adult I think I
would have had to make him behave more quietly, and I don’t think he would
have told me so much then.
(Alderson 1995: 108)

Peer research is also justified in terms of efficiency in that it encourages closer

intimacy and fuller discussion between researchers and researched, and fuller under-
standing of the data. There is a danger that researchers will over-identify with
interviewees and assume they understand too much, they may take replies for
granted and lose their ‘enquiring outsider’ stance. Yet shared knowledge can be an
advantage. Another of the 16-year-old interviewers said:

I found it a great help that I’d been in hospital. I could think of lots more things
to ask her about, and I think I know what she meant, such as when she said
there weren’t any nurses there at night time. We both knew that there were
nurses there, but it felt like you were left all alone, and they don’t come when
you call them, and Sophia was afraid of waking the other children. I know
 Research by children 63

that I might mix up some of her answers with my own experience, but I think
on the whole it was helpful to know so much about what she was saying.

The young interviewers talked extensively about differences between their own
position and those of their interviewees however closely they identified with them,
and about finding a balance between encouraging interviewees to talk but not being
too intrusively probing. They felt some issues could be raised when the children
could partly identify with their young interviewers, as when Deeana aged ten years
emphasized during her taped interview:

They (adults) didn’t listen to me, ‘cos I was only a child. They don’t listen
when you’re only a child. They should listen to children. . . .
(Alderson 1995: 109)

Rights and research by children

An explicit and implicit theme within peer research is respect for the researched
group and for their own views and abilities. Respect links closely to rights, and
conventions about rights offer a principled yet flexible means of justifying and
extending respectful practices (Spencer 1998). Rights conventions with quasi-
legal status provide formal justification for observing ethical standards in research.
Growing awareness of the rights of children, and other ‘minority’ groups including
women, has paved the way for involving children as researchers.
Internationally, children’s rights took on a new dimension when so-called
participation rights were added to traditional rights to protection from neglect and
abuse and to provision of goods and services. Until recently, research about chil-
dren reflected earlier priorities, by measuring the effects of provision – health or
education interventions – in their lives, or exploring children’s protection needs as
assessed by adults, or by investigating children’s gradual development and socializa-
tion towards adult competence. However, children’s participation rights, enshrined
in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989’s 54 Articles, involve
moderate versions of adult autonomy rights and concern children taking part more
equally, in activities and decisions which affect them. The convention says that
state parties should assure
To the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express
those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being
given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
(Article 12)

There is also the right

To freedom of expression [including] freedom to seek, review and impart infor-

mation and ideas of all kind . . . through any other media of the child’s choice.
(Article 13)
64 Priscilla Alderson

Rights complement yet also conflict with one another . . . . Children’s rights are
qualified in being not absolute but conditional, affected by the ‘evolving capacities
of the child’, the ‘responsibilities, rights and duties of parents’ (Article 5) and the
national law. ‘The best interests of the child must be the primary consideration’
(Articles 1, 21). Rights cannot be exercised in ways which would harm the child
or other people. They must ‘respect the rights and reputations of others’, as well
as ‘national security and public order, health and morals’ (Article 13). The rights
are not about selfish individualism but about solidarity, social justice and fair distri-
bution because rights express everyone’s equal entitlement, and affirm the worth
and dignity of every person. Respect for children’s rights promotes ‘social progress
and better standards of life in larger freedom’ (preamble of the convention). Every
government except the United States has ratified the convention, undertaking to
publicize it ‘to adults and children alike’, to implement it in law, policy and practice,
and to report regularly to the UN on progress in doing so.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in accordance with Article 12 are
developing research with and by children. Other likely influences on children’s
greater participation in research include: the aftermath of the English Gillick rul-
ing in 1985 that competent children aged under 16 can give valid consent; new
approaches in the sociology of childhood to children as competent social actors,
no longer simply subsumed under adult-dominated headings such as the family
(Qvortrup et al. 1994; James and Prout 1997) publicity about the youngest children’s
competencies in many areas of life (Hutchby and Moran Ellis 1998; Alderson 2000).
Recent enquiries in England into mismanagement of children’s heart treatment and
the removal of deceased babies organs re-emphasize the importance of practitioners
and researchers requesting informed consent before they intervene. These medico-
legal concerns about children’s rights to physical and mental integrity are likely to
filter into social research in time, although the British Education Research Asso-
ciation (1992) does not even mention children’s consent in its ethical guidelines.
Respect for children’s participation recognizes them as subjects rather than objects
of research, who ‘speak’ in their own right and report valid views and experiences.
(‘Speaking’ may involve sign language and other expressive body language and
sounds, such as those made by children with autism and severe learning difficulties
(Alderson and Goodey 1998).) To involve children more directly in research can
rescue them from silence and exclusion, and from being represented, by default, as
passive objects, while respect for their informed and voluntary consent can help to
protect them from covert, invasive, exploitative or abusive research.
Researchers’ over-complicated or poorly explained terms, topics and methods
can misleadingly make children (and adults) appear to be ignorant or incapable.
Another obstacle in conducting research with children concerns infantilizing them,
perceiving and treating them as immature and inadvertently producing evidence
to reinforce notions of their incompetence. This can include ‘talking down’ to
children, using over-simple words and concepts, restricting them into making only
superficial responses, and involving only inexperienced children and not those with
intense relevant experience who could give much deeper responses. Some young
 Research by children 65

children help adult researchers to set more appropriate levels of talk (Alderson 1993;
Solberg 1997) and child researchers may be better able to think of appropriate topics,
questions and terms for child interviewees. When children are seen as actors in the
social construction and determination of their own lives, the lives of those around
them and of their society (James and Prout 1997), they may be more conscious of
the importance of respecting the other children who help with their research. The
rest of this chapter considers how they can be active researchers.

Children as researchers
Research is part of everyday life in schools I have visited. Five-year olds made graphs
about pets owned by their classmates, 16-year olds tape-recorded interviews with
their friends about their parents’ divorce or researched local allotments threatened
with closure by checking local authority records and observing council meetings.
Ten-year olds gathered materials to design a pond for the school. In such examples,
learning, the main occupation for everyone at school or college, overlaps with
research, but the wealth of research in schools is almost entirely unpublished and
so cannot be reviewed in this chapter.
Research in schools tends to be seen as practising rather than worthwhile in its
own right, but sometimes it is linked to highly valued activities. In Uganda, through
the Child-to-Child Trust which promotes peer education, 600 children at a village
primary school became concerned that animals used the main well-pond. They
spoke with the village leader who called a meeting where the children presented
poems and dramas on their research about the value of clean water. As a result,
children and adults worked together on cleaning the well-pond and building fence
to keep out the animals, then they celebrated with food and music (International
Save the Children Alliance 1995: 236).
A second way in which children are involved in research is in projects designed
and conducted by adults. However, besides providing data in their traditional role as
research subjects, some children help to plan questions, and collect, analyse or report
evidence, or publicize the findings. For example, ‘on an accident-prone housing
estate, teenagers had little to say about the kinds of events we (the researchers) had
thought of as accidents. Nor did they respond well to the notion of safety or safe-
keeping. In the end we asked them what our opening question should be. “Ask us
about our scars”, they replied. So we did, and it resulted in animated and detailed
information about a number of accident events’ (Roberts et al. 1995: 34).
The teenagers’ initial responses might have been used to confirm assumptions
about their ignorance and incompetence. In contrast, the partnership approach
helped to develop new theories and methods for research about accidents and their
prevention, and produced conclusions, and further projects with younger children.
Children frequently enquire, scrutinize, accept unexpected results, revise their
ideas, and assume that their knowledge is incomplete and provisional. Pre-school
children ask basic questions about philosophy and method, and by five years have
worked out basic understandings which last a lifetime (Tizzard and Hughes 1984;
66 Priscilla Alderson

Gardner 1993; Lipman 1993). Very young children can share in making group
decisions and agreeing on priorities (Miller 1997).
The third area is research which is mainly initiated and directed by children
and teenagers (Article 12 1999; PEG 1998a,b; West 1997). Methods of involving
unschooled adults as researchers, such as through participatory rural appraisal (Pratt
and Loizos 1992), are also used effectively with and by children (Johnson et al.
1995, 1998).The following sections review the stages, levels and methods through
which children are involved as researchers.

Stages of research when children are involved

Research by children tends to expand the research process through paying great
attention to the initial and follow-up stages, as well as to the central stages of col-
lecting, reporting and analysing data. The early stages include selecting and setting
up the research team and sample groups, avoiding tokenism, working out team and
power relationships and ways of resolving problems as they arise, jointly deciding
the agenda, aims, methods and payments in cash or in kind (e.g. Cockburn et al.
1997). Follow-up stages include publicity, and efforts to link the findings into pol-
icy and practice to change the world, ‘We want to show this to the social workers/
planning officers/Department for Education/the United Nations’, may be explicit
initial aims (West 1997; PEG 1998a; Article 12 1999). The national movement of
street children in Brazil, for example, during the late 1980s, influenced the drafting
of federal and municipal laws which enshrine children’s rights based on research
they had conducted (Save the Children 1995). The following examples illustrate
work at various stages of research.
The Participation and Education Group (1998a) researched how unhealthy
schools can be. The replies to the 14 questions, from 187 young people aged
from 5 to 25, vividly combine physical with mental health: ‘If you can’t do the
work you get picked on and called thick. You feel sick and bad.’ The lively research
report includes graphs and pie charts, poems, quotations and strong recommen-
dations. The Group made dramatic presentations about their research to health
professionals and to the Department for Education. They use the equal opportu-
nity methods promoted in assertion training and by rights workers (Treseder 1997)
which challenges assumptions that children are inevitably vulnerable. For exam-
ple, 11-year-old boys wrote the agenda and chaired a meeting of people aged from
8 years upwards, to plan a conference. They stated the rules of listening with respect,
and the adults were politely reminded not to interrupt or talk down to children,
and everyone had a turn to speak to questions such as: Why are we having this
meeting? What did you get out of the meeting? (PEG 1998b).
Bangladeshi young people researched the play and leisure needs of Bangladeshi
children in Camden, London, taking account literally of a low-down child’s eye
view (Howarth 1997). They discovered why so few children used public play
facilities and recommended how to make them more safe and attractive. In another
project, children aged 3–8 years used cameras and did surveys and interviews about
 Research by children 67

children’s views on improving their housing estate. They published an illustrated

report, which they discussed with local authority officers who used some of their
recommendations, such as putting the playground in the centre of the estate, not
on the edge and beyond busy peripheral roads as the adults had planned (Miller
1997).
Young people also help to disseminate research memorably. At the launch at the
British Library of a report on pupil democracy in Europe (Davies and Kirkpatrick
2000), school students from Denmark and Sweden described the rights they enjoyed
which are less-respected in many British schools. Then Emma and James from
Article 12 sternly told the audience to stand up. ‘Sit down all of you who are
chewing gum’, ordered Emma. ‘And anyone who has not turned off their mobile
phone.’ An eminent government adviser sat down. ‘And anyone wearing jewellery.’
After ten commands almost all the audience was seated. ‘If you were at school, you
would have a detention and might be told not to attend school next day. But
this has nothing to do with education, so why do schools keep doing this?’ Emma
continued. At the end of their presentation, Emma again ordered everyone to stand
and then to sit down if they disagreed with any of her ten statements. These were
about making schools more democratic and nearly everyone remained standing,
except for the government adviser who sat down at the second statement: ‘the
convention on the rights of the child should be part of the national curriculum’.
Article 12 vividly demonstrated how out of touch government policy on citizenship
education was with most people attending the conference.

Levels of children’s involvement

‘Child-centred research’ is a term that can loosely cover methods, stages or levels
of children’s involvement (Connolly and Ennew 1996). A crucial element is how
adults share or hold back knowledge and control. The different levels of control-
sharing and of children’s participation have been compared with rungs on a ladder
(Arnstein 1969; Hart 1997). The lowest levels are the pretence of shared work:
manipulation, decoration and tokenism. The next levels which involve actual par-
ticipation are children being assigned to tasks but at least also being informed about
them; children being consulted and informed; and adults imitating but also sharing
decisions with children. The top two levels are projects more fully initiated and
directed by children. A single project may work at several levels. The ladder image
can help to reveal how far children are or could be participating.
Yet involving them is complicated by inevitable structures in research. Funders
seldom fund the important initial stages of contacting young people and sharing
initial planning with them. Even after such costly and time-consuming work, the
project proposal has the same low chance of being funded as any other research,
and during the months before grants are agreed, children and adults may move on
to other interests. Despite their new interest in involving ‘users’, funders usually
still require very detailed plans before they make grants, which allows little scope
for children to develop ideas through the project.
68 Priscilla Alderson

Levels of participation are affected, for example, by children’s capacities to

understand theories. Can they understand critical analysis, or the politics of racism?
A report of a class of 7-year olds demonstrates that some can (Butler 1998). Their
teacher describes how conscious these black children in downtown Chicago became
of racial, economic and political oppressions, as they discussed their own experi-
ences intensely in class. When other topics were raised, they would say, ‘That’s
nice, but what does that have to do with peace and power?’ ‘How you gonna
help your Brothers and Sisters by talking about that?’ They analysed contradic-
tions between the rhetoric and reality in their lives, the social pressures that restrict
individual agency, and how they can work for social justice, power, unity and
community change. Their examples suggest that, with help, young children are
able to share in the more complex aspects of research like planning and theoretical
analysis.

Methods used by young researchers

Child researchers use a wide range of methods, from selecting topics, questions,
samples and observation sites through data collection to analysis and reporting,
dissemination and policy discussions (e.g. Ash et al. 1997; Article 12 1999; Beresford
1997; Johnson et al. 1995, 1998; Kenny and Cockburn 1997; PEG 1998a,b; Save
the Children 1996, 1997; Wellard et al. 1997). Research reports by young groups
range from long typed reports (West 1997) to a simple poster or wall newspaper,
a video or photographic exhibition, with reports and drawings by the whole team
or from smaller groups (Johnson et al. 1995; Howarth 1997) or to work on anti-
poverty or anti-racist measures (Centre for Citizenship Studies in Education n.d.;
Willow 1997). They may use complex methods, like Emily Rosa, aged 9, who
designed an elegant randomized trial of 21 therapeutic touch healers who took
part in 280 tests. The healers put their hands through holes in a screen, and Emily
spun a coin to determine whether she held her hands just about their left or right
hand, to see if the healers felt the energy fields through which they claimed to heal.
Accuracy would have to be well above 50 per cent to demonstrate sensitivity, but
was under 50 per cent. Experts praised this simple design that casts strong doubt on
the healers’ claims; previously, complicated expensive trials had compared patients’
healing rates after therapeutic touch and orthodox treatments (Rosa 1998).
Young researchers around England used Open College training materials to
conduct ambitious projects. School girls investigating children’s participation rights
decided to interview in six North-East local authorities: the Directors of Education,
Social and Leisure Services, the Chief Executives and Council Leaders and some
Assistant Chief Constables. They had only one refusal. They piloted interviews with
a senior researcher who thought they ‘were brilliant’ and that he would not have
been able to arrange the access, which they achieved (Allan Siddall, personal com-
munication). The girls discussed the merits of qualitative and quantitative methods
when analysing their interviews, and considered how their evidence clearly showed
that the officers’ rhetoric did not fit the reality.
 Research by children 69

Another example of methods is text analysis. On the Children’s Express, the

reporters, aged 8–13, conduct penetrating interviews, and the editors are aged
14–18. Most of them come ‘from backgrounds which offer little opportunity’, and
they publish reports in many newspapers and magazines. Twenty-seven of them
monitored 400 stories in the national press to find that every article stereotyped
children – as victims, cute, evil, exceptionally excelling, corrupted, as accessories
to adults or as ‘brave little angels’. They held a conference in 1998 Kids these days
to publicize their research (Neustatter 1998).
Working with a writer-in-residence (myself ) six 10–11-year olds worked on
a book about their unusual school. They reported and discussed many aspects of
the school, surveyed and interviewed pupils and staff, helped to plan the chapter
headings and organize the material, and provided much of the text (Cleves 1999).
Research reports involving a range of media and methods have been produced, for
example, by a group supported by the National Children’s Bureau (Tolley et al.
1998), and by Article 12 (1999), a group run for and by people aged up to 18 years.
They reviewed how well the UN Convention’s Article 12, children’s rights to
express their views, is put into practice across the UK. Their report, to accompany
the British government’s regular account to the UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child, was intended to let the Committee ‘know the truth’. It includes ‘research
tips for young people’, with points such as, ‘Don’t lose the plot. Debate when an
adult is needed to help, if so in what areas?’ Rather than assess these reports, I have
listed a range of examples so that readers may form their own views about them.

Research and play . . .

A striking aspect of children’s research is the combining of work and play. They
use ‘ice-breaking’ sessions to help one another to feel confident and relaxed, more
willing to listen and risk sharing ideas, with less fear of being dismissed (Johnson
et al. 1995; Tresedar 1997). To enjoy being together as well as working together helps
to sustain the enthusiasm of children who are usually volunteers. Play methods can
enhance children’s research imagination. Talking about ‘let’s pretend’ can involve
young children in planning improvements in playgrounds and nurseries (Miller
1997). One well-illustrated pack produced with children shows how to promote
genuine participation, negotiation and power sharing through games, with details
on promoting equal opportunities and ‘chat space methods’ (Save the Children and
Kirklees 1996). Young children can be good at listening, questioning, challenging,
keeping to the point, and helping each other to learn and develop ideas (McNamara
and Moreton 1997). Topics and ideas are selected and noted in words or pictures
on large sheets and everyone has coloured sticky dots to put beside the most-liked
items. It is one of several transparent, fun ways to assess opinions. Very young or
unschooled children can contribute detailed data through their songs and dreams, by
making models, drawings or maps about their daily mobility and routines (Johnson
et al. 1995, 1998; Boyden and Ennew 1997) or about their local wild life (Hart
1997: 98). As play is so flexible, and sometimes subversively creative, it enables
70 Priscilla Alderson

children to contribute who might otherwise remain silent, hostile or bored during
a project.
However, there are risks of play turning into a diversion which interrupts the
serious research work which the children might want to do in ‘adult’ ways. Play
can also be confusing if, for example, an adult says to children, ‘We’re going to
have fun and play these games so that you can find out from each other about
bullying’. The children might take this introduction seriously and concentrate on
the fun and play, and the adults might then conclude that the children are incapable
of investigating bullying without informing the children and giving them practical
opportunities to show and develop their research skills.

Research and work

Action research can involve learning from difficulties, planning projects, collecting
and applying new knowledge, publicizing the research products (like food and
news in the next examples) and testing public responses. During their monthly
meetings in New Delhi, the street boys realized that they spent 75 per cent of
their money on food. Twelve boys aged 7–17, took an intensive ten day course
on cooking, nutrition, cleanliness, looking after customers and book-keeping, and
had help with renting a space for a restaurant. They gave free food to some street
children and learned Chinese cooking to expand the menu (International Save the
Children Alliance 1995: 239). In Sarajevo in 1993, 18 editors aged 10–13-years ran
a radio programme, Colourful Wall, with an estimated audience of 80 per cent of all
the citizens. They conducted polls of children’s views and based their programme
planning on the results. Children brought news items to 15 press centres through
the city. Many schools were closed at the time, and many children were injured
and bereaved. The programme carried education, entertainment and psychological
support for them, with counsellors, a personal column section and a daily slot on
children’s rights. The young disc jockeys were especially popular and, like the New
Delhi boys, were keen to evaluate and expand their work. Children are more likely
to be involved in practical research as workers, and to be regarded and respected
as workers, in countries with high levels of child labour, and in war-torn countries
with a shortage of adult workers.
Rights are sometimes criticized as a Western, Anglo-American concept, too
individualistic and egotistical to fit, for example, Eastern communities. Yet
Bangladeshi street children suggest that the people who are most conscious of rights
to justice, to respect for the child’s worth and dignity, to speak and to be heard
are those whose rights are least respected (Khan 1997). Eleven researchers aged
10–15 years interviewed 51 street children aged 7–15 years and, being illiterate,
they narrated all they could remember to adults transcribers. The young researchers
were staying in a shelter and training to be tailors, carpenters and rickshaw repair-
ers; previously they had been rag pickers, sex workers and house servants. They
planned the research methods and questions, data analysis and recommendations,
and they listened to and checked every word of the four research reports.
 Research by children 71

After much discussion the young researchers identified 11 issues they thought
most important after comparing and synthesizing many issues from their interview
data. It is striking that only two issues are about material resources – food and
education. Their main concerns are for their human rights and the main problems
they want to stop are as listed here:

(1) torture by police;

(2) torture by muscle men (also theft, and being forced to deal drugs, sex work);
(3) misbehaviour of adults (name calling, never using child’s own name, chasing
children away);
(4) dislike present job;
(5) cannot get job without a guardian;
(6) marriage problems of girls (even slum girls can get husband, even street boys
would not marry bad dirty street girls);
(7) uncertain future (older girls cannot stay on street but no where else to go);
(8) poor income, cheated by adult traders, dirty rotten food;
(9) street girls are hated as they are involved in bad things (adults force children
to do bad things then punish and blame even innocent ones);
(10) cannot protest against injustice without relatives’ help; and
(11) no education (though they want part-time vocational training rather than
schooling).

It is rare for intended beneficiaries of international aid programmes to be asked for

their views, still rarer for them to present research reports of their peers’ views. The
Bangladeshi children’s answers challenge global aid programmes by their requests
for minimal help to make realistic improvements in their daily lives. They also
show how adults may not know children’s best interests without consulting them.
Sometimes, as this research shows, adults themselves are the worst problems for
children, as well as being part of the potential solution. Individually and on the
largest international scale, this small study illustrates the importance of listening
respectfully to young people’s views when planning services intended to help them.

Discussion
I set out to write a chapter on ethics and rights in research about children, which
kept turning into a chapter on research by children. This chapter simply explores
key issues in a new area, a prelude to more systematic and extensive evaluations
and does not attempt to provide firm answers to the questions in the introduction,
but rather to include them in this early mapping. A brief initial review reveals
impressive skill, knowledge and dedication among young researchers, but to avoid
presenting too glowing an account, this chapter ends with a few points about the
problems and advantages of research by children.
Researchers of all ages and experience tend to produce pristine reports which
gloss over the numerous inevitable difficulties during the research process, such
72 Priscilla Alderson

as matching funding to costs, gaining access, maintaining records, managing

teamwork, meeting deadlines and many other complications. Added to these, for
young and lay adult researchers, are their inexperienced and usually unpaid status
(Pratt and Loizos 1992), so that they themselves, their research subjects, and their
professional colleagues may doubt that they are adequate to the task. Yet these latter
types of difficulties appear to arise through social expectations rather than through
any integral inadequacies in young researchers, indeed, their projects reported so
far challenge traditional under-estimations. The importance of training and sup-
porting young researchers and helping them to achieve high standards is stressed
by one reviewer (Kirby 1999) who recommends careful training (Worrall 2000).
However, almost all the useful points would apply to novice researchers of any age.
How much professional researchers should intervene to support them or to con-
trol the research, and how they can avoid exploiting or manipulating children, as
in the participation ladders mentioned earlier, will depend on informed negotia-
tion within each team, with generous time allowed for frank discussions. Adults
are concerned about how much to encourage young researchers to analyse their
interviewees’ responses critically, and to distinguish between rhetoric and reality.
An advantage in formally funded NGO projects is that they tend to involve dis-
advantaged young researchers with practical experience of the services they are
investigating. Payment is especially controversial, with uncertainty about how
much time children can be expected to give to research beyond the work they may
already do at school, at home or outside the home, or begging, whether they should
be paid in cash or in kind, and how to meet extra expenses for young researchers,
their adult escorts and their assistants if they are disabled. Many professional research
teams dispute ownership over data and publication rights; it is helpful to agree these
early during a project, ensuring that the young people are properly informed before
they decide. Working with child researchers does not simply resolve problems of
power, exploitation or coercion. Methods need to be planned, tested, evaluated
and developed with them, to turn problems into opportunities for children and
adults to increase their skill and knowledge.
To summarize the advantages the growing literature on children as researchers
suggests that children are an under-estimated, under-used resource. Just as research
about women has become far more insightful because women are involved as
researchers, the scope of research about children could be expanded by involving
children as researchers in many methods, levels and stages of the process. Children
are the primary source of knowledge about their own views and experiences. They
can be a means of access to other children, including those who may be protected
from access by strange adults, such as Muslim girls (Johnson et al. 1995). The
novelty and immediacy of children’s research reports can attract greater publicity
and interest in using the findings than much adult research does. Doing research
helps children (perhaps disadvantaged ones especially) to gain more skills, con-
fidence and possibly determination to overcome their disadvantages than adult
researchers working on their behalf could give them. Adult researchers note their
surprise at child researchers’ competence, and describe plans to do more complicated
 Research by children 73

work with children as well as to work with younger children in future. Adult
researchers frequently emphasize the value of listening to children, a point that is
made more effectively when children can express themselves through doing the
relevant research.
As more children’s research is published, the dangers of ignoring their views
(Cooter 1992) and the benefits of working with them become more obvious.
Funding bodies increasingly expect researchers to work closely with user groups.
This has potential disadvantages when powerful commercial or professional bodies
prevent researchers from being adventurous, independent and critical. Working
with young researchers to consult children, as the largest ‘user group’ of research
affecting them, can help to redress inter-generation imbalances of power, open up
new directions for research, respect their rights, and draw on children’s unique
perspectives to inform social policy and practice.

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Chapter 6

The ethical and methodological

complexities of doing research
with ‘vulnerable’ young people
Gill Valentine, Ruth Butler and Tracey Skelton

Recent studies of children and young people have drawn attention to the fact
that youth is not a homogeneous group (Cohen 1997). Indeed, there is increas-
ing evidence that some groups of young people find the period of transition from
childhood to adulthood particularly difficult and as such are at risk of failing at
school, of becoming estranged from their families and of experiencing homeless-
ness, unemployment and social isolation (Coles 1997). The term ‘vulnerable youth’
(Coles 1997: 81) has been coined to describe those who have a greater likelihood
of becoming socially excluded in these ways. In this chapter we focus on some
of the methodological and ethical issues involved in working with one particular
‘vulnerable’ group: lesbians and gay young people.
These young people are ‘vulnerable’ because lesbian and gay sexualities are largely
stigmatised identities. In most Western countries anti-discrimination legislation
does not cover sexual minorities, lesbian and gay relationships have only limited
recognition before the law and homophobia is still commonplace (Valentine 1993,
1996a). As a result children who begin to experience same-sex desire or to identify
as lesbian and gay (research suggests that young people tend to become aware of their
sexual orientation between the ages of 10 and 16) can feel very confused and isolated.
It is common for them to internalise negative representations of homosexuality and
as a consequence to be too ashamed or fearful of rejection to ‘come out’ to friends
and family members (Hunter et al. 1998). This in turn can make them vulnerable to
low self-esteem, depression and self-hatred. Numerous studies suggest that lesbian
and gay youth are at high risk of making suicide attempts (McBee and Rogers
1997; Savin-Williams 1998). For example, in a study of members of lesbian, gay
and bisexual youth groups in the USA and Canada, Proctor and Groze (1994)
found that over 40 per cent had attempted suicide at least once, while a further
26 per cent had seriously contemplated it. While many young people who ‘come
out’ have positive experiences, it is also commonplace for children to be rejected
by their families and to face bullying and victimisation from their peers (Nardi and
Bolton 1998; Valentine et al. 2000).
Given the specific ways in which lesbian and gay young people are marginalised,
there is obviously a need for research to explore how such processes can be resisted
 Research with ‘vulnerable’ young people 77

and how appropriate support can be provided for them. Commonly, academics
carrying out research with young people are able to contact them and to work
with them either at school or in the ‘family’ home (Valentine 1999). Yet, the very
nature of lesbian and gay young people’s vulnerability means that both of these
environments are potentially difficult spaces in which to access and work with this
group. Here we use examples from our own research project with young lesbian
and gay men aged 16–24 from two towns. One town in the Midlands and one in
the north of England are used to examine in detail the specific methodological and
ethical issues that arise in the locations of the school and home when sexuality is
the topic under investigation.

The school
In 1988 the UK’s Conservative government passed a Local Government Act which
included a section dealing with the question of homosexuality in schools. Section 28
stated that a local authority shall not: (1) intentionally promote homosexuality or
publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; or (2) promote
the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as
a pretended family relationship. In the debates which surrounded the introduc-
tion of this law the moral right constructed heterosexuality as ‘natural’ but also
paradoxically as precarious in that their support for this legislation implied a recog-
nition that teenagers’ sexuality is not biologically fixed, but rather is emergent and
as such subject to influence. In the eyes of the moral right, information about
homosexuality might corrupt children’s ‘innocence’ and incite them to engage in
‘inappropriate’ sexual activity. As such they argued that the emphasis on school sex
education should be firmly on heterosexual monogamy and the biological facts of
reproduction (Gordon et al. 2000; Thorogood 2000). Indeed, sex education guide-
lines which are being developed by the current Labour government in conjunction
with churches are expected to stress the importance of marriage and family life
(Department for Education and Employment 2000).
Although a prosecution has never been brought under Section 28 of the Local
Government Act 1988, nonetheless it remained on the statute books in England
and Wales until November 2003 (it was repealed in Scotland in 2000) and has
had a profound impact on teachers. In a study of 307 schools commissioned by
Stonewall and the Terrence Higgins Trust, Douglas et al. (1997) found that 82 per
cent were aware of homophobic bullying within the institution. However, while
99 per cent of the schools had an anti-bullying policy in place, only 6 per cent
had a specific anti-homophobic bullying policy. In the following quotations, Bob
(now aged 20) describes his experiences of bullying and his teachers’ reluctance to
address the way he was treated by his peers:

it [homophobic bullying] started up in year 10 and it put me right off my

studies, I used to really enjoy school up until I got into secondary school,
I used to, I used to love it but then I got to secondary school and I hated it,
78 Valentine et al.

I just wanted it to be over, I just thought, I just can’t do this, I was glad the day
I walked out, I know I got really, really, poor grades. They did, they’d hear
it, they, they’d sort of half heartedly tell the students off, but they didn’t mean
it, deep down they weren’t bothered, either way, it was like oh stop being
homophobic but they wouldn’t take the, they’d say oh stop saying that about
that person or whatever, but they wouldn’t say stop being homophobic, they’d
just say oh you shouldn’t say that about people, so they, they weren’t really
bothered. I think there was one or two teachers that knew about homophobia
but again they were scared, I think they were scared of saying anything.

The explanation for such failures to acknowledge or respond to homophobia is

found in Epstein’s (2000) research. This suggests that both heterosexual and lesbian
and gay teachers were unsure about the parameters of Section 28, and that as
a result of their uncertainty and confusion they feel inhibited about discussing
homosexuality within the classroom, or responding to cases of homophobia lest
they break the law. Given the legal history of Section 28, it is not surprising that
headteachers are fearful of entertaining research about homosexuality within their
schools.
Even it if were possible to get beyond cautious gatekeepers it is unlikely that
lesbian and gay young people would be willing to come forward and partici-
pate in such research. Children have to negotiate their individuality within the
context of intense pressure to conform with their peers (James 1993). While
the location of children within narratives of identity predicated on ‘innocence’
(Valentine 1996b) tends to ‘nurture an apparent desexualisation of schools as
institutions’ (Epstein and Johnson 1998: 217), numerous studies have demon-
strated that the school is an environment saturated with heterosexuality (Mac an
Ghaill 1994; Holland et al. 1998; Holloway et al. 2000; Hyams 2000; Valentine
2000).
Sex and sexuality are important in a whole repertoire of student–student and
even student–teacher interactions, including name calling, flirting, harassment,
homophobic abuse, playground conversation, graffiti, dress codes and so on
(Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1995). Lesbian and gay pupils commonly expe-
rience harassment and social exclusion at the hands of their peers (Epstein and
Johnson 1998; Khayatt 1994; Epstein 1994). Abusive terms such as ‘poof’ are also
levelled at those children who are not gay, but who do not fit in with hege-
monic understandings of masculinity and femininity for other reasons (Haywood
and Mac an Ghaill 1995; Holloway et al. 2000). Indeed, children also use simi-
lar accusations of homosexuality in a derogatory way to harass teachers (Lahelma
et al. 2000). Consequently, in the face of the overwhelming heterosexuality of
young people’s peer group cultures and the stigmatisation of lesbian and gay
sexualities, to ask young people to identify themselves as gay in school-based
research would be tantamount to putting them at risk of bullying and social
exclusion.
 Research with ‘vulnerable’ young people 79

The ‘family’ home

Several studies have highlighted the crucial importance of parents, relatives and
friends in supporting and sustaining young people through the transition from
dependent childhood to independent adulthood (Jones 1995; Coles 1997). Yet, for
lesbian and gay youth the overwhelming, and taken for granted, heterosexuality
of the family home can be experienced as oppressive and alienating (Johnston
and Valentine 1995; Elwood 2000). As Nardi and Bolton (1998: 141) explain,
‘frequently, gay youths are rejected and abused by parents, siblings and other kin
because of their homosexuality. Thus, where other minority youth generally do
not face problems with racism and religious intolerance within their own families,
for gays and lesbians often abuse begins at home.’
A fear of such a reaction prevents many lesbians and gay young people from
disclosing their sexuality to their families even though they may be ‘out’ to other
people in their lives. Peter describes the risks he has to weigh up:

My mother would be fine, but she would tell my Dad. My Dad is okay
sometimes, other times he sounds off, in the recent debate about gays in the
military he said that all gays should be destroyed. He wasn’t serious, but it still
hurt. I need to work out if he hates gays more than he loves me.

Such secrecy raises a number of issues in relation to the ability of lesbians and
gay young people who are legally minors (under 18 years of age) to consent to
participating in research without their parents’ knowledge and agreement. Legal
minors are normally regarded as the responsibility of their parents or guardians.
The implication is that they do not have the competence to understand and make
a decision in their own best interests. If such an approach were to be adopted in
relation to participation in academic research, a young person could only give their
assent or agreement to take part in a study. Consent for their participation would
have to be obtained from their parents or guardians (Tymchuck 1992). As such it
would be impossible to gain permission for many lesbian and gay young people
to take part in research about their sexuality because this would necessitate them
‘coming out’ to their families.
However, in the 1980s a UK court case about a child’s ability to consent in
relation to their own medical treatment established a legal definition of a child’s
competence to consent. This states that a competent child is one who ‘achieves
sufficient understanding and intelligence to enable him or her to understand fully
what is proposed’ and that the competent child has ‘sufficient discretion to enable
him or her to make a wise choice in his or her interests’ (Morrow and Richards
1996: 95). Although this ruling has not been tested in the courts specifically in
relation to a young person’s right to consent to participate in social research, it
does provide a justification for not involving parent(s) and guardians where to do
so would harm the interests of the young person concerned.
80 Valentine et al.

The need to conceal the content of interviews from family and friends also creates
methodological problems in relation to where to conduct the research. While the
home is usually reified as a private space, in practice it is a space where young people
are under the constant surveillance of other family members (although children do
also oppose or subvert the way adults circumscribe their lives). Indeed, children
have fewer rights to the same degree of privacy as adults (Allan and Crow 1989).
As such the dangers of attempting to conduct a ‘private’ interview in most familial
homes where space is at a premium and other household members may be tempted
to eavesdrop are self evident. Instead, community spaces (such as women’s centres,
health centres and youth drop-in spaces) and venues within the lesbian and gay scene
can prove effective substitutes for the home, offering safe and private environments
for sensitive conversations. E-mail also emerged for us as an important way of
contacting and working with some lesbian and gay young people. The cloak of
anonymity provided by the disembodied nature of on-line forms of communication
can provide closeted young people with the self-confidence and security necessary
to overcome their fears about talking about their sexuality. Hinkinson-Hodnett
(1999) argues that young men in particular can find it easier to deal with their
emerging sexuality through a computer screen rather than by talking face-to-face.
Indeed, young gay men had, until recently, particularly good reason to be fearful
about discussing their sexuality because the legal age at which a gay man could
consent to sex was 21. As a result young men under this age engaging in consensual
sex were breaking the law. In December 2000 the UK government finally reduced
the age of consent for gay men to 16, in line with the heterosexual age of con-
sent. Where our informants told us about ‘illegal’ sexual relationships during their
interviews we necessarily sought to protect their confidentiality. For this reason we
have taken great care to anonymise all the material arising from the project. This
includes not only the extracts from interviews and information which are used in
publications but also the notes and interview transcripts which are stored on file.
We are also aware of the need to tailor the way we disseminate our findings to
individual participants in order to avoid unwittingly breaching their confidential-
ity, for example, by not sending our findings to familial homes where they may be
read by household members who are not aware of the informants’ sexuality.

Conclusion
In discussing methodological and ethical codes for working with children there is
a danger that young people can become homogenised as a social category. In this
chapter, we have tried to draw attention to the way that common methodological
and ethical dilemmas, for example, in relation to accessing potential interviewees
or gaining consent, can become more complex and significant when the research
involves work with a ‘vulnerable’ group of young people. Here we have outlined
some of the specific issues that arise in the locations of the school and home when
homosexuality is the topic under investigation. Research with lesbians and gay
young people is particularly sensitive because of the specific laws which frame
 Research with ‘vulnerable’ young people 81

(or until recently framed) homosexuality and because of the way that children
are popularly constructed as asexual or innocent. While we do not wish to be
prescriptive about how the problems outlined in this chapter should be addressed,
our research does demonstrate the fundamental importance of finding safe and
private spaces in which to carry out research with young people and the crucial
significance of making every effort to protect the anonymity and confidentiality of
those who agree to participate in such studies.

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Chapter 7

Children with special needs,

teachers with special needs
Ros Frost

I feel overwhelmed, detached, dizzy, they’re coming at me, I wish they would go
away, I’m past my point, I can not stay in here any longer, I want to get out . . .
(I stay). . . . I need to get our. . . . I must stay. . . . (I stay) . . . I must get out . . . nothing
is as important as getting out of here . . . RIGHT NOW. I get to the staff room as
a colleague takes my class over. I cry . . . I sit . . . I think . . . .
How am I ever going to get back in that classroom again?
(My own classroom. Thursday 30 November 1995, 2.30 p.m.)

This study is a reflection on my attempts to answer this question and is of an

exploratory, problem-solving nature. I am taking you on the same journey that
I made between September 1995 and February 1996. I want you to travel with me
and see what I saw as I met the issues that faced me. It has not been my intention to
look in depth at all issues I have encountered along the way. When new signposts
have appeared I have had to consider the merit of continuing further on a particular
track or, using the compass of my reasoning, keep travelling over unknown land
with my sights set on returning to work. It would have made me very unhappy
had I not been able to do so.
I will outline the layout and furnishings of the train we will be riding, introduce
your fellow passengers and myself, your guide. Before doing this, however, I will
take some time to explain the rationale behind the research methods I have used
to aid my exploration.
It became clear to me from the outset that this study would be of an exploratory
nature, that I would be like Spradley’s explorer ‘trying to map an uncharted wild-
ness’. Spradley (in Hitchcock and Hughes 1989) likens the positivistic researcher
to a petroleum engineer who already knows what he is looking for, how to look
for it and what to expect. I knew that it would be unlikely to be this way for
me. Faced with an inability to cope, in a situation that I would normally have
been able to cope in, sent urgent messengers out from my brain, scouting for
the reasons why this had happened. In order to sort through each layer of my
experience in the classroom, and out of it, I considered that I would need a more
interpretative approach, one that allowed me to set my general direction, begin
84 Ros Frost

gathering information, but change direction and tools as and when appropriate; to
be rigorous yet flexible. I found Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1993) description of
purposeful teacher research helpful in this matter, finding rigour in their theoretical
underpinning yet flexibility in their methods, particularly as they drew on sources
I as a teacher was familiar with and knew to be helpful in my everyday teaching
‘research’, for example, the use of personal reflective journals. They define teacher
research as ‘systematic, international inquiry by teachers about their own school and
classroom work’ reflecting their desire to make sense of their experiences. Berthoff
(in Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1993) states that teacher research need not involve
new information but rather interpret the information one already has. She calls this
‘REsearching’.
In keeping with Berthoff’s thinking, then, this is in a part a ‘REsearch’ study
about revisiting the old to inform the new. Yet it is also a systematic and intentional
inquiry into fresh questions generated from the combination of old information in
a new context.
I will be ‘revisiting’ two areas in particular: the conclusions that I formed from
my first three years of teaching; and the effects of teacher/school communication
on myself as a pupil at secondary school. I have used the personal documentation of
a termly evaluation from my second year of teaching and an annual school report
to aid my thinking.
I have also used classroom observation as a method for gaining further insights
into my own practice and children’s behaviour. By direct observation of one pupil
in his familiar environment I wanted to find out more about what the pupil was
doing and how this related to everyday classroom factors. Before setting off, here
is your itinerary.

Your itinerary for the journey

After an introductory talk by your guide about your travel arrangements, fellow
passengers and destination, you will be calling at all stops along the way including:

1 Harried hill (Not for the faint-hearted)

A new academic year and new challenges. An introduction to the pressures faced and
stress experienced.
2 Mount development (A scenic viewpoint)
The vantage point received from gaining insights into the current Special Educational
Needs debate. The light it shed on my own experience of school and the management
of the children in my class.
3 Finder’s sharers (A voyage of discovery)
Further exploration into behavior management. Surprising findings from a classroom
observation of one pupil.
4 Crisis point (A lemming’s paradise!)
The smouldering fire of stress becomes consuming.
 Children and teachers with special needs 85

The lethal cocktail of pupil’s disruptive behaviour and too many hours worked for too
long.
5 The path of approach (The final destination)
From Initial Teacher Training through recent educational charge. A proposal for return.

So, welcome aboard!

You are asked to observe the health and safety regulation of the train and to be
aware of any FLASHBACKS encountered. Please consult the guard when you see
one as these electrical occurrences have the potential to delay or advance the train’s
journey.
REFRESHMENTS will be served prior to arrival at some stops. They will be
served by the guard from a personal selection of thoughts.
The train you are on is educational. The School Express has over 500 passengers,
10 per cent of whom are staff. The pupils range in age from four to eleven.
The guide has been a passenger on this School Express for the past three and
a half years. Before this she was a passenger on the Initial Teacher Training Intercity
for four years, specialising in the teaching of seven- to eleven-year-old passengers
and of art, and before that she spent the previous thirteen years as a keen ‘guard
and passenger observer’ on the same Local Education Authority’s Network service
from the ages of five to eighteen. Your guide joined the School Express just after
the train’s National Curriculum time-tables has changed for the second time, and
a year and a half prior to a further National Curriculum re-timetabling. The carriage
this study is based in has adequate space, water and toilet facilities. Resources are
satisfactory to deliver the school’s aims effectively.
Within the carriage there are thirteen children working towards National Cur-
riculum level one and fourteen towards level two in English and maths. Thirteen
children receive extra language learning support; of these, nine are also on the Local
Education Authority’s Stages of Assessment with specific programmes for support-
ing a variety of needs is speech, hearing, learning and behaviour. The majority of
family housing is privately owned, and four pupils receive free school dinners. There
are also other health considerations such as asthma, eczema and toileting needs to
be taken into account. The guide receives four and a half hours’ classroom/welfare
support and two hours’ learning support a week, with two hours’ support from
parent helpers with reading each week. One-third of the class are girls, and all
of the pupils have English as their first language. This does not fully explain the
diversity within this carriage, but it may help to set a context for understanding the
purpose of this study.
The journey begins.

Harried hill
I had started the new academic year with a change of age groups, from teaching
Year 2 and 3 to Year 1, to which I was looking forward. In the nine months
prior to this new term I had also experienced some personally taxing situations
86 Ros Frost

outside work, which had left me feeling emotionally drained but not exhausted.
These involved an intimate bereavement, the break-up of a relationship, concern
over a serious family illness, and domestic problems. I had also been in the process
of buying a house. However it was the beginning of year, and I looked forward
to embarking on new challenges and leaving time to heal the upsets of the last
few months. I was not far into the new term before my initial enthusiasm became
strained, as I realised that I had more a challenge on my hands than I had anticipated.
Although it was early in the new academic year, the behaviour of two boys, Eddy
and Todd, in the class was already starting to cause me concern. The following
summary is taken from notes I kept about their behaviour between September and
November. The following were displayed by one or both most days:

• attention-seeking noises at inappropriate times

• not sitting still
• talking when others were talking
• bad language
• hurting other children
• taking others’ property
• damaging others’ work and school property
• refusal to work
• refusal to co-operate/enter classroom
• sometimes rude and dangerous behaviour to classroom helpers
• out of classroom problems, such as bullying before and after school, at break
and lunchtimes.

It became increasingly difficult to maintain a calm working atmosphere within the

carriage and direct my energies to teaching. How should I deal with this old but
new situation?

FLASHBACK I had experienced similar behaviour with one of the children’s

relatives in my first year on the Express. I knew that I would still have to meet
the same standards of teaching and learning, even with continual disruption to
my practice. Could I cope with this for another year, with the knowledge at the
time that there would be no extra classroom support, and of all that it had meant
last time in terms of personal strain and disrupted teaching? How could I use my
concerns to prevent what I feared from happening, rather than allowing them to
act as a self-fulfilling prophecy so early on in the year?

I could feel the pressures begin to mount around and within me. At first I per-
ceived these as challenges, but as the weeks went on I became increasingly worn out
from dealing with the unpredictable behaviour of the two children, as well as that
of a small handful of others in competition with them. I knew from previous read-
ing on stress that a fair amount of pressure, seen in a positive way, helps improve
performance (Dunham 1992: 95). But I recognised in myself the symptoms of
excessive pressure. Appley (cited in Dunham 1992: 94) proposes that individuals
 Children and teachers with special needs 87

pass through stress thresholds when attempting to cope with pressures, starting with
early warning signs such as anxiety and irritability, and moving on to loss of concen-
tration, psychosomatic symptoms such as skin irritations, exhaustion and eventually
burnout.
Dunham in his book Stress in Teaching says of the fine line between pressure and
stress:

The extent to which work demands made upon a teacher result in stress
depends on a number of factors including pressures from sources external to
teaching, personality and previous experience of similar demands.
(Dunham 1992: 2)

I had certainly experienced similar demands before, which had left less than
favourable expectations for the current year. There had been, and was still con-
tinuing, a considerable amount of pressure on me outside work. Dunham defines
stress as:

A process of behavioural, emotional, mental and physical reactions caused by

prolonged, increasing or new pressures which are significantly greater than
coping resources.
(Dunham 1992: 3)

Normally I would have coped with these pressures by putting more time and
energy into my work. However the physical, emotional and mental demands of
managing difficult behaviour now, while needing to maintain thorough planning,
assessment and record keeping, had totally depleted these resources. I listed all the
areas from which I felt under pressure, and identified from these three elements
which concerned me most: difficult behaviour in the carriage, workload, and the
meeting of contractual obligations. These were important departure points for me
on my journey which needed to be addressed. The next three sections are devoted
to their consideration. In retrospect it is easy to see how pressures in these areas
built up to such a pitch, yet at the time I was so busy reacting that I was unable to
step back and gain a clear perspective on them.
After discussion with the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, Todd and
Eddy were placed on Stages 2 and 3 respectively of the Local Education Authority’s
Stages of Assessment, with individual programmes drawn up to support behaviour
development. Through the advice of visiting behaviour specialist I was able to
recognise patterns in Eddy’s behaviour. What struck me was that in drawing up
programmes to manage Eddy’s behaviour, there were considerable implications for
my own practice. For example, when he became aggressive upon entering class, was
his frustration in part owing to inappropriate classroom organization on my part?
Although the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator and I were planning for
desired changes to Eddy’s behaviour, I questioned where the safeguard was for the
child against unhelpful teacher behaviour, within the Staged Assessment procedure.
I could see that, if I wanted them to be, all the behaviour problems in the class could
be attributed to problems in the children, and they could have programmes to sort
88 Ros Frost

them out. Yet I had seen that the teacher and school had very real responsibilities in
this. Such sharing of responsibility for change, to meet the special needs of children,
became even more apparent over the following months.

REFRESHMENT It appears that not only the pupil but the teacher and the
school need to be prepared to change to meet the special needs of pupils.

Mount development
The following quote is from one which particularly echoed my thinking:
Special educational needs are needs that arise within the educational system
rather than the individual, and indicate a need for the system to change further
in order to accommodate the individual differences.
(Dyson 1990: 59)

Dyson draws this conclusion making reference to the ‘individual change’ model
of change in Special Needs education, influenced by the Warnock Report
(Df E 1978) and the 1981 Education Act, where it is the pupils who are expected
to change their behaviour regardless of their environment. Warnock’s proposal
talks of an alternative ‘system-level change’, where an environment which is not
favourable to the child should consider changing itself instead to accommodate the
pupil more effectively.

FLASHBACK I remembered a similar conflict myself from secondary school.

Achievements that I had made appeared to be given less formal recognition when
they were in areas that I perceived were valued less highly by the school at the time.

During our first week on the Masters’ course we were invited by a tutor to think
back, and reflect on, a learning difficulty that we had experienced at school.
I did not think that I had had a particular learning difficulty at school, except
that my time at secondary school had left me with a very negative view of my
abilities, further confirmed by my exam results. Although these events had taken
place years before, their effects remained with me. I could not believe that I was
this same person now beginning a higher degree. This might have been hilarious
if there had not been a down side to it as well, the handicapping of myself through
insecurity about my own ability. Purkey describes the results of continual affronts
to our self-esteem:
Even the most insensitive parent or teacher can usually recognise and take into
account a crippling physical handicap. Negative self-esteem however is often
overlooked because we fail to take the time and effort it requires to be sensitive
to how children see themselves and their abilities.
(Purkey 1970: 37)
 Children and teachers with special needs 89

I knew I had caused some disruption at school, but equally knew, from my posi-
tion now as a primary teacher, that there was more to it than purely blaming the
teacher or the child. I did not want to pass on the same handicap that I still expe-
rienced but now was in a position to prevent. I was concerned to help Eddy, not
hinder him.

FLASHBACK Could my teaching and communication leave Eddy with same

negative impressions of himself as a learner that I had felt at school?

Dyson again contributes that

Even event in a pupil’s life may have some bearing on his or her capacity to
learn. When ‘normal’ individuals show an inability to learn in school, yet are
perfectly capable of learning in other situations, one should be driven to consider
what aspects of the society are creating negative attitudes to schools and whether changes
are necessary in the schools themselves.
(Dyson 1990: 55, italics added)

It is with such an exploration, through observation in the carriage, that the following
section is concerned.

REFRESHMENT A full and thorough consideration of the child and his or her
life experience as a whole should be taken into account when planning learning
programmes.

Finder shares
As already noted, it was Eddy’s behaviour that caused me the most concern.
I wanted to see exactly what he was doing in the carriage and not make ill-informed
judgements based on inadequate evidence. I decided that I would observe him at
work.
I asked the pupils to think about a special person that they would like to come to
their house, and then to draw and colour a picture showing this guest and the kind
of preparations they would make in order for this special visit. I did not tell the
class that I would be observing Eddy, yet I was glad that he gave me an indication
he knew I was watching him. As I looked for patterns within my written record
I became aware of looking at Eddy’s actions and considering different ways of
interpreting them; first with the insight of seeing the full picture from my position
in the class observing, and second to ask myself, ‘How else might I have interpreted
his behaviour when under greater stress myself, and what actions might I have
taken?’

FLASHBACK I was much more relaxed as I observed Eddy. In fact the absence
of a ‘stressed’ teacher trying to ‘control’ him all the time probably did his behaviour
the world of good! I was prepared to see the lighter side of things rather than
90 Ros Frost

feeling, ‘I must be on top of Eddy’s behaviour always’, and that, ‘If he misbehaves
it is my lack of classroom control and I am therefore a failing teacher’, regardless
of the other twenty-six children behaving ‘well’, who could also be said to be the
‘product’ of my classroom management.

I have summarized in Table 7.1 the main points I drew out from the observation
of Eddy, my initial interpretations of them and an alternative interpretation.
To me this observation illustrates how one action can have so many interpre-
tations held in the hand of the teacher. I consider this serves to reinforce the
importance of open-ended exploration before making conclusions about reasons
for behaviour and setting the wheels in motion for dealing with ‘deviance’ or
‘disruption’. Martin (1988: 501) suggests the use of a broad evaluative framework

Table 7.1 Alternative interpretations of Eddy’s behaviour

Time Action Relaxed interpretation Stressed interpretation

9.32 Talks when working Helpful automatic Disturbing concentration

self-expression of others
Joking Values friends and Lack of concentration
humour
9.35 Visits friend’s table Needs to relate to Disturbing concentration
others of others
Asks politely for I may have missed this
something good behaviour from
across the room
Sharpening pencil I forgot to organise the Work avoidance tactic
helpers
‘Wooden Willy’ action E’s humour; he’s happy Inappropriate behaviour
Tells friend colour of Helping his friend Lack of concentration
eyes
9.41 Propels rubber using Understanding of Throwing rubber –
ruler with description technology disruption
of mechanical
catapult
‘B’ for balloon Initial sound practice Disturbing concentration
of others
Birds have stripes Knowledge of natural Disturbing concentration
world of others
9.45 Discusses friend’s eyes Accuracy and attention Disturbing concentration
and choice of pencil to detail of others
9.46 Stands up and colours Comfortable working Disturbing concentration
at table position of others
9.50 Describes picture Expression about Disturbing concentration
relationships of others
 Children and teachers with special needs 91

for assessing children, as an alternative to the ‘expert’-led, jargon-riddled and

straightjacketed formats that she found unhelpful. We should consider seriously:

The child’s stance in the world, the child’s emotional tenor and disposition,
the child’s mode of relationship to other children and to adults, the child’s
activities and interests, the child’s involvement in formal learning, the child’s
greatest strengths and areas of greatest vulnerabilities.
(Carini, in Martin 1988: 496)

REFRESHMENT Should we build a similar sensitivity to the one Martin sug-

gests towards our staff as well as pupils? Teachers who feel they are ‘failing’ need as
much support as the children who feel they are failing. It would make an interesting
study to explore the similarities and differences with which pupils and staff facing
difficulties are managed, especially regarding the use of the concept of ‘failure’.
Hence the title for my study: Children with special needs – teachers with special
needs.

In the following section, I will be considering the nature of the ‘special needs’ in
my own experience as a teacher on this journey.

Crisis point
At this point there may appear little to suggest that there was about to occur
the ‘crisis point’ which prompted this study. The observation of Eddy shows the
everyday antics encountered in the classroom. It is when we look at the personal
events outlined briefly in the introduction, and the concerns regarding the chil-
dren’s behaviour listed in ‘Harried Hill’, that it is possible to see how the tinder of
frayed nerves from a demanding summer could so easily be ignited by the sparks of
daily conflicts within the carriage. I could have dealt with each of these demands
separately, yet coming one after the other, and drawing on depleted reserves, they
became increasingly difficult. I have highlighted in italics, in the opening statement,
the conflict I felt between my own need and my professional duties. I had faced this
hurdle of overwhelming pressure before, but this time I was not able to round up
my strength and carry on. I was exhausted. I could see my targets but had no way
of meeting them. When I pulled back the throttle, nothing came out. I was just too
tired. My health was suffering. I had lost my appetite, was unable to sleep or relax
and was prone to tears, anxiety and panic attacks. I suffered skin complaints and
could not remember things, make decisions easily or keep things in perspective.
In returning to the question, ‘How am I ever going to get back in that classroom
again?’, I began to consider what was preventing me from doing so. Obviously
something was stopping me. I asked myself, could I go back tomorrow? My answer
was ‘no’, because nothing would have changed. The pressures would still be the
92 Ros Frost

same. I began to look at which of those pressures could be changed, and what
I could do about changing them. I have already considered the difficult behaviour
of some pupils within the class. The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator and
I appeared to have exhausted our strategies within the carriage, and it was to be
a while before Curriculum Organisation and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools echoed
my thoughts or gave rise to them is hard to say.

With the introduction of the National Curriculum and the School Devel-
opment Plan initiative, there has been a recognition that teachers must plan
together to ensure consistency and progression across classes and year groups
and that formally structured short and long term plans are essential to effective
classroom teaching.
(Alexander et al. 1992: 20)

I had also been trying to find my own philosophy for effective teaching practice
while ducking the pendulum of change that was swinging again in educational
ideology. I was very much aware, from my Initial Teacher Training period, of the
polarisation between ‘progressive’ and ‘formal’ methods. At times I found myself
lacking in confidence when faced with situations that required more formal teach-
ing skills than I was used to. Alexander et al. also noted, giving regard to recent
research into children’s learning, that ‘recent studies . . . place proper emphasis, on
the teacher as teacher rather than “facilitator” ’ (Alexander et al. 1992: 18). Again
this was largely contrary to the messages that I had received during my training. It
has taken me a long time to shake off the shackles of prejudice regarding certain
teaching methods, such as whole class teaching, and develop my confidence in
a wider range of skills. It became clear to me that effective links between Initial
Teacher Training, Newly Qualified Teacher induction and continuing in-service
provision, for the continuing development of teaching skills, are of great impor-
tance for confident and effective teaching. The management on the School Express
also demonstrated their commitment to this by funding my higher degree.
I realised that through these first three years I had not only been experiencing the
stress of meeting requirements with inadequate skills in some areas, for example,
when more ‘formal’ methods would have delivered a teaching point more effec-
tively, but had also been depriving myself of the chance to develop these skills
through fear of doing ‘the wrong thing’. One of the blessings of ‘falling apart’ as I
did was that many unnecessary burdens were shown to be just that: unnecessary.
I could not expect to do everything, and I became more able to put things in
perspective.
December had passed, January was coming to an end and I was about to return
to work. I was no longer exhausted. Something else had happened in me on my
journey. I had shed the weighty luggage of the many unrealistic expectations
that I had of myself and the children, and gained a new confidence in my teaching
ability through my research. I was pleased to become acquainted with new insights
into children’s learning, especially in the work of Vygotsky and his theory of ‘a zone
 Children and teachers with special needs 93

of proximal development’; which ‘refers to the gap that exists for children between
what they can do alone and what they can do with help from someone more
knowledgeable or skilled than themselves’ (Vygotsky in Bourne 1994: 24). This
helped dramatically to increase my confidence as a teacher and confirm my reason
for being in the carriage. I was not just a facilitator who drew out what children
already knew, but someone who had skills and knowledge to help them develop.
If this was the case, though, how could I hope to provide adequate quality interac-
tion to aid development in twenty-seven pupils by myself? I could see that I would
have to plan well but lower my expectations of myself. I found this hard, knowing
that the greater the input I could give in the early years, the greater the benefits
would be as the pupils matured. Fortunately, though, during my absence a teaching
assistant for Eddy and Todd had been allocated for five mornings per week, thus
providing the opportunity for much more of this desired interaction and support.
So the train has pulled up at its next destination. I have left much baggage behind
but I have also gained some. Through reflecting on the educational experience of
the children I teach, and myself as learner and teacher, this study has enabled
me to deepen my understanding and develop my classroom practice. It has also
helped me to locate my personal experience within the insights of others and to
draw strength from this, to use this time as a period of growth. Regardless of
the varied educational terrain travelled, it is this element of reflection on personal
circumstance and practice, informed by the wisdom of others and supported by
rest, that has enabled me to put events into perspective and return to the classroom.

References
Alexander, R., Rose, J. and Woodhead, C. (1992) Curriculum Organisation and Classroom
Practice in Primary Schools, London: DES.
Bourne, J. (1994) ‘A question of ability’ in Bourne, J. (ed.), Thinking Through Primary Practice,
London: Routledge.
Cochran-Smith, M. and Lytle, S.L. (1993) Inside Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge,
New York: Teachers College Press.
Department for Education (DfE) (1978) Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education
of Handicappd Children and Young People, London: HMSO.
Dunham, J. (1992) Stress in Teaching, London: Routledge.
Dyson, A. (1990) ‘Special Educational Needs and the concept of change’, Oxford Review of
Education 16(1): 55–66.
Hitchcock, G. and Hughes, D. (1989) Research and the Teacher: A Qualitative Introduction to
School-based Research, London: Routledge.
Martin, A. (1988) ‘Teachers and teaching: screening, early intervention and remediation –
obscuring children’s potential, Harvard Educational Review 58(4): 488–501.
Purkey, W.W. (1970) Self-Concept and School Achievement, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Chapter 8

‘Do you get some funny looks

when you tell people
what you do?’
Muddling through some angsts and
ethics of (being a male) researching
with children
John Horton

Introduction: why write about ethics (again)?

Miss H : You say this is the first time you’ve done . . . anything like this?
(Year 5 teacher):
JH : Yes, yes it is.
Miss H : Well you’ve got a real knack for getting children to talk, you
know . . . I could just tell as soon as you started talking to them,
you know, I thought ‘he’s good at talking with kids’ . . . You’re a
natural at it.
Miss H : . . . Do you get some funny looks when you tell people what you
do?
JH : Erm yes I probably do.

This chapter is an attempt – and a plea – to get real about the ethics of practising social
science ‘with children rather than on or for children’ (Matthews et al. 1998: 312,
emphasis in original). I am writing it because, when thinking, reading, writing and
talking through the ethicality of (my) research amongst geographies of childhood,
I am troubled by the following question.

I have been called ‘a natural at talking with kids’. I am ‘police cleared’ to

conduct research with children. I have completed workshops on ‘Child pro-
tection’, ‘Ethics of teaching and learning’ and ‘Implementing codes of practice’.
My research conduct has always been well within the legal–ethical strictures
of the Children Act 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child 1989 and the Human Rights Act 2000, as well as codes of practice
prescribed by the Medical Research Council (1991), the British Sociolog-
ical Society (1993), the Market Research Society (2000) and the National
Children’s Bureau (2000). I am confident that my past and proposed qual-
itative research with children is ‘ethical’ by all of the criteria laid down by
 Ethics of researching with children 95

Matthews et al. (1998) and Valentine (1999). Why then, when all of these
seductive ethical certainties (see White 1998) are subtracted, do I still feel
a vague, nagging, indescribable sense of unease when recalling research I have
done with children?

What remains after this subtraction? Approaching this question, I have extracted
four empirical moments from my research with children when – looking back,
reading the interview transcripts and discussing them with fellow researchers –
my unease is heightened. There and then, these moments seemed ‘off the point’,
‘a waste of time and tape’ or just ‘bad data’. Re-presented here and now, they over-
run my ability fully to understand them (Strathern 1999), but suggest some causes of
my unease. Individually and collectively, then, they gesture towards how research
ethics might be made ‘more alive, more real and more immediate’ (Truzzi 1968: 1).

Moment 1: 3.30 p.m., 5 July 1997

Mr P (Year 4 teacher): I love [the kids] to bits, I just love teaching
really . . . [But] it is difficult sometimes. I mean if you ever go to an inter-
view for a teaching job . . . the first thing you get asked is ‘why do you want to
work with children?’ They don’t actually say ‘you’re a man’ but you just know
that’s why they’re so quick to ask it. And that hurts . . . but its understandable.
I mean you think ‘what if I was dangerous?’ . . . It’s a bloody awful thing to say,
but once you’re in . . . what the hell could they do to stop you?

When I tell people about the research I am doing, I do usually get ‘funny looks’;
invariably these are followed by a barrage of morbidly curious or sarcastic questions:
‘What if a child tells you they’re being abused?’; ‘What if you get accused of being
abusive?’; ‘What if you’re a paedophile?’; ‘How do we know you’re not?’; ‘How
do you know you’re not?; and so on. I know exactly what Mr P meant: ‘they don’t
actually say ‘you’re a man’, but . . . ’. This is a bitter pill to swallow but, like many
other researchers currently interested in children’s geographies, I cannot escape my
resemblance to the following statistics:

Many child abusers are highly respected members of the community. Many
consciously or unconsciously choose career paths that will bring them regu-
larly in contact with children, often working diligently to build an exemplary
record of competence in their activities . . . Approximately 19 out of 20 iden-
tified sexual abusers are male, less than half are married. The national average
age is 24.
(Lenett and Crane 1996: 9)

Why do I feel so out of my depth when confronting this resemblance? Is it because

reminders of the threat I supposedly pose are so irreconcilable with my happy
memories of research with children? Or is it because this sort of threat was so
96 John Horton

absent from my own happy, probably pretty sheltered childhood? Or is it the

realisation of just how flimsy and utterly inappropriate the literatures and idealistic
pretensions of my academic training feel next to the unpleasant realities of child
death, child abuse, paedophilia, ‘paediatricians’ mistaken for ‘paedophiles’ and so
on. Or is it the helplessness of finding that ‘the literature’ has a blind spot to these
issues (see Widdowfield 2000)? Or is it because of my inability to convincingly
answer Mr P’s latter question (‘what the hell could they do?’)? After all, on reflection,
I am simply amazed at the ease with which – lacking any uniform or, for that
matter, any particularly rigorous proof of my identity, status or ‘police clearance’ –
I have gained close, sometimes unattended, access to primary school children. I
have found this a troubling position to have to think, practise and write my way
through (McDowell 1992; Rose 1997). I am left with a vague feeling that research
with children is something I want to be doing, something I’m good at doing, but not
necessarily something I ought to be doing (after Thrift 2000a). For, while I do not
think that I constitute a ‘threat’, the precedent set by my (ease of ) access to children
is potentially risky. For all my ethical safeguards and angsts, I am left feeling socially
irresponsible for contributing to that precedent and opportunistically profiting from
it, almost wishing that it had been made much harder for me (and people like me)
to research. This unease is compounded when I reflect on research situations that
could have ‘gone either way’ were I inclined to be a ‘threat’.

Moment 2: 10.30 a.m., 12 July 1997

Dave (8): You’re alright you!
JH : Aw ta!
Dave: Will you come over the park and play football after school mate?
JH : Sorry, I can’t, I don’t think that’d be a good idea.
Dave: Aw why not? Go on . . . It’ll be really cool!

Was I patronising, paranoid, guilty of treating ‘Dave’ with ‘kid gloves’ in refusing
to go ‘over the park’? Or was I right to protect myself ? After all, what was I afraid
of ? Reflecting on this moment, my unease is with precisely this ambivalence, with
what might have happened, and with the frequency with which I have found myself
in and of similarly ambiguous research settings and situations. I contend that such
risky ambiguity is an inevitable consequence of (my) research with children being
ethically and practically ‘underdetermined’, through an absence of directly relevant
legislation, training, codes of practice and systems of regulation or accountability
(and few literatures addressing these absences, although see Riches (1991) and
Daniels and Jenkins (2000)). This is worryingly resonant with concerns of the
Hunt Report into multiple abuse in nursery classes: . . .

a key issue is that not all adults who have access to children at school are teachers.
This is not, of course, to say that classroom helpers, students, playground
supervisors, volunteer parent, meals staff [and, I would add, researchers], etc.
 Ethics of researching with children 97

pose a greater threat than anyone else, but vetting procedures will operate
more formally for teachers than for others.
(Newcastle upon Tyne City Council 1994: 14,
text in parentheses added)

On reflection, I have coped with resulting uncertainty over what to do with myself,
and institutional confusion over whose responsibility I might be, by occupying
positions in between and within institutional boundaries whilst researching, at once
a potentially persuasive ‘grown up’ (with access to the staff room, conversations with
teachers and cups of coffee between lessons, etc., approaching children with the
blessing of other adults in positions of authority over them, and able – unwittingly
or otherwise – to enrol or become enrolled in practices of peer group pressure)
and a ‘mate’ who might go ‘over the park’ behind the teacher’s back. This was no
pre-planned strategy; it just happened.

Moment 3: 10.00 a.m., 30 June 1997

Mark (7): Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat is a blackie . . .
[Group laughs.]
JH : Aw, that’s not very nice is it?
Mark: Blackies stink.
[Group laughs.]
Paul (7): Yeah, when they get on the bus, they smell the whole thing out.
[Group laughs.]

Should I have challenged Mark’s comments? Or should I have sat back, pragmat-
ically accepting them as particularly insightful ‘data’ (or even laughed along, to
encourage such insights)? Moments like this – which again just happened, in spite
of rigorous ethical preparation – prompt a different sort of unease, through the
reminder that children’s geographies are often horrible to ‘adult’ sensibilities. My
‘friendship group’ interview transcripts are full of references to ‘blackies’, ‘pakis’,
‘wogs’, ‘puffs’, ‘benders’, ‘gaylords’ and ‘spackers’, words which – here and now –
I find it hard to type, let alone say out loud. It would be impossible to write a ‘real’
account of my experiences in primary schools without using some of these words,
or writing about children mercilessly bullying ‘hearing impaired’ and ‘special needs’
classmates, kicking a hedgehog to death in the playground or stabbing a baby black-
bird with a compass. Nonetheless, I have difficulty reconciling to the fact that all of
the above were important, intractable parts of the sorts of geographies I was investi-
gating, with the fact that I would walk out if anyone sang ‘Postman Pat is a blackie’
in a social situation. Although operating in a far less emotionally charged context,
I know the ‘welter of emotions’ and ‘conflict’ Rowles (1978: 179) describes in his
account of research in hospices for the elderly:

. . . sitting by his bed my mind would be a welter of emotions. Sometimes

I experienced anger. ‘Damn it, you can’t die now. I haven’t finished my
98 John Horton

research.’ Immediately I would be overtaken by feelings of self-revulsion. Did

our friendship mean only this? Thus I would engage in a conflict between my
human sensibilities and my scholarly purpose.

My unease is not so much that I did not plan for such conflicts, but more that they
are ‘not regular, repetitive, monotonous and predictable in a way that would allow
them to be represented as rule guided . . . they cannot be exhausted by any “ethical
code” ’ (Bauman 1993: 11), nor prepared for in any neat, complete, planful sense.

Moment 4: 2.30 p.m., 11 July 1997

Kerry (6): I’ve drawn a picture for you.
JH : Aw ta!
Kerry: It’s not for your work, it’s a present . . . It’ll be rubbish next week when
you’re not here.
JH : Aw!

My concern that no amount of ‘ethical’ reading or preparation can completely

prescribe or alter what I might feel or do once there is amplified by moments such
as this, where there was a different sort of conflict between my ‘gut reaction’
and societal responsibility. When researching with children I have always guarded
against becoming too close, of being imagined as some kind of ideal round-the-clock
buddy of a father figure, but I know exactly what Furlong and Maynard (1998:
111) mean: . . .

it’s easy to fall into the trap – react to something they’ve done . . . ‘my pencil’s
gone’, ‘he’s taken my book’. Sometimes I want to cuddle them, run after them
in the playground, or play with them, just play . . . but I can’t do that. I find
that difficult.

I have found it similarly difficult to know what to do with myself when chil-
dren volunteer to forgo breaktime to participate in research, ask me if they can
chat with me about football or pop music, go out of their way to carry and tidy
up stationery for me or cry on my departure when research ends. I remember
these moments fondly precisely because of their unexpectedness and spontane-
ity, but this quality – the way they just happened in spite of my rigorous ‘ethical’
preparation – also makes me feel that I ought to sweep them under the car-
pet in case anyone might construe them as sinister. This contradiction troubles
me, not least because of current trajectories of disciplinary enthusiasm towards
‘the small scale, the local and the mundane . . . to break with the abstractions and
pro-establishment complicities of . . . grand theory and empiricist research meth-
ods’ (Crook 1998: 523), and towards the methodological or conceptual elision
of distinctions between ‘adulthood’ and ‘childhood’ (Moore 1992; Wilson et al.
1999), suggest that future research might be characterised by more, rather than
 Ethics of researching with children 99

less, bodily and relational closeness between children and (potentially threatening)
adults. These research futures urgently demand rigorously developed and real ethical
futures.

Conclusion: ‘getting real’ about ethics

. . . the cultural turn is caught up in its own pretensions. Written into its very
fabric is a sense that it is both avant garde – ahead of the game – and, by
extension, on the very margins of society . . . even though much of the cultural
turn still consists of intellectual habits that might not have appeared out of place
at the end of the last century, or before.
(Thrift 2000b: 2)

Thrift’s description of the ‘cultural turn’ – of which the present enthusiasm for
research with children’s geographies is a constituent and consequence (Philo 1992,
1997; Matthews et al. 2000) – ‘turning bad’ evokes a troubling caricature of
researchers leaping before looking, bungling head first on to ethical terrae incog-
nitae in their gung-ho enthusiasm to follow the latest disciplinary ‘turn’, without
first stepping back to think through its ethical consequences or preconditions. This
chapter’s contribution to this step back has been to demand (or, more precisely, to
articulate a demand for) a more ‘real’ ethics with which to attack the unease remain-
ing even after ‘seductive ethical certainties’ are subtracted. I mean this in two senses.
First, there is an urgent need to address aspects of research with children which have,
for whatever reason, been hitherto underrepresented, or unrepresented. This means
confronting head on the unpleasant nitty gritty of ‘child protection’ literatures and
practices, sharing experiences within and between research communities and devel-
oping a rigorous micro-ethical sensibility to rival that prescribed for teachers, scout
and youth leaders and the like. Second, there is an equally urgent need to address
the possibility that many causes of real ethical unease – gut reactions, angsts, ‘funny
looks’, ‘what ifs’, in fact practically everything that bothers me about the moments
re-presented in this chapter – are unprescribable and unpredictable there and then,
and unrepresentable here and now. This is an unsettling realisation. It demands much
work to establish and practise ‘relational, as opposed to individual, understandings
of ethical agency and to recognise the significance of embodied, as against abstract,
capacities in shaping ethical competence and considerability’ (Whatmore 1997: 37).
It also demands a more modest ‘immature’ ethical sensibility (Lee 1998), one that
does not confidently claim to know it all – or be prepared for it all – before the
event. In conclusion, then, I agree with Moore (1992: 129): . . .

if we are going to ‘do’ work with children we have to use the child within,
yet at the same time retain our professional knowledge and judgement. We
have to be comfortable with ourselves as we are.
100 John Horton

References
Bauman, Zygmunt (1993) Postmodern Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell.
British Sociological Society (1993) Statement of Ethical Practice (archived at
http://www.britsoc.org.uk/ethgu2.htm).
Crook, S. (1998) Minotaurs and other monsters: ‘everyday life’ in recent social theory,
Sociology, 32, 523–540.
Daniels, D. and Jenkins, P. (2000) Therapy with Children: Children’s Rights, Confidentiality
and the Law, London: Sage.
Furlong, J. and Maynard, T. (1998) Mentoring Student Teachers: The Growth of Professional
Knowledge, London: Routledge.
Lee, Nick (1998) Towards an immature sociology, Sociological Review, 46, 459–482.
Lenett, R. and Crane, B. (1996) Its OK to Say No! A Parent/Child Manual for the Protection
of Children, Wellingborough: Thorson.
Market Research Society (2000) Guidelines for Research among Children and Young People
(archived at http://mrs.org.uk/code.htm).
Matthews, Hugh, Limb, Melanie and Taylor, Mark (1998) The geography of childhood:
some ethical and methodological considerations for project and dissertation work, Journal
of Geography in Higher Education, 22, 311–324.
Matthews, Hugh, Taylor, Mark, Sherwood, Kenneth, Tucker, Faith and Limb, Melanie
(2000) Growing up in the countryside: children and the rural idyll, Journal of Rural Studies,
16, 141–153.
McDowell, Linda (1992) Doing gender: feminism, feminists and research methods on human
geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17, 399–416.
Medical Research Council (1991) The Ethical Conduct of Research on Children (archived at
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/ethics b.html).
Moore, J. (1992) The ABC of Child Protection, Aldershot: Arena.
National Children’s Bureau (2000) Guidelines for Research with Children (archived at
http://www.ncb.org.uk/resguide.htm).
Newcastle upon Tyne City Council (1994) Independent Enquiry into Multiple Abuse in Nursery
Classes (the Hunt Report), Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council.
Philo, Chris (1992) Neglected rural geographies: a review, Journal of Rural Studies, 8,
193–207.
Philo, C. (1997) War and peace in the social geography of children, paper delivered at
meeting of the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Children 5–16’ programme,
University of Keele, 17 March.
Riches, P. (1991) The Children Act: an overview, Children and Society, 5, 3–10.
Rose, Gillian (1997) Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics,
Progress in Human Geography, 21, 305–320.
Rowles, Graham (1978) Ref lections on experiential fieldwork, in: Ley, D. and Samuels,
M.S. (eds) Humanistic Geography, London: Croom Helm, 173–193.
Strathern, Marilyn (1999) Property, Substance and Effect, London: Athlone Press.
Thrift, Nigel (2000a) Afterwords, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18, 213–255.
Thrift, Nigel (2000b) Introduction: dead or alive?, in: Cook, Ian, Crouch, David, Naylor,
Simon and Ryan, James (eds) Cultural Turns/Geographical Turns: Perspectives on Cultural
Geography, London: Prentice Hall, 1–6.
Truzzi, M. (1968) Sociology and Everyday Life, London: Prentice Hall.
 Ethics of researching with children 101

Valentine, Gill (1999) Being seen and heard? The ethical complexities of working with
children and young people at home and at school, Ethics, Place and Environment, 2,
141–155.
Whatmore, Sarah (1997) Dissecting the autonomous self: hybrid cartographies for a relational
ethics, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15, 37–53.
White, Susan (1998) Interdiscursivity and child welfare: the ascent and durability of psycho-
legalism, Sociological Review, 46, 265–292.
Widdowfield, Rebekah (2000) The place of emotions in academic research, Area, 32,
199–208.
Wilson, K., Kendrick, P. and Ryan, V. (1999) Play Therapy: A Non-directive Approach,
London: Bailliere Tindall.
Chapter 9

‘This won’t take long . . .’

Interviewing, ethics and diversity
Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

Introduction
This chapter draws on data collected for a qualitative project which studied the
role of parent groups and organizations in relation to the mainstream education
system. It considers the factors affecting the development of our relationships with
diverse respondents and the implications of these varied relations for the research
process. Before turning to these issues, however, we offer some background to
the project. We refer to the various parent groups by the collective label of Parent
Centred Organizations (PCOs). Such organizations are of interest to researchers
because they often have a mediating function. That is, they intervene in interac-
tions between individual parents and educational institutions. They may do this
by offering parents information, support and, in some cases, advice and advocacy,
relating to educational issues. PCOs provide a channel through which parents can
become involved in, and try to influence, processes of teaching and learning; a chan-
nel that is separate from their relationships with their own children’s schools. We
were particularly interested in the extent to which such groups and organizations
disseminated notions of an ‘appropriate’ parental role in relations to schools.
Discourses surrounding parenthood and responsibility, and the related notions of
a ‘good’ parent, have a long history. The attributes required of a parent have altered
over time, in accordance with socio-political and economic imperatives (Brown
1990). We wished to consider dominant discourses of parenting with specific ref-
erence to children’s schooling. Currently, for instance, home – school agreements,
which enshrine an individual school’s version of ‘appropriate’ parenting, are manda-
tory for UK schools. In most cases, it appears that the role considered suitable for
parents is one which is supportive of the professionals and also subordinate to them
(Vincent and Tomlinson 1997).
The research therefore explores the extent to which PCOs disseminate attitudes,
values and beliefs about the ‘appropriate’ role for parents in relation to the education
system and – the second part of the equation – parents’ responses and reactions to
this. We collected data through the study of four very different parents’ groups,
their variety being indicative of the ways in which parents in the UK can become
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 103

involved in educational issues, other than, or in addition to, their relationship with
their own child’s individual school. The four were:

• an advice centre offering parents information and support with regard to special
educational needs provision;
• a parent education group offering parents an accredited practical skills course
which involved the students in making educational materials suitable for early
years children;
• a pressure group, campaigning for enhanced educational funding;
• a self-help support group of African-Caribbean women who met to discuss
various educational issues.

As the first two groups – the advice centre and the parent education group – were
run by professionals for parents, a major theme for analysis was professional –
parent–client relationships. We identified a Gramscian framework as providing
a useful starting point for our overall analysis, and we have written about this
in detail elsewhere (Vincent 1997). For the purposes of this chapter, we want
to consider just one idea, that of ‘structures of feeling’, which is derived from
Gramsci’s work, and which we felt usefully applied to a study of professional –
client relationships. We examined the role that the PCOs’ professional staff played
in relation to the dissemination of ideas around ‘appropriate’ parenting. One of the
focal points of Gramscian theory is the role of ‘intellectuals’, which he described
as that of ‘deputies’ to the dominant group (1971: 12). Gramsci argued that in the
course of their work, those we would now call professionals, such as doctors, priests
and teachers, disseminated hegemonic beliefs in order to win the ‘active consent’
of subaltern social groups. Our research asked whether this role was applicable to
this particular group of welfare professionals, and if so, how was it enacted? Renate
Holub (1992) argues that professionals disseminate ideas and values through a shared
‘structure of feeling’, a concept she derives from Gramsci’s notion of ‘esprit de corps’.
The term ‘structure of feeling’ describes the series of assumptions, ideas, and values
that structure communication between members of a ‘community’. It was used
in this sense by Raymond Williams, in an attempt to describe an area of activity
where the individual and the collective, the public and the private meet. Fazal
Rizvi describes Williams’s understanding of the term:

Williams uses the term ‘structure of feeling’ to describe ‘the most delicate and
least tangible part of our activity’ (Williams 1977: 64). It is the structure of
feeling that makes intimate communication between people in a community
possible because it contains the taken-for-granted assumptions and the key
ideas that gives a community its qualitative coherence.
(Rizvi 1993: 150)

A ‘structure of feeling’ is a distillation of many elements, feelings and assumptions:

the elements of place, of history, of economics, feelings of belonging, exclusion or
104 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

‘ownership’, and assumptions of values and beliefs that translate into ‘mental maps’,
attitudes, and actions (Taylor et al. 1996). The term has pluralist connotations as
there are many different communities with varying ‘structures of feeling’ arising
from diverse experiences, assumptions, and exclusions. Briefly, Holub argues that
professionals working in a particular location have partial access to that ‘commu-
nity’s’ ‘structure of feeling’, and can utilize that access to propose and propound
values that support the status quo (Holub 1992). However, Gramsci also argued that
the relationship between professional and nonprofessional may succeed in opening
up spaces in which dominant understandings can be disrupted, thereby producing
political counter-hegemony (Showstack Sassoon 1980; Femia 1981).
In this chapter, however, our aims are slightly different. We are not focusing on
the access that the case study professionals had to the ‘structures of feeling’ of their
clients. Instead we wish to analyse and evaluate our access to the different ‘structures
of feeling’ inhabited by the various respondents involved in the project. We seek
to do this by problematizing the relationships between respondents and ourselves.
We consider a number of issues – negotiating access, securing informed consent,
the debates around symmetry and asymmetry between researcher and respondent,
the processes of interviewing, data analysis and dissemination – and comment
on the formation and development of our relationships with respondents. We
seek, in particular, to tease out the differences and similarities of age, race, social
class, language, and gender, and to suggest how these disjunctions and connections
affected the process of data collection and analysis. Finally, we conclude with a brief
consideration of the implications of our arguments for future research design and
conduct.

Problematizing researcher–respondent
relationships

An attempt at reflexivity
This chapter constitutes an attempt to look reflexively at our conduct of the PCO
project, concentrating in particular on the relationships we established with respon-
dents. Reflexivity is now a fairly established part of qualitative research, particularly
that informed by postpositivist, critical ethnographic or feminist stances. As Kelly
et al. (1994: 46) comment:

Feminists have been stern critics of ‘hygienic research’; the censoring out of the
mess, confusion and complexity of doing research, so that accounts bear little
or no relation to the real [sic] events. But many accounts are full of silences too.

We agree strongly with their last statement. All attempts at reflexivity should be
recognized as highly partial. ‘Confessional’ research is to some degree, and despite
appearances to the contrary, ‘a selective reconstruction of the research process’
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 105

(Troyna 1994: 7; see also Paechter 1996). In this case, we remain the arbiter of
what we disclose, and what we do not, of how such disclosures are framed and
presented for public consumption. In this context, our voices as researchers remain
dominant, even when it is the research respondents who are speaking.
The formation and development of relationships between respondents and our-
selves were influenced, as is always the case, by myriad factors, including gender,
ethnicity, and differential backgrounds, occupations, and perceived status. The next
sections attempt to elucidate some of these connections and discrepancies and point
to their potential effects on the data gathered.

Access: informed consent?

In two of our case studies (the advice centre and the parent education group)
access was initially negotiated via the professionals working with the parents. This
immediately raises questions about who has the power of refusal. The professionals
concerned were White, middle class and involved in education, as we are. The
manager of the advice centre was previously known to one of us revealing shared
social networks. Therefore we shared certain aspects of the ‘structures of feeling’
of this group. Obviously each interview at the advice centre, whether with parent
or worker, was negotiated with every individual concerned, but by this point the
‘negotiations’ were rather more perfunctory.
This also applied in the parent education group. After the course tutor had
expressed interest in the project, one of us (CV) went to visit the group to talk
with the women students about the project. Nobody demurred. But it may have
appeared to them that to do so would have meant positioning themselves in opposi-
tion both to Christine, the course tutor, and perhaps to their peers. Our experience
of the actual interviews leads us to emphasize a slightly different point. None of the
women students showed any reluctance to talk, or to answer questions, and most
were extremely forthcoming and expansive in their answers. Being asked about
one’s own views and opinions, having a sympathetic listener as one recounts part
of one’s life story, is often quite seductive, and we think for most of the women
the experience was an enjoyable one. We also kept personal questions about their
own home circumstances to a minimum, relying on the information which was
volunteered, and concentrating most of the questions on their perceptions of the
course, and the effect it had had on them and their children.
However, we felt, as we did on occasion with other groups of respondents in this
study, that neither the research itself nor our explanations had much meaning for
the women. In saying that, we are not suggesting that they did not understand the
words or concepts we used, but rather that the idea of conducting such a research
project simply seemed a rather bizarre thing to be doing. One of the difficulties
of the research design and conceptualization was that of making it seem coherent
to participants. The case studies appeared so disparate that it was quite difficult to
justify the threads and linkages between them without resorting to the developing
conceptual framework. However, we found it consistently difficult to express that
106 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

in language shorn of its academic references. This contrasted with earlier research
one of us had done on parent–teacher relationships in primary schools (Vincent
1996a), which had an immediate and accessible rationale from the perspective of
respondents. Parent–teacher interactions were a part of the experience of all the
respondents, whereas a research focus on diverse parents’ groups and organizations
seemed by contrast hazier and less concrete.
Although over the course of the time spent with the group we tried out vari-
ous ways of explaining the study, and what we were hoping to achieve, none of
them seemed completely satisfactory. However, we worried less about this as the
research progressed and we got to know the women better. Finally, we came to
the conclusion that the research and ourselves were just not particularly important
in these women’s lives (see also Phoenix 1994). At best, we offered a period of
undivided interest in and attention to what they had to say (which several said they
enjoyed). At worst, we asked a series of questions of which they did not really see
the point but that were at least not overly intrusive. However, we remain doubtful
as to whether we could claim that we had fulfilled the basic ethical principle of
obtaining informed consent.

Symmetry and asymmetry

When we contacted the tutor of the parent education group to discuss researching
the students’ experiences of the course, she commented that she felt it would be
more appropriate for Carol to conduct the research, rather than Simon. Carol’s
femaleness was seen as having less disruptive potential than Simon’s maleness, and
she would be, by virtue of her gender, in a better position to build a rapport
with the women who attended the group. Implicit in such a view of course is the
idea that researcher–respondent symmetry is crucial for ‘good’ qualitative research.
Anne Oakley’s (1981) seminal paper argued that women researchers and respon-
dents are capable of building a close rapport based on their shared experiences of
being female within a patriarchal society (see also Finch 1984). A similar argu-
ment has been applied to race-related research, with the additional critique that
the focus of White researchers on Black people themselves has too often resulted
in Black individuals and groups being defined as problematic, rather than critically
analysing oppressive institutional power structures (Bourne 1980; Lawrence 1982).
In the light of these criticisms, gender and ethnic matching appears to offer the
possibility of nonexploitative, nonhierarchical researcher–respondent relationships.
However, the link between the (justifiable) criticisms and the ‘solution’ owes some-
thing to a sleight of hand. Gender and ethnicity matching are rooted in a ‘realist
epistemology, the central tenet of which is that there is a unitary truth about
respondents and their lives which interviewers need to obtain’, (Phoenix 1994:
66). Such an approach has been challenged of course (e.g. Stanley and Wise 1993),
on the grounds that it overlooks all the other possible aspects, contradictions and
disruptions – pertaining to class, age, occupation, race, gender and so on – which
influence not only the individual identities of both researcher and respondent,
but also their relationship with each other. A good example of this is provided by
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 107

Mehreen Mirza’s (1998) account of her relationships with women of South Asian
origin. Despite the matching between herself and her interviewees on the grounds
of gender and ethnicity, Mirza notes that placing did not always occur. Placing, she
explains, refers to the way in which we use personal attributes and characteristics
to place one another within wider social structures. However, Mirza’s occupation,
her wearing of non-traditional dress, her lack of familial links to the communities
which she was researching, the fact that she lived apart from her own family, all
contributed to the difficulties her respondents, many of whom were from more
conservative communities, had in placing her. Instead she sometimes found herself
consigned to a role as ‘other’ rather than the ‘same’ (see also Connolly 1996; see
Farhana Sheikh’s The Red Box (1991) for a fictionalized account of some of these
issues).
As Mirza points out (1998: 92), identities are ‘multi-layered’, ‘based on a host of
structures’, and continually open to ‘(re)negotiation and (re)invention’. Therefore
an attempt to explain an individual’s subjectivity in terms of one subject position
is unlikely to capture that complexity. Close researcher–respondent relationships
may develop despite a lack of obvious symmetry. Mac an Ghaill (1988) presents
an example of this in his research presented in Young, Gifted and Black. In a later
paper, he discusses the close relationships that developed between himself (a White
teacher) and his young, Black respondents. As one of them, Judith, explains

You can’t show what it’s like for a black woman in this society and of course
we should carry out our own studies, but you can’t reduce everything to race.
We all had black teachers, but we felt close to you. It all depends on things
like your political position. Like I would agree more with your interpretation
of our lives at school and college than a black conservative view, or a black
man’s view that was sexist. Of course, I’m biased because we contributed so
much to the study. You took serious the way that we saw things, you listened.
(quoted in Mac an Ghaill 1991: 113)

Nor is it self-evident that a close identification between researcher and respondent

is necessarily a ‘good thing’. It may mean that the one of the pair will assume what
is known and understood between them, which may be counter-productive for
the researcher’s attempt to understand the respondent’s subjectivity. Mirza (1998)
notes that there were advantages for her research, if not herself personally, of not
being easily placed as it allowed her to become a ‘stranger within’ (Collins 1990)
and often prompted her respondents to explain their perspectives, reasoning, and
understandings to her in detail, assuming that she would be unfamiliar with what
we have termed their ‘structures of feeling’.

Disjunctions and connections

As our research project involved professionals and clients from four very dif-
ferent parent organizations located in London and the Midlands, it involved an
extremely heterogeneous group of respondents. This resulted in a different pattern
108 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

of symmetries and asymmetries between ourselves and respondents. Of course,

group differences and similarities are not the only things to affect the development
of researcher–respondent relationships: individual temperament and personal differ-
ences clearly have a role to play, cross-cutting group symmetries and asymmetries.
However, the complex intersection of race, class, gender, and professional back-
ground between ourselves and the different groups of respondents throws some
light on the way in which research relationships are constructed and the constraints
and opportunities thereby afforded.
For reasons of space, we shall concentrate on the two case-study groups run by
professionals for parents as they provide examples of diverse relationships. [. . .]
With regard to the parent education group, we have already noted that shared
gender was perceived as a basis for establishing mutual placing with the student
respondents. However, through the course of the fieldwork, I (CV) became aware
of the asymmetry between myself and respondents. My position within a univer-
sity, the way I spoke, the fact that I was from outside the local area, my ethnicity
in the case of the Bangladeshi women students, all set me apart from the group.
These disjunctions were sharpened by the fact that my position within the group
was clearly different from that of the students. Sometimes, the course tutor referred
to me when in doubt over particular things – spellings perhaps, or bits of ‘general’
knowledge. We also had acquaintances in common whom she would occasionally
mention. On one occasion, Christine invited me to a session of the All-Party Par-
liamentary Group on Parenting (a group of Members of Parliament and members
of the House of Lords interested in issues around parenting) to give a ‘research
input’ to its members. This meeting necessitated Christine missing a session with
the parent education group, and she explained this to the women, saying, ‘Carol
and I are going to an important meeting at the Houses of Parliament’. I had happily
agreed to attend seeing it as a small way of being able to thank Christine for her
support of the research. I had not, however, realized that this positioning within an
apparently ‘elite’ group would serve to (re)emphasize my ‘otherness’ to the women
students. As a result of these disjunctions, I felt keenly that my participation in the
practical course activities was a clear piece of play-acting. Unlike the students, who
had to fulfil course requirements, I had no need to learn how to make flowers from
wool, or do ‘magic water’ experiments. As a result of all this, I felt I was positioned
as the other ‘adult’ in a classroom situation, with the course tutor as teacher and
the students as pupils.
My perceptions of the distance between myself and the women in the group
arose, therefore, partly as a result of the different structural locations that we inhab-
ited, which were reflected in my positioning within the group. These could have
been ameliorated, perhaps, with a different research design, one that allowed us
to spend longer periods of time with the group over the course of the year. This
would been of considerable help in allowing us to become more integrated into the
group. However, time constraints made this impossible. Our project consisted of
four case studies, and as we were only funded for a year, the pressure to complete
the fieldwork was intense. This could be seen as a flaw in the research design and
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 109

we are willing to accept it as such. However, we question whether funding could

have been obtained for a project with a much narrower focus.
My relationships with many of the group members underwent a qualitative shift
due to one particular event. Having not seen the group over the summer I went
back in the autumn with the news that I was pregnant. Although the women,
without exception, had been extremely friendly towards me, and ready to chat
informally during the sessions or in the tea-break, I had noticed that they rarely
asked me questions about myself. This changed when I became pregnant, and
the growing baby and the experience of pregnancy proved to be popular topics
of conversation. On consideration, this shift is unsurprising. The teacher–taught
relationship was neatly reversed. This was my first pregnancy, and at that time I
knew relatively little about pregnancy and birth. The majority of the women had
two, three, and in several cases four or five children. Motherhood was a crucial
aspect of their identity and one I was preparing to share.
The parents’ advice centre produced the most heterogeneous range of respon-
dents. The professionals and clients were male and female, of various ethnicities,
social classes, and ages. During the periods of time we spent at the centre, we
felt we had developed good relationships with the workers, and with some of the
parent clients. However, we felt we failed to do this in relation to particular parents.
Many of the centre’s clients were working-class Bangladeshi parents from the well-
established local Bangladeshi community. We negotiated permission to visit some
of these parents through the intervention of the Bangladeshi workers at the centre.
We then visited those parents at home with an interpreter, a woman of Bangladeshi
origin who lived locally, dressed in Bangladeshi style (as did all our respondents),
was not connected to the centre or the LEA and was fluent in Sylheti (the relevant
Bangladeshi dialect) and English. Our interpreter was not trained, but she had all
the advantages just listed, and indeed she seemed an excellent interpreter. However,
even with her help, we very often left a house feeling that we had not succeeded in
placing or being placed by our respondents. Actually, that is not quite right, they did
place us, but not in a way we wished to be placed. For our respondents, we think, we
were another set of White middle-class professionals turning up on their doorstep to
ask them about their children’s difficulties (although we were actually interested in
their experiences of the advice centre). For some, especially those whose children
had physical as well as learning difficulties, we were the latest in a very long line
of professionals asking them to tell us their story. It is perhaps unsurprising that the
differences between us as researchers and other educational and social service profes-
sionals, differences that seemed so acute to us, seemed so blurred to them. Although
they answered our questions, and gave us information, we felt we had failed to
make connections with these parents, in other words, to access their structures of
feeling.
This has implications for the data collected. The risk is that the absences and
silences of these Bangladeshi parents are understood in a way which reflects neg-
atively upon them as parents rather than upon us as researchers. This danger was
brought home to us in a separate evaluation of the advice centre, conducted by
110 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

others but concurrently with our research, which drew upon the data in our interim
report to suggest that Bangladeshi parents were more likely to be ‘passive and
dependent’ in their relationships with the advice centre workers, a conclusion
our own report had not reached. On reflection, we feel that had we been able
to carry out repeat interviews our relationships with all the respondents would
have benefited. Repeat interviewing would have allowed a closer relationship to
have developed which may have made the respondents feel more comfortable
with us personally, as well as more involved in the research, able perhaps to ask
us about the study, question our agendas, findings, and interpretations. How-
ever, as we noted earlier, the exigencies of obtaining funding for research do
encourage a ‘hit and run’ climate as shorter, apparently more cost-effective studies
proliferate.

Interviewing
We find the ideas of ‘translation’ and ‘interpretation’ useful here – both in a literal
sense, and also as a metaphor for the researcher–respondent interaction during the
interview, and especially for the processes of data analysis which the researcher
undertakes (see later text).
The attention focused on the ‘postmodern moment’ has meant that the assump-
tions inherent in the interview process have been problematized further still. The
literary turn, what Norman Denzin (1994) has labelled the ‘crisis of representation
and the crisis of legitimacy’, has raised fundamental questions about the stability of
language. As James Scheurich notes,

The language out of which questions [and responses – CV and SW] are
constructed is not bounded or stable; it is persistently slippery, unstable, and
ambiguous from person to person, from situation to situation, from time to
time.
(1997: 62)

He continues (1997: 73) by employing a phrase of Foucault’s, that ‘an indeterminate

ambiguity, a ‘wild profusion’ lies at the heart of the interview interaction’. He argues
that researchers cannot therefore claim to simply present their respondents’ views.
Instead, they are involved in a process of carefully and systematically creating ordered
packets of meaning from a swirl of indeterminacy.
This process is made even more explicit when an interpreter is present for the
interview, adding another voice to the interaction. The resulting texts then contain
the views and ideas of the respondent as understood by the interpreter. In our
experience, interpreters vary in the extent to which they seek to translate not
only the words (slippery as these are) but also the meanings and perceptions that
inform the words. Whilst this can alert White monolingual researchers, such as
ourselves, to nuances, the impact of which they may have overlooked, it clearly
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 111

adds another interpretive layer to the process, influenced by the interpreter’s own
social positioning.
Scheurich also questions another aspect of the symmetry/asymmetry issue: the
idea that there is an asymmetry of power in the interview interaction in favour
of the researcher, but that the researcher can and should try to rectify this by
‘empowering’ respondents (empowerment being a notably slippery and we suggest
a somewhat grandiose claim, see, for example, Troyna 1994; Fielding 1996; Vincent
1996b). There are a number of points to be made here. Certainly, the concern is
an important one. A researcher with a fixed list of questions, visiting a respondent
once and then ‘disappearing’ with the data (i.e. a part of the respondent’s ‘world-
view’) cannot be said to have engaged in an egalitarian relationship, or made the
respondent feel that she/he could actively contribute to the shaping of the research
process. However, as Scheurich argues, it is a mistake to assume that respondents
are always the ‘powerless’ ones during the interview interaction. Indeed, when an
interpreter is involved, the researcher’s (apparent) control of the interview is often
explicitly ceded to the interpreter as he/she is the one who is actively engaged in
constructing a direct relationship with the respondent. A different example is offered
by Sarah Neal (1995) who documents a situation – herself as a young, female PhD
student, trying to elicit the views of male, middle-aged vice-chancellors on the equal
opportunities policies within their universities – which reverses assumptions about
the power balance during an interview. Nor is this ‘resistance’ to the researcher
and his/her questions confined to situations whereby the respondent can call on
structural and institutional sources of power.

Interviewees do not simply go along with the researcher’s program, even if it

is structured rather than open. I find that interviewees carve out spaces of their
own; that they can often control some or part of the interview; that they push
against or resist my goals, my intentions, my questions, my meanings. Many
times I have asked a question that the respondent has turned into a different
question that she or he wants to answer. While sometimes this may be the
effect of misunderstanding, at other times, it is the interviewee asserting his
or her own control over the interview. In other words interviewees are not
passive subjects; they are active participants in the interaction.
(Scheurich 1997: 71)

We saw examples of this process as we sifted through the interview transcripts. It is

harder, however, to give illustrations in the short quote form that is acceptable and
possible in papers such as this one. The examples do not lend themselves to easy
extraction, being firmly embedded in the text of the interview; particular themes,
questions, misunderstandings surface and then disappear during the course of the
conversation. However, we have attempted to give an example by presenting this
extract from an early interview in the project’s history, a discussion with a key
activist in the campaigning group. Our reading of the interview suggests to us that
112 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

he is not wholly comfortable with the language of social class, and, perhaps picking
this up, our questions lack clarity.

SW : When you say parents, are they men, women, what kind of jobs?
Respondent: I would say 60–70%, no possibly 75% are women, it may even be
higher. They are mainly in white-collar jobs, but there are quite
a few in the local group who are in blue-collar jobs. In Midshire
City, there are quite a few more that are teachers or involved in the
Health Service.
[conversation moves on to discuss the role played by parents who are also
teachers]
CV : You mentioned the middle classes, and also you were talking earlier
about Middle England . . .
R: They’re not necessarily the same thing.
CV : Right. One of the things we’re particularly interested in is the range
of parents [the group] reaches. Does it reach out to different groups
in terms of social class, to the inner cities for instance?
[group membership had a rural/suburban majority]
R: Yes, very much so.
CV : How does it manage that, because most groups find that quite hard?
R: I think at the top we’ve got some very, very committed people who
are not concerned about class, or class bias. We’ve got people that
have come up through the system, and have seen the devastation
caused by elitism in education [elaborates on this point] . . . We’ve got
local groups in what you would call the Shire counties, we’re getting
new groups in Sussex, in Kent, the Tory heartlands . . . [he talks
about the large class sizes to be found in schools in these places, we try and
reintroduce social class]
CV : What research there is on voluntary groups and the people who get
involved with them does suggest that people who do get involved
tend to have a middle-class lifestyle. Would you say that was true of
[the campaigning group]?
R: No, I think it crosses all barriers and I think that’s been its success.
I mean I think we’ve been lucky that we had this [group’s logo] at
an early stage [goes onto talk about logo]
. . . We go into schools all over the country, I’ve been into, I don’t
know how many schools, and spoken to a dozen parents in, you
know, some fairly low, fairly deprived areas, so I think the beauty
is, and I think you’re right, the beauty is that we attract across the
social divide . . .

We had, of course, made no such suggestion.

This extract also provides an example of Scheurich’s concept of ‘chaos/freedom’.
Having emphasized respondent resistance to the researcher’s agenda, he insists that
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 113

the dominance–resistance binary lacks sufficient explanatory power. He adds a third

space, which he calls ‘chaos/freedom’:

[This] is everything that occurs that is neither dominance nor resistance, every-
thing that escapes this binary is chaos (because it is not encapsulated by the
binary) and represents openness or freedom for the interviewee . . . . There is
more to living, working and interviewing than can be circumscribed by the
dominance–resistance binary . . . . For instance the researcher may perform for
the interviewee for reasons that have nothing to do with the dominance of the
goal of the research. The researcher may use the interview experience to satisfy
his/her relational or emotional needs. The same is true of the interviewee . . . .
Many aspects of the interview interaction simply exceed either the dominance
of the researcher . . . and the resistance of the interviewee to that dominance.
(1997: 72–73)

Data analysis
Another related set of issues surrounds the process of data analysis. It is at this
point that the researcher’s power is unrivalled by respondents (Limerick et al. 1996:
457). As Coffey argues (1996: 72), ‘crafting authoritative texts is not an innocent’
objective process of representation, rather it is a highly subjective process of creation,
as we forge ‘our story of their story’ (Limerick et al. 1996: 450).
The problems bound up in this understanding of data analysis are legion. We
will concentrate on two here: the process of thinking and writing about the data,
and the process of dissemination. [. . .] It is as crucial to theorize the process of data
collection as to theorize about the data itself:

Contrast what the researcher brings to the written representation with what I
argue is the radical, indeterminate ambiguity or openness that lies at the heart of
the interview interaction itself, at the lived intersection of language, meaning,
and communication. The researcher then fills this indeterminate openness with
her or his interpretative baggage; imposes names, categories, constructions,
conceptual schemes, theories upon the unknowable; and believes that the
indeterminate is now located, constructed, known. Order has been created.
The restless appropriative spirit of the researcher is (temporarily) at peace.
(Scheurich 1997: 74)

Ribbens and Edwards (1998a) approach this crucial issue of presentation of data
from a slightly different angle. For them the dilemma is how to present marginalized
cultures understandings, and ways of living within Western public and academic
discourses. They argue that the juxtaposition of ‘authentic’ respondents’ voices with
academic writing can make those voices appear naive and simple. Beverley Skeggs
114 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

(1994) reaches similar conclusions in relation to her own research:

I became aware of how, when interspersing the young women’s spoken com-
ments into my academic writing, they were made to sound authentic and
simple . . . . Ethnography requires the researcher/writer to adopt stylistic tech-
niques usually associated with literature. It relies upon particular narrative and
constructive methods. It defines topics, shifts from one locale to another, jux-
taposes other perspectives and thus decides which context, and at what level
and from whose perspective the reader will see. It uses the label of authentic
voice to give weight to the shifts.
(1994: 86)

Presenting respondents’ voices involves a process of ‘translation’, but much can

get lost or corrupted in that process. Kay Standing (1998) considers this issue and
concludes:

The dilemmas we face as feminists writing the voices of the less powerful are
those of translation and compromise. How much of the women’s voices and
experiences do we lose by translating them into more academic language? Yet
if we do not translate . . . their words, how do we stop reproducing dominant
cultural constructions of poor and working class women? It is the dilemma of
trying to challenge not reproduce hierarchies of power and knowledge; the
dilemma of not losing the ‘authenticity’, emotion and vibrancy of women’s
voices, whilst not positioning them as ‘Other’; and distancing ourselves from
the political challenge of feminist research in the so called ‘objective’ language
of academia.
(1998: 201)

[. . .]
The parallels between ‘writing up’ (a term that suggests a straightforward record-
ing of reality) ethnography and writing fiction have often been noted (e.g. Van
Maanen 1995). Amanda Coffey (1996) gives an example of this in relation to her
study of graduate trainees in a large accountancy firm. When she returned to the
field after a period away, she became aware that her portrayal of her respondents
was slightly nuanced to emphasize the points she was making. Her ‘roles as observer
and selective filter, note-taker, reader and author’ (1996: 66) had served to accentu-
ate particular individual characteristics and minimize others. Patti Lather and Chris
Smithies (1997) address this issue in their book on women living with HIV/AIDS.
They make a deliberate effort to interrupt their authorial authority by interweav-
ing interview texts, sections engaging with the history, poetry, and sociology of
HIV/AIDS, and comments from the researchers on the research process. This mul-
tilayered textual fabric serves to disrupt expectations of a conventional narrative
structure told through the expert authority of the researcher (Lather 1997).
 Interviewing, ethics and diversity 115

Dissemination
As Coffey notes (1996: 61), the negotiation of ‘space, voice and authority in the
research enterprize and its productions’ can be highly problematic. Once access
is agreed, however, it is likely that different interpretations of ‘reality’ between
respondents and researcher will not come to light until some feedback is provided.
This proved a critical point for Coffey when the multinational accountancy
firm objected strongly to parts of her account. She comments that the institutional
power of a large multinational firm which could potentially be used against her and
against the graduate trainees allowed the firm to question the authenticity of her
text and in doing so question her authorial authority. However, other groups of
respondents do not have recourse to such power, and in these cases it is possible
for the researcher’s voice to remain dominant, in the way in which we described
earlier, even in apparently confessional accounts.
This became clear to us during a debate with a key respondent over a draft paper
concerning the parent education group. The paper sought to juxtapose our initial
reading of the parent education course with the more positive interpretation of the
students, and asked questions about the meaning of this apparent contradiction. We
felt that this tentativeness, this attempt to ‘deal in paradoxes and resist theoretical
closure’ (Ball 1997: 268) was a strength. However, we had overlooked the power
which accrued to us, as authors, through the process of fashioning an account. This
was strongly brought home to us when we sent a draft of the paper to the group’s
tutor, Christine. The tentativeness, the openness to other readings, the nuances of
academic writing was, to her, a chimera. Instead she read our account as sweeping
and insensitive, the theorizing as alienating and abstract. Her anger and feelings of
betrayal were evident. We spent a long time talking to Christine, to each other,
and to other colleagues to try and understand how this situation had arisen. [. . .]
Colleen Larson (1997) recommends engaging in ‘deliberative dialogue’ to allow
the negotiation of meanings between the researcher and the respondent. Indeed we
accept that we should have spent more time discussing the developing analysis and
its theoretical underpinnings with the group as a whole (for the students’ reactions
and responses were still missing). This form of dissemination and negotiation is
an ethical practice much praised but – despite some notable exceptions especially
amongst feminist researchers (e.g. Lather and Smithies 1997) – more infrequently
practiced by social science researchers. Christine made some important comments
which we incorporated into the published version of the paper. However, despite
our attempt at collaboration, we acknowledge that the power of the account, the
way in which the written word generates implications of authority and ‘correctness’,
still rested with us as authors.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have reflected on the processes of forming and developing
relationships with a heterogeneous range of respondents. Those processes raised a
number of ethical dilemmas concerning negotiating access, the incomplete nature
of apparently informed consent, interviewing, data analysis, and dissemination. We
116 Carol Vincent and Simon Warren

have tried to indicate the differences and similarities of age, race, social class, lan-
guage, profession, gender, and motherhood between ourselves and the respondents,
and to identify the impact of these disjunctions and connections on the research
process. We do not have space in this chapter to foreground in its entirety, what
Scheurich (1997) calls our ‘interpretive baggage’, the intellectual and personal val-
ues, histories and beliefs with which we approached the research, but this too is
clearly important if the reader is to be offered as much information as possible to
allow him/her to engage with our conclusions (although it is important to remain
alert to the dangers of excessive ‘navel-gazing’!).
Such a process of reflection can be defended only if this undertaking to examine
the ways in which our actions and beliefs shape the research process informs future
work. With this in mind, we derive two main, and fairly simple, conclusions.
The first is the desirability of a research design that allows for repeat interviews,
if we are aiming to develop egalitarian and nonexploitative relationships with key
respondents. ‘Hit and run’ research allows the respondents very little space in which
to try and access the research process, let alone try and influence it. The second
conclusion is that we need to acknowledge the processes of interpretation in which
we engage during analysis. As we are involved in creating meaning, maintaining
contact with respondents is a vital strategy (although by no means an unproblematic
one) for ensuring that we include their views and understandings of our attempts
to present and translate their words into a public academic arena. It has become
almost commonplace amongst qualitative researchers to acknowledge that ‘we need
to recognize ambiguity, to be open about the dilemmas we face and the choices we
make, and to think through the implications of these choices for the knowledge we
produce’ (Ribbens and Edwards 1998b: 205). Putting these values into operation,
however, as a central part of our research design and conduct remains easier said
than done.

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Chapter 10

‘Parents as partners’ in research

and evaluation
Methodological and ethical issues and
solutions
Sheila Wolfendale

Introduction
The area of home–school links and parental involvement has been designated and
legitimate within education for a number of years, and research and project ini-
tiatives have spanned curriculum, school organisation, community perspectives,
special educational needs provision and other facets of school life. Certain themes
thread consistently through some of these initiatives. For example, parental involve-
ment to raise children’s educational achievement; factors that promote parents as
effective ‘tutors’ of their own children; and ways in which empowered parents
contribute as equal partners within the educational process.
Over the past 30 years there has been considerable research and development into
facets of home–school and ‘parents as partners’, but they are sometimes prompted by
ideology and rarely predicated on neutral, value-free premises. Sometimes research
findings can, in turn, influence the adoption of social policies and legitimate ideo-
logical commitments (Tizard 1990). There is a circularity in the process evident in,
for example, a government commitment to increasing parental rights and involve-
ment in education which may have stemmed as much from an ideological stance
as from research evidence.
This chapter sets out to investigate a seldom-explored facet within research into
parents and home–school, namely, parents’ status within research, and will look
at some research paradigms that have been used. A number of inherent method-
ological and ethical issues will be identified and several fundamental aspects will be
examined, such as whether

• research into aspects of parental involvement and parent partnership is

consistent with ‘partnership with parents’ principles, that is, are parents treated
more as subjects or objects of research than as partners in an investigatory
process?
• researchers are more interested in the research process and outcomes than in
the effects of studies upon parents themselves;
• researchers (be they academic or practitioner researchers) apply ethical princi-
ples and guidelines when carrying out studies with, or on, parents and their
children.
120 Sheila Wolfendale

The question will be posed, ‘how problematic is this observed phenomenon

within research into this area?’, and finally, suggestions will be made as to how
researchers could proceed in future, within an ethical and equitable framework,
which does not compromise research integrity and is grounded in equal status
between all participants.

A brief review of research methods

Research into the inexhaustible aspects of the interface between parents and
professionals, and the working relationship between school and home, has taken
many forms. Some studies have been seminal and highly influential, even if small-
scale, such as the Haringay ‘experiment’ into parental involvement in reading
(Hewison 1985) or in Belfield (Hannon et al. 1985); others have been larger scale,
funded projects, such as the Kirklees Paired Reading Project (Topping 1996a)
which have likewise had an impact upon practice elsewhere. These and oth-
ers within the area of parental involvement in reading and, later, family literacy
(Wolfendale and Topping 1996), have been characterised by the use of classic
hypothesis-testing, pre- and post-testing exercises, with quantitative as well as
qualitative outcomes.
In the realm of hypothesis-testing research linked to practice, have been the
initiatives with which this author has been associated over the years. For example,
(i) ‘Guidelines for writing a parental profile’, as part of statutory assessment, now
subsumed into The Code of Practice for the Identification and Assessment of Special Edu-
cational Needs (DfE 1994) and (ii) the parent completed early years developmental
profile, All about Me (Wolfendale 1998).
There have been many surveys of parents’ involvement in their children’s
education:

• of their opinions of various aspects of parenting, Ferri and Smith (1996);

• of their views on the Ofsted inspection process, Research and Information on
State Education (RISE) (1995); Tabberer (1995);
• of their attitudes towards caring for a severely disabled child, Beresford (1995);
• of the challenges faced by families of children with learning disabilities,
MENCAP (1997).

There are also practice-orientated projects, in which the notion of research is

subsumed into ‘development’ work, epitomised by, for example, the two-year
Royal Society of Arts initiative exploring the feasibility of teachers, parents and
pupils working together in a range of schools and circumstances (Bastiani 1995).
Other research is concerned with the evaluation of parental involvement initiatives,
such as

• Wolfendale and Cook (1997), into the effectiveness of the SEN Parent
Partnership Schemes;
 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation 121

• Wolfendale (1996a), on the effects of a parental involvement programme which

was part of an inner city City Challenge initiative;
• White (1997), a national review into the take-up and enduring effectiveness
of Portage, the early years/SEN teaching programme wherein parents are the
teachers and are supported by practitioners;
• Bastiani (1997), a review of the SHARE parental involvement, primary
school-based programme.

This chapter illustrates the varied ways in which research has been carried out in
the parental involvement domain. The taxonomy outlined here (hypothesis-testing;
survey; practice-orientated evaluation research) covers a wide range.
Research to date, in these various spheres, has tended to reflect a benign,
liberal, facilitating ideology that seeks to promote or advance parents-as-
citizens/consumers’ interests, rights and participation in the delivery of public
services for and on behalf of their children. As stated earlier, outcomes from some
research endeavours lead directly to government policies and action (namely, family
literacy and numeracy, parenting programmes, parent partnership in SEN, Portage,
parental profiles, home–school agreements), and were endorsed by the previous, as
well, as the present Government. Parental involvement is amongst key indicators
for an effectively functioning school looked for by Ofsted inspectors.
This cited research, as well as a plethora of other initiatives, has utilised
well-known research paradigms, within quantitative and/or qualitative research
traditions. My contention is that we have been guilty of having given scant
regard to the methodological and ethical factors and limitations inherent in parent-
focused studies, especially when so many of the projects have been predicated upon
partnership with parents principles, namely those of rights/entitlement, equality,
reciprocity, and empowerment (Wolfendale 1992).
It must be stressed that the critique that follows applies in a general way to
parental involvement studies. There is no intention, even obliquely, to be destruc-
tive towards past research endeavours. Rather the intention is to learn from the
hard-won insights and methods of previous work, in order to inform future direc-
tions of research and development work with parents and, particularly, to evolve
towards an ethical, principled approach to such research.

Methodological limitations into researching

parental involvement
All sorts of human and reality factors compound the neat blueprint of a research
design and, in the realm of parental involvement studies, can often render the find-
ings suspect, or, at least, less reliable. The myriad of contributing variables affecting
children’s educational performance makes it difficult, methodologically, to iden-
tify parents’ engagement with their children’s education as a significant influencing
factor, if we only use educational achievement scores as a criterion measure. We
can probably ‘partial out’ direct parental input as a contributing factor, but should
122 Sheila Wolfendale

be wary of making greater claims. In Wolfendale (1996b) a way of conceptualising

the parental contribution to children’s education was to posit the notion of the
‘value added’ components of parental involvement as an educational intervention
area (pp. 33–34), which is offered as a way of singling out what it is that parents
contribute without having to rely solely on often spurious or misleading statistics.
Hannon (1996) likewise queries reliance upon test scores as the sole outcome
criteria of home–school literacy initiatives, and lists a range of methodological
shortcomings. In the same realm, Topping (1996b) reviews a range of studies, and
draws attention to a number of research features, such as the maintenance of gains,
generalisability, robustness of assessment instruments, and the ‘political, social and
economic circumstances in which programmes operate’ (p. 161).
These points refer mainly to hypothesis-testing and intervention studies.
Research in the attitude survey and evaluation domains can, without rigorous
design and control, fall prey to any one or more of a number of hazards spelled out
in any textbook on methodology. For example, research asking parents their views
on past experiences of child-rearing or their relationship with schools is susceptible
to the difficulty of verifying information given retrospectively. Human memory
can be selective or faulty, with reconstructions of past events ‘contaminated’ by
recency factors. Asking parents for their contemporaneous views, whilst ostensibly
more reliable, still makes researchers prey to being given selective, partial, filtered
information. There is also the possibility of a researcher not being in tune with
parents’ belief-systems and lifestyles, and misconstruing responses.
Another methodological limitation in survey and attitude work is the issue of
representativeness. Statistical considerations concerned with numbers, range, ‘type’
or category of parents operate in this realm as well as in evaluation research, as was
found during the recent DfEE-funded evaluation study into Parent Partnership
Schemes (Wolfendale and Cook 1997). Focus groups of parents in 25 local educa-
tion authorities (LEAs) were a key part of the study, and local professionals within
SEN identified and approached parents, to attend a focus group meeting. Thus
already self-selection, bias and probably unrepresentativeness were methodological
factors. These limitations were offset by building into the design:

• LEA representativeness, that is, 25 case study LEAs from a range of geographical
and social settings;
• a sufficient number of focus groups and parents to obtain some reliable indices,
ranging from ‘prevalent/common’ to ‘less common/infrequent’ views;
• the avoidance of an over-reliance on the data, which was regarded as
illuminative, illustrative and significant of trends, but not definitive.

Ethical considerations when researching

parental involvement
The ethical dimensions to research in this area of parental involvement and
home–school have not really been directly addressed to date, certainly not with
 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation 123

regard to parent partnership principles. An increasing number of organisations and

institutions have come to recognise that research in the social sciences has not
traditionally operated equal opportunities policies and practices. Many have now
developed ethical guidelines for conducting research, which confer some rights
and entitlements upon the participants, and it seems opportune to look at these in
relation to researching parental involvement.
One of the predominant ethical issues in research is the status of people
approached to be the target of research studies. The British Psychological Soci-
ety (BPS 1993) has recently adopted a policy change, that is, the people on and
with whom research is undertaken, that is, the focus of research scrutiny are no
longer to be called ‘subjects’, or even ‘objects’. The word ‘participants’ is seen
as a less loaded and a more benign term and denotes a shift in thinking amongst
researchers, from regarding people in research and experiments as manipulable,
research fodder, to perceiving them as partners in an enterprise. The reciprocal
aspect is that researchers are, after all, heavily dependent upon the willing partici-
pation of the subjects’ approached. Banister et al. (1994) summarises the change of
attitude:

The very use of terms such as ‘participants’ (or ‘co-researchers’, depending on

the precise methodology adopted) rather than ‘subjects’ emphasizes the real-
isation of the imbalanced power relationships inherent in much research and
attempts to address and remedy such problems.
(p. 175)

Another salient issue is that of ‘informed consent’, integral to sanctioned research

within the Health Service, but which has had variable application within edu-
cational research. Only three out of seven contemporary textbooks on research
methodology consulted by this author listed ‘informed consent’ in their subject
indexes. Banister et al. (1994) provide some guidance on how to operate within an
‘informed consent’ model, to ensure

• full and frank disclosures to potential or confirmed participants about the

purpose and outcomes of the research;
• evidence of participants’ understanding of the purposes and outcomes of the
research, and of their part in it;
• minimisation of participants’ anxieties;
• guarantees on confidentiality and anonymity, and a promise to terminate the
research if participants become too uncomfortable to continue, or are unwilling
to maintain their commitment.

These ‘solutions’ will be returned to.

There are other ethical aspects to the traditional researcher–researchee relation-
ship, which could now be seen to be invidious and certainly not expressive of
a relationship based on equality, or parity of esteem. One is the categorisation
124 Sheila Wolfendale

of survey respondents into, for example, social class or other categories without
respondents being aware

(a) that a categorisation mapping is a fundamental part of the study;

(b) of the category, for example, social class to which they have been assigned.

Clearly there is a schism between, on the one hand, a need for social science and
social policy researchers to operate classification systems when investigating social
phenomena, and on the other, a need for transparency, honesty and account-
ability towards respondents who are being asked to divulge personal information.
Another ethical issue resulting from the researcher–researchee relationship is the
power imbalance, wherein the researcher may have privileged access to more infor-
mation about the research context and purposes than the participant. The researchee
in the traditional relationship has had no power or influence over the outcomes of
the research or the purposes to which it has been put and, as Banister et al. (1994)
point out, at worst the power imbalance can lead to the participant’s exploitation.
During the data collection process, other ethical issues arise with regard to those
studies which utilise face-to-face, 1:1 interviewing. In addition to the above-
mentioned factors, others are concerned with ensuring the ease and comfort of
the interviewees, the courtesy with which they are treated, and adequate time
for them to complete their responses. Richardson and colleagues (1996) identify
‘interviewer responsibility’ and broaden their discussion of these issues by includ-
ing interviewer as well as interviewee feelings during the sensitive period of the
interview meeting. For these writers, a central issue is trust which is and should be
reciprocal, and they offer helpful guidelines for the ethical conduct of interviews.
The final ethical consideration to be included in the discussion is that of ‘the ethics
of intrusion’, wherein the advent of a researcher into the personal or private domain
of the participant is bound to influence the research process and the researcher–
researchee relationship, which is also a methodological factor. The invasion of
personal privacy by researchers can epitomise, at worst, the power imbalance; at
best, with the willing engagement of the researchees into the process, the researcher
becomes a ‘participant researcher’ (well documented in methodology textbooks,
especially on qualitative research).
Vetere and Gale (1987) devote a chapter to ‘Ethical issues in the study of family
life’, in which they raise crucial and fundamental dilemmas concerning access,
informed consent, permission, confidentiality, and the role of the researcher as
‘an instigator of change’ by his or her presence within the family. These authors
were research psychologists who ‘lived’ with a family for the best part of a year
as semi-participant researchers and they state that the reasons for so little first-
hand research into family life are obvious. Family life is for all of us a sacred
domain, with even relatives and friends entering the family nucleus by invitation
only. Likewise, researchers and professionals, such as teachers, health visitors, social
workers, educational and clinical psychologists, can only ‘intrude’ into the family by
 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation 125

invitation and it follows that there should be clear ground rules, mutually accepted,
for the conduct of the research.
Gilgun et al. (1992) are also amongst the few authors who have addressed ethical
issues within the domain of family research. They raise the various considerations
that have already been identified in this section, and another, namely, the ethical,
moral dilemma for the researcher and the emotional dilemna for the researchee
when the latter makes an unanticipated and perhaps unintentional personal disclo-
sure. This potentially serious side-effect of the research needs anticipating within
the research design and its ethical framework.

Have parents and families been partners

in research?
At the beginning of this chapter, a number of speculative questions were posed,
amongst which was how problematic is this area. Problem-areas have been iden-
tified with methodological limitations and ethical considerations, and especially
problematic in the view of this author is that the conduct of much research into
parents and home–school has not been consistent with principles of partnership
with parents. Even those surveys and attitude studies may not have treated the
respondents as equals within the process. Hannon (1996) laudably argues for the
inclusion of stakeholders’ views (typically parents and teachers) into intervention
studies, such as home–school literacy, but does not go on to propose that such
inclusion should be within an equality model.
A catalogue of omission would include that parent-participants have

• in some studies been excluded from fully knowing the purposes and outcomes
of the research;
• not been in receipt of written ethical guidelines;
• not had the opportunity to contribute their experience and perspectives to the
conduct and outcomes of the research.

Wolfendale (1992) considers whether such a model (including the definitions of

the four key elements: rights/entitlement; equality; reciprocity; and empowerment)
can be applied to co-operative research wherein parents are partners:

1 Rights/entitlement. ‘the concept of rights can act as a springboard for ensuring

not only that parents know their rights but that they can guarantee that these
rights will have expression’ (p. 3). This would mean that they would have the
right and entitlement to be in possession of as much information about the
proposed research as possible; they would know of informed consent; they
would have the right to withdraw from participation without harassment.
2 Equality. ‘. . . equal status between parents and professionals (researchers). . .
each bringing different but equivalent experience and expertise to that joint
enterprise’ (p. 3). This ‘parity of esteem’ would ensure that parents were treated
126 Sheila Wolfendale

as vital and equal contributors to the research process, bringing an invaluable

dimension of experience and perspectives which could inform the research
design, enrich the outcomes and, possibly, the effects of the research.
3 Reciprocity. ‘reciprocal involvement rests on the premise that each person
involved is contributing and sharing information, expertise and ultimately the
responsibility for actions and decisions. Thus all are accountable’ (p. 3). The
ultimate responsibility for the research (design, conduct, etc.) must rest with
the researchers; it would not be proper to saddle parent-participants with dis-
proportionate and irrelevant responsibilities. However, parents would know
and be assured that they are valued for their contribution (Richardson 1996).
4 Empowerment. ‘empowerment usually refers to the means as well as the ends
of realising and expressing wants, needs and rights and of ensuring that the
parental voice is heard and has influence’ (p. 3). In the co-operative research
model, parents are not regarded as passive ‘subjects’, accepting what is thrust
upon them by way of research design or research instruments; they have an
inbuilt right to express their views, and constructively influence the process.
Such an egalitarian stance might, of course, even influence decisions on what
phenomena should be under research scrutiny.

Towards an equitable model of co-operative

research
One ‘solution’ to the unequal relationship between researchers and parent-
participants in applying a partnership model to co-operative research in the
home–school domain was proposed earlier. But this section takes the proposition
further, in suggesting that in order for such an approach to work, written codifica-
tion of the principles and practices is needed. A written ‘Code of Conduct’ would
be a visible manifestation of good intent on all sides, setting out core values as well
as best practice. The cardinal principle is expressed within the British Psychological
Society’s Code of Conduct (1993):

The essential principle is that the investigation should be considered from

the standpoint of all participants; foreseeable threats to their psychological
well-being, health, values or dignity should be eliminated.
(p. 33)

The elements set out here are focused on ethical considerations and less upon the
methodological limitations identified earlier. A vital corollary of proceeding towards
co-operative research is that these methodological constraints are anticipated, dealt
with, combated, minimised in all the ways offered in textbooks on methodology.
Parent-participants, as partners in research enterprises, could themselves contribute
to discussions on how these constraints could be minimised, particularly if, as a
canon of co-operative research, the researchers are honest at the outset about the
factors of sample size, representativeness and memory effects.
 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation 127

A Code of Conduct, resting upon partnership in research, is a step beyond the

pro-forma used by many academic institutions. For example, the University of East
London Ethics Committee has devised a model form of consent, the headings of
which require the researcher to: spell out the aims and objectives of the proposed
research in lay language; explain the contribution required from the participant;
describe the process; provide reassurance about confidentiality and anonymity; and
offer a disclaimer in these words:

. . . you are not obliged to take part in this study and are free to withdraw at
any time . . . should you choose to withdraw from the programme, you may
do so without disadvantage to yourself and without any obligation to give a
reason.

The speculative Code of Conduct proposed is offered to readers for discussion

and trial. It is not a finished product and, after use, would be developed and
amended and could, over time, become an accepted part of the methodology of
co-operative research with parent-participants across all domains. The elements in
the Code are culled, not only from the partnership model outlined earlier, but from
the ethical guidelines for conducting research contained in several of the textbooks
on methodology already cited in this chapter.

A Code of Conduct for co-operative research

Section 1: Statement of values and principles and

purpose of the Code
This section would set out core values and principles along the lines of the partner-
ship model outlined earlier, the main elements of which are rights and entitlement,
equality, reciprocity and empowerment.

Section 2: Responsibilities and commitment by

the researcher(s)
This section would include elements such as

• open and honest descriptions of the aims and objectives of the proposed
research;
• the provision to participants of verbal and written information about the
proposed research, including a showing of the research instruments;
• clear statements about the nature of the involvement of the participants and
the estimated time scale;
• sensitive, respectful handling of participants;
• guarantees (e.g. confidentiality, anonymity);
• provision of conducive surroundings in order to put participants at ease
(depending, of course, on the kind of study);
128 Sheila Wolfendale

• a promise to provide information regarding the research outcomes and possible

uses to which the findings could be put (debriefing);
• build into the research design, opportunities for participants to contribute ideas
at various stages;
• ensure full understanding on the part of the participant before the consent form
is signed;
• if payment is offered, be clear about the amount and terms;
• offer a clear disclaimer;
• propose the formation of a research committee, with parent-participant
representatives.

Section 3: Entitlement and the rights of participants

Elements could include the right to

• receive written information about the proposed research, including the

research instruments, the written request to contribute, and the estimated time
scale;
• be treated sensitively and with respect;
• ensure that the research is carried out in conducive surroundings, where
appropriate;
• comment upon and contribute to the research process;
• receive information about, and contribute to, the research findings;
• help to shape the research agenda (depending upon the nature of the proposed
research);
• clarify how the participant might gain by contributing;
• withdraw from the research, without citing a reason.

Section 4: Responsibilities and commitment

by the participant
Elements could include that

• participants demonstrate that they understand the nature of the proposed

research, and the contribution required (including time commitment);
• by giving their informed consent (i.e. signing the consent form), they agree to
keep appointments and to co-operate along the agreed lines.

Concluding comments
Research into the area of parental involvement and home–school has a venerable
and respectable pedigree, wherein a range of methodologies have been explored
and developed. This chapter has argued a case for adopting a partnership model
for co-operative research in this area and has attempted to combine it with a set of
ethical guidelines. On the basis of overwhelming evidence and signs of continued
 ‘Parents as partners’ in research and evaluation 129

commitment, on the part of national and local government and schools, to parental
engagement with their children’s education, including special needs, we can predict
that research and development studies will continue into

• parental involvement in the curriculum;

• parental contributions towards the ‘effective school’;
• the part that parents might play in the new Education Action Zones and the
Early Years Partnerships;
• parents’ possible support of moves towards inclusive education for children
with special needs;
• home–school agreements (contained within the 1998 Education Act);
• whether parents can make a valued contribution towards baseline (on entry to
school) assessment.

All these and other related contemporary areas will doubtless become part of
research agenda. It therefore seems appropriate to apply partnership principles to
research on this topic.

References
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Bastiani, J. (1995) Taking a Few Risks. London: Royal Society of Arts.
Bastiani, J. (1997) Evaluation of the SHARE Pilot Programme. Coventry: Community
Education Development Centre.
Beresford, B. (1995) Expert Opinions (a national survey of parents caring for a severely disabled
child). Bristol: The Policy Press, University of Bristol.
British Psychological Society (1993) ‘Ethical principles for conducting research with human
participants’, The Psychologist, 6 (1), 33–35.
Department for Education (1994) The Code of Practice for the Identification and Assessment of
Special Educational Needs. London: DfE.
Ferri, E. and Smith, K. (1996) Parenting in the 1990s. London: Family Policy Studies Centre.
Gilgun, J., Daly, K. and Handel, G. (eds) (1992) Qualitative Methods in Family Research.
London: Sage Publications.
Hannon, P. (1996) Literacy, Home and School: Research and Practice in Teaching Literacy with
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Hannon, R., Jackson, A. and Page, B. (1985) ‘Implementation and take up of a project to
involve parents in the teaching of reading’, in K. Topping and S. Wolfendale (eds) Parental
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Hewison, J. (1985) ‘Parental involvement and reading attainment: implications of research
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in Children’s Reading. Beckenham: Croom Helm.
MENCAP (1997) Left in the Dark. London: MENCAP.
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Parents’ Eye-view. London: The Research and Information on State Education Trust.
130 Sheila Wolfendale

Richardson, J. (ed.) (1996) Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology and the
Social Sciences. Leicester: British Psychological Society Books.
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Slough: NFER.
Tizard, B. (1990) ‘Research and policy: is there a link?’, The Psychologist. October. 435–440.
Topping, K. (1996a) ‘Tutoring systems for family literacy’, in S. Wolfendale and K. Topping
(eds) Family Involvement in Literacy: Effective Partnerships in Education. London: Cassell.
Topping, K. (1996b) ‘The effectiveness of family literacy’, in S. Wolfendale and K. Topping
(eds) Family Involvement in Literacy: Effective Partnerships in Education. London: Cassell.
Vetere, A. and Gale, A. (1987) Ecological Studies of Family Life. Chichester: John Wiley
and Sons.
White, M. (1997) ‘A review of the influence and effects of Portage’, in S. Wolfendale (ed.)
(1997) Working with Parents of SEN Children after the Code of Practice. London: David Fulton.
Wolfendale, S. (1992) Empowering Parents and Teachers: Working for Children. London: Cassell.
Wolfendale, S. (1996a) ‘The contribution of parents to children’s achievement in school:
policy and practice in the London Borough of Newharn’, in J. Bastiani and S. Wolfendale
(eds) Home–School Work in Britain: Review, Reflection and Development. London: David
Fulton Publishers.
Wolfendale, S. (1996b) ‘The relationship between parental involvement and educational
achievement’, in C. Cullingford (ed.) Parents, Education and the State. Aldershot: Arena
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Wolfendale, S. (1998) All about Me (Second edition). Nottingham: NES-Arnold.
Wolfendale, S. and Cook, G. (1997) Evaluation of Special Educational Needs Parent Partnership
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Partnerships in Education. London: Cassell.
Part III

Methods and practices

Page Intentionally Left Blank
Chapter 11

The moral maze of image ethics

Jon Prosser

Introduction
Visually orientated educational research, relative to orthodox educational research,
is a ‘newcomer’ to the qualitative research field. As such it lacks a history of accepted
ethical practice or a range of theoretical positions on which to base ethical judge-
ments. This chapter does not focus on a general set of ethical principles that are
the benchmark for ‘wordsmiths’ but instead considers common ethical predica-
ments that result from applying an image-based approach to qualitative research.
Those involved who make and use images in a research context are ethically obli-
gated to their subjects. There are moral and political reasons for this. Future visual
researchers require access to images and image-making possibilities if image-based
research is to make a significant contribution to qualitative research. To gain and
maintain that access, to stay in potentially stimulating visual contexts, there is a
need to secure the confidence of respondents and fellow researchers. Establishing
respondents’ confidence means assuring them that they will not be ‘damaged’ mis-
represented or prejudiced in any way; in terms of researchers’ confidence it means
agreeing ethical procedures that protect respondents yet ensure the trustworthiness
of findings. Image-based research, being a relative newcomer to interpretative stud-
ies, needs theoretical and methodological tenets on which to base its credentials.
However, confidence in image-based investigations will be generated only when
ethical principles are agreed between researchers and researched, and within the
research community, and adhered to by visual researchers across a range of visual
contexts.
Identifying what constitutes an appropriate ethical practice, as the title of the
chapter suggests, is not easy. In order to explore the twists and turns of the ethical
maze this chapter is divided into two parts. The first part considers still photography
and provides examples from my own work to illustrate ethical dilemmas that face
practitioners of image-based research. The second part considers moving images, and
emphasis is placed on documentary-type film and video. This is an artificial divi-
sion, as many issues, for example those of access, political pressures and aesthetics,
discussed within the still photography subheading, are equally applicable to moving
images, and the converse is also true. Hence, ethical issues should be considered as
134 Jon Prosser

operating across this divide and encompassed by the more general term ‘image-based
research’.

Image-based research
Image-based research is comprised of moving images in the form of film and video,
and still images, for example, photographs, cartoons, and drawings. It thus does not
form a homogeneous set of technologies, techniques or practices. This divergence
is compounded by different analytical procedures and differently generated data
used for different ends. Researchers using images may draw on a diverse range of
disciplines which, potentially at least, apply a different set of ethical practices. The
diversity of theory and practice within image-based research does not suggest a par-
ticular field of educational research which constructs and applies its own set of ethics.
What makes image-based research differently situated as compared with other forms
of research lies in the obvious: visual images are quite different in nature from words
in their allusion to ‘reality’, and participants see themselves and can be seen by others.
Image-based research is often perceived by academics and practitioners alike
as having a lower status (Prosser 1998) and operating on the margins of quali-
tative research. Orthodox, word-orientated researchers relate, methodologically
and ethically, to their respective disciplines of sociology, history and psychology.
Image-based researchers, on the other hand, derive their methodological and eth-
ical inspiration from visual sociology and visual anthropology. However, with this
alignment comes a new set of problems, especially for film-makers and photogra-
phers. Although photographs, for example, were used in early sociological journals,
their use damaged any hope of academic integrity. Riis and Hine, for example, the
most prominent protagonists in the use of photography to bring about social change,
were seen by many as ‘muck-raking’ (Stasz 1979: 134). Equally, documentary pho-
tographers of this period such as August Sander’s portraits of German social types
(Sander 1986) and Eugène Atget’s survey of Paris (Atget 1992) were perceived as
lacking a methodological framework. Hence not only did early practice under-
cut the acceptability of image-based research in the eyes of social scientists, more
importantly it failed to provide an initial ethical framework. Indeed, visual sociol-
ogy emerged as a subdiscipline only around 1970. Consequently, few role models
of acceptable ethical practice have been debated, let alone established for others
to follow. All this has repercussions for image-based educational researchers and
ethical practice who rely on visual sociology, visual anthropology, films of the doc-
umentary genre or media reportage for methodological models. Given the matrix
of adoption and the paucity of role models for those educational researchers using
images, there is little in the way of ethical consensus.

Still photography
Photographs have numerous uses in educational research and at different phases
of the research process different ethical principles come to bear. The period prior
 The moral maze of image ethics 135

to making images, the act of constructing images, and issues arising after they are
made, each carry discrete ethical implications. (This also holds for moving images.)
In practice the process begins by negotiating access for image-making. This means
negotiating with the head of an educational institution – as prime ‘gatekeeper’ –
what can and cannot be photographed, how photography is to take place, and
how resultant images are to be used. Of course both researcher and ‘gatekeeper’
have reasons for seeking permission or agreeing (or otherwise) that photography
may occur. The researchers have their agenda: to add to sociological knowledge,
to increase career prospects; and the ‘gatekeepers’ too have their agendas: to be
treated fairly and to use the research activity to their own advantage. Becker (1988:
xv) reminds us that contracts with a visual locus are rarely based on philanthropy
but rather on some potential usefulness to both parties:

Remember that the heads of . . . institutions such as hospitals, jails or schools,

who need not participate in having films of themselves made, generally think
there is something in it for them: perhaps a chance at reform, perhaps some
public relations benefit. They may well think they are smarter than the film-
maker or researcher. Is it unethical for image workers to pretend to be dumber
than they are to take advantage of that arrogance? Others, less powerful, also
have their own reasons for co-operating with image-makers, so the bargain is
seldom one-sided.

There is no straightforward answer to Becker’s question. Balanced against the pos-

sibility of unbridled researcher deception is the potential for participants to behave
‘unnaturally’ if the focus of the study is made explicit. But implicit in Becker’s
statement is another ethical dilemma: that ‘gatekeepers’, during negotiations for
access to schools, may set parameters or limitations on the research enterprise. The
headteacher, being in a position of power, can influence how staff and students
are portrayed by controlling access to him- or herself and therefore images (by,
for example, insisting on photographing in ‘formal settings’ or ‘staged’ shooting),
while allowing and directing access to those less powerful. This is borne out in
the paucity of visual studies of powerful leaders of institutions and organizations
as compared with the multitude of studies of less powerful groups such as teach-
ers and schoolchildren. During negotiations for access, general guidelines have the
potential to be made specific and formal or non-specific and informal. However,
the underlying ethical issues are the degree to which the aims of the project are
made clear and the extent to which academic freedoms are curtailed by censorship.
Stereotypically, a photojournalist appears in Hollywood films as ‘standing on
the hood of a tank as it lumbers into battle through enemy fire, making images
of war as he risks his life’ (Becker 1998: 85). Photographers seeking to document
events in educational institutions need to be more wily in their approach. The
introduction of a camera to participants can take place on the first day as a ‘can
opener’ (Collier and Collier 1986) or over a period of time using a ‘softly softly’
approach (Prosser 1992: 398). The ‘softly softly’ approach entails walking around
136 Jon Prosser

an institution with the camera in an ‘out of the case over the shoulder like a piece of
jewellery’ mode, followed by ‘safe’ photography of buildings or positive publicity-
type images suitable for inclusion in the institution’s prospectus. Only much later
is ‘serious’ photography normally attempted. There is a delicate dividing line here
between being sly, deceitful and furtive, and being sensitive and judicious. The
final arbiters of ethical decisions may lie not with the visual researcher, nor the
research profession who are not in a position to know, but with participants who,
in accepting or rejecting the investigator, signal their response.
Images can be obtained openly or covertly. To act covertly, for example, would
be to hide from the subject, use a telephoto lens that allows recording of a scene
from a distant position, or to use a ‘snooper’ which allows the photographer to point
their cameras in one direction while actually taking a photograph at right angles to
the apparent angle of shooting. Such techniques are rarely practised in educational
contexts. Nonetheless, since cameras may incite suspicion and discourage naturalis-
tic behaviour, disputable tactics are used, such as shooting ‘from the hip’ or setting
a camera on ‘auto’ to give the impression the camera is not functioning, when
it is. Visual sociologists would justify, this practice by arguing that if permission
to take photographs had been granted, emphasis shifts to applying techniques that
are appropriate to obtaining trustworthy data, and this may entail shooting when
subjects are unaware. Nevertheless, few image-orientated educational researchers
would countenance outright covert or clandestine photography, as it more often
reveals researchers’ discomfort with their own photographic activity than it does
insights into the daily lives of their subjects.
During the opening phase, prudent photographers identify no-go areas and those
participants not previously excluded by the ‘gatekeeper’ who do not want their pho-
tograph taken. This is a question of privacy made ambiguous by territory, motive
and consequence. Educational establishments are neither private nor public places,
making the legal position even more unclear than is normally the case (the law on
privacy and intrusion with regard to photography in public and private places is
vague in the United Kingdom). Besides, teachers and managers feel ‘ownership’
of their spaces that comes from a deep sense of professional autonomy. To assume
they are not ‘private’ places would be a mistake on the part of the photographer.
Of course, the most dramatic, even sensational, images may be of those not want-
ing their photographs taken, but that is no reason for taking photographs. Such
actions are not only dishonest, but also counter-productive to the enhancement
of sociological knowledge. Ultimately the reason for not taking photographs of
participants if they are hostile to the idea is not a matter of privacy or morality but
the likelihood of such action compromising rapport – a necessity for any researcher
hoping to remain in the field.
Although access provides initial ethical problems, these can normally be antic-
ipated. Any problems at this stage are precursors to more substantial dilemmas,
anticipated and unforeseen, that attend the photographic activity that follows. Given
that all photographs are constructions, it is important to know something of the
context of creating an image if the implied promise of truthfulness to the subject,
 The moral maze of image ethics 137

Figure 11.1 ‘The Ritual of Knock and Wait’ (Photo by Jon Prosser).

the audience and the research profession is to be upheld. I will use examples of
weaknesses in my own work to illustrate how the serendipitous nature of photog-
raphy can compromise not only the face validity and the veracity of images but also
the ethical status of the photographer.
Figure 11.1, ‘The Ritual of Knock and Wait’, used in a study of school cul-
ture, shows a teacher knocking at the headteacher’s door, bending, listening for
a response from within. The objective – to illustrate a taken-for-granted ritual –
was planned and drew on the work of Cartier-Bresson (1952) in isolating a ‘deci-
sive moment’ for its visual arrangement. The context of taking the photograph is
interesting because it highlights a range of ethical issues. The first is the possibility of
misrepresentation stemming from the polysemic nature of images, for even a single
image has many legitimate interpretations. My intended meaning of the photograph
was simply ‘this is the everyday ritual of knocking and waiting’. However, the aes-
thetic device (more on this later), the inclusion in the frame of a visual clue (the
painting on the left), potentially implies a ‘Big Brother is watching you’ relation-
ship between the teacher outside and the headteacher inside. This would be one
interpretation, but a misrepresentation, since observations and interviews showed
that such an implication would be quite unfounded. The aesthetic device, used to
make a more dynamic, and implicit but consequential statement, detracts from the
original objective of the image. It demonstrates the importance of using images in
138 Jon Prosser

conjunction with words to project an intended meaning. Equally, it illustrates that

while the researcher-created images may be attributed a meaning by others, their
intended meaning is best signalled in relation to the socio-political context of how
and why the image was made.
The second ethical issue is concerned with fabrication. The first time Figure 11.1
was taken, the film was damaged in processing and could not be printed. When
I came to repeat the photograph, the lens, film, time of day, angle of shooting and
the scene were the same but the painting (it having been returned to the pupil who
painted it) and the teacher were missing. The pupil agreed to bring the painting
into the school for one day – the day the head was away from the school. Teachers,
aware that he was away, did not knock on his door. After I had waited for two
hours a teacher, out of sympathy for my plight, pretended to knock and I got my
picture. The second image replicated the first in many respects, but is nonetheless
artificial, a ‘set-up’ with little in the way of the naturalism so central to documentary
photography and qualitative research. The photograph, used as an illustration, was
included in reporting the findings of the study without mention of the context of
taking.
Is all deceit morally equal and to be equally condemned? My feeling is ‘no’. It
depends, for example, on the mode of communication. Would it be considered
deceitful if, during an interview, a tape recorder failed and the interview were
repeated? Probably not. However, as the mode of communication in the case of
‘The Ritual of Knock and Wait’ is a photograph, there is a stronger case to argue
that deceit has taken place. Image-based researchers frequently state that pho-
tographs are not and will never be an objective witness of reality or a ‘window on
the world’. Nevertheless, many audiences expect an unrealistically high level of
‘objectivity’ and ‘truthfulness’ of photographs, more so than would be expected
of verbal or written forms of communication. The problem of photographs being
perceived by audiences as ‘telling us what the world is really like’ (Beloff 1985:
100) is long-standing, as Gross et al. (1988: 4) point out:

The ‘marriage of conviction’ between our faith in the truthfulness of the pho-
tographic image and our belief in the possibility of objective reporting has
lasted nearly a century and a half, and has been strengthened by the inven-
tion of motion pictures and television. Although both partners in this marriage
have come under growing suspicion, undermined by our growing awareness
of the inevitability of subjectivity in the selection, framing, contextualisation,
and presentation of images and reports, their continuing acceptance in public
discourse and belief testifies to their resilience.

Therefore, because image-based researchers are aware of the inherent problem

stemming from the ‘marriage of conviction’, it is their moral responsibility to pass
on information relating to the context of making which tends to support the so-
called trustfulness of the photographic image (more on this later). Consequently,
what makes ‘The Ritual of Knock and Wait’ ethically indefensible is that the context
 The moral maze of image ethics 139

Figure 11.2 ‘Pupil on Walkabout’ (Photo by Jon Prosser).

of taking was not revealed, denying audiences informed interpretation and further
enhancing the possibility of a false sense of trust in the photograph.
Figure 11.2, ‘Pupil on Walkabout’, illustrates a quite different ethical problem.
One person’s representation may be another’s misrepresentation, and in photog-
raphy aesthetic considerations are one way of shaping a truth. Aesthetic devices
are important in documentary photography and are used in constructing powerful
images which in turn encourage ‘readers’ not only to look but also to accept a par-
ticular meaning of an image. However, this is a two-edged sword since aesthetic
qualities, knowingly or otherwise, can distract or disproportionately influence the
photographer’s meaning and the ‘reader’s’ interpretation. ‘Pupil on Walkabout’ is
an example of this problem. The boy was regularly found on a Friday afternoon
hiding in the school’s fuel storage area or in the cloakroom (usually under a mound
of coats). He explained how each Friday the physics teacher told him to ‘get lost’,
so he did. The photograph was taken to illustrate his predicament.
Two issues arise from the use made of this photograph in a research context.
There is a dynamic relationship between words and images. Edward Weston, a
famous American photographer, in discussing the relationship between photographs
and titles, said, ‘a poet can write a few words under it [a photograph] which will
change how you see it. In this case words and picture will affect each other, they
enlarge each other’ (Danziger and Conrad 1984: 30). In the case of Figure 11.2
140 Jon Prosser

neither the title nor the text used in the report (Prosser 1989) support my intended
meaning of the image.
A second and more significant failing compounds this weakness. In the past,
documentary photographers, for example, Sander (1986), have developed what can
be described as ‘pseudo-objective’ photography. They used standard lenses without
filters, emphasized frontality of the subject and flatness of space, recorded people
in their natural environment, and printed their negatives full frame to produce an
aesthetic style known as ‘standers and sitters’. This style was used in Figure 11.2
and raises a number of general ethical questions. As stated earlier, one ethical
responsibility of researchers is to report conceptions and procedures on which a
research report is based. However, given that photographs are constructions, to
what extent is it possible for photographers to account reflexively for the influence
of aesthetic considerations? I was aware that using the ‘standers and sitters’ style,
coupled with chiaroscuro lighting, would produce an ‘arty’ image. Equally, I was
aware that the central positioning of the boy, the pathos of the figure and the
gloominess of the place would evoke an overly emotional response in the viewer.
In conveying a sense of isolation and depression I was representing an interpretation
that was unsupported by data and had no substantive basis. This was not a case of
incompetence (I knew what I was doing), more a case of the artistic style, drama and
sensationalism of an image being given priority over academic integrity. Limitations
resulting from lack of reflection show ineptitude; limitations resulting from failing
to act on reflexivity constitute unethical behaviour.

Moving images
Although there are technical and procedural differences between moving and still
imagery, in terms of ethical dilemmas there are many similarities. There are simi-
larities between photographs and moving images as a result of similar technologies
and modes of communication. The still camera and the movie camera each in
their own way are technological devices that replicate accurately what is set before
them. However, importantly, they do so at our bidding. Both are ‘visual’ but,
being different in their mode of recording and presentation, pose different ethical
dilemmas. Their similarity gives rise to similar ethical questions, and in the same
way their differences give rise to a different set of ethical issues. Therefore, despite
their interchangeable ethical problems, a contrast will be drawn between moving
and still images.
The most marked differences between still and moving images are pointed out
by Beloff (1985: 104), quoting Hopkinson:

A newsreel has movement, but the still photograph has permanence. It is a

moment of time frozen. The famous picture of the South Vietnam general
shooting a terrorist with his own hand in a Saigon street would have meant
little flashing by on television screens. As a still picture it stands forever – an
accusation of mankind.
 The moral maze of image ethics 141

An alternative distinction is provided by Adelman (1998: 156), quoting Berger:

The fact that a film camera works with time instead of across it affects every one
of its images on both a technical and metaphysical level. . . . Most important of
all, the eye behind the film camera is looking for development not conjuncture.

The implication that single images without accompanying words to provide context
rarely fulfil the reflexive and internal validity afforded by moving images is an
important one. Despite these critical distinctions, there are many interchangeable
ethical dilemmas facing both still and moving image-makers.
Perhaps the most common ethical debate focuses on notions of the truth and
veracity of still and moving images. Our belief in the capacity of photography to
provide evidence of the external world is reflected in the saying ‘the camera never
lies’. We know this has never been the case. Shortly after photography was patented
at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1839, for example, the inventor, Louis
Jacques Daguerre, was experimenting by retouching photographs. Winston (1998)
catalogues a large number of manipulations of the photographic image ranging
from Gardner’s rearrangement of bodies after the battle of Gettysburg (dragging
them about forty metres and changing their clothes) to Robert Doisneau’s famous
picture ‘The Kiss’ in which the main protagonists were not photographed in the
act of spontaneous gesture of affection but were a specially commissioned actor and
his girlfriend. Kane (1994) provides an inventory of digital manipulation including
National Geographic Magazine’s moving two pyramids closer together for aesthetic
reasons. Yet since we know that photography was never objective, why do we
hold on to the authenticity of the photograph? Kane (1994: 10) suggests a reason:

Even when photo-images are faked, they only confirm the essential power of
the photographic. When Stalin infamously removed Trotsky from the picture
of Lenin in Red Square, or when surrealists and avant-gardists fiddled with
exposures and turned the photo into a phantasm, both parties were exploiting –
for political and artistic purposes – our fundamental trust in the camera. We
believe the camera’s eye can bring us truth, whether subjective (the snapshot
of a loved one, the performance of a great actor) or objective (pictures of
weather forecasts, police suspects, lab experiments). The photographic is the
way we moderns test that reality is out there: we rely on its veracity more than
we readily admit.

Given that we invest images with an integrity ‘more than we readily admit’,
how can we best stand outside of ourselves to judge them? To begin with, the
trustworthiness of moving and still images depends on their contextual validity.
In terms of the context in which images are made, transparency of the process is
central; in terms of the context in which images are viewed, their mode of represen-
tation and the cultural and pictorial codes of their reception are central. Judgements
and claims of contextual validity are best made essentially via reflexive accounts but
142 Jon Prosser

also through their representation. Reflexive accounts attempt to render explicit the
process by which data and findings were produced, and are the ‘Achilles heel’ of
all film genres claiming academic integrity. It is clear that until recently anthropo-
logical film, for example, has been insufficiently reflexive or integrated. (Usually,
reflexive accounts, where they do exist, are provided as an adjunct to the film.)
Nonetheless, even in the case of a reflexive documentary account, the academic
community will find fundamental faults since there is a widely held belief that
‘reality’ is distorted by directors’ beliefs, sponsors’ needs, artistic convention and for
artistic reasons (Winston 1995). This argument is also applied to all forms of the real-
ist mode of communication, including the ‘photographic essay’ and ‘documentary
photography’.

Informed consent
The above-mentioned concerns are not abstractions, of interest only to academia.
The problems resulting from the social and political milieu that are part and parcel
of any film-making show themselves in a series of moral and ethical dilemmas.
Consider the scenario of making a documentary film of a school. The relation-
ship between the film-makers and their subjects is initiated within a framework
of informed consent. This customarily means that subjects are free of coercion or
deception; have an understanding of the process by which a film is to be made,
the outcomes, and the uses to be made of the film; and, as individuals or groups,
have the capacity and competence to consent (Anderson and Benson 1988). Even a
cursory reflection on these criteria applied in an educational setting would pick up
potential discrepancies. The hierarchy of the school, on understanding the poten-
tial advantages of making the film, could entice or inveigle the subjects (teachers,
administrators and students) to take part for the school’s common good. This would
have direct repercussions since the subjects, not steeped in filmic knowledge, would
be unaware of the techniques and ploys of directors going about their art. More-
over, as with any case study the outcomes of filming cannot be preordained. Only in
editing can the final ‘story’ be told, which means that ultimate control lies with the
film-makers, not the subjects. Also, pupils (minors requiring parental consent) and
parents may be given only cursory information about the film and rarely have the
luxury of ‘opting out’. Finally, since the effects of the film on actors and audience
can rarely be predicted by the film-maker, there can be no guarantees of negative
repercussions on subjects.
These points exemplify how easy it is for ethical ideals to be subverted in practice.
It should be borne in mind that ‘informed consent’ is more often a matter of indi-
vidual conscience and rarely takes the form of a contract identifying particularities.
Without acquiescence and the participation of teachers and pupils, observational
films in educational settings would not exist. If truly informed consent were absent
or lacking, the films’ ethical integrity would be impaired. If directorial freedom
were confined, constructive and artistic integrity would be limited. Clearly, for
directors there is a tension between needing actors’ co-operation during filming
 The moral maze of image ethics 143

and wanting complete autonomy during editing. The view of participants, as cited
by Becker (1988: xiii), highlights the irreconcilable ethical dilemma:

I ought not to be able to sign away my rights to be treated, when someone

collects images, in an ethical fashion, whether I want to or not. . . . I cannot
give my consent unless I am truly informed, and that I know at least as much
about the process of making photographs and films (or doing social research)
as the people doing the work.

Recurring themes
Generally, situated ethics constitute a set of dilemmas for film-makers that are not
easily resolved. Where they are resolved, it is only by setting aside one set of values
in preference for another. This is most obvious in the Griersonian documentary film
tradition applied in the past to studies of education, health, welfare and housing.
Directors used their creations for social reform, to expose bad or evil, and to bring
about desirable change. However, in taking up the cause of social improvement
by documenting social victimization, they put to one side any consideration of
improving the lots of the subjects of their films. In paying little attention to the moral
rights of participants they provide evidence for claims that ‘most documentary film-
makers have relatively little commitment to the subjects of their films’ (Beauchamp
and Klaidman 1988: 138). Moreover, in the past, the popularity of such films led to
a recurrence of themes commonly termed ‘victim documentaries’ (Winston 1995).
Brian Winston (1988: 34), in quoting a comment made by Basil Wright in 1974,
exemplifies the recurring ‘victim documentary’ theme:

You know this film (Children at School) was made in 1937. The other thing
is that this film shows up the appalling conditions in the schools in Britain in
1937 which are identical with the ones which came out on television the night
before last: overcrowded classes, schoolrooms falling down, and so on. It’s the
same story. That is really terrible, isn’t it?

What Winston implies is that ‘overcrowded classes, schoolrooms falling down’

is a recurring ‘victim’-type documentary that had media currency in 1937, 1974
and 1988. Given the combination of pressures from sponsors, the public’s need
for expose, and the enhancement of career prospects of the film-maker, it is little
wonder that films of the less powerful in society are repetitious while case studies
of the powerful are significant by their absence. Direct cinema, when aiming to
show everyday comprehensive schooling, tends, at least in part, to focus on poorly
performing or overwhelmed teachers. Not surprisingly, those in the ‘spotlight’ are
unhappy when they view the film for the first time – usually much later, when
144 Jon Prosser

screened on national television. This view is common in documentary work:

how rare it is that image-makers show us to others as we would like to be

seen, and, moreover, put in question the assumption that the image makers’
perspective is more objective or valid than that of their (willing or unwilling)
subjects.
(Gross et al. 1988: viii)

Directors willing to discuss interpretation of their work are rare. One of the few
is Roger Graef, well known for his series of films in the early 1970s, ‘The Space
between Words’ – essentially about communication but encompassing compre-
hensive schooling. He accepts that his filming threw up unpredictable issues, that
teachers are not committed to accepting outcomes and should be in a position to
respond to both the record and the director’s interpretation:

my solution . . . is to provide as part of my rules for filming, a guaranteed

viewing during the editing stage to all the key participants, with a firm promise
to change anything that can be pointed out to be factually inaccurate. That
extends to re-editing for emphasis as well [original emphasis].
(Graef 1980: 171)

Graef has developed a set of procedures (Graef 1980: 175) to explain and guide his
ethical practice, though, as he himself points out, these do not themselves guarantee
ethical practice or fair treatment of participants. Nevertheless, his position represents
the ‘high water mark’ of ethical practice in observational filming of educational
institutions.
It is the director who has responsibility for the interpretation of data and the
presentation of findings. However, it is clear that a distinction should be drawn
between observational film that is governed by principles that underpin research
and documentary films which are shaped by the vagaries of mass audiences. The
ultimate ethical concern in documentary films, shared by Beauchamp and Klaidman
(1988: 183), is that truths are distorted: ‘The search for “truth” fades and becomes
a search for a preconceived moment, a biased hypothesis that captures the “essence
of truth” in the mind of the documentary maker.’
The pressures on the makers of docu-soaps (often referred to as ‘bubble gum
for the eyes’) and documentaries, as a result of the need to please audiences of 10
million or more, are significant. It is clear from the extent of documentary frauds
at present that such ‘investigative’ films have major ethical implications concern-
ing how they treat people and how they represent or misrepresent the ‘truth’ of
a situation. Contemporary documentary films about education, although method-
ologically and ethically flawed, are viewed by mass audiences as evidence of the
decline of schooling.
 The moral maze of image ethics 145

Video-based classroom research

The use of camcorders by researchers to record classroom interaction is far removed
from the pressure of documentary and journalistic enterprise and their compulsion
for dramatic narrative. Video-based classroom research enhances the possibility of
researcher–practitioner co-operation, decreases the theory–practice divide, and,
where there is mutual ‘close reading’ of visual data (Mitchell and Weber 1998),
provides respondent insight and validity. It is a particularly pure form of vérité,
being without commentary and focusing on observational method. The resulting
visual records provide extra-somatic ‘memory’. The camera’s reproductive and
mimetic qualities can be used to systematically record visual detail with emphasis on
reproducing objects, events, places, signs and symbols, or behavioural interactions.
The ability of the camera to record visual detail without fatigue, to be organized,
catalogued and analysed at a later date, is useful to fieldworkers.
Filming in classrooms necessitates a close working relationship being established
between the participants and the researcher. The issue of ownership and control
is central since disconcertingly, and unlike in word-orientated research, not only
do participants have the opportunity to see themselves interacting with each other,
but so too do others. Those who claim ownership, excluding the researcher, are
not necessarily the actors themselves. Certainly the ‘gatekeepers’ who hold power
have claim, as do governors and the heads who are responsible for their schools’
good name. There are examples (Graef 1989: 1) of observational film benefiting
those in positions of power yet ‘blighting’ the career of subordinate actors. This is
because problems commonly occur when observational films and videos are shown
to outside audiences (i.e. outside the immediate circle of researcher and actors).
Graef (1989: 2) believes that ‘Vérité brings out that viewers are very nosey about
details of other people’s lives, but disapprove of that noseyness in themselves and
transfer this disapproval into disapproval of what they are looking at.’
The problem of judgemental audiences of video recordings is picked up by
Busher and Clarke (1990: 121):

It is perplexing why audiences rush to judgement about aspects of action,

approaches to teaching and personality when viewing a video of a teacher
in action. Video-extracts of lessons are void of all but immediate information
about the action of the scenes on view while yet appearing to offer an adequate
basis for the exercise of judgement by viewers. In this sense videos can be
dangerous in easily causing a false sense of understanding of the truth of things
as can glimpses of lessons snatched while walking down a corridor.

Since it is very difficult to predict outside audiences’ reaction to observational film

of classrooms, participants’ awareness of potential hazards of external interpretation
is integral to informed consent, and as important as who owns and controls the data
is how data are to be used.
146 Jon Prosser

Videos of classroom interaction necessitate shots of the largest group in the frame:
pupils. Not only is their performance most visible, but without their co-operation
filming could not take place. Teachers in whose classroom video recordings are
made usually tell their pupils that filming will take place but rarely discuss its mean-
ing – perhaps because of the scale of the consensus-seeking exercise, which is more
difficult to achieve as pupils’ age decreases. This raises the common ethical question
of ‘How much information do subjects need to give “informed consent”?’ (Graef
1980: 163), and signals a less frequently asked but important question: what about
minors’ rights? Pupils’ ‘voices’ are absent and their disempowerment is complete
if they (and their parents) are not invited to view their ‘performance’. Busher and
Clarke (1990: 144) make an additional point that ‘some children seem to attract
more attention in the classroom than do others’, and that consequently the visual
record ‘is likely to be skewed both to over-display, and to overemphasize the
importance of the attractive children’. This, coupled with Calderwood’s findings
(1988) that videos of classroom interaction incite colleagues’ curiosity more than
other forms of recordkeeping, and the unpredictability of audience reaction, makes
empowerment of pupils an important ethical issue.

Contemporary classroom video recording

The ethics of educational research has undergone modifications over the past
decade, as a result of increasing complexity in the research process and challenges
posed by critical theorists and postmodernism. Latterly, postmodern and narrative
influences have brought a new meaning to reflexive accounts. Hence, depending
on the stance taken, discussion of contemporary Visual ethics ranges from privacy,
ownership, informed consent, to truth, transparency, reflexivity and realism. Mod-
ern documentary films can be viewed as the quintessential postmodernist media
in that they attempt to depict reality, champion relativism and set little store by
objective standards of truth. Winston (1995), in Claiming the Real, examines the
continuum of principles, ethics, epistemology and practices of documentary work,
offering an important insight into the essential differences between film as doc-
umentary, and the documentary as fiction. The issues of relative but conflicting
ethics, of representing different ‘voices’ contrasted with notions of fictions and
realism, are central in this type of work.
The postmodern and narrative approaches are also beginning to impinge on
classroom video recordings. This is clearly illustrated through the work of Weber
and Mitchell (1995) and Mitchell and Weber (1999), who use photographs and
videos of themselves and colleagues as tools for narrating auto/biography of their
professional lives and as an aid to help practising teachers examine their professional
identity. Ethical obligations now take a different turn. To what extent should the
sensitivities of participants be taken account of when film-makers turn their cameras
on their own schools, own colleagues and own classes, whose agreement and trust
they may take for granted?
 The moral maze of image ethics 147

These questions are not easily answered. There is the difficult reflexive ques-
tion of procedural reactivity. Are film-makers sufficiently sensitive to predict the
outcome of recording and, more importantly, replaying recordings of the taken-for-
granted act of teaching? Video-based research allows participants to see themselves
and reflect on their practice but it also has the potential to displace previously
established self-images. This makes video-based research different from still-image
research and quite different from word-orientated ethical considerations. Self-
initiation or initiating others into video recording of classroom practice are acts
that carry responsibilities. Teachers’ initiating of colleagues into video recording of
the relatively private intimacy of their classrooms is to confront them with a cam-
era’s unfaltering stare, to be caught ‘looking in the mirror’, requiring the teachers to
open themselves to the public. Mitchell and Weber (1999: 199–200) and Busher
and Clarke (1990: 120–2) both illustrate the potential pain from self-analysis to
teachers as a result of unsupported or insensitive use of video recording.
Finally, autobiographical film and video are capable of going further by telling
the stories of the repressed and under-represented, whose ‘voices’ are rarely heard
in classroom documentaries. However, the degree of trust, confidence, faith and
intimacy, so essential for this type of work, also brings with it particular moral issues.
Katz and Katz (1988) describe how the ethics of autobiographical films, where close
associates may be drawn in alongside the biographer to form a special relationship,
differs from an orthodox ethical code. A strength of autobiographical studies and
studies made from within communities as distinct from external agencies lies in their
ability to act as an antidote to what Winston (1995) terms ‘victim documentaries’.
Victim documentaries are the focus by the powerful on the private and everyday
lives of the less powerful. Rather than rely on pervading values of bodies that
often fund documentaries, ‘in-house’ films and videos have the opportunity to
give ‘voice’ to ethnic, religious and sexual groups that are external or peripheral to
mainstream beliefs.

A way through the moral maze?

There are innumerable examples of poor ethical practice by image-based
researchers. This ethical ‘black hole’ is sustained because few experienced visual
researchers have established a consistent set of ethical procedures and few image-
based research students are taught ethics. As a result, important ethical issues are
rarely debated and ethical knowledge seldom disseminated. There are additional
reasons for the moral complexity of image-based research. It is a subdiscipline
that is applied across a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology and
psychology. Ethics are situated differently according to each discipline’s ‘slant’ on
what comprises befitting moral behaviour. Add to this the relative newness of visual
studies and the multiplicity of image-based research in terms of technology used
and processes followed, and we begin to recognize the complexity of the moral
maze within which it is situated. The ethics of visual research is in its infancy
and, metaphorically speaking, located near the centre of a complex moral maze.
148 Jon Prosser

There are many false avenues to explore before escape from an ethical ‘wilderness’
is possible.
More established subdisciplines, such as educational psychology, have established
a code of practice that in the past has acted as a focal point of debate and, potentially
at least, consensus-based action. Image-based research lacks guidelines and codes of
practice in its evolution. Of course guidelines and codes of practice in themselves
do not amount to good practice, but they are important arenas of debate on the road
to realization of moral behaviour in visual research. Consequently – and this may
sound at odds with the views of other contributors to this book – visual researchers
need to take a backward step, to reach a consensus on what constitute the principal
ethical dilemmas of image-based research. The establishment of a ‘checklist’ of
moral dilemmas is important because it will reflect the different nature of image-
based research relative to other styles of research. The ‘checklist’ is a necessary evil
that will act as a springboard to attaining ethical practices that are situated in image-
based research as opposed to, for example, word-based research. Recognition of the
distinctive ethical dilemmas posed by visual research is the first and most significant
step in escaping the moral maze. What is important is that practitioners of visual
research reflect on and report back their experiences in order to ground their
situated ethics in actuality. It is difficult to avoid prescription at this point, but
it seems clear that case studies of situated ethics should be widely disseminated to
students of image-based research and those under the gaze of visual researchers. The
situatedness of differing research styles is central to establishing enhanced ethical
practice. It is equally important that situated ethics becomes a matter of public
knowledge rather than remaining the domain of implicit professional knowledge.

References
Adelman, C. (1998) ‘Photocontext’, in J. Prosser (ed.) Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for
Qualitative Researchers, London: Falmer Press.
Anderson, C. and Benson, T.W. (1988) ‘Direct Cinema and the Myth of Informed Consent’,
in L. Gross, J.S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Atget, E. (1992) Atget Paris, Paris: Hazan.
Beauchamp, D. and Klaidman, R. (1988) ‘The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception’,
in L. Gross, J.S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Becker, H.S. (1988) ‘Foreword: Image, Ethics, and Organisations’, in L. Gross, J.S. Katz
and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Becker, H.S. (1998) ‘Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography and Photojournalism:
It’s (Almost) All a Matter of Context’, in J. Prosser (ed.) Image-based Research: A Sourcebook
for Qualitative Researchers, London: Falmer Press.
Beloff, H. (1985) Camera Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.
Busher, H. and Clarke, S. (1990) ‘The Ethics of Using Video in Educational Research’, in
Using Video-Recording for Teacher Professional Development, School of Education, University
of Leeds.
Calderwood, J. (1988) Teachers’ Professional Learning, London: Falmer Press.
Cartier-Bresson, H. (1952) The Decisive Moment, New York: Simon and Schuster.
 The moral maze of image ethics 149

Collier, J. and Collier, M. (1986) Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method,

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Danziger, J. and Conrad, B. (1984) Interviews with Master Photographers, London: Paddington
Press.
Graef, R. (1980) ‘The Case Study as Pandora’s Box’, in H. Simons (ed.) Towards a Science of
the Singular, Occasional Publication No. 10, Centre for Applied Research in Education,
University of East Anglia.
Graef, R. (1989) ‘Privacy and Observational Film’, Anthropology Today 5, 2: 1–2.
Gross, L., Katz, J.S. and Ruby, J. (eds) (1988) ‘Introduction: A Moral Pause’, in L. Gross,
J.S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Kane, P. (1994) ‘Putting Us All in the Picture’, The Sunday Times, Section 10, 28 August.
Katz, J.S. and Katz, J.M. (1988) ‘The Ethics of Autobiographical Film’, in L. Gross, J.S. Katz
and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, C. and Weber, S. (1998) ‘Picture This! Vernacular Portraits and Lasting School
Impressions of School’, in J. Prosser (ed.) Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative
Researchers, London: Falmer Press.
Mitchell, C. and Weber, S. (1999) Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers: Beyond Nostalgia,
London: Falmer Press.
Prosser, J. (1989) ‘The Nature of School: An Ethnographic Case Study’, unpublished DPhil
thesis, Department of Educational Studies, University of York.
Prosser, J. (1992) ‘Personal Reflections on the Use of Photography in an Ethnographic Case
Study’, British Educational Research Journal 18, 4: 397–411.
Prosser, J. (1998) ‘The Status of Image-Based Research’, in J. Prosser (ed.) Image-Based
Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, London: Falmer Press.
Sander, A. (1986) Citizens of the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Stasz, C. (1979) ‘The Early History of Visual Sociology’, in J. Wagner (ed.) Images of
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Images and Identity in Popular Culture, London: Falmer Press.
Winston, B. (1988) ‘The Tradition of the Victim in Griersonian Documentary’, in L. Gross,
J.S. Katz and J. Ruby (eds) Imagine Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Winston, B. (1995) Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited, London: British Film
Institute.
Winston, B. (1998) ‘ “The Camera Never Lies”: The Partiality of Photographic Evidence’,
in J. Prosser (ed.) Image-based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, London:
Falmer Press.
Chapter 12

Rants, ratings and

representation
Ethical issues in researching online
social practices
Michele Knobel

Introduction
The past ten years have witnessed a growing debate within the social sciences over
what constitutes ethical research practice where cyberspaces and human interaction
are concerned. Some researchers argue that codes of ethical conduct currently used
in physical spaces – principally those endorsed by universities and influential pro-
fessional associations (e.g. the American Psychological Association) – hold equally
and immutably for cyberspaces. In other words, these researchers argue there is
no difference between investigating human interaction and subjectivity offline or
online. Others have argued for a more situated or negotiated approach to ethical
research practice. For them, researching communities and practices on the Internet
requires new approaches to ethical conduct because what holds in physical space –
or meatspace – hardly ever translates directly into cyberspace, and may even hinder
‘good’ research because, for example, the insistence on informed consent from par-
ticipants in the study may actually irreparably disrupt an online community or series
of interactions, or because assurances of participants’ anonymity in research reports
are deeply problematic in the archived and searchable network of cyberspace.
This chapter focuses for the most part on education-related research – that is,
research conducted with a view to informing education practices in some way.
It engages directly with issues concerning ethical research conduct when investi-
gating online practices, with reference to studies whose data is drawn solely from
cyberspaces, as well as to studies that include an online investigation component
(e.g. studies of what children do when participating in online social spaces outside
school, compared with what they do in class in terms of Internet and computer use).
The aim of this chapter is to develop a set of principles that will serve as a starting
point for developing guidelines for ethical online research within education arenas.
In keeping with this aim, the chapter is organised in the first instance by addressing
front end, in process and back end ethical concerns within the research process.
These ‘points’ of focus are applied directly to what Colin Lankshear and I have called
in the past ‘bearers of moral consequences’ (Lankshear and Knobel 1997); that is,
groups of people or communities most directly affected by ethical decisions in a
given study. In the present case, ‘the researched’ or study participants are examined
 Ethical issues in online research 151

first, followed by the ‘researcher’s craft’ and her responsibilities toward the research
community as an effective practitioner of research relevant to education. These
two sections are followed by a related discussion of ethical concerns and responsi-
bilities where two other bearers of moral consequences are concerned: supervisors
and their graduate students, and consumers of research. The chapter concludes
with three maxims developed from these discussions that can act as useful guides
in making decisions where ethical conduct, education research and cyberspace are
concerned.

Online research and ethical activity

Online research usually refers to two kinds of activity. The first is the analysis of
online, public documents (such as newspapers, journals, letters, policies, books,
etc.) which are treated as texts in the sense of texts used in a theoretical or historical
study (cf. Knobel and Lankshear 1999). These texts can also be used to help to locate
a study theoretically, historically, politically or socially in ways that do not require
the author’s anonymity to be preserved. Second, online research can refer to the
study of Internet-worked cyberspaces. It is this second sense that is taken up in this
chapter. Where researchers working within the field of education are concerned,
this activity generally focuses on person-to-person interactions and communications
on and over the Internet, and includes the study of websites, online chatspaces,
instant messaging uses, e-mail discussion lists or messages, archived discussions and
other types of person-to-person exchanges. Online research can be conducted
entirely within cyberspace; that is, the entire corpus of data is located on the
Internet. Online research can also form one component of a study that straddles
physical space and cyberspace. [. . .]
In research circles, ethics is defined as the study of the formal or informal system
of principles or standards that guide what is considered to be ‘right’ or ‘proper’
conduct, and the decision-making processes involved in the moral choices people
make. Morality refers to the actual application of a system of principles or standards
to conduct in a range of contexts and in ways that are, or can be, judged in terms
of conformity or nonconformity to a generally accepted standard for or rule of
conduct. In short, ethics is the study of moral activity. Some researchers argue that
where ethics and online research are concerned, nothing has changed: the standards
and principles that apply to physical space research apply equally to research in
cyberspace. Others argue that ethical issues encountered in meatspace research
are often amplified in cyberspace and require even more careful attention to the
moral dimensions and consequences of gathering data from online interactions.
For example, the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR 2001: 1) identifies
the following differences between online and offline research. In online research,
there is

• greater risk to individual privacy and confidentiality because of greater accessibility

of information about individuals, groups, and their communications – and
152 Michele Knobel

in ways that would prevent subjects from knowing that their behaviours and
communications are being observed and recorded (e.g. in a large-scale analysis
of postings and exchanges in a USENET newsgroup archive, in a chatroom,
etc.);
• greater challenges to researchers because of greater difficulty in obtaining informed
consent;
• greater difficulty of ascertaining subjects’ identity because of use of pseudonyms,
multiple online identities, etc.;
• greater difficulty in discerning ethically correct approaches because of a greater diversity
of research venues (private e-mail, chatroom, webpages, etc.);
• greater difficulty of discerning ethically correct approaches because of the global reach
of the media involved; that is as CMC [computer-mediated communication]
engages people from multiple cultural (and legal) settings. (original emphases)

This list of difficulties is not exhaustive, neither would all education researchers
agree with what has been included in it. Nevertheless, these differences signal
important interfaces or points where ethical problems can arise.
Despite a growing proliferation of guidelines for conducting ethical research in
cyberspace, much of the existing ethical commentary concerning online research
wrestles principally with three issues: (1) the distinction between public and private
spaces; (2) obtaining informed consent from study participants; and (3) the assurance
of participants’ anonymity in research publications. A focus on the research context,
informed and willing participation, and reporting issues, however, risks suggesting
that once these things have been taken care of – along with every researcher’s duty
to respect those participating in the study and to treat and present them as digni-
fied beings – then ethical considerations have been well satisfied. However, within
education in particular, conducting ethically informed online research is a complex
process. One of the key difficulties confronting researchers working within the field
of education who engage in online investigations is the direct and indirect involve-
ment of a wide range of people who have vested interests in each study conducted.
Regardless of whether the study is concerned directly with education or aims at
informing education by examining what people are doing technology-wise outside
schools, education researchers usually need to take into account in their research
planning, conduct and write-up their fellow researcher-educators, other educators,
other researchers, policy-makers, students and parents who are either involved in
the research or who will be impacted by the outcomes of a study, graduate students
who are ‘apprenticed’ to the researcher, government bodies, and other interested
people. Meeting the research needs of each of these parties can tempt education
researchers into quantitative online studies that compute the amount of time people
spend online, or that measure the effects of computer use by calculating coeffi-
cient variations between pre-test and post-test scores on school subject content
matter, and the like. These types of studies place ethical considerations on familiar
ground in terms of complying with standard university or other associations’ ethical
research procedures (e.g. respondent anonymity, informed consent from students
 Ethical issues in online research 153

and parents where minors are concerned, duty of care and beneficence). However,
as more and more educators become interested in what young and not-so-young
people are doing with computers and the Internet in school and out of school,
we need to begin engaging with more complex considerations of what ‘counts’ as
ethical research where cyberspaces are concerned.

The moral consequences of what we do

research-wise in cyberspace
In 1997, Colin Lankshear and I defined moral consequences in terms of those
effects or outcomes for the good or harm of human beings within areas of human
activity where people can reasonably be assigned rights and obligations (cf. Warnock
1970: Thomas 1996). In our argument we identified what we called bearers of moral
consequences; that is, those people (and sometimes things, such as policy decisions,
study outcomes and recommendations, or education programs) that need to be
considered in any ethical/moral stocktake. These bearers included

(1) the ‘researched’; that is, study participants affected directly and indirectly by
the consequences of various research decisions and outcomes;
(2) researchers within the education community who are affected directly and
indirectly by the quality of their academic colleagues’ research work;
(3) graduate students, who are apprenticed to conducting ethical education
research by their supervisors and who are subject to the moral consequences
of the decisions they make within the design and implementation of their (the
students’) investigations;
(4) consumers of research – those people for whom the research has some kind of
use or interest value.

Colin and I also distinguished between different ‘points’ of moral consequence

within qualitative research studies in general and that were set against a backdrop
of higher education in Australia. [. . .] We defined these points of moral conse-
quence in terms of (gross) stages or phases within the processes and acts of doing
research where what we do, or omit doing, generates consequences or outcomes
that impinge on people (and things) directly and indirectly involved in a study. In
reality, ‘points’ comprise practically every moment research is ‘going on’, but for
purposes of heuristic convenience we distinguished broadly between ‘front end’,
‘in process’, and ‘back end’ points of research conduct and responsibility, which
roughly correspond to planning, implementation, and end-of-project dissemination
phases.
This same heuristic device proves useful for examining ethically informed
approaches to online research that go beyond differentiating between public and
private spaces on the Internet, engaging with obtaining informed consent and
ensuring participant anonymity in reports.
154 Michele Knobel

The researched

Front end concerns

Commentaries on ethical action within online research tend in large part to focus
on the participants in a study. Researcher treatment of participants – or those who
are ‘researched’ – is discussed principally in terms of ‘doing no harm’, ‘beneficence’
or ‘nonmalificence’ (e.g. AOIR 2001; Johnson 2001). However, the front end
concerns associated with participants in online research begin long before ethically
responsible selection criteria and obtaining consent becomes an issue. Front end
concerns include demonstrating respect for others online by participating in the
community to be studied for an extended period of time prior to the start of formal
data collection. The easy access to online communities afforded by the Internet
makes it tempting to practise hit-and-run research, where the researcher spends a
few days or even a few hours observing the interactions of online participants in a
given community, then writes about them as though everything to be known about
the community and its make-up has been observed and understood in that short
period of time. This kind of snatch-and-grab approach usually provokes scathing
comments from the community members studied. [. . .]
Despite the easy access to data afforded to researchers by online interactions, ethi-
cal practice in relation to obtaining informed consent still holds, even if argued over
by online researchers themselves. Some investigators of online practices insist that
obtaining informed consent from participants is an inalienable researcher responsi-
bility – and if consent cannot be obtained readily, then the researcher should either
change the study’s design, or abandon the project altogether (e.g. Bruckman 2001).
Indeed, some online researchers set themselves very specific rules for obtaining con-
sent. Amy Bruckman, for example, proposes that consent can be given via e-mail
if the participant is over 18, but that signed parental consent needs to be mailed or
faxed to the researcher if participants are less than 18 years old. However, her posi-
tion suggests it is possible to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person
targeted as a participant in a study is indeed aged 18 years or more. The Internet
is, of course, rife with children masquerading or avataring as adults and vice versa.
Other researchers suggest studying the online practices of young people to whom
one has in-person access and can obtain their written consent in a face-to-face mode
before observing their interactions online (e.g. via strategically placed video cam-
eras, tracking and recording software; e.g. Leander 2003). Kevin Leander’s study
of young adolescents and their online practices involves observing them in person
in meatspace while the participants are communicating online, as well as conduct-
ing online participant observations of their public and semi-public online group
interactions (e.g. in chatspaces). In the online participant observations, Leander
and his colleagues obtain signed consent from their target participants, and from
friends with whom the participants interact online and offline. In addition, in those
cases where ‘e-friends’ (those people whom key participants know only online)
participate in ways deemed important to the project, they are contacted online and
 Ethical issues in online research 155

asked to sign post hoc research consent forms that give permission to Leander and
his research team to use their postings as data (Leander 2003; see also Leander and
McKim 2003).
In most cases, arguments over whether informed consent should or should not
be obtained from participants in an online community boils down to arguments
over which online, spaces are public and which are private. Within the humanities,
most people agree that research conducted within public spaces (e.g. parks, shopping
centres, in the street) does not require the researcher to obtain informed consent
from all observed participants (cf. Goffman 1963, 1974). However, few researchers
of online practices appear to agree on what criteria should be brought to bear on
a space in order to judge it ‘public’ or ‘private’. Some argue that the publicness or
privateness of an online space should be judged according to how it is perceived
by the people who interact within it. Allison Cavanagh, for example, points out
that public space metaphors abound online – such as: village, cafe, town hall, town
square – and indicate the non-private status of these different spaces (1999: 1).
Cavanagh also points out that ‘lurkers’ or non-contributors to online interactions are
tolerated, if not expected or assumed, in online communities or discussion groups.
She observes that when lurkers change their status to more active participation, they
generally are welcomed warmly by the community or group. Cavanagh attributes
this to a shared cultural assumption about life online that ‘internet interactions occur
within a public arena and are therefore matters for public consumption’ (p. 3).
Some researchers suggest the best response to the public–private dilemma is to
create purpose-built research spaces online, such as a room in a MOO or e-mail
discussion list which is established explicitly for collecting interactional data, with
the purpose of the room written into its publicly available description (Bruckman
2001). Other strategies include setting up websites and the like that signal the
researcher’s status and to which participants in an online community can be directed.
Other researchers, however, call for the physical nature of the space to be taken
into account when judging whether an interaction is public or private (Frankel
and Siang 1999). For example, password protected communities – such as some
online cafes and salons – are generally assumed to be private spaces. On the other
hand, archivable discussions – such as those generated on web-based discussion
boards – are generally presumed to be public spaces (cf. AOIR 2001). However,
these distinctions do not always hold, and it is the responsibility of the researcher
to make reasoned judgements concerning the nature of the space. This usually
involves participating in an online community prior to the start of a formal study
so that the researcher can ascertain what kind of community – public or private, or
a mix of both – members assume the space to be and act accordingly.
Public declaration of one’s role as a researcher of online practice is important,
although this is not always an easy undertaking even in meatspace. Part of this public
declaration includes establishing means for participants and non-participants alike
to contact the researcher about his or her research work. This kind of openness
contributes to a researcher’s credibility as someone with nothing to hide from study
participants. [. . .]
156 Michele Knobel

Again, as with offline studies, the researcher needs to be aware of the social
dynamics in which people to be targeted for interviews are located and what role
or roles they usually play within a community. This once again underscores the
importance of the researcher spending an extended amount of time observing,
and perhaps participating within, the community to be studied prior to formal
data collection. For example, if a researcher interviews or studies the talk of only
newcomers to the community, the insights offered will not be as ‘experienced’ or
as historically informed as insights garnered from long-term members. Moreover,
selecting a troublemaker or ‘troll’ as a key participant in a study can skew the
researcher’s interpretations in unjustifiable ways. In short, the researcher is served
well by spending a substantial amount of time getting a ‘feel’ for the kinds of
interactions that take place within the targeted online community. This includes
getting to know who the regular participants are, what some of the contentious
issues are for community members, who the troublemakers are and who they tend
to target (and why, if possible), and the like. These insights enable the researcher
to treat all participants with the respect to which they have a right, to conduct
himself or herself as an informed and non-threatening member of the community
once formal data collection begins, and to build into the study right from the start
measures for obtaining balanced insights into the community’s interactions and
practices.

In process concerns
Once formal data collection has begun, the researcher must continue to maintain
participants’ confidence in the project and trust in the researcher herself. This
includes maintaining a consistent online persona, not flaming other members for
something they did, avoiding long-winded rants, and generally paying attention
to the social needs of others by not being overly intrusive or persistent in asking
questions or even always being online.
The relative physical anonymity of online spaces makes it all the more important
for a researcher to use only one identity within a researched space. Even within pub-
lic spaces such as eBay discussion lists and participant commentary website, posters
who use more than one online alias or username are always criticised and suspected
of deeper duplicities, regardless of their reasons for doing so (e.g. wanting to use
one alias to post a certain kind of message, to avoid receiving personal e-mails from
others or to avoid becoming a target for negative ratings). An online researcher who
interviews under one alias, but participates within discussions under another not
only interferes needlessly with the data to be collected, but risks publicly alienating
others should they discover the deceit. Online researchers are served well by think-
ing through and even pre-planning the public identity he or she will project onto
the online space to be studied and how this identity will be communicated to others
(e.g. through careful choice of an alias, a judiciously worded character description,
an avatar that carries a magnifying glass and note-book). Education researchers who
study children and young people online are under particular pressures to project
 Ethical issues in online research 157

an online identity that is both credible, sustainable, and defensible (e.g. ethically
speaking, it would be difficult to justify a 40-year-old male researcher projecting a
12-year-old girl identity within a teen-targeted chatspace).
Demonstrating respect for participants by practising restraint online is a key ele-
ment in ethical research behaviour. In meatspace, ethical self-monitoring requires
classroom researchers to avoid interjections while observing teachers and students.
Likewise, online researchers need to take care that the seeming anonymity the
Internet generates does not lead them into dominating an interactional space,
or chastising participants, or taking offence at something said (within reason, of
course. Cases where researchers have been forced to intervene in hurtful activi-
ties or identity thefts taking place in chatspaces are well documented: e.g. Turkle
1997; Dibbell 1998). Studying eBay once again provides fruitful insights into how
researchers should, or rather should not, behave within this particular space. At
one stage, contributors to the feedback discussion list were clearly fed up with
one member who advertised the fact he was writing a book about eBay, but who
dominated many of the interactions taking place within this particular interac-
tional space. He would admonish newcomers for not reading previous posts where
questions similar to the ones they had asked had already been addressed, criticised
some of the contributors for being mean or rude, and submitted screeds of advice
on how to participate effectively within eBay auction interactions. Participants
put up with this for some time before exploding into scathing calls for him to
hurry up and finish his book so that he would then leave the list and everyone
alone.
Employing a reciprocity factor in online studies seems to be one way of demon-
strating ongoing respect and of minimising accusations that only the researcher will
benefit from the study. The kinds of reciprocity that online researchers can offer
study participants include helping them with some online task such as writing ‘bot’
programs (e.g. a small program that acts as butler in a MOO room, welcoming
people as they enter the door), helping solve HTML dilemmas encountered in
setting up a personal website or a personal profile page within an online commu-
nity, offering lists of URLs for relevant information on a topic or issue needed by
a participant, and suchlike. [. . .] Researchers do not have an inalienable right to
expect people to want to be researched for nothing in return. In many ways, die
reciprocity factor reminds the researcher to appreciate the time and effort outlaid
by each participant in responding to questions, agreeing to be observed while using
a computer or the Internet, and suchlike.

Back end concerns

One representational issue particular to cyberspace is the researcher’s commit-
ment to participants’ anonymity within research reports. Indeed, the very ease
of access to data on the Internet also makes it possible for readers to locate much
of the data used in a study for themselves, effectively blowing any pseudonym
cover the researcher may have attempted for participants within published reports.
158 Michele Knobel

Researchers studying archived data (e.g. web-based and e-mail-based discussion

lists) or websites cannot ensure anonymity for participants. Some researchers rightly
point out that using pseudonyms for participants with well-established online
identities actually interferes with the integrity of the study because it removes an
important data layer concerning the online alias people choose to use and the iden-
tities they craft via these aliases (cf. accounts in Cavanagh 1999; Frankel and Siang
1999). Other researchers argue that aliases are part and parcel of a ‘consciously “pub-
lic” performance for others’ (AOIR 2001: 1) in which users participate willingly
and openly, and thus cannot be subjected to the same pseudonym rules that apply
in meatspace (although pseudonyms are no guarantee of anonymity for participants
in meatspace either; see Lankshear and Knobel 1997). Still others problematise
the issue of aliases and pseudonyms even further by pointing out that ‘much of
the conversation analysed in these [online] contexts involves references to others’
pseudonyms – and thereby their character, behaviours, etc. Hence to change nick-
names or pseudonyms would dilute – if not render unintelligible – the meaning
of specific exchanges’ (AOIR 2001: 1). And of course, the danger with replac-
ing an alias with a pseudonym is that the pseudonym could prove to be the alias
of someone else in another space – or even the same space – which makes for
untold confusion and possible embarrassment. My own approach to this issue is
to weigh up the extent to which readers of texts about my research can readily
access the data I draw on in my accounts when deciding whether or not to use
pseudonyms in reporting online interactions. In cases where hiding the participant’s
identity is close to impossible, I advise the participant of this and obtain their con-
sent to use their ‘real’ alias. In other cases, I either ask participants to nominate a
pseudonym for themselves, or I invent one that is as close in nature to the original
as possible – always running Internet checks to see if the alias is already in use by
someone else.
The representation of online identities is another dimension of ethical concern
for educational researchers. Regardless of personal feelings, researchers are duty
bound to represent study participants fairly, respectfully and with dignity. Many
representation concerns from meatspace research transfer directly into cyberspace.
These issues include decisions about whether or not to edit participant-generated
texts copied from e-mails, discussion boards, websites and the like in order to
smooth out dialect, class or other differences represented by poor grammar and
spelling. Producing a text worth reading is also a sign of respect for the time and
data participants gave to the study, as is drawing logical, informed, and well-argued
conclusions from the data, and so on.
Fairly and respectfully representing study participants can be difficult at times
because cyberspace is not always a harmonious social sphere, and often the most
intriguing or culturally revelatory events are those where the ugly underbelly of
being human is exposed to public viewing (cf. accounts in Dery 1995; Dibbell
1998). Many online researchers point out that this obligation extends to researching
hate websites or hate speech – websites or discussion lists devoted to usually fascist
commentaries on the supremacy of one race over another, or one set of beliefs
 Ethical issues in online research 159

and/or values over another (e.g. anti-gay websites, websites belonging to white
supremacist groups). For example, Bruckman advises:

You can respond to hate speech or other undesirable behaviour online as

a netizen or as a journalist, and there are few restrictions on your ethical
conduct – email their website manager, publish letters decrying their
behaviour, do whatever you can. But as soon as you put on your researcher
hat, you owe them the same treatment you do any other subject.
(Bruckman 2001: 3)

Of course, the danger with this approach is that

Research on specific behaviours (pornography, hate speech, etc.) may work

to legitimate those behaviours. That is, if re-presented carelessly in research,
these behaviours may be ‘packaged’ in such a way (e.g. through the neutral,
ostensibly objective language of social science) as to make them seem more
acceptable for the broader society.
(original emphases; Elgesem, cited in AOIR 2001: 1)

Increased access to a wide range of morally problematic activity online means

researchers need to pay careful attention to issues concerning the representation
of participants and their interactions. One proposed solution to this dilemma is to
structure the study in such a way that the linguistic choices made by participants,
the interactional rituals they enact, or the cultural meanings they share via their
language use become the focus of the study, rather than the actual content of the
website or discussion list per se.
My own position on this issue is that demonstrating respect for others requires
the researcher to represent each major participant as fully dimensional as possible. In
other words, in any defensible online study of groups whose values and world views
are very different to those of the researcher, the researcher needs to describe the
complexities that make up the online identities of key participants and which locate
them within a complex web or context of enacting a particular identity online (and
usually offline, as well). Representation as an ethical concern is, in many ways, not
something which is attended to once data have been collected and the time has
come to write up interpretations, but needs to be considered right from the start
of planning the study so that the right kinds of data are collected – such as detailed
character descriptions, detailed context descriptions, and so on.
In addition to considering ethical responses to front end, in process and back end
points of concern where participants are concerned, online researchers also have
duty of care responsibilities towards other researchers and to their own academic
field of endeavour.
160 Michele Knobel

The researcher’s craft

Front end concerns

Online researchers have ethical responsibilities that relate directly to the practice of
research within their field.
What is often overlooked where ethics and online research are concerned is the
exclusionary nature of the medium itself. Regular and sustained physical access to
computers and the Internet of the kind that enables medium- to long-term partic-
ipation in web-based activity remains generally confined to the middle and upper
classes throughout the world (Pastore 2001; Victory and Cooper 2002). When
ethnicity is taken into account, the marginalising properties of the Internet become
even more pronounced. In September 2001 in the USA, for example, 71.2 per cent
of Asian Americans and 70 per cent of non-Hispanic Whites were found to have
ready access to computers at home, while only 55.7 per cent of African Americans
and 48.8 per cent of Hispanics had similar access (Victory and Cooper 2002: 21).
This same national study found that ‘Internet use [at home] among Whites, Asian
American [sic] and Pacific Islanders hovered around 60 per cent, while Internet use
rates for Blacks (39.8 per cent) and Hispanics (31.6 per cent) trailed behind’ (Victory
and Cooper 2002: 21). Recent income statistics released by the US Government
indicate that the median income for Hispanic households is currently $30,439 per
annum and for African American households it is $33,447 per annum, while non-
Hispanic White households and Asian households have an annual median income
of $45,904 and $55,521 respectively (Bush 2002). Outside the USA the differences
between those who can afford to access and use computers and the Internet on a
regular basis and those who cannot is even more marked (cf. Warschauer 2003).
Although marginalised groups are making effective use of community-based
computing centres and facilities and shared neighbourhood computing resources,
they remain marginalised on the Internet and in online research (Kolko et al.
2000). This throws into question whether online research can ever be ethical
when already marginalised groups are automatically excluded from participating
(Steinberg 2002). To complicate matters, physical markers of ethnicity can gener-
ally be hidden or invented online if a person chooses to, making it difficult – if
not impossible, or at the very least highly complicated – for researchers to assign
ethnicities to participants with any conviction beyond what participants claim and
enact online. There are no easy answers where marginalised groups and the Inter-
net are concerned. One possible, albeit limited, response researchers can make is to
draw overt attention to the inequities inherent in online research in their published
work (Steinberg 2002).
In terms of the researcher’s craft itself, one key, but often overlooked, element
in maintaining the reputation of researcher craft – the act of carefully planning,
carrying out and disseminating research. [. . .] A well-planned study indicates in
advance the time frame to which participants will need to commit upon agreeing to
take part in the study, the extent to which participants will be required to contribute
 Ethical issues in online research 161

data, and will signal what kind of data will be expected from participants (e.g. two
e-mail interviews over a period of four weeks, a participant’s set of postings to a
discussion list over the period of six months), and so on.
A poorly planned study will appear ad hoc to participants and may even under-
mine their confidence in the researcher as someone who knows what she is doing,
with subsequent poor reflections onto the institution or area in which the researcher
works. Participants may feel put out if the researcher changes her mind and instead
of conducting the one interview the participant agreed to, asks for responses to
five different sets of questions at five different times. Collecting gigabytes of data
from people without a clear plan in advance of how the data will be analysed and
written up simply wastes people’s time, and makes them loath to participate in
future research (regardless of who is conducting it). Even specific tools and tech-
niques for collecting online data come with a range of ethical issues. For example,
one popular method for keeping tabs on the websites children visit at home or
school is tracking software, which records the URLs visited, the order in which
they were visited, and even the amount of time each webpage was up on the
screen. This kind of software has enormous implications where a researcher’s duty
of care towards children and children’s rights to privacy are concerned. Although
some schools make use of such software to monitor improper uses of the Inter-
net, this does not necessarily make this software a good thing, nor does it mean
that researchers have a right to make use of the data such software generates,
or to employ such software elsewhere. One way of addressing this dilemma is
offered by Leander in his study of young adolescents’ online practices. Leander and
his research team use tracking software that can be turned on and off at will by
the key participants. This ensures as far as is possible that each study participant’s
right to privacy and to control their degree of participation within the study is
respected.
Research in schools has regularly been a victim of poorly planned projects, with
many teachers feeling ‘researched out’ by participating in studies that have dragged
on for longer than expected or have fizzled out altogether. Research in cyberspace
that aims at informing education with insights gained from observing online prac-
tices and interactions, needs to be carefully thought through and rigorously planned
in order to avoid similar problems within online communities.

In process concerns
Common sense should prevail in research conducted online where practising the
researcher’s craft is concerned. It stands to reason that education researchers are ill-
advised to solicit offline contact information from online participants – regardless
of participants’ claimed age – or to arrange to meet online contacts face to face.
In addition to security issues for the researcher, society and the law does not look
kindly on adults who meet children or adolescents online and then arrange to
meet them offline. Playing with identity online is a common practice (cf. Hine
2000) and naively assuming people are who they say they are can prove costly to
162 Michele Knobel

online researchers interested in following up their cyberspace observations with

face-to-face interviews.

Back end concerns

Demonstrating that a study is both valid and trustworthy is an important ethical
concern for researchers. Researching online interaction and activity brings with it
particular issues concerning the validity or credibility of interpretations and the
trustworthiness of the project overall. It is generally well accepted in research
circles that qualitative-type research projects attend to verification criteria other
than traditional, quantitative processes of ensuring the reliability and validity of a
study. These criteria centre on the communicative validity and the trustworthiness of
the study (Kincheloe and McLaren 1994; Knobel and Lankshear 2001). Commu-
nicative validity is concerned with judging soundness of the overall argument put
forward in research reports (Carspecken 1996).
There are a number of well-recognised strategies for communicating the validity
of interpretations and claims in research reports. These include cross-examining
multiple sources of data or evidence, using negative cases, member checking, out-
sider audits, and so on. In terms of research online, employing communicative
validity measures can actually be facilitated by the very nature of the online data.
For example, data collected over a given period of time can be compared and
contrasted with previously archived data from the same chatspace, discussion list
or website in order to add further weight to an interpretation. Ready access to
negative cases can be provided through search engine functions within the website
being studied, or across the Internet in terms of drawing negative cases from similar
sites or services. [. . .]
The trustworthiness of a study is concerned with the degree to which a reader
can trust and believe in the quality of the study itself (cf. Lincoln and Guba 1985;
Denzin 1998). The key to collecting high quality data is constructing a sound
and coherent research design (Knobel and Lankshear 1999; Lankshear and Knobel
2000). Believability depends on the online researcher clearly demonstrating that
she has collected data that are sufficient for her research needs (and determined in
large part by the research question she has asked). Producing a credible study means
that the overall coherence of the research question(s), the theoretical framing, and
the data collection and analysis designs are explicit, justified and appropriate. As
with meatspace studies, researchers cannot take what people say at face value, but
need to cross-check it with things they have said in the past in order to ascertain
the degree to which the participant is or is not ‘pulling their leg’ or deliberately
providing misinformation. Credibility takes on additional dimensions when data
collected online are involved. This is not so much because readers can often access
the very data used in the report to check and verify claims and interpretations
made by the researcher, but because this accessibility is assumed by researchers and
readers alike (except where non-archived chatspace is involved) and generally is
treated as another (potential) verification checkpoint within a study. Herein lies an
 Ethical issues in online research 163

interesting paradox. Despite general and widespread recognition that the Internet
is an amorphous, ever-changing network, when the data used in a study have been
removed or are no longer archived or accessible for one reason or another, the
credibility of a study can be thrown into disarray.
[. . .]

Graduate students and supervision of their

research
Increasingly in Education, research supervisors are expected to take on more
research students, ensure these students graduate, and continue with their own
teaching, researching and publishing efforts. As Colin Lankshear and I have writ-
ten elsewhere (1997), in Australia many postgraduate Education students come to
qualitative research from under-graduate teaching degrees which are often content-
dominated, have been short on meta-level teaching and learning, and where
prior exposure to serious engagement with research methods and literature often
approximates to zero.
Research supervisors within Education thus need to pay extra attention to the
knowledge base of their students and to ensure that these students know how
to engage in online research that is ethically, theoretically and methodologically
informed and coherent, well designed, rigorously conducted, and so on. Indeed,
online research with its relative ease of access to well-defined groups of people or
sets of texts, the abundance of data and the flexibility opened up by easy access via
any computer almost anywhere, and the appeal of investigating cyberspace per se
because it has a default ‘cutting edge’ feel to it, risks lulling supervisors into sanc-
tioning smash-and-grab student research. Supervisors face on a daily basis myriad
pressures that take attention away from overseeing each student’s research planning
and design processes, ensuring that students are paying full and careful attention to
their own ethical responsibilities as researchers, checking students are sure that the
site or community they plan to study will not suddenly disappear before their data
collection has been completed, and apprenticing students to conducting theoreti-
cally informed research that addresses a genuine problem and/or set of well-formed
and sound research questions. A large part of supervisors’ ethical responsibilities
towards their research students is to ensure these students are addressing the kinds
of front end, in process and back end ethical concerns mentioned earlier.

Consumers
Consumers of research – that is, those for whom the research has use value – include
the researcher and her wider community of inquirers, theorists, and commentators;
study participants; groups of people who have a stake or vested interest in the phe-
nomena under study (e.g. schools, parents, students, community, teacher educators,
education departments, the media, etc.); and organisations which have identified
a research ‘need’ and provided funding for researching it (e.g. universities, local,
164 Michele Knobel

state and federal bodies/agencies) (Lankshear and Knobel 1997). [. . .] The needs of
consumers of research who have vested interests in the studies conducted by aca-
demics and consultants, either because they are funding the studies, or participating
in them, or hope to gain educationally from them, generate a number of ethical
dilemmas for education-oriented online researchers. Decisions need to be made
as to how far to participate in research that focuses on technology in education
contexts, and to what extent online research should be conducted outside school
contexts so that education can be brought more closely into line with what young
people can already do, as well as what they will need to be able to do and be once
they have left school.
For example, one ethical issue of increasing concern involves decisions about
what to research in education. In the USA at present, for example, websites devoted
to teachers and students that present testing and practice exercises aligned directly
with national and/or specific state education standards are beginning to proliferate
around the nation. Schools are investing heavily in online services that automat-
ically assess students’ essays; test reading comprehension; and provide web-based
lesson plan generators (complete with lists of learning objectives to select from and
automated cross-references to state or national standards indicators and assessment
rubrics). Other online investments are teacher–student interfaces that include mes-
sage boards, spaces for posting assignment grades, homework texts, etc., learning
portals similar in kind to the UK’s National Grid for Learning, and so on. Most of
these applications merely automate existing classroom practices (e.g. multiple choice
tests, spelling tests, drill worksheets), with little to recommend them in terms of
real engagement with important forms of self-directed learning, high-order think-
ing, research skills, information evaluation, and the like. The funding available for
studying the take-up and use of these technologies is on the rise; however, educa-
tion researchers interested in the ways in which new technologies can be used to
address existing inequities between certain groups of children will need to reflect
carefully on how to best research these applications without contributing further to
maintaining existing school-generated inequities among children. This can become
particularly vexing when permission to conduct research in a school is predicated
on an evaluation of a web-based learning system in which the school has invested
heavily. Indeed, ethical approaches to studying new technologies, cyberspaces and
education require the ‘end users’ or targeted consumers of the research outcomes
to be factored into the project right from the start.

Conclusion
To sum up, researching cyberspaces does bring with it a distinct set of ethical
issues a researcher needs to attend to while planning and designing a project, while
conducting the investigation, and while writing up and disseminating a report of the
study. For every ethical rule someone puts forward, someone else can find a situation
online where the principle cannot possibly hold (e.g. the principle of ensuring
anonymity, or the principle of obtaining informed consent). Nonetheless, running
 Ethical issues in online research 165

through the front end, in process and back end points of ethical consideration
discussed so far have been at least three key precepts or maxims that I find particularly
useful in guiding ethical decision-making within my own research. In addition to
practising the general maxim of doing no harm in any research study, these maxims
are as follows.
Maxim 1: be informed A key element of conducting ethically defensible research
online is to spend a substantial amount of time observing, or participating, in a
community in order to get a sense of how it operates, how members choose to
represent themselves, and the like. This includes becoming closely familiar with the
discourse rules for participating, learning how to spot newcomers, troublemakers
and long-term members, researching the history of the community, and the like.
This will help ensure fair and respectful representation of the online context and
study participants.
Maxim 2: be honest and open Honesty and openness are always the best pol-
icy where online research is concerned. This includes advertising one’s researcher
status to study participants and non-participants alike within the targeted online
community. It includes asking permission of the owner of the website and/or the
community to conduct research in that space. This maxim also calls for researchers
to post contact details in open and accessible ways so that participants and non-
participants may ask questions at any time about the research process. Being honest
and open extends to maintaining a consistent online identity when participating in
a community or discussion list, etc. Preferably, this identity is one that is close to at
least one of the identities practised by the researcher in meatspace. Online education
researchers are ill-advised to pretend to be something they are not while conducting
online studies as it compromises the integrity of the researcher’s interactions with
others as well as the credibility of the study overall.
Maxim 3: be prepared to invest in online communities Researching online commu-
nities often requires the researcher to be prepared to invest in the moral compass
of that community. For example, many online communities make use of a ratings
system that is used to judge a member’s ‘good standing’ in the community. This
system operates by means of members or moderators rating a transaction (whether
it be between a buyer or seller, or in terms of the quality of a posted response to
a topic or new item). The higher one’s rating, the greater one’s respectability or
trustworthiness, and the like. In such cases, the researcher should take seriously a
community’s rating system as a ‘character reference’ and work at establishing a rea-
sonable rating (and thus, credibility and trust within the community). The online
researcher should also be prepared to commit to the community for longer than
the data collection period alone in order to pay due respect to the community
itself, as well as to ward off criticisms of smash-and-grab research that may alienate
participants and make them wary of participating in subsequent studies with other
researchers.

Simply attending to front end concerns such as obtaining participant consent is

never enough where ethical online research conduct is concerned. Paying constant
166 Michele Knobel

attention to the key points of potential ethical concern and to the bearers of moral
consequences associated with each study is crucial to ensuring to the best of one’s
ability that the study has been designed, implemented and written up with all due
attention to the well-being of others, to the betterment of education as a field, and
to one’s own development as an ethically aware researcher.

References
Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR) (2001) AOIR Ethics Working Committee: A
Preliminary Report. aoir.org/reports/ethics.html (accessed 16 March 2002).
Bruckman, A. (2001) Ethical guidelines for research online: a strict interpretation.
Unpublished position paper. www.cc.gatech.edul/∼asb/ethics (accessed 28 February
2002).
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income.html (accessed 12 April 2002).
Carspecken, P. (1996) Critical Ethnography in Educational Research: A Theoretical and Practical
Guide (New York, Routledge).
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www.socio.demon.co.uk/magazine/6/cavanagh.html (accessed 28 February 2002).
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Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials, pp. 313–344 (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage).
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 Ethical issues in online research 167

Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2000) EI Estudio Crítico-Social del Lenguagje y la Alfabetización

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Chapter 13

Ethics in quasi-experimental
research on people with severe
learning disabilities
Dilemmas and compromises
Mary Kellett and Melanie Nind

Introduction
Debates about research ethics are shifting in the current climate which focuses on
inclusion and human rights. The question of how people with learning disabili-
ties can be meaningfully involved in research continues to be topical, particularly
for researchers working with qualitative approaches. Kiernan (1999) reviewed
the recent relevant literature and the present authors will not repeat this work.
However, we do acknowledge the fine examples of research projects which have
attempted to empower people with learning disabilities and give them a voice (e.g.
Ward and Simons 1998). Oral history approaches (in which people tell their stories
in their own words) and participatory action research (in which people identify
problems and act together to bring about change) are well suited to addressing the
power imbalances between people with learning disabilities and those who have
traditionally ‘researched them’.
This chapter responds to the call for studies addressing ethics in other kinds of
research. Quasi-experimental research involves different assumptions from quali-
tative research. It is less concerned with multiple truths and more concerned with
testing hypotheses. As experimental researchers, the current climate can make us
feel somewhat uncomfortable and certainly vulnerable. With the rights and voices
of people with learning disabilities seen as so important, we could come to see
ourselves as an anachronism. This leaves us with (at least) three options: (1) We
change the type of research that we do and the type of questions which we ask.
(2) We could give up and go home! Or (3) we could accept out vulnerability and
limitations, and join the debate with honesty and an open mind. It is this last option
that we are interested in exploring.
In this chapter, we use the example of our own ongoing quasi-experimental
research to explore the ethical issues which arise and how we might respond to these
in ways which are appropriate for our values’ position as well our research design.
We also explore the issues of research involving individuals who are preverbal and
who have profound intellectual impairments. This is timely because the concept of
people with learning disabilities as partners in research brings with it the danger of
omission in research of those with the greatest disabilities. These individuals may be
 Ethics in quasi-experimental research 169

left outside research efforts because they are perceived as too difficult to include. We
do not think that some people with (learning) disabilities can effectively represent all
people with learning disabilities, including those who are profoundly intellectually
impaired, but we do not yet have models for involving people with profound
learning disabilities as real partners in research. This leaves us with the (non)option
of being tokenistic or with a dilemma. Do we compromise with whom we do our
research or do we compromise the ideal of dialogue in our methods?
Our research is an evaluation of Intensive Interaction (Nind and Hewett 1994).
In Kiernan’s (1999: 43) terms, this is ‘research on rather than research with’ people
with learning disabilities. A central aim of the present study was to identify what
happened to the social and communicative abilities of six young children when
Intensive Interaction was used. The first matter of ethical debate is whether the
research is worth doing and whose interests are served by it. There has been a call
for research that pursues the agenda of people with (learning) disabilities themselves,
rather than research pursuing the agenda of non-disabled academics (Morris 1992;
Oliver 1992; Barnes and Mercer 1997). For people with profound intellectual
impairment, this can be a double bind since research leading to enhanced lifestyles
for this group may not be a priority on either agenda.
Intensive Interaction is an approach for enabling people with profound or
complex learning disabilities to be more effective communicators, and those who
work with and care for them to be more effective ‘listeners’. It has evolved from
analysis of the characteristics of the natural model of caregiver–infant interaction. A
set of working principles, rather than any prescribed content, is employed in both
everyday incidental interactions and regular quality sessions which are subjected
to critical reflection. The intervention involves daily, recorded one-to-one inter-
actions in which the teacher takes the learner’s lead, responds contingently to the
learner’s behaviours, and treats them as if they have social or communicative intent.
The teacher’s interpersonal behaviours are modified, and sensitive use is made to
timing, rhythm, playfulness, watching, waiting and adapting based on non-verbal
feedback. The approach itself could be subjected to ethical scrutiny, particularly
considering its element of offering developmentally appropriate interactions, some-
times in the face of chronological age, which has been passionately debated (Nind
and Hewett 1996; Smith 1996; Samuel and Maggs 1998).
Intensive Interaction is concerned with the interactive processes that occur and
is not bound up with a medical model. Therefore, evaluative research that furthers
professionals’ and families’ understandings of the efficacy of the approach clearly
stands to benefit people with profound learning disabilities by reducing the barriers
to their effective communication. Indeed, although this research may not be eman-
cipatory or empowering in the ways often currently called for (Kitchen 2000), it
does seek to both change the views of the wider society and enable change of the
individuals involved.
Checking ourselves in the way that Barton (1998: 34) modelled does not make
us too uncomfortable in terms of: Who is this work for? What right do we have to
undertake it? and What responsibilities come with it? We do not doubt that we,
170 Mary Kellett and Melanie Nind

the academics, and other professionals will benefit from the research, but this is
in addition to people with learning disabilities and their families, and not at their
expense.
The present evaluation of Intensive Interaction with children is a replication/
adaptation of an earlier study with adults in a long-stay hospital (Nind 1996). The
replication element limited the choice of research design, but with a new researcher
leading the project, new ethical questions were asked of the methods, and the design
and tools were put under new scrutiny.

Quasi-experimental research design

We encountered many ethical (and practical) dilemmas when we embarked on this
project, not least in the research design itself. A means of evaluating the effectiveness
was needed and we did not have the option of pupils explaining how it was for
them in their own words. An option was to measure progress in two groups, one
getting Intensive Interaction and one not, in a ‘control group’ design. However,
on a practical level, it is impossible to find a ‘typical’ or ‘representative’ group, and
a satisfactory sample match (Hogg and Sebba 1986). A pragmatic alternative would
have been to use a ‘reversal phase’, with one group getting the intervention for a
period before it was withdrawn to see if progress was halted or reversed.
Both the models present serious ethical concerns. Based on previous research
(Nind 1996; Watson and Fisher 1997), we hypothesized that Intensive Interaction
would facilitate social and communication development. To withhold or withdraw
something of benefit in order to prove its effectiveness would be unethical and
potentially damaging to the welfare of the research participants.
To overcome these problems, we opted for a multiple-baseline interrupted time-
series design (Cuvo 1978; Cook and Campbell 1979; Nind 1996). This meant a
series of assessments throughout a baseline and intervention phase (and the inter-
vention continuing beyond the duration of the study). While participants began
the baseline phase together, the start of the intervention was staggered. Thus, the
approach was delayed for a few weeks rather than withheld or withdraw. The design
was strong in that a pattern of individuals making progress around their interven-
tion start-times would indicate a relationship between progress and intervention.
The most plausible explanation of outcomes would be that the intervention was
responsible for change (Glass et al. 1975; Borg 1987). In effect, the participants
would become their own controls, enabling a workable compromise to be reached
between experimental rigour and ethical considerations.

Informed consent
In collaboration with staff, six children from two primary special (severe learning
disabilities) schools and one integrated nursery were selected for the present
study. Before proceeding, the informed consent of the children, or at least, their
parents/guardians was required. We took steps to give parents full and honest
 Ethics in quasi-experimental research 171

information, and to ensure that our consent was not pressured or coerced, but this
did not fully discharge our ethical responsibilities. We were going to be working
with preverbal children with severe learning disabilities aged between 4 and 11
years: How could we ensure that the subjects were participating with informed
consent? While we could not construe the subjects as partners in research, we still
had a duty to ensure that these individuals were comfortable with participation and
we could not ascertain this through dialogue. Like Stalker (1998), we could find
no precedents for this in the literature and we found that we had to devise our own
framework.
Starting with the children as their focal point, we involved the network of
people who understood the subjects, cared about them, and knew when they were
unhappy, distressed or uncomfortable. We sought open dialogue with this network
with the aim of being assured of the ongoing consenting status of the children. Such
approaches to consent issues involve expanding traditional researcher–teacher–
parent relationships to include other concerned individuals such as siblings, friends
and support staff. We wanted to make real the notion of the participants’ right to
withdraw at any point. Like Knox et al. (2000), we saw consent in terms of an
ongoing process involving a network of advocates who would allow for functional
informed consent in a complex situation.
The effects of this were to make the researcher who gathered the observational
data on a weekly or fortnightly basis much more involved in the lives of those
involved with the project than she might otherwise have been. It was necessary
to forge good relationships and trust such that open dialogue was made possible.
Face-to-face contact, phone calls, home–school books and home visits were all
used. In this way, not only did the successful implementation of the interven-
tion rely on the interpersonal qualities of the practitioners, but also the evaluation
itself relied on the interpersonal qualities of the researcher. This perhaps blurred
the boundaries between a quasi-experimental approach and more interpretative
approaches. There was also compromise because the additional sharing and coop-
eration required in this model inevitably diluted the power and control of the
researcher.

Duration of baseline
The intervention and design for evaluating it were known to have been effective
with adults in a long-stay hospital (Nind 1996). However, the practical implemen-
tation of this design in a community special school raised some unforeseen issues.
This concurs with the growing concern in recent years about ethical practice in
special education research (Shakespeare 1996; Gray and Denicolo 1998; Stalker
1998).
The design element of a staggered start to the intervention meant that one child
in each school would start Intensive Interaction after 4 weeks, one after 8 weeks
and one after 12 weeks. However, following Intensive Interaction training, the
teachers were enthusiastic to begin. As they got going with other pupils, they
172 Mary Kellett and Melanie Nind

became increasingly confident of the benefits of the approach and increasingly

frustrated at the delay in its use with the research participants. At the design stage,
a multiple baseline of 4, 8 and 12 weeks seemed reasonable. In practice, it proved
difficult for the first teacher to delay for 4 weeks, frustrating for the second teacher
attempting to delay for 8 weeks and virtually impossible for the third teacher, who
regarded 12 weeks as a whole term of lost opportunity.
This raises real dilemmas. From the researcher’s perspective, multiple baselines
avoid the need for a control group or reversal phase, while providing stronger
evidence than a simple series of case studies. This allows for more comprehensive
dissemination, and ultimately, wider benefits. From the teacher’s perspective, the
baseline period represents lost opportunities for progress. At what point does one
choose between potentially greater benefits for greater numbers and probable ben-
efits to an individual being delayed? Opting for the rigorous design still leaves the
problem of the duration of the baseline phase. How long is long and how long is
ethical? If 12 weeks is acceptable, but 20 weeks unacceptable, should the line be
drawn at 12 weeks or at 19 weeks and 6 days? Who should make that judgment?
The decision is likely to be a compromise, as it was for us, reached through dialogue
between the researcher, steering group or supervisor, and the network of advocates
called for earlier in this chapter. Following concern at the first 12-week baseline,
the baselines in the second school were made 4, 5 and 6 weeks long, rather than
4, 8 and 12 weeks as planned.

Measuring tools
The present research also required a means of measuring social and communica-
tive behaviour that could be used frequently, was non-intrusive and could show
tiny changes. Several measures were needed for richness of data and triangula-
tion (findings from different perspectives and means). Two published assessments,
Kiernan and Reid’s (1987) Pre-Verbal Communication Schedule and an adaptation
of Brazelton’s (1984) Cuddliness Scale were used alongside systematic observation.
This allowed for a more standardized and long-term view alongside the detail
of social behavior intricately coded second-by-second from video recordings.
Participants were filmed initially weekly and then fortnightly over a period of
one year.
Video data were analysed for typical classroom behaviour when alone; any
attempt to initiate social contact; responses to the proximity and physical contact of
the teacher; interactive behaviour; and engagement in a one-to-one teacher–pupil
interactive session. Once again, the measures appeared reasonable, but as the pupils
began to make progress, teachers and researcher felt increasingly uncomfortable
with ‘passive’ situations where the teacher purposefully did not initiate interaction.
Observation of positive responses to proximity and physical contact was originally
sought as an early sign of progress. Nevertheless, these pupils seemed bewildered
as to why teachers sometimes interacted intensively with them and sometimes
passively.
 Ethics in quasi-experimental research 173

Again, there was tension between rigorous method and contextual research
ethics. For us, although such a rich source of experimentally valid data could
strengthen the study, the potential distress to pupils was too high a price to pay.
This inevitably lead to another compromise and a need to sacrifice some of the
neat, tidy study in pursuit of rather messier but more ethical data. The passive
condition for the assessment was abandoned for the first pupil–teacher pairing as
soon as concern about its negative impact emerged. It was then dropped for the
later pupils before concern emerged.

Ownership of data
A further issue arising from the project, but not necessarily linked to its experimental
nature, concerned ownership of data. This project involved video recording of
pupils and teacher in one-to-one social interactions. Who should own the data:
the pupils, teachers, parents, researchers or funding source? Should ownership be
shared jointly between all parties concerned? Or should the raw data be destroyed
when analysis is complete so that these are not owned by anyone? The desire to
extend just rights to participants may need to be tempered by logistical realism
in order to protect data which could prove valuable in future studies. We were
made to compromise again, and opted for a solution in which the researcher acted
as ‘banker’ or unofficial archivist of the video data, storing it safely and enabling
participants and their families to have their entitlement to view the material.

Conclusion
Conducting quasi-experimental research in current learning disability contexts
raises many ethical dilemmas and exposes possible conflicts of interest between
researchers and research participants. We fully recognize the limitations of any
study in which the researcher has power and the researched are a separate vulner-
able group, and we have shown how this power may be handled responsibly and
perhaps shared. In experimental as well as interpretative research, there is potential
power to do good, even to empower, as well as potential to do harm. Ethics com-
mittees and procedures should perhaps ask whether there are alternative designs in
which the researched individuals can more actively become the researchers, but
not rule out studies where this is not possible.
The growing number of groups involved in qualitative, participatory and eman-
cipatory research may lead the way on research ethics in a new era, but they
cannot be left to take the responsibilities which all researchers in the area of learn-
ing disabilities must share. The changing context of demands for inclusion, for
evidence-based practice and for respect for all human rights should lead us to reflect
on the practical benefits and ethical issues associated with our research. Having
reflected on this study, we conclude that, like any research, it is not perfect that all
researchers need to seek compromises, and that dialogue is needed on purposeful
ways forward.
174 Mary Kellett and Melanie Nind

References
Barnes C. and Mercer C. (ed.) (1997) Doing Disability Research. Leeds, Disability Press.
Barton L. (1998) Developing an emancipatory research agenda: possibilities and dilemmas.
In: Clough P. and Barton L. (eds) Articulating with Difficulty: Research Voices in Inclusive
Education. London, Paul Chapman: 29–39.
Borg W.R. (1987) Applying Educational Research: A Practical Guide for Teachers. New York,
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Brazelton T.B. (1984) Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale. London, Heinemann Medical
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Cook T.D. and Campbell D.T. (1979) Quasi-experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for
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Cuvo A.J. (1978) Multiple baseline in institutional research: pitfalls of measurement and
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 Ethics in quasi-experimental research 175

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Chapter 14

Owning the story

Ethical considerations in narrative
research
William E. Smythe and Maureen J. Murray

[…]
Limitations of regulative principles in
narrative research
The narrative study of lives is a growing, multidisciplinary tradition of research
based on the in-depth autobiographical interviewing of research participants; it
involves ‘listening to people talk in their own terms about what had been signif-
icant in their lives’ ( Josselson 1993: ix). Narrative research is situated within the
broader domain of qualitative social science research, which, in turn, is a subset of
all research conducted with human participants. The main data collection instru-
ment in narrative research is the research interview, which is often conducted
in a naturalistic setting over an extended period of time and might require some
significant personal involvement of researchers in the lives of those they study.
Methodologically, narrative research is an essentially interpretive enterprise in that
the researcher is engaged actively in formulating meanings for participants’ nar-
rative expressions, often in quite different terms than the participants themselves
would. Thus, narrative researchers often are conflicted ethically about how to
do justice both to their own and their participants’ very different understand-
ings of their life experiences – indeed, how to maintain any balanced ethical
perspective in the context of such an intrusive style of research. It is widely
agreed by now among narrative researchers that traditional ethical principles
in research offer insufficient guidance in this respect. In the introduction to a
recent volume on ethical issues in the narrative study of lives, Josselson (1996a)
wrote

There are no easy answers to these questions. Merely waving flags about
confidentiality and anonymity is a superficial, unthoughtful response. And
the concept of informed consent is a bit oxymoronic, given that participants can,
at the outset, have only the vaguest idea of what they might be consenting to.
Doing this work, then, requires that we find a way to encompass contradictions
and make our peace with them.
(pp. xii–xiii)
 Narrative research ethics 177

[. . .] What emerges, quite plainly, is the general inadequacy, for narrative research,
of the ethical principles that guide more traditional nomothetic social science
research. [. . .]

Informed consent
Informed consent is problematic, given the idiographic nature of narrative inquiry.
What happens during the course of a narrative interview very much depends on
the individuality of the research participant and the quality of rapport that develops
between participant and researcher. In contrast with nomothetic research, where
people are processed in cookie-cutter fashion through standardized methodological
protocols, it is often impossible to forecast with any degree of accuracy what will
happen during the data gathering phase of a narrative research project. By virtue
of its emergent or discovery-based methodology, significant methodological decisions
often are made on the fly (Price 1996). Hence, narrative research participation is
something one has to experience firsthand to make an informed decision about.
Chase (1996) wrote

I think we need to remind ourselves as well as prospective participants that

narrative research is a contingent and unfolding process, the results of which
we cannot anticipate or guarantee. An informed consent form cannot possibly
capture the dynamic processes of interpretation and authorship.
(p. 57)

Moreover, as in other forms of qualitative research, the nature of the relationship

that develops with research participants might seriously compromise the meaning
and purpose of informed consent, especially in its legalistic overtones (Rubin and
Rubin 1995; Rossiter et al. 1996). The open-ended nature of what people consent
to can often lead to problems securing ethical clearance; given the highly per-
sonal nature of narrative data, the use of a signed consent form might sometimes
compromise participants’ rights to privacy and confidentiality (Price 1996).
An alternative to the traditional, static, one-shot approach to securing consent
that often is recommended to qualitative researchers is the notion of process consent.
In process consent, informed consent is a mutually negotiated process that is ongoing
throughout the course of the research rather than something obtained just at the
outset (Grafanaki 1996; McLeod 1996; Balfour 1999). In our view, this should
include the option for participants to withdraw their data following participation.
Minimal provisions for mutually negotiated consent are incorporated in traditional
informed consent insofar as participants are informed that they may withdraw at
any stage of the research without penalty. In process consent, explicit procedures
are provided for mutually negotiated consent and the process is initiated by the
researcher rather than the participant.
178 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

Privacy and anonymity

The information collected from participants in narrative research typically is
so detailed and individually specific – that disguising the identities of research
participants becomes extremely difficult. [ . . . ]
True anonymity generally is a problematic requirement to meet whenever a
person’s story is presented and analysed as a whole and in detail. In such cases,
as Chase (1996) observed, ‘research participants easily recognize themselves in
our texts and readers who know them may recognize them, too, even when
pseudonyms and other forms of disguise are used’ (p. 45). Hence, the debate
over whether the use of pseudonyms renders narrative and historical research less
‘authentic’ (Etter-Lewis 1996) is rendered moot, as the individuals normally are
identifiable anyway. Given the very real possibility of such breaches of privacy, it
is incumbent on narrative researchers to take steps to protect individuals, and the
third parties who figure in their narratives, from undue exploitation in the process
of telling their stories (Graves 1996).

Protection from harm

This brings us to the issue of avoidance of harm. The potential risks invoked by
narrative research have to do with the subtle and often unforeseeable consequences
of writing about people’s lives. In her study of life in a kibbutz, for example,
Lieblich (1996) noted that some of her participants used the research interview
as an opportunity to vent old grievances and even perpetuate distortions of the
truth. Other members of the community felt hurt by these revelations once the
study was published and the identities of participants became known. Etter-Lewis
(1996) also raised the issue of ‘airing dirty laundry’ in narrative research. Participants
also might make themselves vulnerable in their own narrative revelations. Hence,
extensive precautions often are necessary to protect the integrity of participants’
reputations and their ongoing relationships with the others who figure in their
stories (Chase 1996). However, given the inherent problems with confidentiality in
narrative research, such precautions are not always successful. In addition, narrative
researchers, like other qualitative researchers, must confront the potential risks
involved in inadvertently touching on highly charged emotional issues in the course
of an interview, especially when dealing with individuals from highly vulnerable
populations such as the terminally ill (Raudonis 1992; Grafanaki 1996; McLeod
1996; Balfour 1999).
Perhaps the most pervasive risk for participants in narrative research has to do
with the emotional impact of having one’s story reinterpreted and filtered through
the lenses of social-scientific categories. The problem is that, once the researcher’s
account is taken as the authoritative interpretation of an individual’s experience,
the individual’s own understanding of their experience inevitably is compromised.
Narrative research can in this way become intrusive and subtly damaging, even
 Narrative research ethics 179

when participants respond positively to the researcher’s account. Reflecting on her

own experience with one such participant, Josselson confessed

I felt that even though Lydia found my comments useful to her, I had intruded
on her and on her life in a powerful way. Whatever sense she was making
of her life was, after all, her sense. What right had I to impose my meaning
making on her?
(p. 66)

More generally, Josselson (1996b) observed

The renarrating we do when we write about someone is a form of

psychotherapy, cloaked not in the authority of the therapist–patient relation-
ship but in the authority of the written word. To renarrate a life unasked,
therefore, robs the Other of a piece of his or her freedom no matter how
exhilarating an experience it may be . . .
(p. 67)
[…]
In sum, the assessment of risk in narrative research is a highly sensitive and
idiosyncratic matter, one that resists any obvious formulation in terms of principles
of minimal risk or uniform procedures for risk–benefit analysis.

Conflict of interest
Conflicts of interest due to multiple relationships are virtually unavoidable in
narrative research, especially when the research takes place in a naturalistic set-
ting. Lieblich (1996), commenting on her study of Israeli kibbutz life, pointed to
her inevitable involvement in the lives of those she studied, from the perspective
of her multiple roles as researcher, expert resource person, and friend. With respect
to the last of these roles, she wrote

What started as a research became a relationship . . . as I have asked my ‘subjects’

to cooperate with me on deep and meaningful levels, I have become indebted
to them in many ways, more than I had ever imagined. Many became friends.
Is this good or bad? Could I anticipate this development?
(pp. 172–173)

Toward the end of her article, she stated:

Today, my contacts with the kibbutz are less frequent, yet the relationship is
sound and solid. I am there for them in certain ways, as they are for me. Is this
ethics or friendship? I believe that a researcher who resents this entanglement
180 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

should not start a narrative research about people who belong to his or her
own culture and society.
(p. 184)
[…]
However, the distinctive and most pervasive role conflict that narrative
researchers face is between serving as their participant’s confidant, on the one hand,
and then going public with their stories, on the other hand. Josselson (1996b) aptly
characterized the type of conflict of interest that these conflicting roles can lead to
as that of ‘talking about people behind their backs’. She wrote

My guilt, I think, comes from my knowing that I have taken myself out of
relationship with my participants (with whom, during the interview, I was in
intimate relationship) to be in relationship with my readers. I have, in a sense,
been talking about them behind their backs and doing so publicly. Where in
the interview I had been responsive to them, now I am using their lives in the
service of something else, for my own purposes, to show something to others.
I am guilty about being an intruder and then, to some extent, a betrayer.
(p. 70)

Deception and debriefing

Deception normally is not a significant ethical issue for narrative research. Narrative
researchers generally have no reason to systematically mislead their research partici-
pants at any stage of the research process. They are interested in people’s stories, told
in their own words, about some aspect of their life experiences, and participants
are told this at the outset of a narrative interview. Hence, there is no need for
debriefing, in the usual sense of clarifying the ‘true purposes’ of the study, following
people’s participation. Narrative researchers typically are forthright and explicit
about the purposes of the research from the outset of participation. However, there
is debriefing in the sense of sharing the results of the researcher’s narrative analysis
with participants at some stage of the process. There are as yet no well-established
guidelines governing when and to what extent (if at all) participants should be
involved in the process of analysis. In some studies, participants are actively involved
in the process of narrative interpretation itself; in others, participants’ comments,
clarifications, and permission to use their data are sought only after the analysis is
complete but before the study is published; sometimes participants’ reactions are
solicited only following the release of the published report, if at all. Peer debriefing –
the sharing of one’s findings with a disinterested peer researcher – is sometimes
recommended as a way of ensuring honesty and reducing researcher bias; however,
no widely accepted standards and procedures for such debriefing have been worked
out yet (Price 1996).

Narrative ownership
Debriefing raises another important ethical issue – the central ethical problem in
narrative research, in our view – narrative ownership. Who owns the research
 Narrative research ethics 181

participant’s narrative? That is, who wields the final control and authority over its
presentation and interpretation? The issue of the ownership of data scarcely arises
in traditional psychological research, where (as pointed out earlier) one simply
gives away one’s data to the researcher as part of the standard research participation
contract. However, can one give away one’s own story in this fashion, especially
when it is so heavily invested with one’s personal meaning and sense of identity? A
common reaction of narrative research participants to researchers’ analyses of their
stories is that the analysis fails to capture them fully in their personal uniqueness and
individuality. As one of Josselson’s (1996b) research participants put it succinctly,
the researcher’s account just did not ‘feel’ like her. Associated with such reactions,
there is often a subtle sense of betrayal, a feeling that the researcher has undermined
participants’ authority to speak for themselves about their own experiences.
Such reactions are perhaps inevitable when people’s stories are transformed into
instances of larger social or psychological phenomena. The narrative researcher
approaches a life story from a radically different perspective than that of the indi-
vidual who tells the story. The purpose of narrative analysis normally is not to clarify
what participants intended to say but, rather, to interpret the underlying, implicit
meanings behind what they say. Ochberg (1996) stated

When I interpret a life story, I try to show what an informant accomplishes by

recounting his or her history in a particular fashion. To succeed, I must under-
mine the usual assumption: that people say what they mean and mean only
what they say. I lead a reader through the account showing how everything
that has been said has other meanings, ulterior purposes.
(p. 98)

Moreover, it is incumbent on the narrative researcher, as a social scientist, to relate

the meanings of an individual’s story to the larger, theoretically significant categories
that they exemplify, an objective quite foreign to that of the individual telling a
purely personal narrative.
Hence, it is widely agreed among narrative researchers that, given their unique
perspective on people’s stories, it is imperative that they claim some ownership and
control over the narratives they study. Chase (1996) addressed the matter in the
following way:

Who should control the interpretive process in any particular case depends
in large part on the aim or purpose of the research and thus what kind of
material needs to be collected and what kind of interpretation best suits that
material. Moreover, as long as decisions about these questions are made by the
researcher . . . the researcher continues to exercise authority not shared with
participants . . . . I believe that claiming and acknowledging one’s interpretive
authority is imperative.
(pp. 51–52)
182 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

Price (1996) also agreed, but with the following qualification: ‘This acknowledge-
ment of ownership is the foundation for an ethical study when accompanied by the
recognition of one’s own biases and prejudices’ (p. 213).
However, how does one distinguish such acknowledgment of ownership from
exploitation or ‘colonization’ of the participant’s story by the researcher? Further-
more, not all narrative researchers agree that their own interpretive perspective is
the final one. Etter-Lewis (1996), for example, defended the contrary position that

The narrator’s outlook must prevail. Researchers lose nothing in sharing the
process (reaffirming the narrator’s authority of self ), which naturally is inter-
active and collaborative rather than autocratic. In other words, narrators must
participate in this alliance with the power to know, correct, and teach, whereas
the interviewer must be a willing learner whose external knowledge (i.e.,
information outside of the narrator’s experience) guides (not dominates) the
elicitation process.
(p. 127)

Issues of ownership, interpretive authority, and betrayal are subtle, complex, and
pervasive. [. . .] These issues cannot be dealt with adequately by uniform proce-
dures such as offering to remove participants’ data from the study, at their request,
following debriefing (MRCC et al. 1998). As is evident in the previous examples,
people still can feel that they have been misrepresented and that their ‘say’ has been
taken away even when they otherwise agree with the researcher’s account. We
need an entirely different way of thinking through ethical dilemmas of this kind.
In the next section, we argue for an epistemological approach to this issue.

Narrative epistemology and ethics

One of the unique features of narrative research is the intimate entanglement of
ethical issues with epistemological ones. The issue of narrative ownership strikes
to the heart of the matter. When researcher and participant are at odds in their
narrative accounts of a given life experience, whose account is to be considered the
more credible and on what grounds? Participants enjoy a certain epistemic privilege
by virtue of the fact that the story is about their own experience and no one can
know an experience as intimately as the one who has lived it. Researchers, on the
other hand, have theoretical knowledge and access to literature that can frame the
participant’s experience within a much larger context. On the basis of such knowl-
edge, researchers often can aspire to an understanding of an individual’s experience
that goes beyond the individual’s own understanding in some respects. However,
how do we know, in a given instance, who is right? This is an epistemological
question. It is a question that simply does not arise in more traditional nomothetic
research, where people are employed as data sources and almost never are asked to
interpret their own data (although the data, themselves, might consist of interpre-
tation or judgements of various kinds). In nomothetic research, disputes about the
 Narrative research ethics 183

interpretation of evidence typically are between different investigators and are to be

settled, ultimately, by an appeal to methodological and theoretical considerations;
they are separate from the ethical treatment of research participants. In narrative
research, the ethical cannot be bracketed so neatly from the epistemological, as
participants have an essential stake in the interpretation of their own stories.
It has been argued that narrative has its own distinctive epistemology, that it
is a mode of knowing fundamentally different from the paradigmative mode more
characteristic of logical and scientific arguments (Bruner 1986; Polkinghore 1988).
Narrative discourse is structured more temporally than conceptually, concerns rela-
tions among particulars rather than abstract generalities, addresses the vicissitudes of
human intentions and motivations, and aims to be convincing more by virtue of its
believability than in terms of its logical coherence or empirical testability (Bruner
1986). Most important for out purposes, narrative accounts are told from multiple
perspectives (Bruner 1986). There is no single best way to tell a story. There are
at least as many perspectives from which to tell a story as there are key charac-
ters within it; literary and journalistic narratives often switch between several such
perspectives. The epistemological import of multiple narrative perspectives is the
suggestion that narrative meaning must be multiple as well. Rather than aspiring
to a singular account of reality – the ultimate aim of paradigmatic inquiry – the
narrative domain requires that we live with multiple interpretations of reality.

Three types of narrative

Another consideration that contributes to the multiplicity of narrative meaning is
that there are fundamentally distinct types of narratives. The one that is most familiar
to modern readers is the personal narrative. This mode, typified by contemporary
biography and autobiography and many works of modern fiction, is centred on
the individuality of a central main character or person. The narrative is told from a
consistent, personal perspective and is aimed at revealing the unique, idiosyncratic
character and life circumstances of a particular individual. This is exemplified in
the way that modern biographical and autobiographical works tend to focus on
presenting the life circumstances and influences on their characters in their unique
particularity.
A more archaic narrative form is the archetypal narrative of mythological and
religious texts. Here, the focus is not on human individuality as such but on timeless
human motifs that reflect fundamental spiritual, existential, and moral concerns,
such as human mortality, the stages of life, love and war. [. . .]
The narratives that social scientists construct in the narrative study of lives fall
somewhere between the personal and the archetypal. These are narrative accounts
that bear on psychological and social themes, such as emotional abuse, healing
from trauma, racial discrimination, needs for achievement and affiliation, and
interpersonal dynamics in the family, among many others. We call these typal
narratives because they attempt to subsume individuals and their life experiences
within broader types that are of theoretical interest to social scientists. Its principal
184 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

aim is neither to capture the individuality of persons in detail nor to bring out
archetypal human themes, but rather to concretely exemplify the theory-laden
categories of contemporary social science. To the extent that these themes depend
on current social and cultural contexts, typal narratives are not as timeless and invari-
ant as archetypal narratives, but neither are they as individually specific as personal
narratives.

Narrative typology and ownership

The three types of narrative we have identified are neither exhaustive nor mutually
exclusive. However, our typology allows some leverage on the ethical issue of
narrative ownership. As we noted earlier, perhaps the most common complaint
voiced by narrative research participants in reaction to what is written about them
is that the narrative researcher’s account fails to jibe with participants’ views of
themselves; it fails to capture their sense of their own individuality and uniqueness.
We can now understand this reaction as a response to the essential tension between
the requirements of the personal versus the typal narrative. When people react
negatively to being ‘typed’ (Bakan 1996; Bar-On 1996), when they feel that the
way they are portrayed in the researcher’s narrative is just not ‘them’, perhaps this is
what they are responding to. Yet, this type of reaction is inevitable in what Chase
(1996) termed

the interpretive process of transforming particular stories into examples of larger

social phenomena. If a participant expects that the researcher will capture fully
who she is, then it must be disconcerting to have her story analyzed for the
social processes it reveals rather than preserved in its uniqueness.
(p. 50)

Josselson (1996b) concurred and is prepared to take full ethical responsibility for
the intrusiveness of this mode of interpretation:

That we explore people’s lives to make them into an example of some prin-
ciple or concept or to support or refute a theory will always be intrusive and
narcissistically unsettling for the person who contributes his or her life story
to this enterprise. I don’t think that there is any measure one can take to
prevent this (beyond the usual safeguards, of course). No matter how gen-
tle and sensitive our touch, we still entangle ourselves in others’ intricately
woven narcissistic tapestries. When we write about others, they feel it in
some way.
(p. 70)

As Chase (1996) pointed out, there can therefore be no simple division of labour
in narrative research between the participant as narrator and the researchers as
interpreter. Both are tellers of tales and moralizers, both narrators and interpreters.
 Narrative research ethics 185

However, they spin their tales according to fundamentally different narrative

requirements. Participants seek to present and promote views of themselves and
their lives that they can make sense of and live with, whereas researchers are looking
for vivid exemplifications of theoretically significant social and psychological cate-
gories. When the two come into conflict, it is because they are constructing two
entirely different types of narratives based on the same material.

Recommendations for practice

[. . .]
What are the implications of our understanding of ethics for actual research
practice in the narrative domain? In particular, how does an awareness of multiple
narrative meanings impact on ethical practice in narrative research? In this section,
we offer some practical recommendations for ethical conduct in narrative research
based on the ideas presented earlier and our own experience as narrative researchers.
These recommendations are, to some extent, idealization of practice that might
not always be possible to implement in a given situation. Furthermore, they are
presented as a framework of possible options rather than as prescriptive rules. We
organize this discussion sequentially, in terms of the main phases of the research
process: recruiting, obtaining consent, interviewing, analysing the data, and writing
the report.

Recruiting
In our view, ethical responsibility for research participants begins at the recruitment
stage of narrative research. Participants in narrative research are asked to share more
personal and identity-laden data than in traditional, nomothetic research. As a result,
they incur particular kinds of risks. Participants might not always be the best judges
of the potential consequences of their participation. We believe the onus is on
the researcher to use discretion in determining the suitability of specific individuals
as research participants. This could be done by way of an informal conversation
with potential participants prior to the invitation to participate in research. Three
areas of concern are potential vulnerabilities of participants, participants’ ability to
understand the concept of multiple narrative meanings, and the researchers’ power
and influence with respect to participants.
In recruiting participants, the researcher needs to be aware of vulnerabilities
that might affect their contribution to the research. Some individuals might not
respond well to the exigencies of narrative inquiry – that is, to the consequences of
being open and reflective about their experience. Likewise, an individual’s ability
to grasp the notion of multiple narrative meanings might be limited. In out view,
understanding this notion is essential to narrative research participation. Although
the degree of such understanding can never be ascertained with certainty, as narra-
tive researchers we must be prepared to exclude individuals who we believe might
186 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

have considerable difficulty dealing with the issue. Finally, researchers need to be
aware of their power and influence with respect to participants and of their partici-
pants’ motives for wanting to participate in narrative research, which might not
always be in their best interest. [. . .] Many participants, especially those with the
more altruistic motives, might divulge much more than they are really ready to
disclose and thereby make themselves vulnerable. Researchers should not abuse
their authority to encourage people to participate in research that might adversely
affect them in this way. If the researcher suspects that a person will be harmed by
what they disclose, then the researcher is obligated to raise this concern with the
individual prior to obtaining their consent to participate.

Obtaining consent
We endorse Munhall’s (1989) concept of process consent – that is, consent to
participate in research is not an all or nothing, one-time agreement but rather
a mutually negotiated, ongoing process between researcher and participant. This
approach to obtaining consent is mandated by the open-ended, unpredictable char-
acter of narrative inquiry and the dept the self-disclosure that participants might
communicate. One never knows when a narrative interview might threaten to
move beyond the boundaries of what is safe for the participant; hence, the researcher
must be continually vigilant regarding participants’ consent. Among the possible
ways to implement such process consent would be the use of multiple consent
forms, an initial consent form followed up by multiple verbal or signed authoriza-
tion to continue, or informal periodic conversations regarding consent. However
implemented, fundamental to process consent is that it is something initiated by
the researcher on an ongoing basis.
In our view, participants need to be sensitized to the issue of multiple narrative
meanings from the outset. Part of the process of consent should involve clarifying
this issue for potential participants. This can help alleviate the common misunder-
standing among narrative research participants that the researcher will ultimately
convey the participant’s own story just as the participant understands it. Specifically,
prospective participants should be made aware that their personal narrative will be
renarrated by the researcher in the course of the analysis. When individuals are
invited to participate in narrative research, do researchers clearly say, ‘I want you
to tell me your story so that I can interpret it and retell it from my perspective?’
One way to raise this issue would be with reference to journalism and the common
practice of journalists putting their own spin on a story and changing it from the
way the teller related it. Although narrative research is normally more collabo-
rative than this, final interpretive authority still tends to rest with the researcher.
A brief statement to this effect should be included on the consent form and the
issue periodically revisited during process consent.

Interviewing
Having addressed the issue of multiple narrative meaning during the consent
process, the issue now should be set aside as the interview begins. The researcher
 Narrative research ethics 187

needs to clarify that the focus is now on the participant’s personal narrative and
bracket any consideration about its subsequent interpretation or renarration. That
is, it is important to encourage participants to tell their story in their own words
from their own perspective. For this reason, it is advisable not to schedule research
interviews immediately following the discussion of consent, where issues of multi-
ple meaning are highlighted. Ideally, a brief interval of time should elapse between
discussion of consent issues and the research interview. One way to mark sepa-
rations of this kind is to invoke the distinction between what is considered ‘on
camera’ (i.e. part of the research data) and what is ‘off camera’ (i.e. discussion of
consent and other issues that are not part of the research data). Participants should
always be directed to be aware of when their remarks are being recorded as research
data and when they are discussing other matters.
As the interview proceeds, the researcher needs to monitor continually the
vulnerability and consent of the participant, for the reasons pointed out earlier.
Researchers also need to monitor the development of trust with the participant to
ensure that this trust is not abused inadvertently. One of the factors that is para-
doxically problematic in this respect is that narrative researchers generally have
developed the skills to be good listeners, which encourages others to trust them
with their stories. Often, researchers will hear more than the participant consciously
might be comfortable telling them. Researchers have to be aware of that possibil-
ity and watch for it; they have to be able to discern, during the interview, when
a participant is telling them things that they are perhaps not yet ready to share.
Researchers need to use their intuition and judgement to avoid harm and maintain
informed consent throughout the process.

Analysing the data

The key ethical issues, from out perspective, arise during the analysis and
interpretation phase of the research, because this is the phase in which the mul-
tiplicity of narrative meaning becomes evident. When they leave the interview
phase to analyse the data, researchers must continue the reflexive process that helps
them determine how they feel about what they have learned regarding the mean-
ings that participants have shared with them. Following the transcription of the
interview, there are at least four separate phases to the analysis. First, researchers
consult with participants to ensure their transcripts accurately reflect what they
said. Second, researchers code the transcripts according to their own intuitions and
analytic methodologies. During this stage, researchers should journal their personal
reflections and feelings about the analysis. Specifically, they should reflect on their
own perspectives and interpretations as they might impact on the analysis and par-
ticipant. Third, researchers review their interpretations in conjunction with their
personal reflections and address any ethical concerns that might arise. For exam-
ple, a researcher might be concerned that communicating an interpretation about
a participant’s low self-esteem might further damage that individual’s self-esteem.
Finally, and most important, comes the stage of soliciting participants’ feedback on
the researchers’ interpretations. As pointed out earlier, the narrative research litera-
ture presents numerous options for different degrees of participant involvement in
188 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

the analysis, ranging from no involvement to collaborative input to final interpreta-

tive authority for the participant. From our point of view, the more significant issue,
beyond the extent to which participants are involved at this stage, is that the degree
of their involvement in the analysis be negotiated carefully with the researcher and
that the process of negotiation be documented appropriately. Given the inherent
multiplicity of narrative interpretation, we believe it is important to offer partici-
pants the opportunity to have their interpretation stand along with the researchers’
interpretation, especially when there are significant discrepancies between the two.
This is consistent with our conviction that there is no one privileged interpretation
of any narrative.

Writing the report

In writing the research report, researchers must continue to monitor their internal
hunches about how their interpretation will impact their participants. Interspersed
with this process is their continued consultation with the participants. The rela-
tionship of the researcher with participants does not end once the interviews are
completed. Researchers must decide at this stage whether to show all or portions
of the report to participants for their approval. This is the final opportunity to
review participants’ consent; if either the researcher or participant has any remain-
ing misgivings about publishing the participant’s data, this may be grounds for
excluding it.
After the report is published, researchers have yet a further opportunity to
solicit participants’ reaction, even though issues of consent are moot at this point.
Although this practice is not common, researchers who have sought such feedback
have discovered some unexpected consequences for individuals who subsequently
read what researchers write about them. [. . .] Researchers need to recognize that
when they publish their research, their participants are invited to read what they
have written about them. Hence, researchers must spend some time carefully think-
ing about the impact that their view of their participants, as portrayed by the
researcher’s lens, will have on the participants. Perhaps one of the best ways they
can prepare both their participants and themselves for this is by looking at the
example and the impact made by journalism and the media, as journalists are also
in the business of telling other people’s stories. In light of these powerful influ-
ences, it becomes imperative to clarify the issue of multiple narrative meanings for
the readership. The researcher’s analysis should be presented, not as a privileged
account, but as conditioned by a certain perspective that should be made as explicit
as possible. This leaves room for participants and readers to interpret the narrative
in their own terms subsequent to publication.

Conclusions
Our analysis of narrative research ethics has highlighted narrative ownership as a
key issue, which we have addressed by appealing to the multiplicity of narrative
 Narrative research ethics 189

meaning. In the previous section, we made a number of practical recommendations

based on our understanding of the unique features of narrative ethics and epis-
temology. In keeping with this focus on multiple narrative perspectives, we
conclude this chapter by situating our approach, with respect to the broad range
of contemporary perspectives on research ethics. Just as we have advocated the
idea of multiple narrative perspectives, so we endorse a multiplicity of ethical
perspectives.
Recent discussions of ethical issues in qualitative research have criticized
traditional, regulative approaches to ethics on the grounds that they are too pro-
cedurally driven, normative, rationalistic, principle centred, individualistic, and
utilitarian. They have recommended that qualitative research ethics should be
more reflexive than procedural (McLeod 1996), descriptive rather than norma-
tive (Hasselkus 1991), intuitive versus exclusively rationalistic (Rave and Larsen
1995), aspirational as opposed to principle centred (Rossiter et al. 1996; Corey
et al. 1998), intersubjective versus individualistic (Rossiter et al. 1996), and more
deontological than utilitarian (Munhall 1989). These approaches are consistent with
what has been called the ‘narrative turn in ethics’ (Widdershoven and Smits 1996)
and with the overall orientation of this chapter.
However, a dichotomous approach to these issues is, in our view, unreal-
istic. It presents the options for ethical decision making as mutually exclusive
alternatives. In practice, we find that these dichotomies expand into distinct
dimensions of ethical choice. Ethical issues in narrative research are best ren-
dered in shades of grey rather than in black and white. For example, both poles
of the intuitive–rational dimension of ethical decision making come into play
in an ethical dilemma such as whether to remove a participant’s data following
completion of a study. From a rationalist perspective, the researcher will con-
sider the ramifications of removing the data in terms of general considerations
such as consent and anonymity. From an intuitive perspective, the researcher
will rely on their personal feeling about what best serves the needs of the par-
ticipant. Neither ethical standard is, in our view, privileged; they both need
to be taken into account in practice, even if this involves attempting to satisfy
seemingly mutually contradictory demands. A similar argument could be made
with respect to the ethical dimensions of descriptive–normative, aspiratational–
principle centred, intersubjective–individualistic, and decontological–utilitarian
ethics.
Thinking about research ethics in the narrative domain opens up a multitude
of considerations for ethical decision making that tend to be overlooked in con-
ventional research. This chapter is only a first step toward dealing with these
complexities. We encourage a more encompassing, transtheoretical approach that
blends ethics with epistemology, an approach that balances knowledge issues with
ethical practice in a critical and self-reflective way. The challenge for future
formulations of research ethics is to articulate a framework for ethical decision mak-
ing that addresses the increasingly diverse methodologies of contemporary social
science.
190 W.E. Smythe and M.J. Murray

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Chapter 15

Methodological challenges in
researching inclusive school
cultures
Melanie Nind, Shereen Benjamin, Kieron Sheehy,
Janet Collins and Kathy Hall

Introduction
The recent attention given to systematic reviews (such as Dyson et al. 2002) has
drawn attention to the lack of detail about methodology reported in much of
the literature. Lack of methodological information limits our trust in a study’s
outcomes, but also limits the richness of our growing understanding of the method-
ological challenges related to such complex areas as inclusive education. This
chapter tells the story of the methodological challenges that have arisen within
one research project spanning a year and in doing so both problematises method
and addresses some fundamental issues in the field. The chapter tells, in chrono-
logical order, the story of the research from its original conception through to
the data analysis phase. This chronological sequence both allows and requires us
to map the challenges and dilemmas as if they took place in discrete chunks of
time, and then were resolved, allowing us to move on. The reality of course is
less simple. Certain phases of the research were characterised by specific dilem-
mas, such as finding appropriate schools and negotiating entry. Other dilemmas,
such as those around defining what we collectively mean by particular terms
and concepts, continue to challenge us. Perhaps the pleasure, as well as the
problem, of a story such as this, is that some tensions and differences cannot be
resolved. Our task is one of making the most creative use we can of the chal-
lenges – for ourselves, our research participants and those who engage with our
research.

Getting started
When five of us got together with a desire to research inclusion in schools our first
challenge was to know what it was we really wanted to focus on and do. We spent
a good deal of time discussing this and in particular two main dilemmas: did we
want to examine ‘good’ practice or ‘everyday’ practice, and did we primarily want
to enhance inclusive practice or enrich our own understandings about the processes
of inclusion. Without extensive dialogue on the tensions arising from our distinct
backgrounds and perspectives we could not proceed.
 Methodological challenges 193

Early discussions pursued what each of us understood by inclusion and the

communities of learners that most concerned each of us. Inclusive education is,
after all, contested territory with competing definitions. Gradually our focus sharp-
ened to an interest in inclusive cultures and practices. While research has begun
to illuminate and illustrate the processes that sustain inclusion/exclusion practices
and the importance of inclusive school cultures within this (e.g. Hunt et al. 2000),
we were interested in delving into those processes to better understand them. The
systematic review of Dyson et al. (2002) identified a relative lack of observational
evidence in the existing literature as well as an inadequacy of the research base
regarding students’ experiences of inclusion. Our intention was to foreground stu-
dent voices and experiences and to offer portrayals of inclusive schools that are
grounded in extensive observational evidence. What held us together was our
interest in what goes on in classrooms (and playgrounds, assemblies, etc.) in inter-
actions between teachers and pupils, and pupils and pupils, and teachers and teachers.
It is this common agenda that steered us toward the research questions:

• What do inclusive school cultures look and feel like to year six pupils and the
staff working with them?
• How are processes of inclusion/exclusion produced through the daily interac-
tions of pupils and teachers in schools?
• How do these processes relate to teachers’ stated classroom intentions, to
school policy, and to the larger context of national policy/rhetoric on ‘inclusive
education’?

Our decision to adopt a case study approach drawing on ethnographic methods

was relatively straightforward in that we shared a general agreement about the
fitness of this for our purpose. Less straightforward was our next challenge of
communicating our intentions to others. This meant establishing a common lan-
guage amongst ourselves, and a way of describing our project and key concepts
that was meaningful for the schools, parents and children. We grappled some-
what with others’ desire to know precisely our definitions and concepts when
we were comfortable with these still being very fluid. We wrote different intro-
ductory documents to engage our different audiences and what we originally
conceived in terms of ‘school cultures’, we presented to our potential research
partners in schools as ‘school ethos’. This, and other such elisions, posed an acute
problem for us; how far should we assume that teachers would be unwilling or
unable, given the constraints of time that characterise teaching, to engage with our
research questions in the terms that we ourselves found most meaningful? Were
we guilty of ‘dumbing down’ our aims in order to appear credible and feet-on-
the-ground (Blythman 1996), or were we simply being careful of our language
for the sake of clarity? Somewhere between these two poles, we developed some
working definitions of inclusion, inclusive schools, inclusive practice and inclu-
sive ethos and found two primary schools who were willing to engage in this
project with us, St Blythes Primary in the Midlands and George Holt Community
194 Nind et al.

Primary in London. (Pseudonyms are used for the schools and people within
them.)
The methodological challenges that followed ranged from the pragmatic to the
ethical and more often than not combined the two. For example, ‘how might we
interview the children?’ incorporated how can it feasibly be done and how can it be
done responsibly, as equitably as is possible, and without causing harm. Similarly,
‘when will the teachers find time to talk to us?’ meant both finding the actual time
and judging whether it was acceptable to take time away from teachers’ contact with
pupils and time for solitary reflection or recovery. We discussed such challenges
with the luxury of space and distance from the classrooms, but ultimately some
decisions were made in isolation but in context – on the spot. This meant that
some good intentions were de-railed and explaining the project to pupils in one
school, for example, became less than ideal. Many of the issues we faced are those
that any ethnographically oriented classroom researcher faces, but some of the
issues we regard as more acutely framed by the nature of our study are a study of
inclusive cultures and practices. Clearly, there is nothing mutually exclusive in this
categorisation, but it is largely these latter issues that we dwell on in this chapter.

Overview of the study

First, we offer a brief summary of what our methods were and the questions we
asked of the data, in order to present the methodological challenges within a more
holistic context. We worked with two urban English primary schools, one in
London and one in the Midlands. Two members of the research team took on the
fieldwork role, one in each school. A week was spent in a year six class in each
school, followed by a series of day visits. Alongside field notes, the data gathered
included interviews with the headteacher, class teacher and groups of children, and
audio and video recordings of lessons. In addition to unstructured thematic analysis
of the data, some pre-specified questions were used to prompt data collection and
analysis:

• What characterises the children who are most at risk of exclusion in these
schools?
• Where do we see barriers to their learning and participation?
• What are the exclusionary processes going on?
• Where do we see evidence of inclusive cultures?
• Where do we see evidence of inclusive processes or actions?

Choosing inclusive schools to research:

inclusive – says who?
Corbett (2001) says of her decision to choose Harbinger school for her study of
inclusive pedagogy, that it was because the school was already known to her and
that, through discussion with teachers, she knew it to be inclusive according to
 Methodological challenges 195

a set of criteria. Similarly, Dyson and Millward’s (2000) selection of schools was
based on prima facie evidence that they were moving or seeking to move in an
inclusive direction. In finding our schools, whose inclusive cultures and practices
we were keen to understand, we did not have this straightforward clarity but
instead faced all kinds of quandaries. One option was to study practice in schools
whose inclusiveness was already in the public domain, but there was something
uncomfortable about over-researching these schools at the expense of others doing
equally good but under-explored inclusion work. To somehow build up ‘hero
schools’ seemed to undermine the concept that processes of inclusion (and exclu-
sion) go on, in everyday schools, every day of the week. Alternatively, we could
devise our own criteria for deciding that a school is inclusive and therefore worthy
of our study. This, however, felt a little like answering our own research question
without even entering a school! Moreover, it went against our understanding that
at classroom level inclusion is a process, a series of choices made throughout the
day, thus pre-ordained benchmarks could be misleading and detract from our focus
on learning about these intricate choices. We could instead opt out of having to set
our own criteria of inclusivity and instead use official criteria, leading us to schools
deemed inclusive by OFSTED (the inspection body) or the LEA (Local Education
Authority). Or we could seek schools that self-identified as inclusive.
Ultimately we decided on a mixture of recommendation by others – senior
advisory staff in LEAs, combined with self-identification – schools with an inter-
est in further understanding their own inclusive practices. Nonetheless, finding
schools was not easy. Our interest in year six classrooms meant we were competing
against the school’s assessment agenda and largely loosing out. (English schools have
national tests, routinely known as SATs, at four key points, one of which is the
end of primary schooling in year six.) Our approaches to schools were also made in
the context of a culture of surveillance created by the inspection regime (Morley
and Rassool 1999), which may have added to their wariness. We found ourselves
trying to sell the idea of the study to the schools, flattering the headteachers with
comments about their recommended status, and promising a supportive process
focused on the good things going on in the schools. (This had more impact on the
study than we could have anticipated; we found later that we had not constructed an
ideal context in which to constructively share the data about the processes of exclu-
sion we found.) Eventually, though, potential partner schools were identified, and
their participation confirmed following a visit in which the fieldworker made some
subjective judgement about the schools’ openness and responsiveness to the project.

Collecting and analysing data: how do we look

and how do we know?
The next challenges concerned how we should look for inclusive cultures and
practices and how we would recognise them. For Peters’ (1995) research on inclu-
sion, the decision to use ethnography and participant observation was an obvious
choice, but as a disabled researcher she could avoid studying ‘other’ and make good
196 Nind et al.

use of her ‘personal baggage’ as a disabled person. Like her, we wanted to look
at the flow of behaviours and at the attitudes and emotions interacting with the
behaviours. We wanted the ‘holistic, thick description of the interaction process’
(Lutz 1981: 52) that ethnographic methods offer and we had the ethnographic
desire to understand cultures on their own terms. But we recognised the tension
of creating the culture by studying it and articulating it.
We faced the challenge of seeing through the layers of what we found in schools:
the official culture, the school culture, classroom culture, playground culture, sub-
cultures related to class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so on. Moreover, we
needed to see through the pressures upon the schools that shape their culture, such
as the pressure of financial survival in the market-economy. Whilst needing to
be aware of the bigger picture, we sought to examine the microcosm of school
interactions. Corbett (2001: 400) argues that ‘school culture can be felt in the
general atmosphere of the building, in the way people speak to each other, what
is visible and valued, where images and artefacts are placed and how the school
projects its “self” ’. We were interested in these aspects and in Corbett’s (1999:
129) notion of deep culture as ‘the intangible process whereby children are taught
to see themselves as either valued or devalued group members’.
A way forward for researching inclusive school cultures must, it seems to us,
address not only the shared language that helps to identify the culture (Zollers et al.
1999) but also the different levels of culture. For Schein (1984) these are visible
artefacts (such as the built environment, dress code, public documentation), val-
ues (the espoused reasons and rationalisations for behaviour) and basic underlying
assumptions (the beliefs that are taken for granted and which are difficult to ques-
tion or to change). Unpicking the interconnective structure between assumptions,
values and artefacts enables us to evaluate the extent to which they are in tune
with each other and with inclusive principles. One might hope to find few contra-
dictions between what is seen, what is stated and what is fundamentally believed,
and to uncover artefacts, values and assumptions that benefit the development of
all pupils (Rix and Simmons 2003). By observing in action the routines, rituals,
stories, symbols, structures and systems (formal and informal) (Johnson 1992) that
testify to the cultures in schools that are inclusive, we can better understand inclu-
sive educational processes and practices. The challenge, though, is to gain insight
into the multitude of cultures that exist in schools as organisations (Deering 1996;
Dyson and Millward 2000) and not to assume that enhancing inclusive practice is
a matter of altering just one set of underlying assumptions.
There is an attractive simplicity to the idea that we can study schools with an
inclusive policy framework and examine the policies enacted in the classroom. As
Clough (1995: 131) explains, ‘we have come to see teachers as sorts of indifferently
“black boxes” whose actions can be explained in terms of policies, and there is at
work here an assumption that we can explain what teachers do in terms of the pol-
icy contexts in which they work’. But teachers and policies function in context and
we need to understand these contexts which include the thoughts, experiences and
policies of other times. As our two main teachers offered us such different classrooms
 Methodological challenges 197

to explore, we were drawn to consider what Clough (1995: 131) described as the
‘the complexity of jointly implicated personal and professional life events’ and the
need to research the ‘seam of subjective experience’ that relates to attitudes in
context. Like Dyson and Millward (2000) we were conscious of the complexities,
competing imperatives and micropolitics we would need to understand.

How can we keep children and their

experience at the centre of our research?
Morrow and Richards (1996) contend that the problem of unequal power
relationships between research and children is the biggest challenge for researchers
working with children. Mauthner (1997: 20) argues that we can address this
by ‘foregrounding children’s subjective experiences’, letting the children lead in
interviews, encouraging story-telling and anecdotes, and considering children’s
experiences of the research itself. In aspiring to keep children and their experience
at the centre of research on inclusion, as stressed by Corbett (2001), we sought
to talk to the children, incidentally and in interview, so that we might build con-
nections with them that could give us insights into their perspectives. We could
see practices, such as George Holt’s ‘bottom six’ going to literacy/numeracy with
the deputy head/Special Educational Needs Coordinator, that we could judge as
excluding, but we wanted to know if these were actually experienced as such by
the children. We assumed, like Thomas and O’Kane (1998: 341) that ‘children’s
own understandings of their situation may be as valid as any other’. Our reflections
on the pilot study indicate that we may need more of this kind of ‘participatory
research’ in the main study with more time and space to talk with children and
more opportunities for them to control the agenda of our conversations. Pickett’s
(1994) comparison of an inclusive and traditional school used focus groups to elicit
the views of students but in a more ethnographic study one would need to keep
the conversation and the observation more tightly linked.
We asked the question of the data ‘who is at risk of marginalisation and exclusion
in this classroom/school?’ This allowed us to explore the processes at work for a
broad community of learners: those who went unnoticed in class, loners, children
who were assessed as having special educational needs, and all those children cast
as ‘other’ to a ‘normal’ frame of reference. The methodological advantages of this
approach, however, had to be balanced with the risk of pathologising children, of
joining in with and somehow condoning the problematising of some while making
others the normative group (Moore et al. 1998: 73). Mizra (1995) and Mauthner
(1997) warn of the need to avoid objectifying children (and teachers) and this
methodological challenge continues to test us.

Emancipatory research? How much do/should

we change what we find?
Clough and Barton (1995) make it painfully explicit that inevitably to research
special educational needs is to construct special educational needs. The very act of
198 Nind et al.

using the concept brings it alive. We could not research processes of

inclusion/exclusion without being a part of their construction. We would be a part
of the understandings we developed not separate from them. Our very involve-
ment as researchers in the schools meant that we changed them (Goodey 1999);
we could accept this passively or we could seek to make a difference.
If our research was to have an emancipatory dimension, then when we found
processes of exclusion, we would need to seek ‘some redress of the issues we
describe, rather than just reproduce them’ (Moore et al. 1998: 72). As Goodey
(1999) contends, ‘like it or not, research is participation in social change and in
mutual reflexive exploration’ and we needed to be responsible with our power.
We had to decide not once, however, but over and over again, whether to answer
the ‘call for action’ we felt from seeing exclusionary practice. Moreover, we had
to think about how we might make taking action to be ‘empowering’ rather than
‘threatening’ for the teachers. Our desire to see school processes as they were had to
be weighed against not only our desire to raise awareness, but our responsibilities to
the participants within our study. We had responsibilities to the teachers who were
placing trust in us and to the children who had the least power in the situation.
These methodological tensions were not just rhetorical matters for philosophical
debate, they were brought sharply into focus during the fieldwork. The researchers
were faced with many day-to-day decisions about whether to intervene when, for
example, the children called each other ‘spastic’ or there were playground incidents,
or more frequently when there was an obvious need for helper work to be done
in the classrooms. Should a researcher in the field observe while pupils struggle?
We dwell here on one such example from St Blythes where the fieldnotes record
many instances of one pupil’s lack of participation and the growing frustration about
this for the researcher:

Third visit
Literacy
Miss P (classroom assistant) sits at the table closest to me and asks the 12 children seated
at the table who had done their homework. . . . It is striking that for the next hour Nita
sits without her textbook, her homework or any access to the text that is being read.
I am surprised how little attention is paid to her either by the classroom assistant or the
other pupils.

PE
Nita has not got her kit and so was sent to another room with a book.

Science
Nita puts her hand up a couple of times but on both occasions just as Sonya [teacher]
chooses someone else. . . . Nita plays with her ‘secret diary’ as the 2 girl monitors give
out the books. Nita says she will choose the pictures first but the girl sitting next to her
suggests she needs to do the writing first. ‘Do you just have to write all that?’ asks
Nita with incredulity. Nita writes the date and title in the same time as it takes others
 Methodological challenges 199

to write 4 or 5 sentences. . . . By 3.03 Nita has finished copying the writing from the
board but has not begun to copy or sort the images on the worksheet.

We see here an initial interest in a pupil who avoids participation. Over the period
of the next four visits the researcher constructs her as a ‘non-participator’ as she
describes some of the processes that serve to exclude Nita, including the ones she
herself plays an active part in. As Allan (1999) has been powerful in illustrating,
pupils are not just subject to exclusionary and inclusionary processes – they are
active agents in these processes.

Fourth visit
During the course of the afternoon Nita approaches every adult in the room and several
children to ask for help in copying her design. All attempts to help and suggestions are
rejected and Nita becomes increasingly silly as the lesson progresses. I offer to help but
what she really wants is for someone to do it for her and I don’t think that is fair. When
the lesson is coming to an end and Sonya asks the class to place their masks in the corner
of the room Nita puts hers in the book corner on its own. I wonder why this is and hope
I have a chance to talk to her about it sometime.

Fifth visit
This is now the third literacy lesson I have had the opportunity to watch Nita. In contrast
to the 2 previous lessons Nita becomes a real nuisance. She is clearly not engaging with
what is going on and becomes quite vocal. She sighs and groans and is very visibly not
doing what she has been asked to do. She is told off by both Mrs S and by Sonya and
is sent to sit on her own where she is clearly not doing as she has been asked. In contrast
to Monday she seems deeply unhappy as if this is no longer a game. I ask Sonya if
I can work with Nita who then comes to read to me. Sonya’s construction is that ‘Nita
is really out of sorts and she doesn’t know what has got into her’.
9.45 Nita struggles over the text that the class have been working on all week. She
has some grasp of the story but I suspect this is the first time she has actually read
the text. I praise her for attempting words she does not know and for pausing at full
stops. Nita seems cheered by the fact that she is getting some individual attention and
is experiencing some success. By the end of the lesson we are only half way through
and I ask if she would like to finish the story and she says yes. Sonya comes over to
check that everything is OK. She asks Nita what’s wrong and, in sharp contrast to her
previous statement, comments on the fact that Nita always seems to behave like that for
Mrs S. I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact that Mrs S has been the first to
demand participation in the literacy lesson but I say nothing.
The lesson ends before Nita has a go on the computer but no one seems to notice.
Everyone seems reasonably occupied with the predictable copying of text and pictures.
Nita has spent the whole of the lesson copying out the contents list of a book. My
frustration mounts.
200 Nind et al.

There are many occasions when the researcher judges it inappropriate to inter-
vene. She has to balance the research agenda of learning about the processes with a
moral agenda of responsibility to the child and a pragmatic agenda of not upsetting
the teachers involved. She does, however, make this on-the-spot decision to inter-
vene in what she is observing by volunteering to work with Nita and this eases the
frustration a little, but only temporarily.

Sixth visit
Back in the classroom the literacy lesson begins with a spelling test. I notice Nita is away
and wonder if the two are connected in any way. Sonya later tells me Nita was naughty
the day before and had been sent to [the headteacher].

Decisions about whether and how to ‘seek some redress of the issues we describe’
did not just take place on-the-spot. We decided that we would adopt an approach
of trying to enable the teachers to see the exclusionary practices for themselves, in
this instance for Sonya to seize the agenda of reversing Nita’s non-participation.
This, we hoped, would offer some redress for the pupil whilst empowering rather
than threatening the teacher. To this end, the researcher used checklist items from
the Index for Inclusion (Booth et al. 2000) and local equivalents as tools in the
joint process of analysing video excerpts of classroom practice. This did enable the
teacher to come to her own conclusion that Nita was not as actively engaged as
she would have liked.
Classroom practice in St Blythes, and to a lesser extent George Holt, was dom-
inated by the impending formal assessment (Hall et al. 2002). Directly related to
this, much of the practice failed to include or engage learners who, like Nita, were
not motivated by the promise of SATs success or the threat of SATs failure. This
presented real challenges for our work with the school staff. From the outset we
were aware of the danger of making use of the school for our own ends, and the
lack of reciprocity this would imply. We wanted to be able to give something back
to the schools, both in recognition of their help, and to construct the school and the
research team as equal partners in the enterprise of researching inclusive practice.
We wanted the schools to get something from the project – honest feedback of
the findings at the very minimum. The trust invested in the researchers by school
staff was illustrated by some of their comments; one class teacher commented ‘I
feel now that you are part of our class, you know what I mean, because you have
been there for five days – its got into the routine now.’ As it became clear that we
were finding more evidence of exclusive than inclusive cultures and practices, the
issue of honest feedback became much more problematic as we were then faced
with questions of how this could be tempered.
Our agenda was not to find out ‘what works’ in inclusive education and to report
back on this, although because of current expectations of research it could easily read
as such (Siraj-Blatchford 1995; Atkinson 2000). Ours was a much more exploratory
and reflexive agenda, but it was harder than we anticipated to operationalise this
set against a surveillant regime that leads teachers to expect judgement. In Sonya’s
 Methodological challenges 201

teaching career she had only known this context and her expectations were shaped
by it. It felt to us that she had wanted the study, like her OFSTED inspection, to
affirm her as good teacher; she did not seize the opportunity to reflect on practice
with us. This made the issue of analysing video data together too challenging to con-
template and, apart from some superficial work, we backed off from the challenge.
Our initial vision of involving the school staff in the project as fellow gatherers
and analysers of data had already emerged as unrealisable due to their time constraints
and different agendas. There were cultural and structural impediments to the sense
of partnership we regarded as ideal, as the university and school staff had different
pressures, priorities and roles. Grundy (1998) maintains that such differences can be
a strength within trusting research communities, but in this pilot project we failed
to invest the time in building such communities.
Rather than being a project in which we found out together, our study became
one in which we had to give feedback to the schools on what we found. This very
much suited St Blythes’ headteacher who wanted feedback on the school’s ‘fit’ with
the researchers’ ‘ideal’ or ‘utopia’ for inclusion. His agenda was still more reflexive
than the teacher’s, though he was less exposed by the study in many ways. He
wanted ‘to move to a situation where maybe we have talked it [inclusion] through
more’ and being involved in the study was part of pursuing this agenda.
There were times when the headteacher blatantly invited our support on an
issue – to go along with his agenda. He raised the issue of his intervention group
for pupils with difficult behaviour being ‘predominantly black’. He explained that
he had ‘been trying for a long time’ but couldn’t find someone to ‘stand up’ with
him and ‘say let’s recognise that this is a group of black children and explore why
and try to deal with it’. Whilst it is tempting to move on from the school and treat
the pilot study as a huge learning experience, if there is to be some reciprocity in
our research relationship then perhaps we must be drawn into what could become
a shared agenda? As a research group mainly comprising white women academics,
there are though, difficulties of distance and power in us commenting on this
group of ‘naughty black boys’. We can, however, continue a dialogue and use the
literature of Blair (2001), Majors (2001), and Searle (2001) on this very issue to
assist in seeking redress of this institutionally racist practice.
Over and above the issue of how much feedback to give to the schools and
how to give it, we face the challenge of how to share and publish ‘interesting
material’. We do not wish to cover up findings about exclusionary processes as
these emerged as a strong theme in the data, but nor do we want to take advantage
of the school’s trust. The marketisation of schools means that ‘bad publicity’ can be
tangibly damaging, which makes the need to ensure anonymity very real. This is a
challenge that is very current for us as we write for conferences and publication.

Conclusion
Facing the challenges in the pilot study helped us in our fundamental conception
of what we are trying to do. Themes that arose from our data included the ways
202 Nind et al.

in which the physical environment contributed to non-participation, notions of

ideal class/pupil/parent which were exclusive, within-child notions of ability and
(unjustified) faith in tests which were used to categorise and separate pupils. As these
leapt out of the data at us we faced the problem of keeping faith with the idea that
this was a study of inclusive practices and cultures. While inclusive practices were
to be found (with other emerging themes being children supporting each other’s
inclusion, discourses of community and rights, and teachers’ awareness of pupils as
people), it was easy sometimes to loose sight of these amid the exclusive practices
and cultures. It is the latter that we inevitably see more of, but the former that we
really need to understand.
It is very tempting, at this point, to conclude the story with the ending we
would wish for. Now that we know the dilemmas and pitfalls – organisational,
interpersonal and intellectual – that lie in wait for us, we can construct, if not the
perfect methodology, a study that avoids whatever difficulties can be avoided, and
puts those that cannot be eliminated to best creative use. Sadly, this is not going
to be the case. This was a pilot study, and there is much we have learnt from it.
As we have shown in this chapter, we faced a host of difficulties, some of them
resolvable, but many of them not. There are many things we will do differently,
or not do at all, in future projects of this kind. But cultures, attitudes, policies and
practices are interwoven with complex contexts and it is also true that a new set of
contexts will present us with another set of dilemmas with which to engage.

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of Sociology of Education, 21, pp. 317–330.
Blair, M. (2001) Why Pick on Me? School Exclusion and Black Youth (Stoke-on-Trent,
Trentham).
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Knitting Progress Unsatisfactory: Gender and Special Issues in Education (Edinburgh, Moray
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Booth, T., Ainscow, M., Black-Hawkins, K. and Vaughan, M. (2000) Index for Inclusion:
Developing Learning and Participation in Schools (Bristol, Centre for Studies in Inclusive
Education).
Clough, P. (1995) Problems of identity and method in the investigation of special educational
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L. Barton (Eds) Making Difficulties: Research and the Construction of SEN (London, Paul
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Corbett, J. (1999) Special needs, inclusion and exclusion, in: A. Hayton (Ed.) Tackling
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Corbett, J. (2001) Supporting Inclusive Education: A Connective Pedagogy (London, Routledge-
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 Methodological challenges 203

Deering, P. (1996) An ethnographic study of norms of inclusion and cooperation in a

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204 Nind et al.

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Chapter 16

A guide to ethical issues and

action research
Jane Zeni

Introduction
Action research has become a major mode of inquiry in American education.
However, as classroom teachers discover the intellectual excitement of studying
their own practice and the power of collaboration on an action research team,
many decide to pursue their work in a formal graduate programme, culminating,
perhaps, in a dissertation.
Most universities and school districts conduct a review of research proposals using
questionnaires designed for traditional scientific experiments. Researchers are asked
if their tests are dangerous, if their subjects will be given drugs, etc. They are asked
to spell out precisely which data they will collect. However, in action research – as
in most qualitative inquiry – we pursue a question through an often-meandering
route, finding appropriate data sources as we go along. When a teacher is studying
his or her own practice, many of the traditional guidelines collapse. Yet action
research raises it own, often sticky, ethical issues which may never be addressed.
In my graduate classes, where many of the participants are doing classroom
inquiries, I find it helps teachers to locate action research in the whole array of
research methods (see Table 16.1).
Action research draws on the qualitative methods and multiple perspectives of
educational ethnography. When challenged, we take pains to distinguish our work
from traditional quantitative research: We explain that we don’t deal with big num-
bers, random samples or manipulated variables, but with the human drama as lived
by self-conscious actors. Perhaps it is just as important to distinguish action research
from traditional qualitative research: we aren’t outsiders peering from the shadows
into the classroom, but insiders responsible to the students whose learning we
document.
Table 16.1 illustrates modes of research across two dimensions: qualita-
tive/quantitative and insider/outsider. Action research usually falls in the lower-
right quadrant of the matrix: qualitative research by insiders. Such ‘insiders’ may be
primary literacy teachers, assistant principals, high school math teachers, curricu-
lum coordinators, coaches – any of us who study our own practice as educators.
We find the ethical safeguards of the outsider doing a classic experiment (random
206 Jane Zeni

Table 16.1 Education research: a methodological matrix

Quantitative Qualitative

Traditional research
Outsider: researcher investigating a teacher’s practice
Classic experiment (techniques Classic ethnography or case study
of natural science, agriculture) (techniques of anthropology)
Goal: To change/improve To document someone else’s
someone else’s teaching/learning
teaching/learning
Action research
Insider: teachers documenting their own practice
‘Small-n’ statistics (test scores; Classroom ethnography; case study;
surveys; word counts; syntax autobiography; curriculum development
measures) and field testing
Goal: To change/improve one’s own teaching/learning

Note:
Most, but not all, classroom action research is qualitative.

selection, control groups, removing the personal influence of the researcher) either
irrelevant or problematic for us as insiders. In the same way, the ethical safeguards of
the outsider doing qualitative research (anonymous informants, disguised settings)
may defeat the action researcher’s goal of open communication and dialogue with
colleagues, students and parents.
When does good teaching become research? The line may be hard to draw until
a study is well underway. Action research tends to involve:

1 more systematic documentation and data gathering;

2 more self-reflection in writing;
3 a wider audience (collaboration, presentation, publication).

It is this third feature that most often leads to ethical dilemmas. If our journals
remain private and our videotapes aren’t played, we can inquire with equanimity.
However, in action research, though we document our own practice, we rarely
work in isolation. We need the support and collaboration of a colleague, a seminar
group or an outside researcher. Often this partnership creates an opportunity for
sharing the work with a still larger audience at conferences or in print. Dilemmas
of ownership and responsibility arise, and our academic codes of conduct are silent.
This Guide emerged from discussions in the Teacher Educators Seminar of the
Action Research Collaborative.
[. . .]
Drafts were discussed by ARC teacher educators at four seminar meetings.
Feedback came from a wider audience of teachers and administrators at several
conferences, and in my own graduate courses.
 Ethical issues and action research 207

What at first seemed a rather straightforward exercise in translation proved

a formidable task. The more I tried to account for the different contexts and
communities in which action researchers pursue their inquiries, the more com-
plicated and muddled our ethical guidelines became. As teacher educators, we
began to see that a ‘new paradigm code of ethics’ would itself become ‘procrustean’
(Gregory 1990: 166).
[. . .]
Instead, the following document provides a set of more-or-less provocative ques-
tions as a heuristic for reflection. An action research team or university thesis advisor
can work through the Guide with a practitioner developing a plan for research.
Most of the questions ask the researcher to discuss a potential ethical problem, to
consider alternative actions and to explain his or her choices.
The Guide to Ethical Issues and Action Research uses the categories of a traditional
‘human subjects’ review only as a point of departure. Part I requests an overview
of the project. Part II asks whether the activities fall within the everyday decision-
making of a teacher or whether there is some further intervention. Part III examines
the ‘subjects’ and the notion of subjectivity in action research. Part IV considers ways
to reduce risks to participant – either through informed consent and anonymity, or
through openness, dialogue and acknowledgement. Parts V and VI pose questions
which, though generally ignored in an HSR, have been especially problematic for
action researchers.

Guide to ethical issues and action research

questions for review and reflection

Part I: overview
1 Briefly describe your project as you see it today.
2 What is the time frame of your project? Is it a one-shot enterprise or does it
involve several cycles? Have you already done a pilot study?
3 What problem does your research address? What (initial) action will you take?
What do you hope to accomplish?
4 List the research questions as they appear at this time.

(Questions will be revised or refocused during your project.)

Part II: methods and setting

1 Are you, the researcher, also a participant in the setting where this research
will take place? Specify your role (teacher, supervisor, principal, counsellor,
social worker, etc.)
2 For this research, will you gather data on your normal educational practice
and on changes in curriculum, instruction and assessment that you could make
208 Jane Zeni

in your role (above) according to your own professional judgement? Explain

briefly.
3 What kinds of data will you collect (e.g. field notes, taped interviews, writing
samples)? Explain any changes from the way you normally document your
practice. Consider how else you could get data on your question. (Can you
discuss three alternatives?)
4 What does your research aim to understand? What does your research aim to
change?

Comments on Part II Traditional academic research in education is conducted

by outsiders who intervene in the instructional process to answer questions that
may benefit themselves or the profession in general. While there is often a goal of
improving teaching, rarely do the teachers or students under investigation benefit
directly from the findings.
Action research involves practitioners studying their own professional practice
and framing their own questions. Their research has the immediate goal to assess,
develop or improve their practice. Such research activities belong to the daily
process of good teaching, to what has been called the ‘zone of accepted practice’.
The concept of a zone of accepted practice is often used to determine whether
research is exempt from formal review. If a researcher answers ‘yes’ to ques-
tions 1 and 2, the project does not need a full review by a university or
district research board. Most educational action research would thus seem to be
exempt.
We urge academic institutions to support reflective teaching and to min-
imise the bureaucratic hurdles that discourage research by teachers to improve
their own practice. However, research in the ‘zone of accepted practice’
may still involve risks to participants. As a precaution, we suggest grap-
pling with question 3 and consulting people who can speak from a variety of
perspectives:

• An action research project must conform to local school policy; discuss any
troubling issues in this Guide with a principal, supervisor or district director of
research.
• Action research is best developed through collaboration; review the questions
with a team leader, professor or consultant.

Question 4 begins a closer look at how we choose to change our own practice.
According to many reviews, ‘subjects’ are ‘not at risk’ if the research is merely
‘unobtrusive observation’ of behaviour not ‘caused’ by the researcher. However,
action research is never detached; a teacher inevitably causes things to happen. (The
classic ethnographer observes change, but does not usually try to cause it. On the
other hand, the action researcher consciously tries to change and improve his or
her own teaching.)
 Ethical issues and action research 209

Part III: ‘subjects’ and subjectivity

1 Describe the individuals, groups or communities you plan at this point in the
research to study. Estimate the ages of the people involved.
2 Analyse the power relations in this group. Which people (e.g. students, parents)
do you have some power over? Which people (e.g. principals, professors) have
some power over you?
3 What shared understandings do you have with these people? Do you have
personal bonds, professional commitments? Will your research strengthen this
trust or perhaps abuse it?
4 Will your study attempt to read and interpret the experience of people who
differ from you in race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other
cultural dimensions? How have you prepared yourself to share the perspective
of the ‘other’ (coursework, experiences, other sources of insight)?
5 Will an ‘insider’ review your questionnaires or teaching materials for cultural
bias? Have you provided for consultation by adult members of the community?
How will you reduce or correct for your misreading of populations who differ
from you?
6 Does your inquiry focus on people with less power than you? Children in
classrooms are always vulnerable – especially if their families have little money
or education. (‘Where are the ethnographies of corporate boardrooms?’ asks
House 1990: 162) How does your project demonstrate mutual respect and
justice?
7 What negative or embarrassing data can you anticipate emerging from this
research? Who might be harmed (personally, professionally, financially)? What
precautions have you taken to protect the participants?
8 Might your research lead to knowledge of sensitive matters such as illegal
activities, drug/alcohol use or sexual behaviour of participants? How do you
plan to handle such information?

Comments on Part III We must examine the impact of our research on the people
whose lives we document. A classroom teacher may write field notes in order to
improve her own practice. However, what if her notes focus on certain members
of the class (‘at-risk’/‘Black male’/‘learning disabled’)? Our students and colleagues
are more than ‘subjects’. The following distinctions are useful:

Subject: Observed by researcher; no active participation (Not

applicable to action research)
Informant: Knowingly gives information to researcher
Participant: More involved; perspective considered in research
Collaborator: Fully involved in planning and interpretation

Perhaps most of all, we need to examine our own subjectivity as researchers.

Since I cannot be a fly on the wall in my own classroom, I must deal with my own
210 Jane Zeni

emotional and interpersonal responses as part of my data. Hammersly and Atkinson

(1983) call this the principle of ‘reflexivity’. Sullivan (1996) writes of the ‘problem
of the “other”.’ Teacher research is engaged and committed. It is appropriate –
essential – for our discussions and writing to look at ourselves in relationship with
other participants.

Part IV: risks and benefits

How can we protect K-12 students but not inhibit teachers’ right to gather and
reflect on data from their own teaching?

1 Describe the possible benefits of your research – to students, teachers or other

participants; to society or to the profession.
2 Describe any risks to people participating in this study. For example, will your
current students be disadvantaged for the possible benefits of future students?
What steps are you taking to minimise risks?
3 Show how you will protect the people from whom you collect data through
surveys, interviews or observations. For example, participants are usually
considered free from risk IF:

(a) they are first informed; they must know the general nature of the study
and what is expected of them;
(b) they give informed consent;
(c) they can refuse to participate and they can withdraw without penalty after
beginning the research;
(d) anonymity of persons and/or confidentiality of data are protected if
appropriate.

4 Describe your method of obtaining informed consent. Who will explain the
consent document to the participants? How?
5 Are different kinds of consent needed at different stages in the project?
For example, many teachers use two consent forms:

(a) a blanket consent to be in the study; if you regard classroom inquiry as

part of your regular practice, this blanket consent form may be given to
all students at the start of each year;
(b) special consent to eventual publication; this will be needed when you
prepare publish student writing samples, taped discussions, photographs,
or field notes that focus on a recognisable student.

6 Do you wish to protect the anonymity of students, teachers, parents and other
participants? If so, it is wise to use pseudonyms even in your field notes. If
your report is eventually published, you can also interchange physical descrip-
tion, grade level, gender, etc., or develop composite rather than individual
portraits.
 Ethical issues and action research 211

7 On the other hand, instead of anonymity, it may be wiser to seek full partici-
pation and credit for students and colleagues. Research by an educator in his or
her own classroom is rarely anonymous. Even if names are changed, students
will be recognised in a well-written case study or classroom scene. What are
the gains and losses of open acknowledgement?

Comments on Part IV These questions deal with the welfare of students and
colleagues. Most university definitions of ‘informed consent’ resemble this one
from the AERA’s Qualitative Research SIG:

a decision made free of coercion and with full knowledge [of ] possible effects
of their participation, their role in reviewing written accounts . . . , an under-
standing that the researcher will protect them from potential harm, and that
there will be a mutually respectful relationship. Informed consent is granted
at the initiation of the study and codified in signed consent forms. Because
informants may withdraw at any time, informed consent is ongoing, continual
negotiation.
(Mathison et al. 1993: 3)

How informed is ‘informed consent?’ Lou Smith argues that ‘field research is
so different from the usual experimental approaches that many individuals, even
responsible professional educators, do not understand what . . . they are getting
themselves into’ (Smith 1990: 151). He stresses the need for ‘dialog’, moving
beyond ‘contract’ relationships to ‘covenants’ of trust (p. 150).
As teacher researchers, our primary responsibility is to our students. We need
to balance the demands of our research with our other professional demands. This
issue becomes far less troublesome when classroom inquiry becomes an intrinsic
part of how we teach, and when students take an active role in our research – and
their own.

Part V: ethical questions specific to ‘insider’ research

These questions don’t appear on most ‘human subjects’, reviews, but they are central
to research by K-12 and college teachers. Yvonna Lincoln (1990) says, ‘privacy,
confidentiality, and anonymity regulations were written under assumptions that
are ill suited’ to action research. Our colleagues, administrators, and parents might
better participate ‘as full, cooperative agents’, our co-researchers (pp. 279–280).

1 Which of the research participants at your school/college have read your pro-
posal? Which ones have been informed of the research orally in some detail?
Which ones know little or nothing of this project? Explain and justify the
decisions behind your answers.
212 Jane Zeni

2 What do your students know of this project? Who told them? What are the
risks to them or their families of their knowing (or not knowing) what you
write or collect? Explain you decisions.
3 Who else will read your field notes or dialogue with you to provide mul-
tiple perspectives? Lather (1991) describes ‘the submission of a preliminary
description of the data to the scrutiny of the researched’ (p. 53) as an emanci-
patory approach to inquiry and also as a way to establish ‘face validity’ (p. 67).
Incorporating quotes from other participants, especially when their views differ
from yours, can make your work richer, more nuanced.
4 You will inevitably gather more data than you ‘need’. Consider why you
choose to report some data to a wider audience and why you choose to keep
some for your colleagues, your students or yourself. (What do you tell and
what do you store?) Consider the political implications of the way you focus
your story.
5 How will you store and catalogue your data during and after the study? Who
will have access? Should you take special precautions with your notes and
other data?
6 Will this study evaluate your own effectiveness or a method to which you
are committed? Will your findings be confirmed by observers who do not
share your assumptions? How will you protect yourself from the temptation
to see what you hope to see?
7 Who is sponsoring this research through grants, contracts, released time, course
credit, etc.? Will you evaluate the sponsor’s programme, textbook, method,
etc.? Can you protect yourself from pressure to report favourably on the
sponsors?
8 How do your school administrators see your work? Is action research under
suspicion or is it mandated from the top in a drive for organisational quality
control? Is there protection for your own thoughts, feelings interpretations?
How safe do you feel in this institutional environment pursuing this research?
Reporting what you learn to a wider audience?
9 What data will be contributed by others? Will you be recording case studies,
oral histories or other stories that may be considered the property of others?
How have you arranged with colleagues or other participants for
• credit in your manuscript?
• publication rights?
• royalties?
• other recognition?
10 If your study is collaborative, how are you negotiating authorship and
ownership?
11 Who is responsible for the final report? Will other stakeholders (teacher?
principal? school board?) review your report in draft? Will this

(a) improve your accuracy?

(b) compromise your candor?
 Ethical issues and action research 213

Participants may not agree with part or all of your interpretation. If so, you
may revise your views; quote their objections and tell why you maintain your
original view; or invite them to state alternative views in an appendix.
12 Have you decided on anonymity or on full acknowledgement if your study is
eventually published? Perhaps you will identify teachers, but use pseudonyms
for students. How and when have you negotiated these issues?

Part VI: the Golden Rule

At the most basic level, (Smith 1990: 149) suggests that we, as classroom researchers,
ask ourselves these questions:

• What are the likely consequences of this research? How well do they fit with
my own values and priorities?
• If I were a participant, would I want this research to be done? What changes
might I want to make me feel comfortable?

Teacher-researcher Marian Mohr states it this way: ‘Teacher researchers are teachers
first. They respect those with whom they work, openly sharing information about
their research. While they seek knowledge, they also nurture the well-being of
others, both students and professional colleagues’ (Mohr 1996).
Action researchers need to discuss with their constituencies the role of classroom
inquiry in their professional lives. For example, some teachers display for parents
their own publications as well as the writing of their students informally printed,
illustrated and bound. Teacher-researcher Kathryn Mitchell Pierce (1997) asks at
an ‘open house’ for parents’ support in gathering data for professional development.
She adds, ‘I’ll come back to you again for more specific permission if your child
appears in anything I plan to publish.’
In this way, parents and students are knowingly involved in the work from the
beginning, with time to ask their own questions and make thoughtful suggestions.
Open communication is the key to overcoming the split between researcher and
researched, between theory and practice.

References
Gregory, T.B. (1990) Discussion of ethics, in E. Guba (Ed.) The Paradigm Dialog,
pp. 165–166. Newbury Park: Sage.
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1983) Ethnography: principles in practice. London:
Routledge.
House, E.R. (1990) An ethics of qualitative field studies, in E. Guba (Ed.) The Paradigm
Dialog. Newsbury Park: Sage.
Lather, P. (1991) Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy Within the Postmodern. New
York: Routledge.
Lincoln, Y. (1990) Toward a categorical imperative for qualitative research, in E. Eisner and
A. Peshkin (Eds) Qualitative Inquiry in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
214 Jane Zeni

Mathison, S., Ross, E.W. and Cornell, J. (Eds) (1993) Casebook for Teaching about Ethical Issues
in Qualitative Research. Washington: Qualitative Research SIG, American Educational
Research Association.
Mohr, M. (1996) Ethics and standards for teacher research: drafts and decisions, in Research in
Language and Learning: reports from a teacher research seminar. Fairfax: Northern Virginia Writ-
ing Project, George Mason University. (Informal publication distributed by the Writing
Project.)
Pierce, K.M. (1997) Presentation at seminar on ethical issues in action research, Clayton
(MO) Public Schools.
Smith, L. (1990) Ethics, field studies, and the paradigm crisis, in E. Guba (Ed.) The Paradigm
Dialog. Newbury Park: Sage.
Sullivan, P. (1996) Ethnography and the problem of the ‘Other’ in P. Mortensen and
G.E. Kirsch (Eds) Ethics and Representation in Qualitative Studies of Literacy. Urbana: National
Council of Teachers of English.
Chapter 17

Reflections on interviewing
children and young people as a
method of inquiry in exploring
their perspectives on
integration/inclusion
Ann Lewis

Introduction
This chapter takes as its starting point the idea that it is vital to explore the views of
child participants in integrated or inclusive settings, but that doing so in valid and
reliable ways is more problematic than is often recognised. The work is rooted in
positivist paradigms, hence my use of terms like interviewee, validity and reliability,
but I am conscious of their limitations. While I regard the pursuit of objective and
verifiable truths as a reasonable goal for the researcher, I recognise too the often
slippery, unstable and ambiguous nature of human interaction (Scheurich 1985).
Neither positivist nor ethnographic approaches are problem-free. The literature
on interviewing young children, particularly those with learning difficulties, reflects
divergent approaches. These encompass interpretive approaches (e.g. Allan 1999;
Crozier 2000) often informed by a sociological perspective which stresses building
a reciprocal and genuine discussion with the children. In contrast, work from a
legal perspective (e.g. Aldridge and Wood 1998; Ceci and Bruck 1993) has been
informed by developmental psychological theories, and stresses the importance
of obtaining accurate information. Yet both sets of work share a concern with
obtaining a fair view of the child’s perspective. While the theoretical and philo-
sophical roots of each are distinctive, practice should benefit from the lessons of
each. Whether one’s inclination is towards more structured and formal or less struc-
tured and more reciprocal approaches to interviewing children, there are clearly
more, and less, effective ways to encourage them to engage in discussion.
My examples are drawn from face to face interviews with primary school children
in the context of integration because that is where most of my work has been
located; clearly non-verbal or distance means may be preferred, and may avoid
some of the attendant difficulties (but create others). I began work in this area
in the mid-1980s, when conducting research interviews with children was much
less widely accepted as feasible and reasonable than is now the case. Since then
the Code of Practice concerning SEN (DES/WO 1994), and more strongly the
draft revised Code (Df EE 2000)as well as the 1992 Home Office Memorandum
of Good Practice (Home Office/Department of Health 1992) have brought to the
fore the ethics and practice of seeking children’s views. The increasing emphasis
216 Ann Lewis

(justly) on the right of children to be heard has however tended to emphasise the
fact of production over the complexities of interpretation.
Obtaining valid and trustworthy responses has been much debated in interview-
ing children generally (Grieg and Taylor 1999; Hill et al. 1996). Interview strategies
for use with children with learning difficulties, contrasted with other interviewees,
are likely to be similar; but there are particular issues that arise more sharply with
the former group. The complexities have been highlighted by the recent need to
obtain such evidence in cases of suspected child abuse, where a disproportionate
number of these children and young people have learning difficulties (Aldridge and
Wood 1998; Masson 2000). More widely workers in the fields of bereavement
counselling, hospice work, police witness statements and health professional have
been concerned with eliciting the views of, and providing support or information
to, children and young people with learning difficulties (Dodd and Brunker 1999;
Le Count 2000). In parallel with such professionals’ concerns has been discussion
about research methodology that has highlighted the involvement of people with
learning difficulties as researchers (Kiernan 1999).

Some ethical considerations in interviewing

pupils about inclusion or integration
Some specific issues arise when interviewing children with learning difficulties
about inclusion or integration. These are similar to those raised in other research
contexts but are potentially particularly sensitive or difficult.

Confidentiality and the ethics of openness

The child may feel betrayed if information is passed on, particularly as children
with learning difficulties may be prone to believe (through experience) that their
views will not be respected.

Unintended repercussions of protocols

I heard recently of research involving pupils with severe learning difficulties in
which the researcher had stressed that material (taped interviews, etc.) would be
destroyed at the close of the research project. The pupils involved were upset about
this as, to them, this reflected a lack of perceived worth in their material. What was
of value was assumed to be kept as precious, not discarded. This underlines the more
general point about the need to see the research enterprise from the child’s/pupil
perspective.

Anonymity
This may be difficult to sustain when there are small and readily identifiable samples
(e.g. a few pupils with SLD or their parents in a primary school).
 Interviewing as a method of inquiry 217

Consent/assent
Some writers have made a useful distinction between consent to participation in
research (e.g. the parent gives consent on the child’s behalf ), contrasted with assent
(the child agrees to participate). The two types of agreement may be conflated but
disentangling them, particularly in this context, highlights the way in which a suc-
cession of consents on behalf of children with learning difficulties may profoundly
influence sample and hence findings.

Intrusion
The process of talking about how peers feel about particular aspects of inclusion may
unwittingly present as potentially problematic an area that had not previously been
perceived as unusual. For example, in asking children about a range of activities
they would do with particular classmates, the researcher may create the impression
that some of these activities would be unusual or unexpected.

Some sampling considerations in interviewing

pupils about inclusion

Access to individuals
Samples will be limited in various ways: first, through the obvious power of gate-
keepers (those who give consent on behalf of the child). The researcher will,
virtually always, have to go through somebody else to reach the sample for inter-
view. Allan (1999) ponders a particularly interesting illustration of how mainstream
pupils may act as gatekeepers. In some contexts the gatekeepers will provide an
‘all in’ access, for example, where a head teacher agrees to researchers interview-
ing pupils and this is construed as part of the usual school curriculum. Then all
pupils are, at the consent level, included. However gatekeepers may operate an
‘opt in’ policy. Alderson (1999) argues that this is exclusionary because opting in
requires certain skills (e.g. communication) and attitudes (e.g. confidence). If the
consent/assent processes are distinct then, after consent by others has been given,
the pupil needs to give assent to participation in the research. Alderson (op. cit.)
notes the importance of allowing informed dissent by the child. This links with
issues about communication.

Mode of communication
Samples of pupils for interview may be distorted by the mode of communication
employed in the research. Begley (2000) acknowledges that her work concerning
the views of pupils with Down’s syndrome excluded those pupils who lacked verbal
communication. These pupils would have needed a signer to translate to Begley,
and she felt that the logistics and reliability of this would have invalidated findings.
Similarly, in my work on children’s attitudes to integration, the views of pupils
218 Ann Lewis

with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) were excluded because
I was not confident about being able to access their views reliably. However, this is
possible: Detheridge (2000) has described research in which she explicitly involved
similar pupils using technology-aided communication. Thus the selected mode of
communication has implications for sampling and respondent validation.

Selection of data for analysis

Another level of sampling occurs in the move from information to data. Material
may be distorted by the sample of material chosen for coding, and this links with
mode of communication (previous section). For example, indistinct speech may
be excluded, leading to the systematic but inadvertent omission of the views of
a particular subset of interviewees.

Interview strategies
The main body of this chapter reviews a range of interview techniques that have
application for researchers or practitioners who wish to find valid and reliable ways
of obtaining children’s views. They are particularly important when interviewing
young children, or children/young people with learning difficulties. This material
is divided into four main sections:

Initiating the dialogue (use of questions compared with statements; using

multiple questions)
Sustaining the dialogue (use of pause, prompts, allowing ‘don’t know’ responses
and providing a résumé)
Specific choices about phrasing (use of modifiers, pronouns and referents)
Context (impact of background information and discussion).

Initiating the dialogue

Use of statements, rather than a question, as a prompt

A range of work with children has shown the value of making statements that
prompt a response, rather than a direct question, to elicit views. The tendency
for adults, particularly teachers, to use question–answer feedback routines has been
described by some writers as reflecting power relationships (Edwards and Mercer
1987). Through the use of questions, the adult keeps the ‘upper hand’. Thus in
the research context, the use of statements rather than questions also reflects an
implied power relationship. The use of statements as prompts in research inter-
views can occur naturally in small group interviews with children (Lewis 1992;
Lewis and Lindsay 2000). Here one child’s comment may trigger a response from
another child in the group. This is shown well in the following example in which
10–11-year-olds from a primary school were discussing among themselves the likely
work in adulthood for pupils from a special (severe learning difficulties) school
 Interviewing as a method of inquiry 219

who visited the class regularly. The style of interaction is in marked contrast to the
interview with Gwyn (on page 221).

Kay: Kirsty’s quite good at . . . [pause] . . . at um . . . stencilling; she can find the
letters really quickly.
Jo: Jeremy’s quite good at jigsaws mainly.
Stevie: Yeh . . . Kirsty’s good at jigsaws.
Kay: Yeh but there’s no JOB to do with jigsaws.
Jo: They could check all the pieces.

Multiple questions
Multiple questions disguised as one question are a notorious trap in interviews.
Even experienced interviewers may make this mistake, for example:

If you could change anything you wanted about your present class or school,
or the work you do at school, what changes would you make?
(from Gross 1993)

This multiple questioning is particularly problematic for children with learning

difficulties who may not seek clarification. One strategy to help deal with this
is to permit and explicitly to encourage ‘don’t know’ responses and clarification
requests. This has emerged as important in legal contexts but has applicability for
more general research situations. Saywitz (1995) notes that children with learning
difficulties may be particularly liable to say ‘don’t know’ (and/or not to ask for
clarification). If they have had unsuccessful school or assessment experiences in
which they have come to expect that they will not fully understand what is being
asked, they may have learned that they can ‘get away with’ avoiding answering.

Sustaining the dialogue

Use of pause
Some researchers (Bull 1995) have argued that in all interviews, but particularly
those involving children or people with learning difficulties, it is valuable to allow
long pauses (up to three seconds) in order to encourage a response. A good illustra-
tion of this is given by Julie Barsby (1990) in her research involving children with
learning difficulties evaluating their work in collaboration with a friend:

(First interview)
Interviewer: Could you make your writing better?
Child: [nods]
Interviewer: How could you do that?
Child: Don’t know.
220 Ann Lewis

Interviewer: You don’t know?

Child: No.
Interviewer: [pause] What could you do to make your writing more interesting?
How could you make your story better?
Child: Write little.
Interviewer: Pardon? Write small?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: What about the story itself ?
Child: [long pause]

This can be contrasted with Julie’s third interview with this child, three weeks later:

(Third interview)
Interviewer: Could you make your writing better? How do you felt about your
work?
Child: It’s not bad for me. I could’ve done a bit better but I did my best
because I had a late night.
Interviewer: How could you make your writing better?
Child: I could have a little think about it and tell the truth why they were
enjoying themselves.
Interviewer: Mm.
Child: Well I know you wouldn’t tell me off ’cos you giggle too. I’ve seen
you with Mrs C [long pause . . .] I could say that the kids have a good
laugh and think it’s well funny when teachers run and fall over and
look through their glasses over their noses. If I put that then I’d
really’ve painted a picture of the best sort of teacher in the world.
All the, er, kids’d know then.

Effect of prompts
If a particular level of question is more effective than other levels then it is useful
for all researchers to recognise this, whether they are approaching the interview
through highly structured questioning or a more open style. The optimum degree of
verbal prompting has been examined in seminal work by Dent (1986) and reviewed
by Ceci and Bruck (1993): ‘The focus has [thus] shifted from examining whether
children are susceptible to determine under what conditions they are suggestible’
(p. 16). A distinction was found between normally developing children and children
with learning difficulties (8–11-year olds from a school for pupils with moderate
learning difficulties). For the former, unprompted recall was the most accurate (but
the least full), while for the learning difficulties group, general but not leading
questions were most effective in terms of accuracy plus fullness. Specific questions
were unhelpful for both groups and produced more information but this tended
to be inaccurate. Similarly, Ceci has reported research in which children, having
 Interviewing as a method of inquiry 221

witnessed a classroom incident, were questioned about this. The more they were
asked for elaboration – ‘Who came in?’ (a lady), ‘What was she wearing’ (a hat),
‘What did the hat look like?’ (it had feathers), ‘How many feathers?’ – the more
that children supplied (incorrect) detail.
Dent concluded that if accuracy of recall is desired, then specific questions should
not be used at all with children aged 8–14. General open-ended questions appeared
to be best with children with mild or moderate learning difficulties. There has been
debate since (see Bull 1995) about whether the rejection of specific questions in
this context was justified, and a suggestion that clarification is needed about the
types of specific questions which are associated with greater/lesser accuracy.
In my work on children’s views about integration I was not primarily interested
in accuracy but in the cognitive component of attitudes. I used mainly general
questions with both primary school 7- and 11-year olds, and 9–11-year olds from
a school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties.
In the following extract I was talking with a 10-year old about 12–15-year olds
from a special (severe learning difficulties) school with whom he had worked in
weekly art sessions during the preceding two terms.
Children has been describing the special school pupils:

Interviewer: Do you think they’ll [special school pupils] always be like they are
now?
Gwyn: They might, it depends.
Interviewer: What would it depend on?
Gwyn: Depends if they were . . . being helped . . . or . . . just left.
Interviewer: What sort of help would make them better do you think?
Gwyn: Umm . . . if they had medical attention or something.
Interviewer: What sort of medical attention would they need?
Gwyn: Helping them to read and write.

In retrospect I felt that my asking Gwyn to elaborate on what sort of help was
needed, and then what kind of medical attention, pushed him too much to come up
with some details. I suspect that a younger or less able child would have responded
to the more specific question at the end either ‘don’t know’ or some invention to
satisfy my questioning. ‘Don’t know’ responses are considered further on.
A different type of prompt used with children with learning difficulties is pictorial
cues, either as a prompt card (e.g ‘The girl in this picture is happy, but in this picture
she is sad . . . which one shows how you would look when . . . ?’). Pictorial cues may
also be used as part of a vignette depicting a series of events about which the child
being interviewed is asked to comment. Some work (e.g. Begley 2000) has used
standard scales using pictorial cues about which the child’s response is rated. In
other work with children, innovative techniques such as ecomaps or outline faces
have been used (Hill et al. 1996). These approaches have intuitive appeal but they
may be more open to bias, even though the most obvious (e.g. using pictures of
222 Ann Lewis

a same sex/race/age child) can be avoided by using parallel sets of cards, so that
children depicted are from the same groups as the interviewee.
In my current work I am exploring the use of stylised use cards, drawn from
script theories about children’s storying, to prompt uninterrupted narratives from
children with moderate learning difficulties. Children have been trained in the use
of the cards and then shown these in turn (with no verbal prompting) to elicit an
uninterrupted recall of a series of events. Early results are very promising and the
cue cards seem to be effective across a range of events (including, for example,
a classroom disturbance, a key school event and routine occurrences). The cards
have helped to elicit elaboration of detail of events but have not generated false
‘recall’. The approach is interesting from both a methodological perspective (being
generalisable across a variety of approaches) and theoretically as being relatively
context-free.

Permitting/encouraging ‘don’t know’ responses

Understanding of complex abstract concepts, such as those associated with religion,
may prompt a high proportion of non-responses. Ursula McKenna’s work (1998)
on children’s views about understanding of Christian symbols involved primary
age children with learning difficulties. Her questions to them understandably posed
many of the children with difficulties. In this extract one suspects that the child
needed to give a genuine ‘don’t know’ answer, or to ask for clarification. Instead
he and Ursula struggled on, endeavouring to communicate:

Interviewer: What work d’you like best in RE?

Danny: The Celtics.
Interviewer: The Celtics . . . What did you do in that topic?
Danny: The Roman Celtics.
Interviewer: What did you do when you were doing about them?
Danny: They go and kill the Romans.
Interviewer: What activities did you do?
Danny: Well . . . the Romans kill Julius Caesar.
Interviewer: Was that RE work?
Danny: Yeh.
Interviewer: Was it?
Danny: It was this [showing mosaic picture].

Ceci and Bruck (1995) provide powerful illustrations from courtroom contexts of
distortion arising from the interviewer’s apparent refusal to believe that a child had
forgotten a detail, or had a legitimate reason for not wanting to repeat an earlier
remark. While there is less at stake in a research context, their warning about
distortion arising from, in effect, disallowing don’t know responses or silence, is
applicable.
 Interviewing as a method of inquiry 223

Providing a résumé
Providing a group of statements in the form of a brief résumé can be particularly
valuable with children who have short attention spans. However, doing so may
inadvertently distort what was being said, as may have been the case in this example
in which 10- and 11-year olds were discussing events that had occurred during a visit
from pupils attending a special school:

Wayne: ’Cos their playground, their playground is big.

David: But there’s not many children in it.
Wayne: And some of them don’t like the loud noises and ’cos . . . ’cos I mean
our playground’s a lot noisier than theirs.
Tracey: Yeh and their playground hasn’t got many people in it.
Interviewer: You think the noise [in primary school playground] would upset
some of them so they wouldn’t like it?

The interviewer’s summary here inadvertently introduced the idea that the main-
stream pupils were upset by the playground behaviour of pupils from the special
school. With hindsight and the benefit of the transcript, we can see that the pupils
themselves had not placed this evaluation on the behaviour. Thus the résumé here
may have biased after comments by the children, and may also have had repercus-
sions for coding if the résumé was consciously or otherwise used to aid interpretation
of the preceding sequence of dialogue.
Another type of résumé occurs in the legal context, when the questioner may be
trying to confirm a series of facts leading up to an event (e.g. ‘so you were down-
stairs, there was a knock at the door, the man came in, then what happened . . . ?’).
Saywitz (1995) reviews work suggesting that such long compound sentences with
embedded clauses are beyond the linguistic comprehension and memory skills of
many children under about 8 years old.

Phrasing of comments by the interviewer

Modifying terms
Many aspects of specific question wording will influence responses. One category
leading to potential bias is the use of modifying terms. Ceci and Bruck (1993) report
work in which children’s responses reflected a developmental shift in their under-
standing of marked and unmarked modifiers. Modifiers are adjectives or adverbs,
for example, fast/slow, clever/stupid. Marked modifiers have a definite zero, so
slow is marked, it contains a possible zero, that is not moving; but fast is unmarked,
it is limitless. Children generally acquire unmarked forms, for example fast, before
marked forms, for example, slow.
There are also cultural connotations to modifiers that influence response. When
asked the question ‘How slow/fast was the car going when it hit/smashed into the
224 Ann Lewis

wall?’ the version with ‘fast’ elicited higher speeds than did ‘slow’ for all ages from
6 to 14. For 12–14-year olds (but not the younger age groups) there were also
faster estimates when ‘smashed’ not ‘hit’ was used. So some aspects of wording and
hence suggestibility may affect older but not younger children. This is contrary to
the usual stereotype that it is young children who will be the more suggestible.
These differential effects may, in a similar way, vary with developmental level, so
that a 14-year-old with very limited receptive and expressive vocabularies may not
give faster estimates for the ‘smashed’ rather than the ‘hit’ version of this question.
These two sets of issues concerning the use of modifiers in questions to chil-
dren have implications for interviews with children in which they are asked to
choose (verbally or non-verbally) between polar opposites. For example, a range
of research in the integration/inclusion field has asked children to rate peers (or
‘photographs/video clips of unknown children) on scales such as ‘slow worker’–
quick worker’. The developmental work summarised would suggest that younger
children might favour the latter (‘quick worker’) because it had been acquired while
understanding of the former (‘slow worker’) had not.

Use of pronouns and referents

Another feature of specific question wording that can inadvertently direct children’s
responses concerns the use of pronouns and referents. ‘Did you see THE car?’
produced, in both adults and 4–5-year-olds, more affirmatives than did the question
‘Did you see A car?’ (reviewed in Ceci and Bruck 1933). In an informal context
the interviewer may unguardedly switch pronouns in this way, unwittingly leading
to a bias in the way the child ‘reads’ the question:

Did you like playing THOSE games?

(> ‘yes’ response tendency.)
Do you like working with THESE other children?
(> ‘yes’ response tendency.)
Did you like playing games?
(> ‘no’ response tendency.)
Do you like working with other children?
(> ‘no’ response tendency.)

Further, Saywitz (1995) notes that young children (and presumably also children
with learning difficulties) often misunderstand referents such as that, they, them,
those, here, there. This may be particularly problematic if the researcher is trying to
standardise interview questions by using referents, so that the identical question is
applicable across respondents, and avoiding use of proper nouns (e.g. not naming the
types of game or the children in these examples). If teachers and researchers work
with children with, and children without, learning difficulties then the need for
more specificity with children with learning difficulties may easily be overlooked.
 Interviewing as a method of inquiry 225

Use of context

Effect of background information

The impact of expectations on young children’s responses is illustrated by Ceci in
work involving a character (‘Harry’) whose ‘clumsiness’ was described over a two-
month period (reported in Ceci and Bruck 1993). Harry then visited the children’s
nursery. Children were later told that three toys had been broken and asked about
what happened when Harry visited. Only 10 per cent of the children alleged that it
was Harry who had broken the toys. When asked presumptive questions (e.g. ‘How
many toys did Harry break?’) children reported more (inaccurate) clumsiness than
had occurred. This highlights both the importance of the way in which expectations
about people with learning difficulties are presented to children, and the danger of
leading questions.
It is not only the language used by the interviewer that shapes the child’s
responses, it is also the language the child thinks the interviewer would use. This is
illustrated well in Eleanor Nesbitt’s work (Nesbitt 2000). She interviewed a wide
range of children, of different ethnic origins, about their views concerning religion.
Although not directly relevant to the SEN context, the specificity of language in
that context highlights the less obvious but identical issue when discussing SEN.
Eleanor noted, for example, that when talking to her, some children used terms like
‘vicar’ to describe the person who took the service even though this would not be
the child’s natural choice for the person (e.g. for a Baptist child, it would be ‘min-
ister’; for a Catholic, ‘father’, etc). The child was not picking up a word Eleanor
had used but seems to have used a word that the child thought would be Eleanor’s
preferred term. The issue is the same but less obvious when a child uses particular
terms to describe classmates, for example, ‘having difficulties’/‘trying hard’.

Impact of discussion
Discussion has been shown to be associated with better subsequent recall of events.
In this connection, classroom discussion about key events may assume particular
significance. For example, in one integration project (Lewis 1995) 6–7-year-old
primary school children regularly discussed the sessions with the teacher after the
event. The recurrence of minor misbehaviour by some of the visiting children
from the special school was very salient for the primary school children. At this age
children are notoriously concerned about rule-keeping and rule-breaking. It was
not surprising then that in interviews at the end of a year of link sessions, many of
the primary school children recounted incidents of misbehaviour. This echoes in
a more naturalistic context Ceci’s work on Harry, referred to earlier. In contrast
from my observation of the link sessions, special school pupils enjoyed looking at
pictures in the books in the primary school classroom. This often occurred but was
rarely mentioned by teachers in post-session discussions and was also not repeated
by the children when interviewed about events during the sessions.
226 Ann Lewis

Post-event discussions will draw attention to particular aspects of the event. They
will probably, albeit not wittingly, introduce misinformation. In an interesting
study into suggestibility, Bruck and co-workers (1995) explored the association
between IQ and suggestibility. The context was the planting of suggestions in
children’s minds about whether an inoculation had been painful. The 5-year-old
children in these studies were classified as resistors or non-resistors (reflecting their
susceptibility to misleading information), and statistical analyses were carried out
into associations with IQ, memory and stress. In summary, IQ was not a significant
factor, thus giving the lie to the popularly voiced notion that children having lower
IQ scores will be more prone to being swayed by misinformation after an event.

Conclusion
My interest in interviewing children about their experiences of integration and
inclusion has highlighted the acute ethical and sampling problems. Decisions taken
about sampling will clearly have implications for the generalisability of findings.
Reliability and validity of the data will be influenced (among other things) by
the interviewer’s way of initiating dialogue, sustaining that dialogue, particular
phrasings and the use made of context.
All researchers, except the small minority using very rigid structured interview
schedules, make decisions (mostly intuitively) about these elements of the inter-
view. At the very least, researchers in the inclusion field need to acknowledge the
complexities of this process and report in a transparent way the nature of both sides
of the interviewer–child dialogue.

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Part IV

The legal context

Page Intentionally Left Blank
Chapter 18

Researching children’s
perspectives
Legal issues
Judith Masson

Including child participants in research, as respondents or interviewers, raises ethical

and legal dilemmas about children’s rights and the obligations of researchers. Until
the 1990s, the research community had been mainly divided into two distinct
groups: those, particularly in the fields of education and health, who researched
children relying on the consent of their parents or teachers, but who rarely asked
the children themselves, and those who excluded children arguing that the issues
of competence, consent and risk made children inappropriate subjects or unreliable
respondents for research. Both these approaches compromise research legally, eth-
ically and in terms of research findings. Reliance on the consent of others denies
the child respondent information which would be thought essential for an adult
participating in research, opportunities to clarify the aims of the research, what
their role in it might be, and to decide whether or not to participate. The exclu-
sion of children’s voices, particularly from research intended to influence policy
development, is a flaw which severely (even fatally) undermines the validity of the
perspectives and insights gained.
This chapter explores the legal dimensions of children’s involvement in research,
explaining the current position relating to the rights of children, parents and their
carers. It focuses on the law in England and Wales; the position in Northern Ireland
and in Scotland is similar. The relevant law is to be found in cases, and in the key
statutes, the Children Act 1989 for England and Wales, the Children (Northern
Ireland) Order 1995 which is in most respects identical to the law in England and
Wales, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland)
Act 1991. Those researching in other Common Law countries, for example, the
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, will also find that similar concepts have
taken root; elsewhere differences are likely to be greater. Wherever the research is
to be conducted the researcher must be clear about both law and custom.
Although the relevant law is complex it is not uncertain (Alderson 1995: 74;
Ward 1997: 20). Nor should it be seen as a barrier to the participation of children
who are competent and willing to do so. To interpret the law in such a restrictive
way undermines the rights that it enshrines for children. Although parents have
rights because they are parents, there is no recognized tort of interference with
parental rights (F v Wirral MBC 1991). Parents cannot claim damages from a person
who has done something with their child of which they do not approve; penalties
232 Judith Masson

could of course follow if the activity was against the criminal law. But this would
be the case even if the parent’s consent had been obtained. Children’s capacity to
consent may not be clear-cut, researchers who wrongly consider that a child has
consented may be acting unethically, but their decisions could be challenged only
by a child who had been harmed by the research.
Researchers may owe a duty of care to those they involve in their research and
could thus be liable for foreseeable injuries which befall them in the course of the
research. Interviewees injured tripping on steep unlit steps as they approached the
interview venue or who fell when their chair broke could have a claim.1 It is also
possible to envisage claims by children arising out of their involvement in experi-
ments. Particular care should always be taken that the practical arrangements are
suitable; the law generally accepts that children may not be as careful, or as aware
of risks, as adults. These are probably unlikely scenarios; usually researchers are
not at risk of legal proceedings merely through involving children as respondents
to social research. Indeed, unless research is a cover for malign activity, it is diffi-
cult to see what proceedings could be brought, or who could bring proceedings,
against someone who spoke or corresponded with a consenting child. Including
children as interviewers is more problematic in that it raises questions about chil-
dren’s employment and the special care that should be taken of young employees,
but many of the precautions which should be taken are relevant to the safety of all
interviewees.
There is a close relationship between law and ethics but not everything that
is legal is ethical. Frequently law, when used as a tool of regulation, attempts
only to set the minimum ethical standard. The aspirations of ethical practice are
higher. Having clarified in their own minds that what they propose would be legal,
researchers should also consider how it measures up against the ethical standards of
their own professional body, of the funding organization and of any other body
which is involved in facilitating the research. It can never be appropriate to defend
proposed practice solely on the basis that it is legal, nor can it be assumed that those
who question the approach taken know or understand the relevant legal or ethical
issues.

‘Gatekeepers’
Children and young people are rarely free to decide entirely for themselves whether
or not to participate in research. The enclosed nature of children’s lives in families,
in schools and in institutions means that they are surrounded by adults who can take
on the role of ‘gatekeepers’, controlling researchers’ access and children and young
people’s opportunities to express their views. Even where they have no power over
a child’s decision to take part in research, parents, carers and teachers generally con-
trol the places, homes and schools that provide the safest and most suitable venues
for research interviews with children and young people. Arising from their position
as parents, employees or carers, ‘gatekeepers’ have legal rights and responsibilities
to safeguard children’s welfare, to follow their employer’s directions and comply
 Researching children’s perspectives 233

with the ethical code of their professions. Their legal responsibilities mean that
gatekeepers may face disciplinary action, including dismissal or removal of chil-
dren from their care, if they fail to comply with the standards expected of them.
Gatekeepers have a positive, protective function, sheltering children and young
people from potential harm and testing the motives of those who want access.
Researchers should expect gatekeepers to try to protect children and young people
from ill-conceived, valueless or potentially damaging research. They should be able
to explain the purpose and value of their research and what steps they will take to
minimize any possible risk of harm from participation in it. However, gatekeepers
can also use their position to censor children and young people. Researchers need
to understand both the source and limits of each gatekeeper’s power so that they
can negotiate opportunities for children to choose whether to participate in their
research.

Children, childhood and parental responsibility

In England and Wales (and elsewhere in the UK) people under the age of 18 years
are legally referred to as children. The use of the same word to cover all young
people from infancy to the verge of adulthood may emphasize their incapacity
but children are not powerless, nor without legal rights. Children are subject to
the control of those who have ‘parental responsibility’ (see Box text) but parental
responsibility itself declines as the child matures. Children are within the protection
of the European Convention on Human Rights, now incorporated in the Human
Rights Act 1998, and as such have the same rights that are guaranteed to adults.

Who has parental responsibility?

Mother, unless the child has been adopted or freed for adoption
and
Father, provided he is (or has been) married to the mother or he has made a
parental responsibility agreement with the mother he has a parental respon-
sibility order
and
A carer who has obtained a resident order Children Act 1989 (s.12)
and
Anyone who has obtained an emergency protection order Children Act 1989
(s.44) very limited duration
or
The local authority if the child is the subject of a care order Children Act
1989 (s.33)
234 Judith Masson

Various statutes recognize children’s capacity to make specific decisions at particular

ages (Childright 1996). The term ‘parental responsibility’ is used in the Children
Act 1989 to encompass ‘all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority
which by law a parent has in relation to the child’ (s.3(1)). The exact content of
this power, the way it can be exercised and its extent are not set out in the Act but
have been determined through case law. For researchers a key issue is whether and
in what circumstances children can agree to take part in research independently
from their parents.
The ethical requirement for the relationship between researcher and researched
to be consensual raises the legal question who has the right to consent to research
participation by a child. Alderson (1995: 22) has suggested that the ‘safest course,
though it can be repressive, is to ask for parental consent and also to ask for
children’s consent when they are able to understand’. The concern for safety
here appears to be the safety of researchers lest their actions are challenged in
litigation (Alderson 1995: 74). This cautious view is at variance with the cur-
rent law on parental responsibility which limits the power that parents have over
their mature children. Emphasis on respecting children’s rights suggests a bolder
approach.
The right to make decisions about a child’s life is one aspect of parental responsi-
bility. Common decisions for parents relate to the way the child is brought up and
include choosing the child’s school. The decision whether to participate in research
is also included. In Re Z (1996) the court held that a parent who gave confiden-
tial information about her child’s medical treatment or education was exercising
parental responsibility. This case concerned the making of a film about a therapeutic
facility where the child who had severe disabilities had received treatment, but the
principle applies to providing information orally or in writing. Parents who take part
in research and provide information about their child, or who agree to their child
participating in research, are exercising parental responsibility. Parental responsi-
bility (the parental right to make decisions) is not absolute but is restricted by the
parent’s obligation to act in the child’s interests and the rights of the mature child
to make decisions independently.
Parental decisions are always potentially challengeable but this rarely happens
except in the context of the acrimonious relationships of separated parents. A person
who wishes to challenge the parent’s decision applies to the court, which decides
the dispute on the basis of what it considers to be in the best interests of the child
(Children Act 1989 s.1).2 Although the court could override a parental refusal, the
only recorded example shows the court taking a paternalistic approach, viewing
participation in a television documentary as contrary to the child’s best interests. In
Re Z (1996) the child’s mother wanted her to take part in a television film about the
care and treatment she had received in a rehabilitation clinic for children with severe
disabilities but her father, who had long been in dispute with the mother, objected
to this. The court, applying the principle that the child’s welfare is the paramount
consideration, barred the girl’s participation. The court’s view, that ‘the welfare of
the child would be harmed and not advanced by the publication of this film’, was at
 Researching children’s perspectives 235

odds with the view of the mother, who thought that her daughter’s confidence and
self-esteem would be enhanced by taking part. Research participation will involve
far less exposure and thus avoid the adverse consequences of media attention which
arose in Re Z. However, it may be very difficult to identify a clear benefit to an
individual child from having taken part, except those associated with making a
contribution or having a say, and thus to show that participation would be in the
child’s best interests.
Researchers who wish to include young children who are not old enough to
decide for themselves about research participation must obtain the agreement of
at least one person who has parental responsibility for the child. Although in the
absence of court orders to the contrary (Children Act 1989 s.2(8)), the law recog-
nizes separated parents as having equal power to consent, it is not ethical to privilege
the view of a parent who is less involved in the child’s day-to-day care. Researchers
must engage with parents and provide them with the information that allows them
to make good decisions about permitting their child’s involvement in any proposed
study.
Special considerations apply in respect of children who are looked after by a
local authority, children in foster homes, residential schools, children’s homes
or elsewhere. The parents of these children retain their parental responsibility,
although their opportunities to exercise it are obviously curtailed. Only where
there is a care order does the local authority have parental responsibility for the
child (see Box text) and then it holds it together with the parents. If children are
only accommodated, the local authority can agree to research with the child only
if this is reasonable for the purpose of safeguarding or promoting the child’s welfare
(Children Act 1989 s.3(5)). Local authorities are required to consult and consider
the views of all parents (and children) before making decisions about them (Chil-
dren Act 1989 s.22(4)(5)). Although this provision often appears to be honoured in
the breach, researchers should expect to involve parents even though they do not
have day-to-day care of their child.
Parental responsibility is not the determining factor for a child’s participation in
research where the child is mature. A child who has the capacity to understand fully
a decision affecting his or her life automatically has the capacity to make that decision
affecting his unless statute law states otherwise (Gillick 1986). Competence, the level
of understanding required to make decisions, is directly related to the decision to be
taken. Thus children are competent and can decide whether or not to participate
in a research study, provided that they have a sufficient understanding of what
participation entails and how participating may affect them. A considerably higher
degree of understanding would be expected before a child could agree to take part in
an experiment about the effects of sleep deprivation on exam performance than for
a short interview about leisure activities. It is children’s level of understanding, not
their age, which is important. It cannot be assumed that all children of a particular
age are, or are not, competent to decide. Competence can be encouraged by giving
the necessary background information and providing oppourtunities to explore it
before the issue of research participation is raised. However, this might require
236 Judith Masson

permission unless it was part of a normal activity which the child took part in at
school, youth club or elsewhere.
Where children have the capacity to make a decision, parents’ power over that
area of their child’s life is ended unless preserved by statute law. Consequently, a
parent cannot consent to research on behalf of a competent child. Nevertheless,
mature children can explicitly allow parents or other adults to make decisions on
their behalf.
Lack of competence to make decisions does not imply the inability to make a
contribution through participating in research but it is clearly relevant both to issues
of consent and the way the research is conducted. The law uses quite a different
standard to determine whether a child can give evidence to a criminal court, a
matter which is generally outside either the parent’s or the child’s control. A child
can be a competent witness if he or she understands the importance of accuracy
and honesty, and can give a coherent account of an event. Children as young as
4 years old have been accepted as witness in criminal trials, but would probably
be called to give evidence only where an alternative source was not available.
Views that children are unreliable and untruthful witnesses which dominated legal
(and adult) thinking have been challenged by research (Spencer and Flin 1993).
Considerable (but probably inadequate) care is now taken to ensure that child
witnesses understand what they are being asked to do and that the process does not
place too great physical or emotional burdens on them. These changes in criminal
proceedings provide useful lessons both for researchers who wish to include children
and those who think children’s views need not be sought.

Consent and confidentiality

Having identified who must consent, consideration should be given to the nature
of that consent. As far as medical practice is concerned, a concept of ‘informed
consent’ has been developed in a number of countries. Where informed consent is
required, only the consent of individuals who were fully informed of the relevant
issues before they gave their consent is valid. English law has repeatedly refused to
accept the need for informed consent for medical treatment, preferring to accept
doctors’ views about what patients need to be told. This approach leaves medical
staff with considerable scope and frees them from the possibility of facing an action
for assault on the basis that the patient’s consent was obtained without disclosure
of all the possible risks.
Using this approach researchers could argue against the need for informed consent
to research. The contrary argument, for higher standards based on ethics rather
than law, appears more persuasive. Researchers do not face the risks that informed
consent would impose on doctors nor can they claim that their actions are designed
and intended to benefit those from whom they seek cooperation. The fundamental
importance of consent, freely given, to research participation reinforces the view
that the researcher should always explain fully the purpose, process and intended
outcomes of research and seek consent on that basis. Where general consents have
 Researching children’s perspectives 237

already been given, for example as part of the arrangements for a child’s care or
education, these may not be adequately judged against high ethical standards. At
the very least, consideration should be given to the possible advantages to both
researcher and participant of approaching each new study on the basis that fully
informed consent should be obtained.
If consent is to be freely given, care also needs to be taken that children (or
other potential respondents) do not feel obliged to participate. Where the person
seeking children’s participation is in a powerful position over them, as in the case
of a teacher or carer, children may feel that they have to agree or, worse still,
that they will be penalized if they do not. Researchers need to be alert to such
possibilities, particularly where their access is arranged by those who provide services
for children.
The notion of confidentiality has a very particular meaning among researchers
which needs to be explained and agreed with those participating. Research confi-
dentiality usually entails taking considerable care not to pass information to those
connected in any way with the respondent and disclosing information only in
ways which protect the identity of those who provided it. The location where the
research took place is generally not identified, individuals are anonymized or given
pseudonyms, and some facts, which might otherwise identify them, are changed
or omitted. All research participants, including children and young people, need
careful explanations of research confidentiality when (or before) their consent to
participate is sought.
Where children are competent to make decisions, the law allows them the
associated confidentiality which it would allow an adult. The confidentiality of
younger children, who lack the capacity to consent, also needs to be considered.
Although these children may keep secrets from their parents, they are not enti-
tled to confidential relationships automatically. Where arrangements for children’s
participation have been made with parents or other gatekeepers, these people will
of course know that an individual child has taken part, and what the focus of
the research is. Natural curiosity and concern for their child may lead them to
question the child or the researcher about what was said. This can put pres-
sure on the child. Researchers need to consider this when negotiating access or
consent for interviews with children and young people. Where parental consent
is needed, it can be sought on the understanding that what the child says will
not be passed to parents (Hamilton and Hopegood 1997). In such cases, parents
may need to be reassured that certain types of information would be passed to
them; where this is the case children should know that this will happen and what
parents will be told. Some children may want to give the account of the inter-
view for the researcher but others may prefer the researcher to explain on their
behalf.
There are ethical considerations in research (and other work) with children which
may mean that the same degree of confidentiality cannot be guaranteed to a child
as would be given to an adult. There are two areas of particular concern, where
a child discloses that he or she is being seriously harmed or ill-treated, and where
238 Judith Masson

the researcher identified a condition, for example, a medical condition or learning

difficulty about which the parents could take action. Failure of the researcher to
take appropriate action not only might lead to criticism on ethical grounds, but also
in some limited circumstances could give rise to legal liability.
In the UK, there is no legal requirement on anyone who knows that a child
is being ill-treated to notify social services or the police as there is in some other
countries, notably many states of the USA. However, guidance to doctors from
the Department of Health (DoH 1994) and lawyers (Solicitors Family Law Associ-
ation 1995) advises that the confidential nature of the relationship with the patient
or client does not provide a justification for failing to pass on information where
children are being abused. Researchers should be aware that the promise of con-
fidentiality may have encouraged children to discuss their dreadful circumstances,
and may feel betrayed if information is passed on without their knowledge. Where
such issues could arise, the researchers need to consider the information and support
they can provide for young people. Some young people may prefer the complete
confidentiality of ChildLine to disclosure to an interviewer. This is a telephone
advice and counselling service for children and young people, particularly those
who are abused. Realistically most researchers will be unable to provide the kind
of support required by a young person in the throes of a child protection investi-
gation but with forethought they may be able to help them to access local services.
In such cases, interviewers may also need support. Employing researchers could
even be liable for trauma suffered by interviewers who they knowingly required to
conduct distressing interviews.
There will be some studies, particularly those involving the use of diagnos-
tic instruments, where the researcher may obtain information about individual
children which would be useful to children or their parents. In addition to any
ethical duty to disclose this information, there could be a legal duty to do so,
particularly for anyone conducting the research in the course of employment to
provide services for children, for example, a doctor or an educational psycho-
logist. It is accepted that doctors owe a duty of care to their patients; a similar
duty has been held to apply to educational psychologists carrying out assessments
of, or providing advice about, individual children (Christmas v Hampshire CC;
Keating v Bromley LBC 1995). Although it would be more difficult to estab-
lish that a researcher who was not otherwise providing a service owed a duty
of care, an education authority which employed the researcher or permitted the
research to take place might be held liable. Consequently, researchers need to
consider whether and how to provide information about identifiable children.
Where young people could take the necessary steps themselves, information should
be provided to them directly but the researchers should consider whether they
have the necessary maturity to handle it. In the case of younger children, parents
should be given the information, as they too may need help to know what steps
to take.
 Researching children’s perspectives 239

Protecting children participating in research

Current concerns about the victimization of children by those who have gained
access to them through employment in schools or care homes, or through organiz-
ing children’s leisure activities, have drawn attention to child sexual abuse occurring
outside the home. Although children are generally at far greater risk of abuse within
their families, no one who plans activities involving children and adults can disregard
the dangers that some adults pose to children. Legislation requiring those convicted
of certain offences against children to register with the police (Sexual Offenders
Act 1997) together with new systems to check the criminal records of prospec-
tive employees (Police Act 1997) may appear to provide ways of determining that
interviewers are appropriate people. However, both detection and conviction for
these offences remains extremely low. Making use of the criminal record certificates
(Police Act 1997 Pt V) can avoid exposing children only to convicted offenders;
for greater care is necessary both in recruitment and the arrangements for research
if children are to be safe.
Under the Police Act 1997, prospective employees will be able to obtain criminal
record certificates which will disclose to prospective employers whether or not
they have criminal convictions. For those whose employment (or voluntary work)
involves regularly having sole responsibility for children (or vulnerable adults) it
will be possible to have more detailed checks undertaken covering convictions
occurring ten or more years previously and even details of offences which did not
result in a conviction or a caution. These ‘enhanced criminal records certificates’
will replace the checking mechanisms available to local authorities and voluntary
organizations and should be used for research staff working with children.3
Criminal records checks cannot ever replace good recruitment practices which
seek to establish the prospective employee’s suitability and work history from those
who know them. Useful guidance was given to social services departments in the
Warner Report (1992).
The arrangements for interviews also need to be considered. Both children and
interviewers must feel and be safe during the research. Children may feel more
comfortable if they can bring a friend or parent to an interview but this may also
inhibit what they say and can make concentration difficult. There are cases where it
will be appropriate for the researcher to arrange for chaperones, particularly where
the research involves the child travelling to a laboratory or other facility where the
research will be conducted. Particular care must be taken both in selection and
training if the chaperone is not someone already known to the child. Using large
public rooms or corridors allows the interview to be observed but not overheard
but may not be practicable. Where children are interviewed at home, interviewers
often have little choice about where they see a child. It may be difficult to find
a sufficiently quiet place in living areas without distrupting family activities. Bed-
rooms are not usually suitable places for children to see strangers alone, although
they may like to show them to visitors. The garden or the stairs can in some cases
provide an appropriate place for an interview.
240 Judith Masson

Children as researchers
More attention has been given since the mid-1990s to involving children in the
research process either as part of advisory groups helping to design and direct studies
about things which concern them or as interviewers of other children (Ward 1997).
These initiatives raise further legal concerns about children’s status and their safety.
Children who are engaged as interviewers are working for the researcher and should
be accorded no less consideration than adult interviewers. Even under minimum
wage legislation, it is likely to be legal to pay children less than adults, but where
children possess special skills, such as the ability to obtain good rapport with other
children, this should be recognized in the rate of pay as it would be for an adult. The
strict regulation of children’s work requires additional safeguards to be provided.
Interviewers are often not regarded as employees but as sessional workers. However,
where there is control over whom they interview and the contents of the interview,
as would be the case where children are carrying out fieldwork, it is difficult to
argue that they are not employees.
The Children and Young Persons Acts 1933 and 1963,4 modified by the Chil-
dren (Protection at Work) Regulations 1998, set out the limitations on work by
those below the school leaving age of 16. Children below the age of 14 years
may not be employed except in certain categories of light work specified in local
authority bylaws. Although these categories may be broadly drawn they will not
necessarily cover research work and may vary from place to place. Working hours
are also restricted. Children under 15 years may not work for more than 2 hours
on any school day or Sunday, or 5 hours on a Saturday. They cannot work for
more than 25 hours a week in the school holidays. The Health and Safety (Young
Persons) Regulations 1997 impose further safeguards for young people (i.e. those
under the age of 18 years) and children (i.e. those below the school leaving age).
Before employing anyone below the age of 18 years, employers must assess the
risks posed by the work, taking account (among other things) of the immaturity
and inexperience of young people. All employees have to be given ‘comprehensible
and relevant information’ about risks and protective measures; where children are
employed this information must also be given to a parent.
The concerns about the vulnerability of children being interviewed also apply
where children are interviewers. Interviewers are at risk as they travel to interviews;
where interviews will take place in private homes they may also be at risk from
other household members, about whom little may be known. Those planning
the research need to consider these risks with interviewers. Chaperones or drivers
who wait outside provide a way of protecting interviewers both on the way to
and during an interview but other arrangements such as pairs of interviewers will
be more suitable for some studies. As well as physical risks, attention needs to
be given to potential psychological harm from hearing disturbing accounts from
other children. Young interviewers may well need more training and support than
adults: under the regulations this is a legal requirement, not just a professional
issue.
 Researching children’s perspectives 241

Conclusion
The law’s relationship with children is generally protectionist. It seeks to shelter
them from exploitation outside the family and control or punish those who would
harm them. Protectionism has both advantages and disadvantages for children. It
may help to keep them safe although it is often not effective. It has also justified
controlling children and can lead to their marginalization. Researchers can help to
counteract children’s marginalization by involving them in research but in doing
so need to take care not to jeopardize their safety nor exploit them. Research with
children which does not take on board legal dimensions is likely to harm both
children and research.

Notes
1 This claim would not necessarily be against the researcher. The person responsible
for the building would have responsibility as the occupier.
2 In theory anyone may challenge the exercise of parental responsibility but the
integrity of the family is protected by requiring those who are not parents, step-
parents or long-term carers of the child to obtain the prior permission of the
court before making their application (Children Act 1989 s.10).
3 Employers and others seeking to use enhanced criminal records certificates will
have to register with the Home Office and countersign each application for a
certificate.
4 In Scotland the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 applies.

Case list
Christmas v Hampshire CC; Keating v Bromley LBC [1995] 2 FLR 276
F v Wirral MBC [1991] Fam 69
Gillick v West Norfolk AHA [1986] AC 112
Re Z (a minor) (freedom of publication) [1996] 1 FLR 191

References
Alderson, P. (1995) Listening to Children, London: Barnardo’s.
Childright (1996) At what age can I . . . ? Childright, 128.
Department of Health (DoH) (1994) Child Protection: Medical Responsibilities – an Addendum
to Working Together under the Children Act 1989, London: HMSO.
Hamilton, C. and Hopegood, L. (1997) Offering children confidentiality: law and guidance,
Childright, 140, 1–8.
Solicitors’ Family Law Association (SFLA) (1995) Guide to Good Practice for Solicitors Acting
for Children, 2nd edn. Orpington, Kent: SFLA.
Spencer, J. and Flin, R. (1993) The Evidence of Children. London: Blackstone.
Ward, L. (1997) Seem and Heard. York: York Publishing Services.
Warner Report (1992) Choosing with Care: The Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the
Selection, Development and Management of Staff in Children’s Homes. London: HMSO.
Chapter 19

Data protection issues in

educational research
Clare Wood

Introduction
‘Data protection’ refers to issues related to how one collects, stores and manages
personal information about other people. It is an important ethical aspect of manag-
ing any piece of research, no matter how small scale or informal the project might
be. However, it is often neglected, particularly if a researcher is working with
a group that they know well, in their workplace, or with very young children.
This chapter will explore principles of good practice in relation to data issues, and
highlight some potentially problematic situations for educational researchers.

What constitutes data?

‘Data’ refers to any information that you collect and store during the course of a
piece of research, be it numerical, textual, verbal or observational. This can include
specific information about individuals, such as their names, ages, where they live,
their occupations, their scores on a test or a task, their responses to a questionnaire
or during an interview. It also includes any video recordings, field notes (however
informal), photographic evidence, audio recordings or transcripts. All these forms
of data need to be handled with appropriate care and sensitivity. Of particular
significance in legal terms is ‘personal data’, which refers to any data ‘which relate
to a living person who can be identified’. Most research data would be considered
‘personal data’ in this sense.

What is the Data Protection Act?

The Data Protection Act was passed in the UK in 1998 and relates to ‘the
regulation of the processing of information relating to individuals, including
the obtaining, holding, use or disclosure of such information’. Research data
is exempt from certain aspects of the regulations laid out in this Act, as long
as the data is collected and handled according to the principles laid out in the
 Data protection issues in educational research 243

Act. The guidance given in this chapter covers these principles. However, if
you work in the UK you may find it useful to be familiar with the Act. A
copy can be downloaded from http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/

How data is collected, stored and handled touches on aspects of ethical proce-
dure that should be familiar to researchers. The following section summarises the
principles of good practice that influence how one deals with research data.

Principles of good practice

These principles of good practice are developed from the Data Protection Act
guidelines produced by the Open University. The comments illustrate what this
principle means in terms of research practice.

1 Data should be collected fairly and legally. Data should always be obtained directly
from research participants, with their full knowledge and consent.
2 Data should be used only for the purposes for which they are collected. The purpose to
which the data will be put must be explained to the individuals concerned when the data
is being obtained. When contacting individuals with a view to conducting a
research project, one should clearly explain what the focus of the research will
be and how the data collected will be presented in its final form. For example,
participants should know whether their data will be pooled and presented as
overall group data (which would fully conceal their data and their identity) or
whether a case study format might be adopted which might draw directly on
data produced by individuals, as is the case when direct quotations are used, or
detailed anonymised case information is presented. Equally, having explained
the aim of the research and the means of presentation to the participants, it is
then unacceptable to adapt or reuse the data to address a substantially different
set of research questions. The participants have only consented to participate
in the original research study: any substantial amendment to the focus of the
study should not be conducted without re-contacting the participants to gain
clearance for this new use of their data. The Data Protection Act specifically
states that no processing of research data is allowed if the data are used to
support decisions made about specific individuals, or if there is likely to be
substantial damage or distress caused.
3 Data should be adequate, accurate, relevant and not excessive: unnecessary data should
not be collected. It can be tempting when collecting data for research purposes
to add in an additional task, or a few more questions on the questionnaire
that would collect additional ‘interesting’ data that you are curious about.
You should not do this. Only collect the data that is necessary to address the
research questions that you are immediately concerned with answering. It is
always a good idea to keep data collection to an absolute minimum and keep it
244 Clare Wood

tightly focussed on the issue at hand. This will mean that your data collection
is fast and efficient, it will minimise the inconvenience to your participants,
and your data analysis will stay focussed and appropriate to the questions you
originally set out to answer.
4 Personal data should not be kept longer than necessary, and should be kept up to date
as necessary. This means that data on individuals should be destroyed after
it has served its purpose. With respect to student work, all data should be
retained until such a time that a mark for a piece of work has been formally
awarded and finalised. Once you are confident that you will no longer be
asked to produce these data (e.g. for viva or verification purposes), you should
take care to destroy these materials appropriately (i.e. shred paper material,
wipe video and audio recordings, etc.). Do not be tempted to retain tapes of
observations, etc. for nostalgic reasons. It is good practice to advise participants
at the outset that their data will be destroyed once the research study has been
concluded, and indicate how long it might be retained for before this will
occur.
In formal research it is normal practice to retain anonymised data for a period
of around five years after the publication of a study (and publication of a study
can take several years in itself ). This period is to give other academics the
chance to scrutinise the data that published claims are based on. Anonymised
sets of quantitative data or qualitative material, especially those that relate to
published studies, are increasingly stored in national research archives, and such
storage is often a condition of some research grants.
5 Personal data should not be disclosed to third parties. This means that information
that relates to a person who can be readily identified from the data should not be dis-
closed to other people. Thus one should not give these data to other people, or
store such data in a way that other people might intentionally or unintention-
ally gain access to it. One way of ensuring that accidental disclosure of personal
data does not occur is to anonymise each participant with a code number or
code name, and use this on all spreadsheets, transcripts, questionnaires, video
labels and audio labels. If you do not need to keep a list of the actual names
of the people who participated, do not do so. If for some reason you need to
retain a list of the names of the people who participated alongside their codes,
store this list securely and in a separate location from the coded data.
6 Data should not be unnecessarily reproduced in any form, or left visible to third parties,
however unintentionally. You should avoid making copies of personal data –
while you should make backups of any data you are working with, this should
not extend to photocopying raw personal data or duplicating taped material.
Such material should be transcribed and anonymised as soon as possible, and
these transcripts stored securely with one backup copy stored equally securely
in a different location. Data should not be left lying around on desks or left
visible on computer or TV screens.
7 Personal data should not be given over the telephone or via email. Personal data sent
by post should only be sent to validated addresses. Avoid transferring data by
 Data protection issues in educational research 245

unsecured means (i.e. if uncertain that your intended recipient will be the
actual recipient of the information, or when you are uncertain if other people
have access). This may occur during correspondence with a participant about
their data, for example, or if you are working as part of a team of researchers
on the same project.
8 No data relating to a specific individual should be disclosed to anyone unless the indi-
vidual concerned has given their prior permission. This means that you should
not ‘assume’ that it will be OK to discuss data with a third party or give
copies of data to a third party without first explicitly gaining consent from the
participants concerned. The Data Protection Act states that no processing of
research data is allowed if the identity of a participant is given away without
consent.
9 Personal data should be held securely and proper security measures taken for all meth-
ods of holding or displaying personal data to prevent loss, destruction or corruption of
information. This means that
(a) Computers that can access personal data should not be left unattended when the
data is accessible (e.g. after a password has been entered), and the screen should be
cleared of any data after use.
(b) Individuals must take responsibility for ensuring that personal data is kept away
from people who are not entitled to see it.
(c) Print outs should be stored securely when not in use and shredded when no longer
required.
(d) Passwords should not be easily guessable, should be changed regularly, and not
disclosed.
(e) Removable disks (e.g. floppy disks, zip disks, CD Roms) containing personal
data should be removed from the computer after use and stored securely. Similarly,
video and audio cassettes and similar media should be removed from equipment
and stored appropriately when not in use. They should be reformatted or destroyed
when no longer needed.
(f ) Information on hard disks should be password protected.

Additionally, if you are a researcher who is working in a University setting (e.g. a

research student, research assistant/fellow), you should always register any data set
with the Data Protection Officer at your institution.

Appropriate use of data

The practical implications of good data protection practice are illustrated in the following
scenario.
You have been conducting research with teachers and have audiotaped inter-
views with them regarding their views on working with ‘underachieving boys’. In
addition you have conducted observations of some of these teachers working with
the boys in the context of their normal lessons. During the course of your analysis
246 Clare Wood

you notice a strong theme emerging to do with the teachers’ views on punishment
and classroom control issues.
(i) During the course of your study the headteacher, from whom you initially
got consent to conduct the study in the school, asks if she could watch some
of the videos you have made. What should you do?
(ii) You are listening to one of your audio cassettes and you are not quite sure
what one of the teachers has just said. What should you do?
(iii) You are typing up your transcripts of the classroom observations late into the
night. Your partner offers to take a turn in order to give you a break. What
should you do?
(iv) You produce your report as originally outlined. You would like to use stills
from the video recordings to illustrate your report/conference presentation.
Would this be an acceptable use of the data?
(v) You would like to write the study up for a second report that deals exclusively
with classroom control. Would this be acceptable use of the data?

Comments
(i) The headteacher gave you permission to conduct your research in her school,
however it does not follow that she has the right to ‘eavesdrop’ on the data you
are collecting, however well intentioned her reasons for doing so. You might
explain to her that your participants are participating on the understanding that
the video material will be confidential to yourself. If she has a strong reason
for wishing to view it, you may wish to consult with the teacher and children
concerned and gain their consent for the headteacher to view it. However,
the participants should be encouraged to view the actual video footage before
making their decision.
(ii) You should indicate that the section is inaudible using appropriate transcript
notation. You should resist the temptation to invite a third party to listen to
the tape to ‘see what they think it is’.
(iii) You should decline the (very kind) request, but go and have a break/go to
bed. When you leave the desk, you should shut down the files you were
working on and put away any paperwork and videos in a lockable drawer.
(iv) No. Your participants did not consent for the video material to be used for
this purpose, and so it would be inappropriate to do so (and it would also
identify them as participants to the research). However, you could go back to
the participants concerned and get separate consent to use the stills in this way.
(v) No. Again, your participants did not agree to participate in a piece of research
to do with classroom control, they understand the research to be about under-
achieving boys. They may not have consented to participate had they known
that this issue would be focussed on. You could contact the participants and
get separate clearance from them for you to use the data you have collected
for this new purpose. Only those people who consent should have their data
used in any subsequent analysis.
 Data protection issues in educational research 247

While these principles may seem very prescriptive in places, they are intended to
protect both the researcher and the participants to the research. What may seem
‘reasonable’ use of the data to you can be seen by a participant as very threatening.
This is particularly true of research conducted in educational settings, both with
respect to teachers and their pupils. It is worth remembering that the prevailing
educational climate is typically one of evaluation, accountability and consequence.
Educational research is often perceived by its participants to be concerned with
the evaluation of them as individuals. As a result, participation in a programme of
research can be undertaken with some degree of trepidation and, in some cases,
anxiety. The appropriate management of and respect for their data is central to
engendering a relationship of trust, as well as conducting a programme of research
in a professional manner.

Withdrawal of consent and ownership of data

One situation that can occur is where an individual withdraws their participation
halfway through a programme of research, or even after the project has been com-
pleted. Although this is quite rare, a participant is entirely within his or her rights
to do so. If this occurs any data that you have obtained from this person should be
destroyed with immediate effect and should not be used in any analysis or report.
The participant should always be thought of as ‘owning’ their data, which they
have consented for you to ‘use’ in a particular, prescribed way. It is, in this sense,
not ‘your’ data to do with as you wish. Your use of it is limited by their consent.
Once consent is withdrawn, you no longer have the right to keep it or use it.
In some cases a person will leave a study halfway through for reasons other than
withdrawal of consent, and will therefore be happy for you to continue to use
the data you have already collected. If you are in any doubt you should explicitly
discuss this with the person concerned. Following this, if you are still unsure you
should err on the side of caution and not use the data.

Some data protection issues when working

with children
Some data protection issues become more complex when working with children,
especially when working with children in school contexts. This is illustrated in the
following example.

Collecting data from children in school

You are conducting research in the school in which you normally work. As part
of your project you are collecting data from a group of children that you do not
teach on aspects of how well they can read and spell. You have obtained consent
to conduct the study from the headteacher, the classroom teacher, the children’s
parents and the children themselves.
248 Clare Wood

(i) After a few days, the classroom teacher makes it clear that she is expecting a
copy of the children’s reading ages ‘in exchange’ for her cooperation. What
should you do?
(ii) During a session one of the children begins to fidget and shows little interest
in the task at hand. What should you do?

Comments

(i) When working with children it is a good idea to see both parent and child as
owning any data generated by the child. Technically schools do have ‘loco-
parentis’ status and see themselves in this way. While they have consented to
host the study, they do not own the data you will collect from the children.
It is often inappropriate to simply handover data generated by a child to a
school teacher. In this situation, the best solution would be to circulate a
separate consent form to the parents explaining that the school would like
a copy of the children’s reading ages for their records, and asking them to sign
to indicate their willingness for you to release the data for that purpose. In this
example such a request is unlikely to be controversial. However, parents may
be reluctant to release other types of research data to a child’s teacher (e.g. data
about bullying, ‘intelligence’ scores). The principle here would be to always
seek consent from the parents and where possible make the children aware that
their teacher will see their work and make sure that they are happy with that
situation.
(ii) Fidgeting and this type of reluctant behaviour, especially in very young chil-
dren, should be taken as an indication that they may wish to withdraw their
consent. At school, children are used to ‘having to’ complete a task that they do
not wish to, and are therefore not used to refusing to cooperate in an explicit
way. As a result you should abandon this attempt to work with the child and
try again on another day, just in case the child is simply feeling tired. If they
behave this way on a second occasion, you should assume that consent has
been withdrawn.

This example illustrates the ways that data protection issues can be made more
complex when applied to educational research. Teachers and parents can see them-
selves as in a position of seniority over the children in their care. However, care
should be taken to ensure that the status of children as research participants is not
marginalised as a result of this. Simply because a parent consents for you to collect
data from their child, it does not follow that you can do so without the consent of
the child too. Similarly, when a parent consents to certain types of disclosure, it is
always worth checking that the child understands and is equally happy for you to
go ahead. If the child shows any concern, you should not proceed.
Teachers can assume that they have the right to see data generated by children in
their care. This is open to question, and as a model of good practice disclosure of an
individual’s data to their teachers should only occur after the consent of both parent
 Data protection issues in educational research 249

and child has been obtained. However, it should be noted that general patterns and
observations relating to the data you have collected as a whole should be fed back
to parents and schools during the normal debriefing process. It is the disclosure of
individual people’s data that data protection issues relate to.

Good habits and bad practice

A good deal of what is discussed previously is based on a sensitivity to the potential
concerns of people who consent to participate in research studies. While as respon-
sible researchers we would not seek to breach any of these principles, many are
easily neglected through carelessness, poor planning and problematic time manage-
ment. To conclude the chapter, the following are offered as ‘good habits’ to get
into, when adopted, should ensure that any data protection issues are dealt with
successfully.

(i) Being explicit. When you are recruiting people to a research study be as
explicit as possible about what data you are going to collect and what purpose(s)
they are going to be put to. Make it clear who will ‘control’ your use of the
data, and that personal data will be confidential to you. Put this in writing and
ask participants to respond with any queries.
(ii) Talking to children. If you are working with children as research participants,
no matter how little the adults around them think they will understand, you
should always talk to them about what you are interested in, what you are
proposing that they do with you, how that will help you in your work and
what you will do with that information when you have finished. Often even
the youngest children are interested by this type of talk and enjoy ‘working
with you’ rather than doing what you ask just because you have asked them.
Most importantly, check each time you see them whether they are happy to
do a given activity with you, and if necessary revisit the chat you have had
before about why you are doing it.
(iii) Transcribing material quickly. If you have to produce transcripts from audio or
video material, then bite the bullet and do this straight away. This will mean
that the raw personal data (in this case, the audio and video material) is quickly
locked away.
(iv) Coding data. This is a good habit to get into. As far as possible anonymise all
data as you obtain it and use codenames or code numbers to refer to research
participants. While this can be tedious if you are dealing with data generated
from a large number of different people, this will pay dividends in the long
run, and is your best protection from unintended disclosure of information.
(v) Being tidy. Tidiness is something that a lot of us (myself included) struggle
with, but when working with data it is a virtue. Being tidy means that tran-
scripts, videos, test sheets and contact details are never left casually on a desktop
while you grab a sandwich or are otherwise distracted.
250 Clare Wood

(vi) Having a safe place. This can take some thought and often a bit of
re-organisation regarding filing cabinets and desk drawers. If you are con-
ducting research, you will need a place that you can lock precious raw data
away in an organised and systematic fashion.
(vii) Using passwords on the computer. Setting up passwords on your personal com-
puter is a really important part of preparing for a piece of research. Where your
application programmes allow you to, you should password-protect individual
files that contain data.

Conclusion
Conducting research is a considerable responsibility, and requires careful thought,
planning and awareness of issues that will impact not just on the project in hand, but
also the participants and the eventual users of the research. Of particular importance
is involving participants in a way that respects their interests without compromising
those of others who are involved. Research is powerful in its ability to amplify some
voices and marginalise others. With respect to data protection, it is important to
recognise that we as researchers should see ourselves as managing information that
belongs to other people.
Index

action research 70, 205, 206; in Bangladesh Children Act, 1989 94

70; ethical dilemmas 206; guide to Children (Northern Ireland) Order,
207–13; in New Delhi 70; 1995 231
in Sarajevo 70 Children (Protection at Work)
aesthetic device 137, 139; influence on Regulations, 1998 240
interpretation 139 Children (Scotland) Act,
Age of Legacy Capacity (Scotland) Act, 1995 231
1991 231 children’s geographies 94, 95–9
Anthropologist on Mars, An 22 child witness 236
archetypal narrative 183 Children and Young Persons Act,
Association of Internet Researchers 1933 240
(AOIR) 151 Children and Young Persons Act,
authorial authority 115 1963 240
autobiographical film and video 147 Claiming the Real 146
code of conduct: co-operative research
‘bearers of moral consequences’ 150, 153 127–8
behavioural problems 86 communicative validity 162
Book of Learning and Forgetting 15–16 Community Care (Direct Payments) Act,
Britain’s Union of the Physically Impaired 1996 53
Against Segregation (UPIAS) 44 competence 79, 235–6; in children 235–6;
British Council of Disabled People in youth 79
(BCODP) 45, 48, 49, 52, 53;
computers: access to 160
anti-discrimination project 47–8
‘confessional’ research 104
confidentiality 237
camcorders: for research 145
chaperones 239 conflict of interest: narrative research 179
‘child-centred research’ 67 consumers of research 163–4
Child-to-Child Trust 65 contemplation: in research 35
child interviewees/interviewers 240, contextual validity 141
215–16; competence to consent 79; conversational learning 37
consent vs assent 217; legal dimensions co-operative research 125–6; code of
231; medico-legal concerns 64; payment conduct 127–8; equitable model 126–7
240; protection 240; safety 240; sexual credibility 155, 162–3, 165
abuse 239; training 240; withdrawal of ‘crisis of positionality’ 29
consent 247; working hours 240 critical knowledge 33, 39
children: legal rights 233; observation 89; ‘culture of silence’ 30
rights 63–4, 67, 69, 70, 80, 94, 161 curiosity: in research 34, 39, 40
252 Index

data: analysis 113–14; collection 161; faith 11

disclosure 244; reproduction 244; funding 29, 37, 39, 48, 110, 163, 164;
storage period 244; transfer 245 disability research 45; organisations 73
data protection 242; children issues 247–9;
practical implications 245–6 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 22
deceit 138 ‘gatekeepers’ 135, 145, 217, 232–3
deception/debriefing: narrative research gays see homosexuality
180 graduate students: research 163
deficit approach 15 Gramsci, A. 103
Dickens, Charles 17 Guide to Ethical Issues and Action Research
direct instruction 14 207–8, 209, 210, 211–13
disability: politicisation 44, 48
Disability, Handicap and Society 45
hermeneutics 22
disability research 43–6; organisations 49;
projects 53 ‘heuristic device’ 49
Disability Rights Commission (DRC) 49 ‘hit and run’ research 110, 116, 154
Disability & Society see Disability, Handicap homophobic bullying 77–8
and Society homosexuality 76–7, 80–1; e-mail 80;
disabled researchers 45 family attitude 79–80; law 80;
disputable tactics: set on ‘auto’ 136; harassment 78; in school 77–9; space
shooting ‘from the hip’ 136; ‘snooper’ constraint for interviewing 80
136; telephoto lens 136 human rights 3, 25, 71, 168, 173
dissemination 115 Human Rights Act, 1998 233
documentary films 144; pressures on the Human Rights Act, 2000 94
filmmakers 144 ‘hurry-along’ 30, 31, 35
dominant approach: consequences 13–14
image-based research 134; disputable
eBay website 156, 157 tactics 136; ethical issues 135, 147
Education Act, 1981 88 inclusive education 1–3, 9, 25, 193, 196;
educational establishments: legal culture and practice 193; ideology
position 136 10–13; research 3–6, 200–1
educational reforms 33 inferiority complex 21; needs 47, 88
educators 19–20 ‘informed consent’ 123, 142–3, 146, 154,
‘e-friends’ 154 170–1, 177
‘emancipatory’ disability research 43, 44, ‘insiders’ 205; responsibility towards
45, 48, 50, 53, 54, 198; accountability students 211
47–8; aim 45; characteristics 46–54; intensive interaction approach 169–70
current research projects 46; interviewees 111, 124; safety 232
experimental 50; factors for
‘interviewer responsibility’ 124
transformation 46; methods 50–2
interviewing 110–13; face-to-face 124;
empowerment: disabled people 45, 52,
narrative research 187
111, 126, 146
interview strategies: children with
equality 125
learning difficulties 218; ‘don’t know’
ethics, interviewing 151, 216–17; children
responses 222; effects of
94–9; parents 123–5
prompts 220–2; impact of discussion
‘ethics of intrusion’ 124
225–6; language 223–5; making
European Convention on Human
statements 218–19; multiple questions
Rights 233
219; providing résumé 223; use of
exclusion 25, 193, 194, 197, 198, 201;
pause 219–20
homosexuals 78
fabrication 138 Joseph Rowntree Foundation ( JRF) 45, 47
face-to-face interviewing 124 judgemental audience: problem of 145
 Index 253

Kesey, Ken 17 outsider knowledge 37

Kids these days 69 ownership of data 145, 173; observational
films 145, quasi-experimental
ladder image 67 research 173
law: and ethics 232
lay researchers 62 parental responsibility in research 233–6;
legal minors 79 decision on child’s behalf 234; ethical
lesbians see homosexuality issues 123–5; government policies 121;
local education authorities (LEAs) 122, 195 methodological limitations 122; research
Local Government Act, 1988 77 methods 120–1; separated parents 234;
with researchers 235
male researchers 3, 95–6 Parent Centred Organizations (PCOs) 102
meatspace see physical space parent groups 102
‘metacognitive skills’ 15 ‘parents as partners’ 119–20
moral activism 23 ‘parity of esteem’ see equality
Morning Chronicle 17 participation rights 63
moving images 140–2; and photography ‘participatory research’ 197
140–1; truth and veracity 141 partner schools: identification of 195
multiple-baseline interrupted time-series pathognomonic orientation 13
design 170; dilemmas 172; peer research 62; interviews 62–3
duration 171–2 ‘performance culture’ 30
multiple narrative 183, 185–8, 189 ‘personal data’ 242
personal narrative 183
narrative epistemology 182–3 photography 133, 134; ‘standers and sitters’
narrative ownership 180, 184 style; still 134–40
narrative research 176; anonymity 178; physical space 150
conflict of interest 179; data analysis placing 107, 108, 109
187–8; deception/debriefing 180; Police Act, 1997 239
epistemology and ethics 182–3; post-modernists 33
ownership 180, 184; recommendations postmodern/narrative approach 146;
for practice 185–8; types of 183–4 ethical issue 146
National Geographic Magazine 141 ‘post-positivism’ 51
Nolan, Christy 17 power imbalance 124
non-governmental organizations practitioner research 31
(NGOs) 64 pseudonyms 152, 157, 158, 178, 210,
‘non-participator’ 198–9 213, 237
‘pseudo-objective’ photography 140
observational films 144, 145; ownership of ‘pupil on walkabout’ 139
data 145
offline research: online and 152 quasi-experimental research 168–73;
Oliver, Mike 43 ethical issues 170; measuring tools
‘on camera’ vs ‘off camera’ 187 172–3; ownership of data 173; research
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest 17 design 170
online identity 156–7
online research 150–1; ethical issues 152, ‘realist ontology’ 51
161, 162, 164; identity 156–7; kinds of reciprocity 126; online research 157
activities 151; maxims 165–6; offline recruitment: of participants 185–6
and 152; online spaces 155; public redistribution: of resources 23–4
declaration 155; social dynamics 156 reflective practitioner 16
online spaces 155 reflective teaching 208
open communication 213 reflexive accounts 141–2, 146
‘oppositional research’ 34 repeat interviews: desirability 110, 116
254 Index

report writing: narrative research 188 ‘standpoint’ research 62

research 34; consumers 163–4; impact of still photography 134–40; and moving
209; subjective 32 images 140–1, 147; truth and
research by children 61–3, 71–3; funding veracity 141
67; involvement in adult-designed stress: in teaching 86–7, 93–4
projects 65; level of involvement 67–8; ‘structures of feeling’ 103, 105, 107; failure
methods 68–9; obstacles by adult to access 109; parent education
researchers 64; rights 63–5; in schools group 105
65; stages 66–7; training 72 stylised use cards 222
research community: types 231 subjective research 32
research data: presentation 243; protection supervisors: graduate research 163
246; security 244; tools/techniques of support behaviour development 87
collection 161
researcher-respondent relationship 104, ‘teacher as stranger’ 31
106–7; influential factors 105 teacher-researcher 84; methodology 30
researchers: and child protection 238; teachers: as learner 93; personal problems
criminal record 239; disabled researchers 86; special needs 91; stress 86–7, 93–4
45; early visual 134; male 3, 95–6 thrift 99
‘REsearching’ 84 Times Higher Education Supplement 29
research methodology 192–4; disputable ‘translation’ 114
tactics 136 typal narrative 183–4
research policy: government 38
research subjects, online 154–9; back end UN Convention on the Rights of the
issues 157–9; front end issues 154–6; in Child, 1989 63
process issues 156–7; representation Under the Eye of the Clock 17
158, 159 University of East London Ethics
‘ritual of knock and wait’ 137 Committee 127
Rousseau, J.-J. 19

Sacks, Oliver 21, 22 validity of knowledge 33

‘safe’ photography 136 ‘victim documentaries’ 143, 147
scholarship practitioners 31 visual images and video see moving images
school culture: identification 196 visual researcher 135
self-esteem 76, 88, 187 Vygotsky, Lev 19, 92
self-knowledge 22, 35, 37
sex education 77 Warnock Committee, 1978 12
social exclusion 78 Warnock Report 88
social model of disability 49–50, 54 withdrawal of consent 247
‘softly softly’ approach 135–6
special education 18, 19, 20, 21, 24 Young, Gifted and Black 107
special educational needs 47, 88, 197–8
‘standers and sitters’ style 140 ‘zone of accepted practice’ 208