The Research Context Flashcards
What’s the main five groups and settings in education whose distinctive characteristics may make them easy or difficult to study
- Pupils
- Teachers
- Parents
- Classrooms
- Schools
- Researching pupils
Hill suggests that there are three major differences between studying young people and adults:
- power and status
- ability and understanding
- vulnerability
These differences raise particular practical, ethical and theoretical issues that researchers need to take into account when researching pupils.
Power and status
- children and young people generally have less power and status than adults. Make it more difficult for them to state their attitudes and views openly.
- schools are a hierarchy institution that give teachers higher statutes and power over pupils. - teachers may sometimes even be able to use this power to influence which pupils are selected for research.
- formal research methods such as structured interviews or questionnaires tend to reinforce power differences, the researcher determines what questions are asked and how answers are formulated.
Ability and understanding
Pupils vocabulary, powers of self expression, thinking skills and confidence are likely to be more limited than those of adults particularly when trying to express abstract ideas.
- abstract ideas = central part of sociology research
- questions need to be worded clearly so they are understood
- younger children may need more time to understand questions - young people’s memories are less developed
Vulnerability and ethical issues
-young people are often more vulnerable to physical and psychological harm than adults. This raises special ethical issues for the researcher.
- the researcher should consider whether the participant of young people in the research is actuality necessary and whether they stand to benefit from it
- the greater vulnerability of young people means that there are more ‘gatekeepers’ controlling access to pupils than there are for most other social groups.
Laws and guidelines
- child protection laws such as safeguarding vulnerable groups act 2006,this may prevent of delay researchers from carrying out their research
- as a result of ethical concerns, organisation have developed special codes of practise for researching young people
- teachers
teachers often feel over worked and may be less than fully cooperative, even when they want to be helpful.
power and status
- power relationships in the school are not equal.
- teachers have legal responsibility and duty of care towards the young people they teach.
- nature of classroom reinforces power of the teacher
- researchers may be seen as trespassers
- covert investigation means researchers would need to develop a ‘cover’
- often go into the lower status roles and therefore may not be treated as equals by the teacher
impression management
- teachers are more willing to be observed e.g ofsted inspections
- because its a major part of the teachers role it to ‘put on an act’ for pupils and others, teachers are highly skilled at what goffman calls ‘impression management’ - manipulating the impression that other people have us.
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- classrooms
- closed social setting with clear physical and social boundaries.
- highly controlled setting.
- young people very rarely experience this control
- as a result, the classroom behaviour that the researcher observes may not be accurately reflect what those involved really think and fell
gate keepers
- school environments, access to classrooms is controlled by a wide range of gate keepers. including head teachers, teachers and child protection laws.
peer groups
- young people may be insecure about their identity and status. therefore when in school based groups such as classes and friendship groups, they mat be more sensitive to peer pressure and the need to conform.
- this means it may be necessary to supervise pupils when they are filling in questionnaires. in order to prevent peers from infulencing answers
- schools
schools own data
- the education system is also highly marketised, with parental choice and competition between schools.
- partly as a result, there is a great deal of secondary data publicly available about schools, often produced by the schools themeslelves. includes exam results and league tables, figures on truancy and subject choices, ofsted report ect. schools are therefore ‘data rich’ places and sociologists may be able to use of some of these secondary sources.
the law
- the law in effect requires young people to attend school in order to be educated
- having such a ‘captive population’ to study has both advantages and disadvantages.
- schools operate within a particular legal framework
gatekeepers
- head teachers and governors are gatekeepers who have the power to refuse the researcher access to the school. they may also do so if they believe that the researcher will interfere with the work of the school or undermine teachers authority
- meighan and harber heads somerimes view research negatively. e.g heads reactions to a research project that they wanted to carry out on consulting pupils about teaching included negative views such as, it is dangerous to involve pupils in commenting on their teachers
school organisation
- schools are formal organisations with rules and hierarchies.
- researchers may be seen as part of the hierarchy e.g pupils see them as teachers.
school organisation
- parents
parents can influence what goes on in education e.g:
- by how they bring up their children
- by their involvement in school
- marketisation policies encourage parents to see themesleves as consumers.
however, parents are not an easy group to study.
- pro school middle class parents may be more likely than working class parents to return questionnaires.
- parental permission is requires for many forms of research with pupils. how likely parents are to give permission may depend on sesnitivty of the research.
access to parents
- many sociologists see parents as playing a vital role in childrens education. however, most parent child interaction takes place at home. as a private setting often closed to researchers
-unlike other important groups within education, parents are unusual in that they are for the most part physically located outside school
the researchers own experience of education
- virtually everyone - including researchers - has had an experience of education. researchers can draw on their own experience of education.
- schools may be seem like ‘natural’ environments to sociologists. must be aware of assumptions.
