Professional researcher or a 'good guest'? Ethical dilemmas involved in researching children and families in the home setting

Yee, Wan Ching; Andrews, Jane

Abstract

In this article we explore our experiences of researching children and families in the home setting. We trace the impact of the home setting on some ethical and methodological issues which arose in the course of conducting our field work and consider issues of consent, confidentiality, power, leaving the field and specifically our dilemmas, both personal and professional, around researcher identity. We suggest that our dilemmas can be encapsulated as a struggle between the conflicting requirements of the professional researcher and the 'good guest'.Drawing upon our interviews with over 100 children and families in the Home School Knowledge Exchange (HSKE) project, we pose questions about the relationship between the researcher and the families. In reflecting on our own experiences we draw on the work of other social researchers and in addition we consider the function and efficacy of professional codes of practice to prepare and protect researchers and respondents in the field.

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2006
• Journal: Educational Review
• Print ISSN: 0013-1911
• Electronic ISSN: 1465-3397
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 397-413
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910600971859
• Keywords: ethical dilemmas, researching, children, families, home
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1035575
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131910600971859
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This paper addresses a fundamental ethical dilemma faced by researchers in the home between being a 'professional researcher' and a 'good guest'. It argues that the private nature of the home environment and the relationships it supports present some important challenges to researchers employed to collect data from children and their families. The paper was originally presented as an invited paper at a TLRP seminar in 2005. Andrews is responsible for 50% of this output.