Full Description
This book is for everyone who cares about how people, communities, and institutions are treated through research processes, and what we learn from research that impacts them.
This accessible book helps researchers avoid unintentional harm to research participants, communities, institutions, and organizations. The book assists researchers in building knowledge, attitudes, dispositions, skills, and practices to co-construct knowledge with people and communities to inform policies and practices. Grounded in research and theory, the book focuses on three essential qualitative research methods: interviewing, observation, and document analyses. Readers are invited to employ ethical, compassionate, and rigorous practices committed to harm prevention, particularly important in today's declining democracy.
The authors explore how to collect evidence, build and substantiate knowledge, and disseminate it in ways that honor, protect, and work in partnership with research participants and communities to improve human conditions. While early career and veteran researchers will find the book useful, so should parents, activists, policymakers, and anyone who cares about the health and well-being of people who participate in research and what we learn from it.
Book Features:
Introduces a set of four commitments to "Do No Harm in Research" for readers to adopt and adapt to their own context and content.
Written in an accessible tone and structure that is suitable for readers across different disciplines such as education, sociology, psychology, human development, health sciences, political science, ethnic studies, history, and social work.
Offers real-life scenarios to help readers think about how they would approach aspects of their work differently by applying Do No Harm commitments in their own research planning and practices.
Moves beyond philosophical debates and paradigm wars about the importance of qualitative research over other research traditions to focus on cultivating research practices and outcomes for equity and inclusion.
Contents
Contents
Series Foreword xi
Introduction: Commitments to Do No Harm in Qualitative Research 1
Areas of Research to Address Harm 3
Qualitative Research and Harm Prevention 6
Harm in Research Processes 8
Positionality: Who Are We? And Why Us and This Book? 10
Do No Harm Research Commitments 14
1. Framing Phases of Do No Harm Research 21
Credibility as Harm Prevention 21
Preactive Phase of Research 23
Interactive Phase of Research 27
Postactive Phase of Research 30
Summary and Conclusions 33
2. Do No Harm in Interviewing 34
What Are Interviews and Why Do They Matter? 34
Why Trust Matters in Interviewing 37
Remembering Culture in Interviews 38
Pláticas as a Form of Interviewing 43
3. Do No Harm in Observations 49
Culture and Bias in Observation 50
Seeing and Not Judging 52
Structured Observation 54
Field Experiments 57
Participant Observation 59
4. Do No Harm in Document Analyses 63
What Is Document Analysis and Why Does It Matter? 65
Benefits of Document Analysis 68
Selecting 70
Meaning-Making 71
Synthesizing Information 73
5. Applying Do No Harm in Research Commitments to Scenarios 78
Case Study 1: Homework Policy and Outside of School Responsibility 79
Case Study 2: Studying a Teacher's Professional Development Reflections and Her Subsequent Practices 82
Case Study 3: Dress Code Reminder, Corridor Interactions, and a Scarf Annalise Loves 83
Case Study 4: Math Labeling, Tracking, and Special Education Referral 86
Case Study 5: Assumptions About Demond, Basketball, and Family History 87
Case Study 6: Evaluating Campus Climate 90
Case Study 7: Community Organizations, People, and Advancing Vision 91
Summary and Conclusions 93
Conclusion: Making Do No Harm Commitments Normalized Practices 97
Research as a Form of Punishment 98
Moving Beyond Research as a Form of Punishment 99
Positionality as Essential to Do No Harm 100
Harm-Preventative Research From the Very Start 102
Endnotes 107
References 109
Index 117
About the Authors 123
