This article examines the ethical issues bound up in the ways research problems are initially framed: the questions asked, the temporal and spatial frames of the study, the ways participants are defined. It explores the consequences of thinking through ethical issues using recent reconceptualizations of "agency" and suggests extensions of the ways researchers define "participants" for ethical purposes. The article concludes by examining some of the reasons for the relative neglect of such issues in graduate research preparation. (Contains 1 table and 5 notes.)