Obtaining ethical approval for my PhD research with adults with learning (intellectual) disabilities presented an unexpected challenge of learning to work with two sets of guidance: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the Ethical Conduct in Human Research and Related Activities Regulations (HRR).…

It is widely assumed that researchers must normally secure informed consent from participants if research is to be ethical. But what exactly are people being asked to consent to? Most obviously, it is to supplying, or providing access to, data; but are they also agreeing that this data can be used in any way relevant to the research, or do they…

In this research note, I use an autoethnographic approach to examine the challenges of qualitative research for queer scholars, and to bring the embodied, interactive, and gendered research experience to life. I compare and contrast how my queer embodiment and identity was received, or erased, in two different research contexts, both within the…

This paper considers the potential for the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) of England and Wales to incentivise the exclusion of people with dementia from research. The MCA is intended to standardise and safeguard the inclusion of people with cognitive impairments in research. This entails various procedural requirements, which in pressurised research…

With teacher walkouts and other forms of protest on the rise, EdD programs are beginning to frame practitioner-scholars' work as activism. The purpose of this article is to explore and complicate that trend by interpreting data from oral history interviews with three long-term teacher researchers, alongside shifting historical scholarship on civil…

Pulling from a participatory action research project with human rights activists in Myanmar, this article builds on post-colonial, decolonial and third world feminist theories (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Mahrouse, 2014; Mohanty, 2003; Mutua, 2001; Said, 1993; Weissman, 2004) around inherent power imbalances in international human rights work by…

Health education and promotion researchers and practitioners are committed to eliminating health disparities, and the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) has continuously supported this effort through its journals, professional development, annual conferences, and advocacy. The COVID-19 pandemic elucidated inequities directly caused by…

Jacoba Matapo, Associate Dean Pasifika in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, opens this discussion by introducing herself by way of her pepha; which she says is integral to who she is. She defines this as her way of being, connecting, and knowing the world. She describes herself as a Samoan, New Zealand-born Pasifika…

Freedom of information (FOI) requests are increasingly used in sociology, criminology and other social science disciplines to examine government practices and processes. University ethical review boards (ERBs) in Canada have not typically subjected researchers' FOI requests to independent review, although this may be changing in the United Kingdom…

Public intellectuals today must be understood in relation to the concept of 'viral modernity', characterised by viral and open media and technologies of post-truth that reveal the dramatic transformations of the 'public', its forms and its future possibilities. The history, status and role of the public intellectual are constituted by both the…

Middle East Region is home to more than 400 million people, representing 5% of world population, and boasts a workforce of 103 million scattered across 22 countries (Lord, 2016). Sixty five percent of the populations are young aged 25 or under, which puts growing stress on educational, health and social systems. Over the last decade, most Middle…

Transformative researchers have the potential to contribute to both personal and societal transformation. In this article, I argue that the two are intertwined and that personal transformation is a necessary component of research that is designed to support change at the societal level in the form of furthering human rights and social justice. I…

This article examines the language used to discuss transgender people on university campuses. This study asks how, despite seemingly benefitting transgender people, the discourses carried by the documents that discuss trans people may actually undermine the intended goals of policy initiatives. For example, a report on the status of transgender…

The debate about Norwegian religious education, since the change towards a more multi-faith and non-confessional school subject in 1997, has often touched upon issues of impartiality, using concepts such as neutral, objective, descriptive, critical and pluralistic. Still, international Human Rights bodies have criticised Norwegian regulations for…

On the day that Henrietta Lacks died, researcher Dr. George Gey excitedly appeared on national television. He held a vial of her cells in his hand for the entire world to see and stated, "It is possible that, from a fundamental study such as this, we will be able to learn a way by which cancer can be completely wiped out." Once separated…