Research involving young people is a challenging process that requires managing relationships with diverse individuals and groups, including the young participants and their various gatekeepers. While it is normally assumed that the researcher is in overall control of their research, by using a Foucauldian conception of 'power as effects' that…

The COVID-19 pandemic posed many ethical and practical challenges for academic research. Some of these have been documented, particularly in relation to health research, but less attention has been paid to the dilemmas encountered by educational and social science research. Given that pandemics are predicted to be more frequent, it is vital to…

Contemporary epistemologists of education have raised concerns about the distorting effects of some of the processes and structures of contemporary academia on the epistemic practice and character of academic researchers. Such concerns have been articulated using the concept of epistemic corruption. In this article, we lend credibility to these…

When researching with or about families in home-based research, there are numerous unexpected ethical issues that can emerge, particularly in qualitative research. This paper is based on reflective accounts of four homed-based research projects, two in the UK and two Australia, which examined ethical dilemmas identified when engaged in home-based…

Research ethics in international and comparative education (ICE) highlights the diverse challenges that ICE researchers face in enacting ethical practice. In particular, the significant gaps between ethics presented in Western ethical guidelines and international fieldwork. Through analysis of existing guidelines and questionnaire responses from…

This paper demonstrates how fictional narratives can address ethical and epistemic problems in the creation and conduct of qualitative research. A story about international students with parental responsibilities in the UK is presented. Through this 'performance,' fictional narratives can address issues linked to ethical and epistemic desires.…

This paper reflects on an Ethical Review Board's (ERB) established structure of practice throughout a student-led project. We use the research project as a means of exploring the three questions set by the Editors, Fox and Busher, regarding the role of ERBs throughout the research process. We gained full university-level ethical approval in…

Institutional ethics review procedures aim -- in principle -- to minimise harm and evaluate risks, providing an important space to consider the safety of participants and researchers. However, literature has questioned the effectiveness of the process, particularly for reviewing 'risky' topics in a risk-averse environment. This article reports the…

There is increasing emphasis on understanding economic advantage alongside disadvantage -- on studying both 'poverty' and 'riches'. This trend prompts and requires new ethical reflection. I argue that in qualitative interview research, a clearer distinction needs to be drawn between ethical commitments to individual research participants, and the…

Purpose: The use of online focus groups to explore children and young people's (CYP) perspectives of inequalities in health and associated "sensitive" topics raises important ethical and methodological issues to consider. The purpose of the paper is to discuss lessons learnt from navigating the authors' way through some of the key…

Neoliberal reform of the university sector has resulted in increasing numbers of academics employed on casual or fixed-term contracts. While there is an emergent body of literature on issues of precarity in the academy, relatively little attention has been paid to the roles and responsibilities of those tenured academics who employ and…

Disability research often favours the use of disabled researchers carrying out research with disabled participants. It is believed to empower disabled people and create results that are more valid. However, little consideration has been given to the ethical implications of this type of research process, including in relation to female researcher…

Discussion of ethics in doctoral training courses usually focuses on the initial stages of planning and conducting field research. Shifting attention onto the responsibility of the researcher to share their findings throughout the research process, we set out to consider how doctoral students can conceptualise and engage ethically with research…

Engaging with primary researchers during qualitative secondary analysis is a practice much recommended but rarely written about. In this article, I reflect on my experience of crossing an imagined boundary between the discrete textual dataset and its creators, of acknowledging and engaging with those researchers who invested in constructing the…

This article aims to offer insights into how people living with intellectual disabilities by intraacting with researchers and technology, can inform and improve participation in research and the dissemination of it. It draws upon the experiences from adults with intellectual disabilities and researchers participating in the production of…