Auto/biographical narrative research that touches on 'sensitive' areas can elicit accounts that researchers may find distressing and threatening to their emotional and psychological health. In this paper we offer a 'confessional tale' through which we consider our experiences of investigating a sensitive and painful topic from the perspectives of…

This paper considers some of the decisions that researchers take and raises issues around researcher reflexivity, identity, values and ethics. It focuses attention on researchers and reflects on how the research they do, the topics they investigate, the methodologies they espouse, the methods they use and the writing/reporting styles they adopt,…

Like Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, and many others, the author "wants a social science that is committed up front to issues of social justice, equity, non-violence, peace, and universal human rights" (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Educational research, as she and the three authors whose papers make up this symposium of…

What it is like to be an academic working in a "new" university in the 2000s depends upon specific contexts and individual biographies. Even so, it is the case that change, contingent upon local and national policy initiatives, is endemic in the higher education sector and has had some impact upon most people working there. This article explores…