Educationists are constantly in need of theory to help them explain the phenomena with which they concern themselves, in this particular case, with education systems. In the early stages of their careers as scholars, education system experts avail themselves of existing theories to explain the phenomena observable in education systems. At a later…

In this paper we reflect on our combined work in some of the most marginalised educational contexts in the Southern Hemisphere. We draw on the work of Bourdieu to frame the paper. We propose the working in marginalised education settings requires a particular habitus or way of being to be able to play the research game. Underpinning our approach…

Based on her fieldwork in post-disaster Fukushima, her hometown, the author reflects on how she negotiated insider and outsider identity as she navigated through multiple contested discourses and emotional spaces. In writing this reflective essay, she referred to the field notes she kept during her seven-month stay in Fukushima. The author…

In this paper I overlay Foucault's lectures on biopower, governmentality, and truth-telling with Braiddoti's affirmative ethical claims on the posthuman and Lazzarato's recognition of refusal as an ethical act. I do so in specific response to the ubiquity of negative critique within contemporary research that claims the critical mantle. Yet, this…

This paper describes two researchers engagement with two teachers as they taught a middle grades mathematics course, Current Events Math, in a large urban school district. The researchers share bits of data and their ethical entanglements as they entered into the site to find the truth about what works in middle grades mathematics classrooms only…

This paper explores the possibility of fashioning a queer methodology for educational research through analysis of three research studies. It begins with the question of queer visibility, asking about the ethics and utility of remaining closeted vs. disclosing one's identity. It then explores the question of researcher subjectivity and of putting…

The authors conducted an ethnography of a university queer cultural center's role on campus and in the surrounding community. The dataset included participant observation, in-depth interviews, and artifacts. The authors present a review of LGBTQA [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, ally, and questioning] issues in higher education, heterosexual…

This is a paper about the micro scale of research ethics; specifically the ethics of a multidisciplinary narrative inquiry in two Northern Finnish villages by a large group of researchers. The issues faced with in such an inquiry are approached and introduced here as a collection of individual and shared thoughts, memories, open questions, stories…

Ethical issues are fundamental in the planning and implementation of classroom research. This paper describes issues that arose as the researcher considered the ethical implications of a classroom research project studying teaching and learning issues in a grade 10 science classroom in Australia. Ethical issues were related to the relationships…

In recent years, many in anthropology have been challenging the positivist paradigm that dominated the field, with its assumption of the researcher as a transparent data gatherer and the notion of data as something to be collected through fieldwork. Questions of qualitative research methodology are also surfacing in education even as the divisions…

A researcher who is also a college teacher reflects on the personal meaning of research and the relationship between researcher and subject. As teacher-researchers embark on the process of discovery, they engage in relationships with informants. Developing these relationships requires implicit moral and ethical responsibility, mutual respect, and…

The recent requirement for education on the protection of human research subjects mandated by the federal government has the potential to impact research in all fields, including education, significantly. At this point, all key personnel involved in research using human subjects are either required or strongly recommended (depending on the type of…

The researcher recounts her own experiences as an educational administrator in a central office who examined that position in a research study of the power relations and effectiveness of women in administrative authority. The researcher's reactions to being the object of study, and being perceived in a way that differed from her self-perceptions,…

A discussion of informed consent in research on children focuses on the history of informed consent and problems of obtaining informed consent from young children. It is argued that, in the past, researchers and research monitors have assumed that parents will act in the best interests of children participating in research and protect them from…

Using a personal anecdotal style, this paper describes ethical conflicts that occurred during a study conducted in a kindergarten classroom in which the researcher was a passive observer. The paper is framed around an incident observed by the researcher in which a kindergarten student was stigmatized as an outsider and mistreated by his peer…