Ethical Research with Children in Majority World Contexts: A Eurocentric approach?

Sinead MatsonDoctoral Candidate

John & Pat Hume Scholar

Maynooth University

The overarching aim of the doctoral study is two-fold:

1. to develop a rich, contextual understanding of children’s play in an early childhood education (ECE) setting and marginalised community in urban India.

2. to problematise the application of dominant minority world discourses to the lives of young children in living majority world contexts.

Research questions:

1. What types of play and early learning experiences are children engaged in?

2. Is play constructed as having educational value?

3. Is it appropriate to apply minority world theories, discourses, and practices universally and uncritically to the lives of children in the majority world?

4. How can a minority world researcher research appropriately in a majority world context?

Case Site:

• Urban India

• Booming construction Industry

• City’s local municipal cooperation reported approx. 40% population lives in slum settlements in 2011

• District population of over 1 million children aged birth to 8 years of age (Census, 2011)

• Labourers moved from the surrounding areas into the city bringing their families

• School for “underprivileged” children from 3-15 years of age

• Operates under a not-for-profit NGO

Case Site• Caters for over 400 children

• pre-primary, primary and lower second level schooling • State Curriculum (Lower Kindergarten – Standard X)• Play Way Curriculum in Nursery

• “Total Quality Education” • The school and NGO share a Christian ethos: holistic education (academic,

health, well-being, moral education)• Free daily hot meal• Free uniform, books & stationary• Regular free dental check ups• Free immunisation program • Free paediatrician check ups• Free self-defence classes (Taekwondo) and psychological counselling for the

older girls

Demographics• The school is bottom heavy; 2 students in 2007 to 400+ in 2017.

• Live in 10 local slum settlements in the surrounding 5 kilometre radius.

• Over 50% of the children come from two official slums settlements just 2 kilometres from the school.

• Most of the settlements have access to toilets (public), water tanks or shared tap, and electricity for at least a few hours a day.

• Predominant religion = Hindu, with a low percentage of Muslim and Buddhist.

• Unlike national average more than 50% of parents are working

• Predominant language = Marathi, followed by Hindi.

• High illiteracy rate amongst parents and Guardians.

• Predominant caste in the school = Mahar which is known within India as ‘Dalit’, ‘Backward Caste’ or ‘Untouchables’.

Early Childhood Classes Nursery: 17 children aged 3-4 years

&

Lower Kindergarten (LKG): 25 children aged 5-6 years

Upper Kindergarten (UKG):

43 children aged 5-8 years

16.17m squared = .5m squared per child 26.23m squared = >1m squared per child

Methodology• Several trips of 2-3 weeks duration to the site over 18 months.• A negotiated process and can change from trip to trip.• Co-Researching with 120 children, teachers, school management and

parents.• Research field notes, observations and photo observations.• Children – informal interviews, focus groups, drawings, photographs,

discussions using props. (Eight children so far as in depth case studies)• Teachers – informal interviews (possibility of photographs and diaries).• Management – interviews (possibility of photographs).• Parents – informal interviews (possibility of photographs).• Mosaic Approach (Clarke & Moss, 2011)• Ethnographic methodologies – immersed in school life, observations etc.

Ethical Tensions• British Education Research Association (BERA) – Ethical Guidelines for

Research 2011:“Educational research undertaken by UK researchers outside of the UK must adhere to the same ethical standards as research in the UK.” p5

• No educational research guidelines for Ireland or India currently. • Both countries tend to use the BERA guidelines. • Problematic?• Gandhi asserted that a powerful interdependence exists between the

coloniser and the colonised (1998) which leaves subsequent legacies such as this example.

“For Europe to be established as the site of civilisation, the colonised world had to be emptied of its own knowledge and value. The West, thus had to be established not only in structures but also in minds” (Gupta, 2013. p9)

• Do ethical guidelines reflect the culture and values held by society in which they were generated?

Ethical Dilemmas from the field:

“The Association takes voluntary informed consent to be the condition in which participants understand and agree to their participation without any duress, prior to the research getting underway.” (BERA, 2011) p5

However:

“The securing of participants’ voluntary informed consent, before research gets underway, is considered the norm for the conduct of research. Researchers must therefore avoid deception or subterfuge unless their research design specifically requires it to ensure that the appropriate data is collected or that the welfare of the researchers is not put in jeopardy. Decisions to use non-disclosure or subterfuge in research must be the subject of full deliberation and subsequent disclosure in reporting. The Association recommends that approval for any course of action involving deception should be obtained from a local or institutional ethics committee. In any event, if it possible to do so, researchers must seek consent on a posthoc basis in cases where it was not desirable to seek it before undertaking the research.” (BERA, 2011. p6)

Ethical Dilemmas from the field:

• Dilemma: The school require that consent for the research be given by them only.

• Reasons: 1. Local political tensions – White European Woman from a European

University may attract unwanted attention to the school (extortion etc.).

2. Families of young children are often new to the school – tentative relationship between the school and the parents (often minors themselves) from a marginalised community – Distrust of formal processes.

3. Legacy / Precedent – in line with local practice; they have always given consent.

Point of Interest!

“In its 1992 ethical guidelines, BERA suggests that care should be takenwhen interviewing children and students up to school leaving age (i.e.16 years); permission should be obtained from the school, and if they sosuggest, the parents. This is not interpretable as a lack of ethicalconsideration, but rather a way of underlining the ethical responsibilityof adults.”

Luigina Mortaria and Deborah Harcourt, 2012

P237

Solutions:1. Negotiated process: we allowed for time to pass and political tensions to settle.2. At transition times in the school I was made visible and portrayed as part of the

team and not to be feared.3. Discussed possible solutions such as introduction of policies and procedures to

include a ‘visitor’ and ‘researcher’ p&p.

4. School then agreed to parental consent from those children with whom I work closely - but school chose the children.

5. Recently, the school re-structured into a junior and senior school and during this transition they were willing to distribute and explain all 120 consent forms and information booklets.

*During this negotiated process I did not analyse any data other than that of the pilot trip. The possibility that I may not be able to use some of the data had been thought of and was a risk but that is a known and accepted risk of using a negotiated process.

Ethical Dilemmas from the field:“The confidential and anonymous treatment of participants’ data is considered the norm for the conduct of research. Researchers must recognize the participants’ entitlement to privacy and must accord them their rights to confidentiality and anonymity, unless they or their guardians or responsible others, specifically and willingly waive that right. In such circumstances it is in the researchers’ interests to have such a waiver in writing. Conversely, researchers must also recognize participants’ rights to be identified with any publication of their original works or other inputs, if they so wish. In some contexts it will be the expectation of participants to be so identified.” (BERA, 2011. p7)

However:

“In the case of participants whose age, intellectual capability or other vulnerable circumstance may limit the extent to which they can be expected to understand or agree voluntarily to undertake their role, researchers must fully explore alternative ways in which they can be enabled to make authentic responses. In such circumstances, researchers must also seek the collaboration and approval of those who act in guardianship (e.g. parents) or as ‘responsible others’ (i.e. those who have responsibility for the welfare and well-being of the participants e.g. social workers).” (BERA, 2011. p6-7)

Ethical Dilemmas from the field:

• Dilemma: The school and my interpreter / guide expressed strong dissatisfaction at making the school and participants anonymous during the pilot trip. The study is using photographs of the school and children.

• Reasons: 1. Co-research process – recognition of their work during the study

2. Validation of their existence (8 children in the data set have no known birthdays).

3. Recognition of their work as an NGO.

Solutions:

1. Negotiated Process: The school were resolute in their desire to be named in the research study and we discussed a way to give teachers, children and parents agency in deciding to be named or anonymised.

2. Change the forms to offer all participants anonymity or the choice to be identified (including risks and reminders about photographs) or if they want to remain anonymous they could choose a pseudonym but be aware that the school will be named and other participants may be named.

3. Back to Maynooth University Ethics Committee. Argued that under the UNCRC 1989 Articles 7,8 and 12 (The Right to Identity, to Preservation of Identity, and the Respect for Views of the Child) the child and parent in consultation with the school and teachers could make an informed decision on anonymity. Granted.

4. Constant monitoring and reminding by researcher during process and analysis.

Negotiated Process Research Design

• Chosen to engage and empower the people living and working in a marginalised community.

• Each decision is up for negotiation to suit the needs and circumstances of the participants living their daily lives.

• It allows for the creation of a space to dialogue with participants as co-researchers and reflect.

• It creates a space to use reflective practice and make professionally considered and responsive judgements; whether they were in-the-moment professional judgements or carefully reflected, and dialogued mutual decisions.

• It works well in an Educational research study because of the dialogical and relational nature of education as a discipline.

Ethically Considered and Responsive Research in Education

• As Educators we are used to making situated judgements which occur when there is a conflict between responsibility and accountability (Pitman, 2007).

• “Phronesis – practical judgement embedded in a moral purpose and the achievement of the good” (Pitman, 2012. P133).

• Not unlike a researcher’s ‘Ethical Radar’ (Skanfors, 2009).

• Reflexive and responsive judgement between balancing what is ethical for the situation and what is ethical as per official guidelines.

• Ethic of care (Noddings, 1984) = relational, receptive, relatedness, embodied

• Ethics of justice: obey rules, codes of conduct and guidelines

• “Ethics of justice…requires the moral agent to obey rules and codes (an external way of conceiving the ethical act), the ethics of care asks the moral agent to conduct her/himself in a way that embodies ethical values.” (Mortari & Harcourt, 2012. p241)

In Conclusion:

• I would argue that on educational grounds it is necessary to adopt the approach to ethics that I am choosing, as it is only in response to others as they are (without encroachment or imperialism) that we can gain new insights / ideas / skills etc.

• I would also argue that there is room in the BERA 2011 guidelines to use ethically considered and responsive methods and behaviours; there is room to apply the guidelines critically to majority world situations taking into account the cultural and diverse needs and lived experiences of the participants.

• However, the use of an ethical radar (Skanfors, 2009) and the act of making situated judgements (Pitman, 2007) which balance ethics of care with ethics of justice, must be employed at all times throughout the course of the research process.

Thank you!

sinead.matson@mu.ie