132 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY EXERCISE 6.2 "no- OBJECTIVE: To enhance students' writing skills through regular practice. DESCRIPTION: Practice your writing skills by starting a diary called Siories of The Day- Everyday record an interesting event that happened to you or someone you know. Write these stories as it you were verbally sharing them with an audience. Make your descriptions detailed and clear. Don't assume your audience is familiar with the characters and the settings. •r EXERCISE 6.3 ,. „ OBJECTIVES: To encourage students to solicit feedback from their peers and to evaluate their writing based on how well it is understood by others. DESCRIPTION: Ask someone to read aloud a short paper you wrote for a class. Pay attention to how they might struggle with your sentences or writing style. Take notes on things you can correct to make your paper sound better. Make these corrections and ask your friend to reread the paper. Hov/ has your paper improved? >t> lyfr 7 Ethics in Qualitative Research The basic principles 134 Voluntary participation 135 Protection of the research participants 136 Confidentiality and anonymity 137 Benefit to the research participants 138 The informed consent model 139 Developing a written consent form 139 The limitation of the informed consent model as applied to qualitative research 141 Research roles and audiences 142 Chapter summary 143 Suggested readings 144 Exercises 144 In investigating people's experiences, the researcher enters a relationship with those she or he studies.The ethics of social research have to do with the nature of the researcher's responsibilities in this relationslup. or the things that should or should not be done regarding the people being observed and written about. This is not significantly different from what wc do in other relationships. We try to be polite, treat people with respect, and don't do or say anything that will harm them. Good manners are a good beginning, but actual research scenarios may require guidelines that go beyond conunon courtesy. My own fieldwork at a homeless shelter presented a number of ethical dilenurias. For example, there was Gregory* (pseudonyms are used here to protect the identities of respondents). He was a middle-aged white man who Uved on the streets near the shelter. Gregory was a talented ýbet and author who suffered from alcoholism. As wc became more familiar with each other, he began asking me to buy him beer. So as a matter of courtesy, from time to time 1 paid for his bar lab. Unfortunately, Gregory's drinking became worse and his requests for money to support his habit became more frequent and direct. He started leaving messages on my home answering machine begging me to meet him at a bar to pay his tab. 1 finally decided that it was unethical for me to support his addiction and stopped helping him.Thc next phone call I received 134 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY tom Gregory was from a local jail where he was being held for shoplifting a bottle of beer Írom a convenience store. He wanted me to make'iffrangeinents for his legal defense. 1 went to visit Gregory at the jail and told him there was very- litde I could do for him. Several weeks later he was released and subsequendy left for New York City. I did not hear from him again. During my research, [ also met a homeless man namedTony. He was in his mid-twenties and had a passion for movie making. Since part of my project involved videotaping interviews with the street people around the shelter, I askcdTony if he would operate the camcorder while I asked questions from the respondents. He accepted my request and took the work very seriously. On one occasion, I asked Tony TO help me edit some of our raw footage into a short documentary. We showed the work to a group of college students at a gathering in support of the homeless. It was well received andTony was delighted to be part of the project. Tony also acted as my informant, taking me to places where the homeless spent their time. To return the favor, I helped Tony fill out his applications for a local college and gave him advice on applying for government-subsidized financial aid. As I saw it, this was a fair arrangement where we both benefited, but I gradually realized that Tony believed his participation in my research would help him become an independent filmmaker. At one point, he suggested that we edit the tapes into a short independent film about the homeless. I did not object to his ambitions but thought that his expectations about our collaborations were unrealistic. So I gently reminded him that I was mainly collecting data for a dissertation. If he were hurt by this, he hid it well. His interest in my work dissipated over time. Tony eventually secured a job at a local movie theater as an usher. On the occasional Saturday night when I went to sec a movie where he workcd.Tony would get my attention from a distance by shouting,'Hey, when are we going to work on that 61m together?* I would smile and say with embarrassment,'I don't know' Thinking about these stories may cause you to wonder if you would have handled these situations differendy. Is it possible that I was not forthcoming enough about the purpose of my research widi Tony? Perhaps I was too involved with Gregory and should have severed my tics with him much earlier. The point of these stories for the present discussion is diat qualitative research involves working with people and making ethical choices about how to treat them. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the central issues related to ediics in qualitative research. I begin by learning about the basic principles that concern all researchers when working with human participants. I then discuss how informed consent documents arc developed and administered in order to protect research participants and end this chapter by considering the limitations of the" informed consent protocol as employed in qualitative research. The basic principles Today most researchers, regardless of their discipline or methodological orientation, recognize that when working widi human subjects (as opposed to cultural ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 13S artifacts or objects), certain steps must be taken to protect the dignity and safety of the research participants. However, the wide acceptance and implementation of diisediical awareness is a relatively new dwelopment. As recendy as the 1970s, highly unethical social and medical studies were being conducted in the United States. In one of the most troubling examples of unscrupulous research, a group of 399 African-American men afflicted with syphilis unknowingly became participants in a medical experiment (Jones 1981: 1-23). From the 1930s to 1970s, the physicians assigned to these men deliberately did not treat them for their ailment, even after penicillin was developed and could have been used as a cure. Instead, the patients were secredy experimented on to examine the efiects of untreated syphilis. By the rime this U.S. Public Health Service study was exposed and subsequendy terminated, many of the patients whose condition had gone untreated for years had either died horribly or become more severely ill. Instances of unethical research are not limited to medical experiments. Among social scientists in the United States, a well-known example of unethical research is Humphreys' Tearoom Trade (1970). Humphreys studied anonymous homosexual encounters in semi-public places. Specifically, he was interested in the background of men who had sex with other men in public restrooms. After positioning himself in a restroom in a city park, he gained the trust of the men who frequented it by acting as a lookout for them while they engaged in sexual activities. Humphreys secredy recorded their license plate numbers, and with the help of the police discovered who they were and where they lived. Months later, he visited the men in their homes disguised as a medical survey researcher. He gathered additional information about these men and their families and subsequendy published his research in a book that was widely praised before questions were raised about its ethics. One of the main findings of his work was that many of the men in his study were married and of middle class background — a discovery that was made possible through the covert invasion of the subjects'privacy. Such flagrant abases of research subjects in the name of science have led to the establishment of specific codes of conduct.Whilc these may vary across disciplines and national boundaries, there are a number of general principles that most researchers would agree with. The following presents a brief review of these principles (i.e., voluntary participation, protection of research participants, potential benefit to participants and guidelines on the use of deception). Voluntary participation Participation in a research project should be voluntary; you should not psychologically or physically force your subjects to take part in your research. Let us consider a number of scenarios that run the risk of violating diis principle. Suppose a sociologist, Professor Johnson, asks his students to fill out a short-answer questionnaire for a course on social stratification and poverty. The required assignment involves writing about your personal or family experiences with poverty. You are supposed to answer questions like: 'Have you and your family ever experienced economic hardship? If so. describe how you felt about 136 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY it?; In your view, what has been the psychological impact of such an experience on you?;' and 'If you have not personally experienced financial difficulties, you may answer these questions about a relative or an acquaintance.' Professor Joluison informs thai excerpts from the survey questionnaires will be used anonymously for a research project about college students' attitudes toward poverty. Has the principle of voluntary participation been violated in this case? Some would say the answer is yes. Given that the assignment is required, the students' decision not to participate most certainly will hurt their grades.Thcy have to participate regardless of how they feel about their personal accounts being used for research purposes. On the other hand, if Professor Johnson ofťercjJ several assignment choices, only one of which was the autobiographical one, .then the decision to partake in the project is voluntary. Alternatively, Johnson might make the research voluntary by announcing that the answers may not be used without your consent. Similarly, the principle of voluntary participation can be violated when you lure the indigent into a study by offering them monetary rewards. For example, to get an interview with a homeless person, a researcher might offer them five dollars. Is this ethical? Many would argue that it isn't because asking the poor to participate in a study in exchange for money is the moral equivalent of asking a starving person to answer a few questions in exchange for a plate of food. What is the solution? One possibility is to solicit interviews without any rewards. Another approach is to contact their service providers and ask if they know of anyone who is willing to be interviewed. How about when you arc observing people in public places such as malls or restaurants? Do you need to approach each patron for permission to observe them? The general consensus is that what people do in public places is by definition diere for all to observe.The same guideline applies to public statements. If in a published newspaper editorial I refer to my personal experiences, you don't need my permission to use words that are already public domain (obviously, you have to cite the author and die source). What if the interviewee is a child or someone who is mentally incapacitated? In these cases, the recommendation is to gain consent from a parent or a guardian before proceeding with the research. As these examples indicate, it is sometimes difficult to assess the degree to which the subjects' participation is completely voluntary. While a strictly legalistic interpretation of the phrase 'voluntary participation' might be useful in some cases, you may ultimately have to rely on your own judgment and sense of morality to determine if the person you are researching is fully aware of the implications of their involvement in your study. Protection of the research participants Even if your respondents voluntarily takú part in your study, they may not be in a position to fully appreciate the potential harm they could suffer from their participation. For example, after obtaining permission from members of a support group for the chronically depressed, a researcher proceeds to conduct ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 137 interviews about the sources of their mental illness. One of (he questions that comes up during the interview is whether or not the respondent has been a victim of child abuse. Specifically, the researcher asks,'Have you been sexually or physically abused by a relative or an acquaintance? If so, please describe how this happened and when?' Suppose die respondent tries to answer this question and in the process has to recall a very painful past. After the interview, the respondent becomes even more depressed and tries to commit suicide. Is the researcher to blame for this unfortunate event, given that the participation was completely voluntary? In this example, it is likely that the respondent did not know the consequences of participating in the study. Given the sensitive nature of child abuse, perhaps our researcher should have taken precautionary steps to terminate the interview if the respondent appeared overly emotional. At the very least, the research participants should have been informed in advance about the types of questions they would be asked and reminded that they have the option not to answer certain questions or to end the interview whenever they wish; In theory, researchers should take every reasonable measure to protect their subjects from harm, but in reality, it is impossible to anticipate every risk. One reason for this is that your study might affect respondents in different ways. In the example above, for some participants talking about their past might indeed be therapeutic, whereas for others it might be traumatic. In the end, it ii your responsibility as a researcher to minimize potential harm as much as possible. This means that in some cases you may have to abandon your research idea altogether because the risk of harm is too great. For example, psychologists may find it very interesting to study the effect of social isolation on children as this would teach us a great deal about the importance of socialization. However, the thought of separating innocent children from all their loved ones is unconscionable no matter what the scientific merit of the study. Confidentiality and anonymity An important part of protecting your research subjects is guarding their privacy; revealing the identities of your respondents could harm them. For example, if you were researching homosexual couples who preferred to keep their lifestyle secret from their relatives, disclosing their names would seriously damage their family relationships- Or suppose you were interviewing high school studenLs about drug use and they reported that they experimented with marijuana. If your respondents were exposed, iriey could be expelled torn school and possibly face legal charges. Privacy is also a concern when dealing with more conventional topics. For example, in an ethnography of a hospital, the nurses might disclose their opinions about the physicians they work with. A nurse might gripe about how a certain doctor is always late for her/his appointments. Revealing the respondents identity in this case may result in her/his dismissal from work. 138 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY 'Confidentiality and anonymity ate two aspects of (he privacy issue. Confidentiality means that the identit)1 of the respondent wili'fiot be disclosed Co anyone. So when you refer to a particular research participant in your writing, as 1 did earlier in this chapter when discussing Gregory and Tony, you keep their identities hidden by using fictional names. You should also try to disguise other identifying information, such as where they live or work. For example, if you arc doing your research in Gainesville, Florida, you might refer to the location as'a small city in the southeastern United States.' Or if your data was collected at a hospital named Bcthcsda Memorial, you should change the name to something like 'Qairmount Memorial.' Overall, confidentiality implies that, except for the researcher, no one else will know the identit)' of the participants. Anonymity means that even the researcher does not know the identity of the respondents. In qualitative studies where you observe people in various settings and interview them fäce-to-ťäce. complete anonymity is impossible - in most cases you meet research participants in person. Nevertheless, certain steps can be taken toward providing subjects with limited anonymity. For example, if the interviews arc taped, do not label the cassettes with the respondents' actual names. Either use fictional names or organize your tapes using randomly assigned numbers. Similarly, you can create a set of pseudonyms for all your research participants and use them in your notes instead of their real names. It is likely that over time you forget what their real names were and remember them only by the fictional names you assign to them. Benefit to tho resoarch participants We rely on research respondents to provide the raw material for our analysis and reports. They share with us their time and social experiences, but usually they are not financially compensated for their contributions. So. how do we pay them back? The ethical concern here is to ensure that the research-subject relationship is mutually beneficial. We don't want to exploit subjects or respondent, taking from them without giving anything back.To make this arrangement more equitable, the research project could be designed in a way that benefits the subjects and their communities. For example, let's say you plan to study how children construct ethnic or racial identities for themselves and others by positioning yourself at a daycare center as a volunteer and observing how children interact with one another on the playground, which is precisely what Van Ausdale and Fcagin did in their book The First R: How Children team Race and Ratism (2002).Their study provides disturbing, but cyc-opening, accounts of how young children use racist epithets in reference to their peers. How was this project beneficial to the research participant? Van Ausdale and Fcagin reason that in the end their work indirectly benefits the children by informing parents and educators about potential problems with the way dieir charges learn about and practice race and ethnicity. -----' ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 139 Sociological studies that more explicitly encourage respondents' full participation in all phases of the research process with the goal of bettering their lives arc referred to as 'participatory research.'As Small notes: Participatory researchers ate openly »ml cxplirilly political. Their ideology emphasizes large-scale structural force», conflicts of interest, and the need to overcome oppression and inequality through tiamioiming the existing social order. I lie lack of access to useful and valued forms of knowledge by oppressed or disenfranchised people is viewed as a major problem that can be overcome duough the retcarcli process. (1995: 944) As a whole, qualitative studies can be beneficial in three important ways (Silverman 2001:271—51). First, they could help increase awareness, and stimulate debate, about public policies. Research on the health care system, for example, has provided much useful information about needed improvements. Second, qualitative research could make people more aware of their choices. In the example above, Van Ausdale and Feagin's research encourages another choice for constructing children's racial identities, one that is more inclusive and tolerant. Finally, qualitative research provides 'new perspectives' on old problems. For example, my research questions the conventional profile of'the homeless' as being helpless victims of poverty, mental illness, and drug abuse. 1 suggest that contrary to these stereotypical representations, some homeless people make rational choices about their lives, particularly in regard to where and how they receive social services (Marvasti 2003). The ethical principles of voluntary participation and protecting and benefiting the participants are sometimes addressed through a formal protocol, which is briefly reviewed in the next section. Tho informed consent model To address these basic ethical issues in working with human subjects, sometimes researchers use what is referred to as an informed cowenf.This includes written or verbal statements that provide research participants with a general description of the research project along with its potential harms and benefits. Some academic institutions in the United States ask all researchers to make use of the informed consent protocol under the guidelines of the office of Institutional Review Boards (IRfi). An 1KB is a committee composed of representatives from various departments in a university and is charged with reviewing all research projects involving human subjects. Before allowing a suidy to proceed, IRB might request further clarification or changes to the design and implementation of the research. Let us consider the elements of a written informed consent. Dovoloplng a written consent form A written consent form should address all the ediical concerns introduced earlier in this chapter. Namely, it should emphasize that: I*) QUALITATIV* RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY • Participation is voluntary. • No harm will come to che participants (if there is any ríllťof harm, it should be clearly described). • The participants' privacy will be protected (steps that will be taken to ensure protection of privacy should be listed speci6calh/). Think of the informed consent as a contract that specifies your ethical responsibilities to the respondents. If your research is conducted under the auspices of an academic institution in the United States and the IRB has approved your project, violations of tlie informed consent agreement may have legal ramification* for you and your school Below is an example of an informed consent form from a study that my colleague and I developed for our research on Middle Eastern Američani. INFORMED CONSENT FORM Till« of Project: Middle I ».tern Live» in the United States 1 Pmijmm of the saury: The purpose of ihn study u lo bring to Bgh« ihe »ounce of Middle Easterners in America and to »how the human complexity or th«ir lim, The work gives special attention t" liow members of this ethnic group cope with, resist and comb" discrimination 2 Procedures 10 beJollowediWe icque« thai yon answer a number of in-depth questions in this audioQped focus group <>r interview Afterwards, you will be asked to complete a shon survey quesnontuurr We expect your entire parocipauon wiU take approximately 90 minutes 3 Dncowýeru and riskr As w*h any research study, the only possible discomfort you might experience from participation '" 'hit study is that you could he uncomfortable answering certain queitioru For tint reason, you may decline to answer any or all of our quesnotu. or you ii>ay nop participating at any time. 4 Bcnefiir. This is an opportunity for Middle Easterners like yourself to picsent a balanced and unbiased perspective on their lives 5 Stammt oflonfidmnaht, Your participation in this tcseaich is confident»). Only the researcher» will haw access to the audiotape and transcription of your interview along with any other infoimanon thai discloses your identity m ihu research project All these materials will be ttored at Dr. Marvasôš residence and wil bfl destroyed by the end of the year 2003. No Identifying label* will be attached to the audiotape (the audiotape will not be associated with your identity). Also, in the event of publication of this rwesrcli. no personally identifying information will be disclosed. You r name will be changed to an alias in any publications or rcporu.aiid any details which might idcnurV you will alto be removed. 6 Right u sA oMitiotu: You can aul questions about the research. The people in charge wiD answer your quesocfu Contact Dr. MarvasQ or Dr. McKinney 7 Voluntary partkiptUwi-Yom participation is completely voluntary.You may refuse to answer any questions you do not wish to answer. You may end your participation at any time without penalty by tcllinu the researchers. You must be IS years of age or older to consent to participation in this research study. If you consent to participate in this research study and to the terms above, please sign your name and indicate the date below You will be given a copy of thu consent form to keep for your records (Adapted from MarvasQ and McKinney, twthcoiiiuig) CTHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 141 Before each interview, we present our respondents with a more expanded version of this form. Without the respondents' signature and approval, we do not proceed.The people contacted for our study have expressed that they are comfortable with the safeguards that arc put in place for their protection. However, such contractual agreements arc not without problems. The next discussion considers some of these shortcomings. The limitation» of the Informed consent model m* applied to qualitative research The informed consent approach is very useful in specifying ethical boundaries for researchers. However, these guidelines are based on the assumptions of quantitative, survey research, where questions are asked from a known sample with very lictlc variation from one respondent to another. The problem is that, in qualitative research sometimes the interview question« and the focus of the project itself changes in the course of the study. Depending on the circumstances, one interview may be very different fiom another Thu is especially true for in-depth interviews in which follow-up questions emerge spontaneously in reaction to respondent's comments. Since one cannot anticipate the exact direction the interview will take, it is impossible to inform fully the respondent about the focus of the «tudy in advance. Similar problems arise In ethnographic studies (see Chapter 3), where in die course of your observations, you come in contact with many people in many settings. In general, in the context of qualitative- research. two äcton impede the full implementation of informed consent guidelines: 1. it may be difficult to define precisely the characteristics and number of research participants in advance, and 2. the focus of the study and the related research questions may undergo changes over llie course of the project. These challenges have led some qualitative researchers to raise fundamental questions about the feasibility of informed consent. For example. Lawton (2002), in her study of dying patients at a hospice (a medical/residential facility designed for the care of the terminally ill), underscores the many ethical concerns that informed consent guidelines fail io address. Specifically, she asks how informed is informed consent? Lawton makes the case that many of the dying pauents she studied were not alert enough to fully understand the purpose of her research. At the same time, she nolfs that it may be necessary to continually remind research participants of the informed consent agreement since in prolonged studies, such as ethnographies, the participants may be observed many time« in many situations for diflcrcnt purposes. Overall, while the principles of informing and protecting tcspondents play a significant role in quantitative and qualitative research, there may be diflěr-ences in die way these guidelines are implemented for the two approaches. Quantitative research is more inductive, it starts with a set of clearly stated ■ 142 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY TAfetE 7.1 Silverman's three research roles_________________ Role ____________________ Politic»______________________CortJrnilnmnt_______ Scholar Liberal Knowlodgo fot knowledgo's soke, protoctod by scholar's conscience Slate counselor Bureaucratic Social engineering or enlightenment for policymakers Partisan Letting Righlwing Knowledge to support both a political theory and political ____________________________________________________practice________________ Source: adapted from Silverman 2001: 261 f questions and hypotheses and proceed* to data collection and analysis. Consequently, quantitative or survey researchers arc in a position to inform their respondents from the start about exactly what they plan to study and how. By contrast, qualitative research tends to be more deductive, proceeding from observations to general statements. For qualitative researchers, it is more difficult to completely inform participants about die purpose and the specific direction of the inquiries at the onset of the research project. Research roles and audiences Should researchers allow personal or political values to enter their work? In dus regard, according to Silverman (2001:259-66), sociologists can assume three different roles. First, there is the position of the 'scholar.' In this capacity, the researcher is interested in science for the sake of science and judges the study's relevance and ethics based on his or her own moral principles. As Silverman suggests, this position is best represented by Max Weber, who 'insisted on the primacy of the individual's conscience as a basis for action' (2001:261).The second research role is that of a 'state counselor.' Here, die goal is to work closely with interested policymakers. In this role, sociologists might be viewed as social engineers who assist state bureaucrats in a joint effort to create a 'better* society. Finally, there is the 'partisan' role, where the sociologist sides with a particular group. In Silverman's words/the partisan seeks to provide the theoretical and factual resources for a political struggle aimed at transforming the assumptions through which both political and administrative games are played' (2001: 265). The partisan role is best captured in an often quoted statement by Decker in which he asks sociologists,'Whose side are we on?' (Becker 1967: 239). For Becker, sociologists should take the side of the 'underdogs,' or the oppressed. Table 7.1 summarizes Silverman's three research roles. As an alternative to the question 'whose side arc wc on?' Silverman asks, who is our audience? He argues that the three roles listed above tend to ignore the mote practical aspects of social research. For him, research is a social practice. ETHICS IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH TABLE 7.2 AuOiences and their expectations___________________ A u d I ono» Expectation« Thooroueol, tactual or mothodologicol insights Practical Information relevant to current policy issues A theoretical framework for understanding clients better; tactual information; practical suggestions for better procedures; reform of existing practices New facts; ideas for reform of current practices or policies; guidelines for how to manage better or get better service from practitioners or institutions; assurances that others share their own experiences o' particular problems in III« Source: Strauss and Corhln 1990: 242-43, as cited In Silverman 2001: 267 one that emerges in a particular social context for a particular purpose. Silverman returns our attention to the practical goals of research by underscoring how different types of research meet the needs of different audiences, such as academics, policymakers, practitioners, and the general public. Accordingly, as seen in Table 7.2. each audience has its own expectations about the value and utility of research and, therefore, makes different demands about what issues should be addressed by researchers. CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter reviewed the ethics of social research as they apply to qualitative methods.These ethics can loosely be defined as the dos and don'ts of how wc treat our research participants. A number of general principles were described. It was emphasized that we should ensure that participation is voluntary, no harm comes to the respondents, the research is of some benefit to the participants, and diat their privacy will be protected. One way of addressing all these concerns is through the informed consent process whereby verbal or written statements are shared with research participants to inform them about the topic of the study, its potential benefit or harm, and the specific steps taken to guard their privacy. Some limitations of the informed consent guidelines were briefly discuss/d. In particular, I argued that in qualitative research it is difficult to fully describe the study to the respondents from the start, because the questions and themes emerge deductively over time. I concluded the chapter with Silverman's three research roles: the scholar, the state counselor, and the partisan, and suggested thai as ail alternative to asking'whose side are we on?" researchers could consider the specific audience for whom they are writing. 143 Academic Colleagues Policymakers Practitioners The general public