Researcher Vulnerability: Implications for Educational Research and Practice

• In Event: 68.061 - Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 68.061-3 - Sensitive Topics and Ethical Practices in Qualitative Research

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of researcher vulnerability through a review of the extant research literature and a reflection of each author’s experience conducting research with vulnerable populations and researching both sensitive and seemingly innocuous, yet important, topics using qualitative methodology. Specifically, a reflection of our respective study of the academic and social transitions of student combat veterans, and the academic and gender socialization of adolescent African American males. As researchers, we are positioned as vulnerable not only through the topic of inquiry and population understudy, but having experienced participant loss to suicide and untimely death during the course of the respective research studies. Implications of vulnerability for research, practice, and theory are discussed.

Authors

• Lionel Howard, The George Washington University

• Shane P. Hammond, University of Massachusetts - Amherst