Building and Balancing Trust in Qualitative Research With Black Boys

• In Event: 28.091 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Two - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 28.091-5 - Caring and Being There: Complicating Qualitative Research With Youth of Color in School Settings

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the process of trust-building and witnessing in conducting qualitative research with black boys who attend a Title I single-sex public school. Qualitative research with children requires an ongoing act of witnessing, or “deliberate attendance” to and taking notice of what is particularly meaningful to others (Laura, 2013). I argue that witnessing is also necessary to build trust. Drawing from qualitative data, I present accounts of the cyclical nature of how research affected trust with participants and how maintaining trust affected research.

This paper emerges from ethnographic and interview data from a year-long qualitative study in a 6-12 public single-sex school in a large Northeastern city. The school serves predominantly low-income Black and Latinx males. My focal students (n=35) were drawn from the 6th grade class.

Encouraging vulnerability and establishing trust is described as integral to improving the lives of low-income boys of color (Harper, et. al 2009). For black boys in particular, trusting and sharing personal information and feelings can be damaging to their masculine image and self-concept among their peers (Howard and Flennaugh, 2011). Choosing to trust, then, is a decision by boys to take a great risk (Coleman, 1990; Luhmann, 1988). When doing so, many participants remarked that they enjoyed interviews because it was the only time they had been able to “just talk” and simply be themselves.

Developing trusting relationships contributed to more participants joining my study as boys “vouched” that talking with me was fun. Many students vouched for me because of my witnessing. One student, Edris Hayes, described the appeal as: “You know she’s chill because she’s just down to ‘hang out.’” Students described my “hanging out” as an act that showed that I cared about them and was worthy of trust (hooks, 2000; Ropers-Huilman, 1999). This trust allowed me access to spaces that were off-limits to other adults (i.e. fights taking place after-school). In other instances, developing trust led to taking on a more participatory, rather than observational stance. For example, advocating for students or diffusing physical altercations between students with whom I had built strong connections.

Researching also tested relationships. Boys came to me with personal information and it became difficult to decide when to omit information from reporting. Boys additionally felt that I was “picking sides” when choosing to spend time with teachers or with students they did not like. Boys would become withdrawn and call me a ‘traitor’ in these moments. The researcher’s responsibility to treat trust with care is paramount, because the damage done if trust is broken can lead to participants being unlikely to trust others in the future. When considering trust and relationships in qualitative research, reciprocity is more than refraining from “doing the community no harm,” but rather “doing the community some good” (Walker, 1999). This paper concludes with implications and recommendations for conducting extended qualitative work and navigating relationships with youth in schools as culturally responsive and responsible qualitative practice.

Author

• Pavithra Nagarajan, Teachers College, Columbia University