The Potential Therapeutic Role of Research Interviews With Adolescent 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

This paper examines the impact of participating in an ethnography for Black adolescent boys who experience peer loss. Specifically, I explore the role of semi-structured interviews in the interviewees’ developing emotional lives and coping practices. Given past research on the stigmas among Black males associated with help-seeking and accessing mental health resources (Lindsey, Joe, and Nebbitt 2010; Rickwood et al. 2005), this paper asks: 1) How might a positive experience being interviewed about sensitive topics impact an adolescent’s view of therapy? 2) How might the therapeutic-like nature of interview encounters increase the richness of data? 3) How might a young person’s perception of a therapeutic-like relationship with the researcher complicate the research process?

A research interview presents a complex relational terrain with ever-shifting power dynamics (Nunkoosing 2005). For males, an interview can also be a threat to their masculinity, particularly if they are being asked to share their emotions or experiences that made them feel weak (Schwalbe and Wolkomir 2001). However, as prior researchers have noted (Dyregrov 2004; Murray 2003), interview experiences are sometimes beneficial to participants which, in turn, may lead to richer data. Qualitative interviews can even be “therapeutic in that [they offer] a space for catharsis through sharing” (Rossetto 2014:484; Gale 1992; Harper and Cole 2012).

This paper draws on a two-year ethnography of an urban single-sex charter high school serving low-income Black boys. The study examined the experiences of boys who had lost close friends to gun violence. Data was collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews with approximately 70 students (some repeated multiple times), analysis of students’ social media posts, as well as interviews with about 30 teachers and school administrators. Students were selected because of their close friendships with three students were fatal victims of gun violence during the period of the study, or through recommendations from staff or other students. Interviews focused on the emotional dimension of their loss experience (Lamont and Swidler 2014). Data was coded and analyzed inductively using NVivo qualitative analysis software (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007).

Boys in the study regularly expressed resistance to therapy/counseling, but reported positive experiences being interviewed. One described it as “relieving – I got to get a lot out that I never even spoke to people about before.” For others, sharing with the researcher led to new realizations about themselves or their coping practices. Several boys shared that being interviewed felt “kind of like therapy,” but different in that therapists “try to put in their personal opinion into a situation.”

Blurring boundaries in research between interviewer and what other “experts” (like therapists) do can be complicated, and can sometimes create “role confusion” (Birch and Miller 2000; Rossetto 2014). This paper opens up questions about the complexities at play when research interviews play a therapeutic-like role, especially for youth who would not generally seek out therapy. Further, this paper will explore how a researcher can negotiate relationships with students who come to depend on her for continued emotional support after opening up in an interview setting.

Author

• Nora Gross, University of Pennsylvania