Embracing Critical Reflection: Ethical Issues in School-Based Research

• In Event: Ethical Lessons Beyond Institutional Review Board Approvals: Rethinking Ethics in Qualitative Research

Abstract

The current sociopolitical contexts have imposed severe and disproportionate impacts on racially and socioeconomically marginalized communities. Within an increasingly divisive and polarizing climate, minoritized communities now face amplified levels of poverty, violence, exclusion, and discrimination. As educators and education researchers, we are compelled to critically reassess the fundamental purposes of our work and pedagogical approaches, so that we can effectively respond to the ever-present risk and relentless change that these communities endure (Müller-Funk, 2021). Did our work with youth of color do enough to address and eliminate systemic disparities in their communities? How can we reapproach our research purposes to prioritize the benefits of the youth participants we worked with? How might we weave critical and ethical layers into our work so that we can enact communal transformations together? In this presentation, I engage in critical conversations with the audience in response to these questions, muse upon my philosophy of ethics, and self-examine my dimensions of seeing, thinking, and caring about the world around me.
With respect to the tensions and challenges, Hymes’s construct of ethnographic monitoring (1980) provides critical and ethically rigorous insights in countering the complex sociolinguistic reality. Ethnographic monitoring is a programmatic construct including three detailed steps to support researchers in thinking of their work. Hymes proposes that researchers must extend the traditional participant-observation aspect in ethnographic practice into a cooperative participatory operation. In other words, what ethnographers do is not limited to observing and describing the social reality within the community, but by participating and attempting to monitor positive and negative changes, ethnographic researchers can contribute to the evaluation and improvements that are related to local goals (De Korne & Hornberger, 2017).
In this presentation, I take up an approach of critical reflectivity (Freire, 1973) to understand the complex power dynamics at play in my research experience. Critical reflectivity entails a process of contextualizing our thinking, beliefs, and values within the broader political, economic, and social dimensions of education. In alignment with this perspective, the aim of my presentation is to examine my actions, ideologies, and assumptions, as well as deliberately reflect on habitual and routine research practices.
I reflect on several “ethically important moments", or “the difficult, subtle, and usually unpredictable situations that arise in the practice of doing research” (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004, p. 262). Specifically, I examine power structures and institutional hierarchies emerging from my research experience situated in traditional public-school settings.
The reflective exploration of some of my ethically important moments is particularly valuable because it means that we intentionally move beyond the institutional requirement of do no harm but turn the gaze upon power dynamics and situated moral responsibilities. In doing so, we strive to stand in solidarity with minoritized communities, leveraging our academic work to bring about positive changes. To ensure the meaningful impact of our scholarship and research, it is essential for us to engage in continuous self-reflection and critical examination of ethics.

Author

• Shuang Fu, New York University