Educational research occupies a central position in historical and contemporary society. Like other disciplines, educational research needs to undergo fundamental critique with regard to its claimed intentions and outcomes (Yanos & Hopper, 2008). Within these endeavours, there is a moral, ethical and professional responsibility to ensure that the rights of participants, our profession and our own personal interests are considered. This requires significant thought and decision making, and often generates unexpected complexities and broader research dilemmas, including interactional constraints (Roulston, 2014), and the interplay between power and powerlessness (Jacobsson & Åkerström, 2013; Plesner, 2011; Vähäsantanen & Saarinen, 2013).

Consequently, there are particular challenges for educational researchers that require insight, innovation and expertise in order to build on the respective affordances of their research whilst at the same time maximising the potential value of their approaches for increasing mutually beneficial outcomes. These challenges are especially evident, and require the application of discretionary judgement, when conducting research with variously marginalised populations and individuals within educational settings (see also Danaher, Cook, Danaher, Coombes, & Danaher, 2013), as well as with those who scope beyond the classroom such as members of rural communities, with parents and families within the home environment, and with diverse cultural and ethnic minorities and those identified as being particularly vulnerable educationally and socially (see Brown and Danaher, 2012).

From this perspective, it is timely to assemble this symposium of presentations that represent diverse innovative methodologies for engaging with multiple research participants in ways that maximise rapport and reciprocity, and that reflect ethical and empowering interactions with research stakeholders and gatekeepers. The presentations and the associated methodologies are highly varied, reflecting different national and regional contexts (Ireland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the United States and Australia) and drawing on divergent research paradigms and questions. Yet, underlying this variation, is a shared commitment to critiquing current practices and to devising new approaches related to designing, conducting, publishing and evaluating research against the backdrop of increased researcher accountabilities and appropriate questioning of the differential benefits and interests pertaining to different research stakeholders.

In combination, the symposium presentations will afford an opportunity to engage wholeheartedly with the following organising questions:

• How do we map the multiple and sometimes conflicting interests of participants and stakeholders in research projects to which we contribute?
• What are our experiences of those interests being valued and addressed, and/or being overlooked and diminished, in particular research projects in which we have been involved?
• Which research methodologies do we use? In which contexts? For which purposes, and with which effects?
• In what ways are those research methodologies effective and innovative, and how do we know?
• How do we conceptualise research leadership, and how do we operationalise such conceptions in the context of specific research projects?
• Which specific strategies have we experienced as being successful in maximising rapport and reciprocity with and among research participants in ways that are ethical and empowering?

More broadly, in addressing these questions in diverse and contextually framed ways, the symposium presenters highlight the fluidity and heterogeneity attending contemporary research work, while also demonstrating some of the possibilities for reimagining research methodologies to be more respectful of participants’ voices and attentive to the interplay of their aspirations and experiences. At the same time, the presentations affirm the specific roles and responsibilities of educational researchers in enacting particular kinds of leadership.

Brown, A., & Danaher, P. A. (2012). Respectful, responsible and reciprocal ruralities research: Approaching and positioning educational research differently within Australian rural communities. Paper presented at the In: Joint International Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association (AARE 2012): Regional and Global Cooperation in Educational Research, 2 - 6 Dec, Sydney, Australia. Danaher, M. J. M., Cook, J. R., Danaher, G. R., Coombes, P. N., & Danaher, P. A. (2013). Researching education with marginalized communities. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Jacobsson, K., & Åkerström, M. (2013). Interviewees with an agenda: Learning from a “failed” interview. Qualitative Research, 13(6), 717-734. doi: 10.1177/1468794112465631 Plesner, U. (2011). Studying sideways: Displacing the problem of power in research interviews with sociologists and journalists. Qualitative Research, 17(6), 471-482. doi: 10.1177/1077800411409871 Vähäsantanen, K., & Saarinen, J. (2013). The power dance in the research interview: Manifesting power and powerlessness. Qualitative Researcher, 13(5), 493-510. doi: 10.1177/1468794112451036 Yanos, P. K., & Hopper, K. (2008). On “false, collusive objectification”: Becoming attuned to selfcensorship, performance and interviewer biases in qualitative interviewing. International Journal of Social Science Methodology, 11(3), 229-237.