Young offenders’ perceptions of their educational experiences are little researched not least because of methodological and ethical challenges. These include being difficult to access, questions on their reliability as interviewees and their ‘doubly vulnerable’ position, due to the secure locked context and their age.  Such challenges exist in many European contexts where research with young offenders either in custody or in community settings is limited. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted within a custodial setting (itself a challenge in terms of access) which sought to re-engage young offenders with education and learning whilst incarcerated.  It explores how the methodological challenges were navigated and the emergent ethical responsibilities were managed. The findings may be applied to a range of European research contexts involving the education of vulnerable or at-risk young people.

Ethnography enables the use of innovative methods (Fargas-Malet et al. 2010) to elicit rich qualitative data with children or vulnerable groups, but there is little about the added responsibility for richer data that is generated.  The benefits of ethnographic research, reveal the need to ‘reframe’ what it means to be ethical within and beyond a challenging research context with ‘doubly vulnerable’, ‘hard to reach’ participants (Moore and Miller 1999).  Just as new technological developments in medical research open up new ethical dilemmas, so too do methodological developments in social research reveal new ethical responsibilities.  This builds on Oakley’s (1981) work that indicated a significant point in qualitative methodologies, highlighting the importance of ethical awareness and researcher responsibilities.  The current paper extends these original ideas in the light of new and emerging issues stemming from methodological insights and broader research contexts. 

The principles of connectivity, humanness and empathy (CHE) (Brown and Danaher 2017) were used as a framework to navigate the challenges. There is an implicit assumption that researchers who choose to conduct qualitative research will already have the necessary emotional intelligence and skills for rapport building (Gill et al. 2008) for effective ethnographic research.  There is even less literature on how to manage the additional ethical responsibilities of data generated as a result of such research, particularly if one’s ontological commitments are underpinned by empowerment of the marginalised or oppressed.

Methods underpinned by the principles of connectivity, humanness and empathy (CHE) are crucial methodological tools when interviewing ‘doubly vulnerable’ participants. Using CHE contributed to rebalancing the power dynamics between researcher and participant making it possible to elicit rich and credible data.  This was especially relevant in a custodial setting where the autonomy of participants is deliberately restricted.  These shifting power imbalances gave way to a range of additional ethical responsibilities of research with participants who have already experienced challenging social, economic and educational circumstances leading up to their incarceration.  This article contributes to a reframing of the notion of being ethical and suggests ways of reconciling the dilemmas of research with participants in challenging contexts.  These include extending a researcher’s ethical responsibilities to beyond the research and the use of the researcher’s greater power to advocate for less powerful participants. 

This paper draws on research that focused on engaging incarcerated young people aged 10-17 years with education and learning in a secure custodial setting in England as an especially challenging context and vulnerable participant group. Across Europe, many young people in conflict with the law are disengaged with education and learning (Little, 2015). Literacy levels are low, equivalent to that expected of primary age children of 7-11 years with as many as 90% excluded from school and higher levels of learning disabilities (Chitsabesan & Bailey 2006). This suggests that the educational experiences of incarcerated young people are poor which can make engagement with educational opportunities challenging. Conducting ethnographic research was considered an essential way in which to understand the intricate and enclosed nature of the custodial setting in order to understand the realities and context of the young peoples’ experiences. The research was conducted over two main phases across a period of three years to enable a truer understanding of the complexity of the secure context and the dissipation of pre-existing assumptions. Phase I explored how young people in secure custodial settings perceived education, school and learning in relation to their own lives. It involved 16 young people and data were generated through semi-structured interviews, observations and field notes, commensurate with an ethnographic research design. Phase II was concerned with the nature of dis/engagement in young people and the extent to which engagement with tasks that are authentic, relevant or perceived to have value, impact on engagement with education and learning within the secure context. This phase consisted of 5 individual case studies and involved the use of Authentic Inquiry as a means to re-engage learners. Authentic inquiry is ‘shaped by the learner’s interest, driven by her curiosity and purpose, yet is capable of supporting the delivery of the valued outcomes of a publicly accountable curriculum.’ (Crick 2009, p.73). Authentic inquiry offered a way to connect the participant’s own interest and knowledge creation with formal education and has been shown to appeal to disengaged learners (Jaros & Crick 2007). The process provided a framework for data collection at various points offering insight into the nature of engagement. The principles of CHE acted as a methodological tool throughout data collection enabling the elicitation of rich data from a complex and challenging participant group within an equally challenging context.

In social research the additional ethical issues that new qualitative methodological insights uncover through the generating of novel data have yet to be addressed. There is little guidance on how to ensure responsible ethical management and dissemination of such data and this needs to be an integral part of ethical responsibilities in ethics committees. Whilst dissemination of research is a part of its purpose, the additional ethical responsibilities result in me becoming a more passionate advocate of my findings in terms of sharing with policy makers and decision makers. This was fuelled by an overwhelming desire to give voice to the doubly vulnerable as a way of reconciling the greater power I had over them. Ensuring data were not fractured data during dissemination and that meanings shared during data collection were not lost is one way to ensure ethical practice beyond data collection. The power over the data at this stage is firmly within the remit of the researcher as participants are rarely part of the dissemination process. Thus, ethical considerations during the research process should extend beyond process and into dissemination. Institutions could consider incorporating this into part of the ethical regulations to which researchers adhere to support embedding this into their practice. Unethical use of data following collection could be a greater and unprotected area of risk than ethics during the research process itself. As we move further into sophisticated methods of qualitative data collection, the more likely we are to face additional ethical responsibilities which go beyond the research itself. Some would argue that this is not the job of researchers, however researchers are not neutral, value-free objects but carry with them power to give voice to the vulnerable. Greater awareness of these issues may stimulate further research further, thereby increasing methodological and ethical knowledge on under-researched groups.

Brinkman, S. (2013). Qualitative Interviewing Understanding Qualitative Research. NY, NY. Brown, A., & Danaher, P. A. (2017). CHE Principles: facilitating authentic and dialogical semi-structured interviews in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 1–15. Chitsabesan, P., & Bailey, S. (2006). Mental health, educational and social needs of young offenders in custody and in the community. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 19(4), 355–360. Crick, R. D. (2009). Inquiry-based learning: reconciling the personal with the public in a democratic and archaeological pedagogy. The Curriculum Journal, 20(1), 73–92. Fargas-Malet, M., McSherry, D., Larkin, E., & Robinson, C. (2010). Research with children: Methodological issues and innovative techniques. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 8(2), 175–192 Gill, P., Stewart, K., Treasure, E., & Chadwick, B. (2008). Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups. British Dental Journal, 204(6), 291. Hammersley, M. (2015). Sampling and thematic analysis: A response to Fugard and Potts. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(6), 687-688. Jaros, M., & Deakin-Crick, R. (2007). Personalized learning for the post-mechanical age. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 39(4), 423–440. Little, R. (2015). Putting education at the heart of custody. The views of children on education in a Young Offender Institution. British Journal of Community Justice, 13(2), 27. Moore, L. W., & Miller, M. (1999). Initiating research with doubly vulnerable populations. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 30(5), 1034–1040. Oakley, A. (1981). Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms. In H. Roberts (ed), Doing Feminist Research, London Routledge and Kegan Paul, p.30-61.