Ethics and Dilemmas in Researching Young People Lives: Being Trapped Between “Uncomfortable” Information in a Urban Ethnographic Research

Author(s):

Sofia Marques da Silva(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 08 A, Urban Education and Children and Youth at Risk (Ethnographic Research)

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-15

08:30-10:00

Room:

JK 28/112,G, 58

Chair:

Sofia Marques da Silva

Contribution

According to Heath et al. (2009), «youth research is distinctive because of the relative powerlessness of young people within the research process itself when compared with other groups» (2009: 8), being frequently unaware of the risk involved in their participation in research about their experience and views (Allen, 2002).

Principles for ethically sound research require informed consent (Wiles et al. 2005), guaranteeing anonymity and confidentiality. Nevertheless, there is little awareness of the impact that our ethical decisions might have in participants’ lives.

The dilemma underlying this paper is: what should we do with particular and sensitive information given by participants or observed during fieldwork?

This paper explores a particular issue concerning “uncomfortable” information that came up during a two-year ethnographic study in a Youth Centre in the North of Portugal in a context of social and material deprivation. I was confronted by the information that a 16 year- old young girl, Diana, was working illegally and being exploited in a textile factory. Diana told me how this first working experience after her forced school drop-out was important on different levels. The first thought was to report this situation. However, the consequence of reporting this case to authorities could be that Diana would lose her job and be lost for several months, becoming more vulnerable without any money, in a constant conflict with her family.

The dilemma was to decide if I should or should not help Diana directly, knowing that good intentions in helping could cause more harm than benefit. To report this situation to the authorities was ethically in juxtaposition with anonymity and respect of privacy.

In order to respect her dignity in the research project and to respect her dignity as a vulnerable worker explored in the labor market, I tried above all to avoid becoming a threat (Lee, 1999).

Method

This paper results from an ethnographic study carried out in a Youth Centre in the north of Portugal, aimed at understanding the experiences of a group of adolescents and young adults growing up in the periphery of the city of Porto (north Portugal). This Youth Centre was created by the City Council (Town Hall) and it is a place where young people from the neighborhood can spend their free time or participate in educational projects. Two years of fieldwork, doing participant-observation, writing field notes, having spontaneous conversations, doing semi-structured interviews and document analysis, allowed us through an ethnographic perspective to know practices, experiences and discourses (Willis, 2000) of young people. Our attention fell upon young people aged from 14 to 23 years, belonging to socially underprivileged families. These young boys and girls were familiar with structural ways of social and cultural segregation, especially exclusion from school.

Expected Outcomes

Doing ethnographic studies for the past 10 years, especially involved in youth-orientated research, it is frequent to be confronted with uncomfortable situations related with the revelation of information that causes for ethical doubts (Fitzgerald, 2006). In this case the dilemma was situated between the respect for a participant dignity in the research project and the respect for the participant dignity as a vulnerable worker explored in the labor market. The situated knowledge (Haraway, 1991) produced by Diana about her own experience, allowed to understand her priorities and how she understood herself within this scenario. The decision was to adopt a concept of ethics that lays emphasis on the responsibility for promoting justice, producing valuable and grounded meanings and insights, reconstructing conceptually the situation in a way that could influence young people, but especially youth workers and policies (Honkatukia et al., 2003).

References

Allen, Debby (2002) “Research Involving Vulnerable Young People: a discussion of ethical and methodological concerns”, Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 3, 275-283(9). Fitzgerald, Maureen H. (2006) Ethnography, Ethnographic Moments, the Ethics-Review Process and the Construction of Knowledge. Available at: http://www.ethicsproject.com/documents/Ethnographyandethicsreview.pdf. Heath, Sue; Brooks, Rachel; Cleaver, Elisabeth; Ireland, Eleanor (2009) Researching Young People’s Lives. London: Sage Publications. Honkatukia, Päivi; Nyqvist, Leo; Pösö ,Tarja (2003) “Sensitive Issues in Vulnerable Conditions: Studying Violence in Youth Residential”, Young, 11, 323-339. Lee, Raymond M. (1999) Doing Research on Sensitive Topics. London: Sage Publications. Wiles, Rose; Heath, Sue; Crow, Graham; Charles, Vikki (2005) Informed Consent in Social Research:A Literature Review. ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Review Paper, NCRM/001 (2005). Available at: www.ncrm.ac.uk/research/outputs/publications/methodsreview/MethodsReviewPaperNCRM-001.pdf Willis, Paul (2000) The Ethnographic Imagination. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Author Information

Sofia Marques da Silva (presenting / submitting)

University of Porto

Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education/Educational Research and Intervention Centre

Porto

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