defining sensitive researchSensitive educational research |
CHAPTER 9 |
This chapter addresses several aspects of sensitive research:
defining sensitive research
issues of sampling and access
ethical issues
researching powerful people
researching powerless and vulnerable people
asking questions
It argues that researchers have to be acutely aware of the sensitivities at work in any piece of research that they are undertaking.
All educational research is sensitive; the question is one of degree. The researcher has to be sensitive to the context, the cultures, the participants, the consequences of the research on a range of parties, the powerless, the powerful, people’s agendas and suchlike. Being sensitive is as much about ethics and behaving ethically as it is about the research itself. Researchers have to be very careful on a variety of delicate issues.
The chapter sets out different ways in which educational research might be sensitive. It then takes two significant issues in the planning and conduct of sensitive research – sampling and access – and indicates why these twin concerns might be troublesome for researchers, and how they might be addressed. The outline includes a discussion of gatekeepers and their roles. Sensitive research raises a range of difficult, sometimes intractable, ethical issues, and we set out some of these in the chapter. Investigations involving powerful people are taken as an instance of sensitive educational research, and this is used as a vehicle for examining several key problematic matters in this area. The chapter moves to a practical note, proffering advice on how to ask questions in sensitive research. Finally, the chapter sets out a range of key issues to be addressed in the planning, conduct and reporting of sensitive research.
Sensitive research is that ‘which potentially poses a substantial threat to those who are involved or have been involved in it’ (Lee, 1993: 4), or when those studied view the research as somehow undesirable (Van Meter, 2000). Sensitivity can derive from many sources, including:
consequences for the participants (Sieber and Stanley, 1988: 49; Kavanaugh et al., 2006: 245);
consequences for other people, e.g. family members, associates, social groups and the wider community, research groups and institutions (Lee, 1993: 5);
contents, e.g. taboo or emotionally charged areas of study (Farberow, 1963), e.g. criminality, deviance, sex, race, bereavement, violence, politics, policing, human rights, drugs, poverty, illness, religion and the sacred, lifestyle, family, finance, physical appearance, power and vested interests (Lee, 1993; Arditti, 2002; Chambers, 2003);
situational and contextual circumstances (Lee, 1993);
intrusion into private, intimate spheres and deep personal experience (Lee and Renzetti, 1993: 5), e.g. sexual behaviour, religious practices, death and bereavement, even income and age;
potential sanction, risk or threat of stigmatization, incrimination, costs or career loss to the researcher, participants or others, e.g. groups and communities (Lee and Renzetti; 1993; Renzetti and Lee, 1993; De Laine, 2000), a particular issue for the researcher who studies human sexuality and who, consequently, suffers from ‘stigma contagion’, i.e. sharing the same stigma as those being studied (Lee, 1993: 9);
impingement on political alignments (Lee, 1993);
penetration of personal defences (Dickson-Swift et al., 2006);
cultural and cross-cultural factors and inhibitions (Sieber, 1992: 129; Tillman, 2002);
fear of scrutiny and exposure (Payne et al., 1980);
threat to the researcher and to the family members and associates of those studied (Lee, 1993); Lee (1993: 34) suggests that ‘chilling’ may take place, i.e. where researchers are ‘deterred from producing or disseminating research’ because they anticipate hostile reactions from colleagues, e.g. on race. ‘Guilty knowledge’ may bring personal and professional risk from colleagues (De Laine, 2000: 67); it is threatening both to researchers and participants (De Laine, 2000: 84);
methodologies and conduct, e.g. when junior researchers conduct research on powerful people, when men interview women, when senior politicians are involved, or where access and disclosure are difficult (Simons, 1989; Ball, 1990, 1994a; Liebling and Shah, 2001).
Sometimes all, or nearly all the issues listed above are present simultaneously. Indeed, in some situations the very activity of actually undertaking educational research per se may be sensitive. This has long been the situation in totalitarian regimes, where permission has typically had to be granted from senior government officers and departments in order to undertake educational research. Closed societies may only permit educational research on approved, typically non-sensitive and comparatively apolitical topics. As Lee (1993: 6) suggests: ‘research for some groups . . . is quite literally an anathema’. The very act of doing the educational research, regardless of its purpose, focus, methodology or outcome, is itself a sensitive matter (Morrison, 2006). In this situation the conduct of educational research may hinge on interpersonal relations, local politics and micro-politics. What start as being simply methodological issues can turn out to be ethical and political/micro-political minefields.
Lee (1993: 4) suggests that sensitive research falls into three main areas: (a) intrusive threat (probing into areas which are ‘private, stressful or sacred’); (b) studies of deviance and social control, i.e. which could reveal information that could stigmatize or incriminate (threat of sanction); and (c) political alignments, revealing the vested interests of ‘powerful persons or institutions, or the exercise of coercion or domination’, or extremes of wealth and status (Lee, 1993). As Beynon (1988: 23) says ‘the rich and powerful have encouraged hagiography, not critical investigation’. Indeed, Lee (1993: 8) argues that there has been a tendency to ‘study down’ rather than ‘study up’, i.e. to direct attention to powerless rather than powerful groups, not least because these are easier and less sensitive to investigate. Sensitive educational research can act as a voice for the weak, the oppressed, those without a voice or who are not listened to; equally it can focus on the powerful and those in high-profile positions.
The three kinds of sensitivities indicated above (a), (b) and (c) may appear separately or in combination. The sensitivity not only concerns the topic itself, but, perhaps more importantly, ‘the relationship between that topic and the social context’ within which the research is conducted (Lee, 1993: 5). What appears innocent to the researcher may be highly sensitive to the researched or to other parties. Threat is a major source of sensitivity; indeed Lee (1993: 5) suggests that, rather than generating a list of sensitive topics, it is more fruitful to look at the conditions under which ‘sensitivity’ arises within the research process. Given this issue, the researcher will need to consider how sensitive the educational research will be, not only in terms of the subject matter itself, but also in terms of the several parties that have a stake in it, for example: headteachers and senior staff; parents; students; schools; governors; local politicians and policy makers; the researcher(s) and research community; government officers; the community; social workers and school counsellors; sponsors and members of the public; members of the community being studied; and so on.
Sensitivity inheres both in the educational topic under study, but also, much more significantly, in the social context in which the educational research takes place and on the likely consequences of that research on all parties. Doing research is not only a matter of designing a project and collecting, analysing and reporting data – that is the optimism of idealism or ignorance; it is a matter of interpersonal relations, potentially continual negotiation, delicate forging and sustaining of relationships, setback, modification and compromise. In an ideal world educational researchers would be able to plan and conduct their studies untrammelled; however the ideal world, in the poet Yeats’s words, is ‘an image of air’. Sensitive educational research exposes this very clearly. Whilst most educational research will incur sensitivities, the attraction of discussing sensitive research per se is that it highlights what these delicate issues might be and how they might be felt at their sharpest. We advise readers to consider most educational research as sensitive, to anticipate what those sensitivities might be, and what tradeoffs might be necessary.
Walford (2001: 33) argues that gaining access and becoming accepted is a slow process. Hammersley and Atkinson (1983: 54) suggest that gaining access is not only a practical matter but it provides insights into the ‘social organisation of the setting’.
Lee (1993: 60) suggests that there are potentially serious difficulties in sampling and access in sensitive research, not least because of the problem of estimating the size of the population from which the sample is to be drawn, as members of particular groups, e.g. deviant or clandestine groups, will not want to disclose their associations. Similarly, like-minded groups may not wish to open themselves to public scrutiny. They may have much to lose by revealing their membership and, indeed, their activities may be illicit, critical of others, unpopular, threatening to their own professional security, deviant and less frequent than activities in other groups, making access to them a major obstacle. What if a researcher is researching truancy, or teenage pregnancy, or bullying, or solvent abuse amongst school students, or alcohol and medication use amongst teachers, or family relationship problems brought about by the stresses of teaching?
Lee (1993: 61) suggests several strategies to be used either separately or in combination, for sampling ‘special’ populations (e.g. rare or deviant populations):
List sampling: looking through public domain lists, for example, of the recently divorced (though such lists may be more helpful to social researchers than, specifically, educational researchers).
Multi-purposing: using an existing survey to reach populations of interest (though problems of confi-dentiality may prevent this from being employed).
Screening: targeting a particular location and canvassing within it (which may require much effort for little return).
Outcropping: this involves going to a particular location where known members of the target group congregate or can be found (e.g. Humphreys’ celebrated study of homosexual ‘tearoom trade’ in 1970); in education this may be a particular staffroom (for teachers), or meeting place for students. Outcropping risks bias, as there is no simple check for representativeness of the sample.
Servicing: Lee (1993: 72) suggests that it may be possible to reach research participants by offering them some sort of service in return for their participation. Researchers must be certain that they really are able to provide the services promised. As Walford (2001: 36) writes: ‘people don’t buy products; they buy benefits’, and researchers need to be clear on the benefits offered.
Professional informants: Lee (1993: 73) suggests these could be, for example, police, doctors, priests or other professionals. In education these may include social workers and counsellors. This may be unrealistic optimism, as these very people may be bound by terms of legal or ethical confidentiality or voluntary self-censorship (e.g. an AIDS counsellor, after a harrowing day at work, may not wish to continue talking to a stranger about AIDS counselling, or a social worker or counsellor may be constrained by professional confidentiality, or an exhausted teacher may not wish to talk about her teaching difficulties). Further, Lee suggests that, even if such people agree to participate, they may not know the full story. He gives the example of drug users (p. 73), whose contacts with the police may be very different from their contacts with doctors or social workers, or, the corollary of this, the police, doctors and social workers may not see the same group of drug users.
Advertising: though this can potentially reach a wide population, it may be difficult to control the nature of those who respond, in terms of representativeness or suitability.
Networking: this is akin to snowball sampling, wherein one set of contacts puts the researcher in touch with more contacts, who puts the researcher in touch with yet more contacts and so on. This is a widely used technique, though Lee (1993: 66) reports that it is not always easy for contacts to be passed on, as initial informants may be unwilling to divulge members of a close-knit community. On the other hand, Morrison (2006) reports that networking is a popular technique where it is difficult to penetrate a formal organization such as a school, if the gatekeepers (those who can grant or prevent access to others, e.g. the headteacher or senior staff ) refuse access. He reports the extensive use of informal networks by researchers, in order to contact friends and professional associates, and, in turn, their friends and professional associates, thereby sidestepping the formal lines of contact through schools.
Walford (2001: 36–47) sets out a four-stage process of gaining access:
Stage 1: Approach (gaining entry, perhaps through a mutual friend or colleague – a link person). In this context Walford cautions that an initial letter should only be used to gain an initial interview or an appointment, or even to arrange to telephone the headteacher in order to arrange an interview, not to conduct the research or to gain access.
Stage 2: Interest (using a telephone call to arrange an initial interview). In this respect Walford notes (p. 43) that headteachers like to talk, and so it is important to let them talk, even on the telephone when arranging an interview to discuss the research.
Stage 3: Desire (which comprises overcoming objections and stressing the benefits of the research). As he wisely comments (p. 44): ‘after all, schools have purposes other than to act as research sites’. He makes the telling point that the research may actually benefit the school, but that the school may not realize this until it is pointed out. For example, a headteacher may wish to confide in a researcher, teachers may benefit from discussions with a researcher, students may benefit from being asked about their learning. Stage 4: Sale (where the participants agree to the research).
Whitty and Edwards (1994: 22) argue that in order to overcome problems of access, ingenuity and even the temptation to use subterfuge could be considered: ‘denied co-operation initially by an independent school, we occasionally contacted some parents through their child’s primary school and then told the independent schools we already were getting some information about their pupils’. They also add that it is sometimes necessary for researchers to indicate that they are ‘on the same side’ as those being researched.1 Indeed they report that ‘we were questioned often about our own views, and there were times when to be viewed suspiciously from one side proved helpful in gaining access to the other’ (p. 22). This harks back to Becker’s (1968) advice to researchers to decide whose side they are on.
The use of snowball sampling builds in ‘security’ (Lee, 1993), as the contacts are those who are known and trusted by the members of the ‘snowball’. That said, this itself can lead to bias, as relationships between participants in the sample may consist of ‘reciprocity and transitivity’ (Lee, 1993: 67), i.e. participants may have close relationships with one another and may not wish to break these. Thus homogeneity of the sample’s attributes may result.
Such snowball sampling may alter the research, for example changing random, stratified or proportionate sampling into convenience sampling, thereby compromising generalizability or generating the need to gain generalizability by synthesizing many case studies. Nevertheless, it often comes to a choice between accepting non-probability strategies or doing nothing.
The issues of access to people in order to conduct sensitive research may require researchers to demonstrate a great deal of ingenuity and forethought in their planning. Investigators have to be adroit in anticipating problems of access, and set up their studies in ways that circumvent such problems, preventing them from arising in the first place, e.g. by exploring their own institutions or personal situations, even if this compromises generalizability. Such anticipatory behaviour can lead to a glut of case studies, action research and accounts of their own institutions, as these are the only kinds of research possible, given the problem of access.
Access might be gained through gatekeepers, that is, those who control access. Lee (1993: 123) suggests that ‘social access crucially depends on establishing interpersonal trust’. Gatekeepers play a significant role in research, particularly in ethnographic research (Miller and Bell, 2002: 53). They control access and re-access (Miller and Bell, 2002: 55). They may provide or block access; they may steer the course of a piece of research, ‘shepherding the fieldworker in one direction or another’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983: 65), or exercise surveillance over the research.
Gatekeepers may wish to avoid, contain, spread or control risk and therefore may bar access or make access conditional. Making research conditional may require researchers to change the nature of their original plans in terms of methodology, sampling, focus, dissemination, reliability and validity, reporting and control of data (Morrison, 2006). Morrison (2006) found that in conducting sensitive educational research there were problems of:
gaining access to schools and teachers;
gaining permission to conduct the research (e.g. from school principals), resentment by principals;
people vetting which data can be used;
finding enough willing participants for the sample;
schools/institutions/people not wishing to divulge information about themselves;
schools/institutions not wishing to be identifiable, even with protections guaranteed;
local political factors that impinge on the school/educational institution;
teachers’/participants’ fear of being identified/trace-able, even with protections guaranteed;
fear of participation by teachers (e.g. if they say critical matters about the school or others they could lose their contracts);
unwillingness of teachers to be involved because of their workload;
the principal deciding whether to involve the staff, without consultation with the staff;
schools’ fear of criticism/loss of face or reputation;
the sensitivity of the research – the issues being investigated;
the power/position of the researcher (e.g. if the researcher is a junior or senior member of staff or an influential person in education).
Risk reduction may result in participants imposing conditions on research (e.g. on what information investigators may or may not use; to whom the data can be shown; what is ‘public’; what is ‘off the record’ and what should be done with off-the-record remarks). It may also lead to surveillance/‘chaperoning’ of the researcher whilst the study is being conducted on site (Lee, 1993: 125).
Gatekeepers may want to ‘inspect, modify or suppress the published products of the research’ (Lee, 1993: 128). They may also wish to use the research for their own ends, i.e. their involvement may not be selfless or disinterested, or they may wish for something in return, e.g. for the researcher to include in the study an area of interest to the gatekeeper, or to report directly – and maybe exclusively – to the gatekeeper. The researcher has to negotiate a potential minefield here, for example, not to be seen as an informer for the headteacher. As Walford (2001: 45) writes: ‘headteachders [may] suggest that researchers observe certain teachers whom they want information about’. Researchers may need to reassure participants that their data will not be given to the headteacher.
On the other hand Lee (1993: 127) suggests that the researcher may have to make a few concessions in order to be able to undertake the investigation, i.e. that it is better to do a little of the gatekeeper’s bidding rather than not to be able to do the research at all.
In addition to gatekeepers the researcher may find a ‘sponsor’ in the group being studied. A sponsor may provide access, information and support. A celebrated example of this is in the figure of ‘Doc’ in Whyte’s classic study of ‘Street Corner Society’ (1993: the original study published in 1943). Here Doc, a leading gang figure in the Chicago street corner society, is quoted as saying:
You tell me what you want me to see, and we’ll arrange it. When you want some information, I’ll ask for it, and you listen. When you want to find out their philosophy of life, I’ll start an argument and get it for you. . . . You won’t have any trouble. You come in as a friend.
(Whyte, 1993: 292)
As Whyte writes:
My relationship with Doc changed rapidly. . . . At first he was simply a key informant – and also my sponsor. As we spent more time together, I ceased to treat him as a passive informant. I discussed with him quite frankly what I was trying to do, what problems were puzzling me, and so on . . . so that Doc became, in a real sense, a collaborator in the research.
(Whyte, 1993: 301)
Whyte comments on how Doc was able to give him advice on how best to behave when meeting people as part of the research:
Go easy on that ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘when’, ‘where’ stuff, Bill. You ask those questions and people will clam up on you. If people accept you, you can just hang around, and you’ll learn the answers in the long run without even having to ask the questions.
(Whyte, 1993: 303)
BOX 9.1 ISSUES OF SAMPLING AND ACCESS IN SENSITIVE RESEARCH
How to calculate the population and sample.
How representative of the population the sample may or may not be.
What kind of sample is desirable (e.g. random), but what kind may be the only sort that is practicable (e.g. snowball).
How to use networks for reaching the sample, and what kinds of networks to utilize.
How to research in a situation of threat to the participants (including the researcher).
How to protect identities and threatened groups.
How to contact the hard-to-reach.
How to secure and sustain access.
How to find and involve gatekeepers and sponsors.
What to offer gatekeepers and sponsors.
On what matters compromise may need to be negotiated.
On what matters can there be no compromise.
How to negotiate entry and sustained field relations.
What services the researcher may provide.
How to manage initial contacts with potential groups for study.
Indeed Doc played a role in the writing of the research: ‘As I wrote, I showed the various parts to Doc and went over them in detail. His criticisms were invaluable in my revision’ (p. 341). In his 1993 edition, Whyte reflects on the study with the question as to whether he exploited Doc (p. 362); it is a salutary reminder of the essential reciprocity that might be involved in conducting sensitive research.
In addressing issues of sampling and access, there are several points that arise from the discussion (Box 9.1).
Much research stands or falls on the sampling. These points reinforce our view that, rather than barring the research altogether, compromises may have to be reached in sampling and access. It may be better to compromise rather than to abandon the research altogether.
A difficulty arises in sensitive research in that the researcher can be party to ‘guilty knowledge’ (De Laine, 2000) and have ‘dirty hands’ (Klockars, 1979) about deviant groups or members of a school who may be harbouring counter-attitudes to those prevailing in the school’s declared mission. Pushed further, this means that the researcher will need to decide the limits of tolerance, beyond which he/she will not venture. For example, in Patrick’s (1973) study of a Glasgow gang, the researcher is witness to a murder. Should he report the matter to the police and, thereby, ‘blow his cover’, or remain silent in order to keep contact with the gang, thereby breaking the law which requires a murder to be reported?
In interviewing students they may reveal sensitive matters about themselves, their family, their teachers, and the researcher will need to decide whether and how to act on this kind of information. What should the researcher do, for example, if, during the course of an interview with a teacher about the leadership of the headteacher, the interviewee indicates that the headteacher has had sexual relations with a parent, or has an alcohol problem? Does the researcher, in such cases, do nothing in order to gain research knowledge, or does s/he act? What is in the public interest – the protection of an individual participant’s private life, or the interests of the researcher? Indeed Lee (1993: 139) suggests that some participants may even deliberately engineer situations whereby the researcher gains ‘guilty knowledge’ in order to test the researcher’s affinities: ‘trust tests’.
Ethical issues are thrown into sharp relief in sensitive educational research. The question of covert research rises to the fore, as the study of deviant or sensitive situations may require the researcher to go undercover in order to obtain data. Access is often a serious problem in educational and social research (Munro et al., 2004: 295), particularly if such access is controlled by powerful people (Morrison, 2006). Powerful gatekeepers who may control other aspects of the participants’ lives (Munro et al., 2004: 302) such as promotion, in-service training, work allocations, and it may be necessary to consider covert research or deception. Covert research may overcome ‘problems of reactivity’ (Lee, 1993: 143) wherein the research influences the behaviour of the participants (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983: 71). Deception, though questioned in codes of practice for educational research (see Chapter 5), is not ruled out in these same codes, and there may be cases where the violation of informed consent, or telling lies, or not disclosing that one is conducting research, may be considered to be justified in order to obtain data on honest, natural behaviours, views or practices. Let us be frank: if a researcher seeks the informed consent of violent teachers to study their violent behaviour, is there any real likelihood that the research will actually take place, whereas if one asks permission to study the behaviour of the students in their class, and keeps quiet about the real purpose which is to study violent teachers, is it more likely that access will be granted? And yet, surely, it is important in the interests of the students, the school, even the violent teacher themselves, that the problem be exposed and be evidence-based?
Covert research or deliberate deception may also enable the researcher to obtain insiders’ true views, for, without the cover of those being researched not knowing that they are being studied, entry could easily be denied, and access to important areas of understanding could be lost. This is particularly so in the case of researching powerful people who may not wish to disclose information and who, therefore, may prevent or deny access. The ethical issue of informed consent, in this case, is violated in the interests of exposing matters that are in the public interest.
To the charge that this is akin to spying, Mitchell (1993: 46) makes it clear that there is a vast difference between covert research and spying:
‘Spying is ideologically proactive, whereas research is ideologically naïve’ (p. 46). Spies, he argues, seek to further a particular value system or ideology; research seeks to understand rather than to persuade.
Spies have a sense of mission and try to achieve certain instrumental ends, whereas research has no such specific mission.
Spies believe that they are morally superior to their subjects, whereas researchers have no such feelings; indeed, with reflexivity being so important, they are sensitive to how their own role in the investigation may distort the research.
Spies are supported by institutions which train them to behave in certain ways of subterfuge, whereas researchers have no such training.
Spies are paid to do the work, whereas researchers often operate on a not-for-profit or individualistic basis.
On the other hand, not to gain informed consent could lead to participants feeling duped, very angry, used and exploited, when the results of the research are eventually published and they realize that they have been studied without their approval or informed consent.2 The researcher is seen as a predator (Lee, 1993: 157), using the research ‘as a vehicle for status, income or professional advancement which is denied to those studied’. As Lee remarks (p. 157), ‘it is not unknown for residents in some ghetto areas of the United States to complain wryly that they have put dozens of students through graduate school’. Further, the researched may: have no easy right of reply; feel misrepresented by the research; feel that they have been denied a voice; have wished not to be identified and their situation put into the public arena; feel that they have been exploited.
The cloak of anonymity is often vital in sensitive research, such that respondents are entirely untraceable. This raises the issue of ‘deductive disclosure’ (Boruch and Cecil, 1979), wherein it is possible to identify individuals (people, schools, departments, etc.) in question by reconstructing and combining data. Researchers should guard against this possibility. Where the details that are presented could enable identification of a person (e.g. in a study of a school there may be only one male teacher aged 50 who teaches biology, such that putting a name is unnecessary, as he will be identifiable), it may be incumbent on the researcher not to disclose such details, so that readers, even if they wished to reassemble the details in order to identify the respondent, are unable to do so.
The researcher may wish to preserve confidentiality, but may also wish to be able to gather data from individuals on more than one occasion. In this case a ‘linked file’ system (Lee, 1993: 173) can be employed. Here three files are kept; in the first file the data are held and arbitrary numbers are assigned to each participant; the second file contains the list of respondents; the third file contains the list information necessary to be able to link the arbitrarily assigned numbers from the first file to the names of the respondents in the second, and this third file is kept by a neutral ‘broker’, not the researcher. This procedure is akin to doubleblind clinical experiments, in which the researcher does not know the names of those who are or are not receiving experimental medication or a placebo. That this may be easier in respect of quantitative rather than qualitative data is acknowledged by Lee (1993: 179).
Clearly, in some cases, it is impossible for individual people, schools and departments not to be identified (e.g. schools may be highly distinctive and, therefore, identifiable (Whitty and Edwards, 1994: 22)). In such cases clearance may need to be obtained for the disclosure of information. This is not as straightforward as it may seem. For example, a general principle of educational research is that no individuals should be harmed (non-maleficence), but what if a matter that is in the legitimate public interest (e.g. a school’s failure to keep to proper accounting procedures) is brought to light? Should the researcher follow up the matter privately, publicly or not at all? If it is followed up then certainly harm may come to the school’s officers.
Ethical issues in the conduct of research are thrown into sharp relief against a backdrop of personal, institutional and societal politics, and the boundaries between public and private spheres are not only relative but highly ambiguous. The ethical debate is heightened, for example concerning the potential tension between the individual’s right to privacy versus the public’s right to know and the concern not to damage or harm individuals versus the need to serve the public good. Because public and private spheres may merge, it is difficult, if not impossible, to resolve such tensions straightforwardly (cf. Day, 1985; Lee, 1993). As Walford (2001: 30) writes: ‘the potential gain to public interest . . . was great. There would be some intrusion into the private lives of those involved, but this could be justified in research on . . . an important policy issue.’ The end justified the means.
These issues are felt most sharply if the research risks revealing negative findings. To expose practices to research scrutiny may be like taking the plaster off an open wound (Wood, 1980). What responsibility to the research community does the researcher have? If a negative research report is released, will schools retrench, preventing future research in schools from being undertaken (a particular problem if the researcher wishes to return or wishes not to prevent further researchers from gaining access)? Whom is the researcher serving – the public, the schools, the research community? The sympathies of the researcher may be called into question here; politics and ethics may be uncomfortable bedfellows in such circumstances. Research data, such as the negative hidden curriculum of training for conformity in schools (Morrison, 2009) may not endear researchers to schools. This can risk stifling educational research – it is simply not worth the personal or public cost. As Simons (2000: 45) says: ‘the price is too high’.
Further, Mitchell (1993: 54) writes that ‘timorous social scientists may excuse themselves from the risk of confronting powerful, privileged, and cohesive groups that wish to obscure their actions and interests from public scrutiny’ (see also Lee, 1993: 8). Researchers may not wish to take the risk of offending the powerful or of placing themselves in uncomfortable situations. As Simons and Usher (2000: 5) remark: ‘politics and ethics are inextricably entwined’.
In private, students and teachers may criticize their own schools, for example in terms of management, leadership, work overload and stress, but they may be reluctant to do so in public, and, indeed, teachers who are on renewable contracts will not bite the hand that feeds them; they may say nothing rather than criticize (Burgess, 1993; Morrison, 2002b).
The field of ethics in sensitive research is different from ethics in everyday research in significance rather than range of focus. The same issues as must be faced in all educational research are addressed here, and we advise readers to review Chapter 5 on ethics. However, sensitive research highlights particular ethical issues very sharply; these are presented in Box 9.2.
These are only introductory issues. We refer the reader to Chapter 5 for further discussion of these and other ethical issues. The difficulty with ethical issues is that they are ‘situated’ (Simons and Usher, 2000), i.e. contingent on specific local circumstances and situations. They have to be negotiated and worked out in relation to the specifics of the situation; universal guidelines may help but they don’t usually solve the practical problems; they have to be interpreted locally.
A branch of sensitive research concerns that which is conducted on, or with, powerful people, those in key positions, or elite institutions. In education, for example, this would include headteachers and senior teachers, politicians, senior civil servants, decision makers, local authority officers and school governors. This is particularly the case in respect of research on policy and leadership issues (Walford, 1994a: 3). Researching the powerful is an example of ‘researching up’ rather than the more conventional ‘researching down’ (e.g. researching children, teachers and student teachers).
What makes the research sensitive is that it is often dealing with key issues of policy generation and decision making, or issues about which there is high-profile debate and contestation, as issues of a politically sensitive nature. Policy-related research is sensitive. This can be also one of the reasons why access is frequently refused. The powerful are those who exert control to secure what they want or can achieve, those with great responsibility and whose decisions have significant effects on large numbers of people.
BOX 9.2 ETHICAL ISSUES IN SENSITIVE RESEARCH
How does the researcher handle ‘guilty knowledge’ and ‘dirty hands’?
Whose side is the researcher on? Does this need to be disclosed? What if the researcher is not on the side of the researched?
When are covert research or deception justified?
When is the lack of informed consent justified?
Is covert research spying?
How should the researcher overcome the charge of exploiting the participants (i.e. treating them as objects instead of as subjects of research)?
How should the researcher address confidentiality and anonymity?
How should the balance be struck between the individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know?
What is really in the public interest?
How to handle the situation where it is unavoidable to identify participants?
What responsibility does the researcher have to the research community, some of whom may wish to conduct further research in the field?
How does the researcher handle frightened or threatened groups who may reveal little?
What protections are in the research, for whom, and from what?
What obligations does the researcher have?
Academic educational research on the powerful may be unlike other forms of educational research in that confidentiality may not be able to be assured. The participants are identifiable and public figures. This may produce ‘problems of censorship and self-censorship’ (Walford, 1994c: 229). It also means that information given in confidence and ‘off the record’ unfortunately may have to remain so. The issue raised in researching the powerful is the disclosure of identities, particularly if it is unclear what has been said ‘on the record’ and ‘off the record’ (Fitz and Halpin, 1994: 35–6).
Fitz and Halpin (1994) indicate that the government minister whom they interviewed stated, at the start of the interview, what was to be attributable. They also report that they used semi-structured interviews in their research of powerful people, valuing both the structure and the flexibility of this type of interview, and that they gained permission to record the interviews for later transcription, for the sake of a research record. They also used two interviewers for each session, one to conduct the main part of the interview and the other to take notes and ask supplementary questions; having two interviewers present also enabled a post-interview cross-check to be undertaken. Indeed having two questioners helped to negotiate the way through the interview in which advisers to the interviewee were also present (p. 38) to monitor the proceedings and interject where deemed fitting (p. 44), and to take notes (p. 47).
Fitz and Halpin (1994) comment on the considerable amount of gatekeeping that was present in researching the powerful (p. 40), in terms of access to people (with officers guarding entrances and administrators deciding whether interviews will take place), places (‘elite settings’), timing (and scarcity of time with busy respondents), ‘conventions that screen off the routines of policy-making from the public and the academic gaze’ (p. 48), conditional access and conduct of the research (‘boundary maintenance’ (p. 49)), monitoring and availability. Gewirtz and Ozga (1994: 192–3) suggest that gatekeeping in researching the powerful can produce difficulties which include ‘misrepresentation of the research intention, loss of researcher control, mediation of the research process, compromise and researcher dependence’.
Research with powerful people usually takes place on their territory, under their conditions and agendas (a ‘distinctive civil service voice’ (Fitz and Halpin, 1994: 42)), working within discourses set by the powerful (and, in part, reproduced by the researchers (p. 40)), and with protocols concerning what may or may not be disclosed (e.g. under a government’s Official Secrets Act or privileged information), within a world which may be unfamiliar and, thereby, disconcerting for researchers and with participants who may be overly assertive, and sometimes rendering the researcher as having to pretend to know less than he or she actually knows. As Fitz and Halpin (1994: 40) commented: ‘we glimpsed an unfamiliar world that was only ever partially revealed’, and one in which they did not always feel comfortable. Similarly, Ball (1994b: 113) suggests that ‘we need to recognize . . . the interview as an extension of the “play of power” rather than separate from it, merely a commentary upon it’, and that, when interviewing powerful people ‘the interview is both an ethnographic . . . and a political event’. As Walford (1994c: 225) remarks:
Those in power are well used to their ideas being taken notice of. They are well able to deal with interviewers, to answer and avoid particular questions to suit their own ends, and to present their own role in events in a favourable light. They are aware of what academic research involves, and are familiar with being interviewed and having their words tape-recorded. In sum, their power in the educational world is echoed in the interview situation, and interviews pose little threat to their own positions.
(Walford, 1994c: 225)
McHugh (1994) comments that access to powerful people may take place not only through formal channels but through intermediaries who introduce researchers to them (p. 55). Here his own vocation as a priest helped him to gain access to powerful Christian policy makers and, as he was advised, ‘if you say whom you have met, they’ll know you are not a way-out person who will distort what they say’ (p. 56). Access is a significant concern in researching the powerful, particularly if the issues being researched are controversial or contested. Walford (1994c: 222) suggests that it can be eased through informal and personal ‘behind the scenes’ contacts: ‘the more sponsorship that can be obtained, the better’ (p. 223), be it institutional or personal. Access can be eased if the research is seen to be ‘harmless’ (p. 223); in this respect Walford reports that female researchers may be at an advantage in that they are viewed as more harmless and non-threatening. Walford also makes the point that ‘persistence pays’ (p. 224); as he writes elsewhere (Walford, 2001: 31), ‘access is a process and not a once-only decision’.
McHugh (1994) also reports the need for meticulous preparation for an interview with the powerful person, to understand the full picture and to be as fully informed as the interviewee, in terms of facts, information and terminology, so that it is an exchange between the informed rather than an airing of ignorance, i.e. to do one’s homework. He also states the need for the interview questions to be thoroughly planned and prepared, with very careful framing of questions. McHugh suggests (p. 60) that during the interview it is important for the interviewer to be as flexible as possible, to follow the train of thought of the respondent, but also to be persistent (p. 62) if the interviewee does not address the issue. However, he reminds us that ‘an interview is of course not a courtroom’ (p. 62) and so tact, diplomacy and – importantly – empathy, are essential. Diplomacy in great measure is necessary when tackling powerful people about issues that might reveal their failure or incompetence, and powerful people may wish to exercise control over which questions they answer. Preparation for the conduct as well as the content of the interview is vital.
There are difficulties in reporting sensitive research with the powerful, as charges of bias may be difficult to avoid, not least because research reports and publications are placed in the pubic domain. Walford (2001: 141) indicates the risk of libel actions if public figures are named. He asks (1994b: 84) ‘to what extent is it right to allow others to believe that you agree with them?’ even if you do not? Should the researcher’s own political, ideological or religious views be declared? As Mickelson (1994: 147) states: ‘I was not completely candid when I interviewed these powerful people. I am far more genuine and candid when I am interviewing non-powerful people.’ Deem (1994: 156) reports that she and her co-researcher encountered ‘resistance and access problems in relation to our assumed ideological opposition to Conservative government education reforms’, where access might be blocked ‘on the grounds that ours was not a neutral study’.
Mickelson (1994: 147) takes this further in identifying an ethical dilemma when ‘at times, the powerful have uttered abhorrent comments in the course of the interview’. Should the researcher say nothing, thereby tacitly condoning the speaker’s comments, or speak out, thereby risking closing the interview? She contends that, in retrospect, she wished that she had challenged these views, and had been more assertive (p. 148). Walford (2001: 137) reports the example of an interview with a church minister whose views included ones with which he disagreed: ‘AIDS is basically a homosexual disease . . . and is doing a very effective job of ridding the population of undesirables. In Africa it’s basically a non-existent disease in many places. . . . If you’re a woolly woofter, you get what you deserve. . . . I would never employ a homosexual to teach at my school.’
In researching powerful people Mickelson (1994: 132) observes that they are rarely women, yet researchers are often women. This gender divide might prove problematic. Deem (1994: 157) reports that, as a woman, she encountered greater difficulty in conducting research than did her male colleague, even though, in fact, she held a more senior position than him. On the other hand she reports that males tended to be more open with female than male researchers, as female researchers were regarded as less important. Gewirtz and Ozga (1994: 196) report that ‘we felt [as researchers] that we were viewed as women in very stereotypical ways, which included being seen as receptive and supportive, and that we were obliged to collude, to a degree, with that version of ourselves because it was productive of the project’.
BOX 9.3 RESEARCHING POWERFUL PEOPLE
What renders the research sensitive?
How to gain and sustain access to powerful people.
How much are the participants likely to disclose or withhold?
What is on and off the record?
How to prepare for interviews with powerful people.
How to probe and challenge powerful people.
How, and whether to gain informed consent.
Is the research overt or covert, with or without deceit?
How to conduct interviews that balance the interviewer’s agenda and the interviewee’s agenda and frame of reference.
How to reveal the researcher’s own knowledge, preparation and understanding of the key issues.
The status of the researcher vis-à-vis the participants.
Who should conduct interviews with powerful people?
How neutral and accepting the researcher should be with the participant.
Whether to identify the participants in the reporting.
How to balance the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy.
What is in the public interest? In approaching researching powerful people, then, it is wise to consider several issues. These are set out in Box 9.3.
In approaching researching powerful people, then, it is wise to consider several issues. These are set out in Box 9.3.
Researching powerless people is also a highly sensitive matter, not least, as Munro et al. (2004: 299) point out, it is important not to add to their powerlessness. Similarly for vulnerable people – those who are unable to protect their own interests and who may suffer from negative labelling, stigmatization, exclusion or discrimination. The great claim of participatory research is that it empowers otherwise powerless groups (Healy, 2001; see also Chapter 2). Powerless people are easily negatively stereotyped and stigmatized (Fiske, 1993; Munro et al., 2004): the poor, the unemployed, the homeless, travellers, the disabled, the psychologically disturbed, AIDS patients, people with learning difficulties, minority groups such as non-heterosexuals, females (Skelton et al., 2006), etc.
In conducting research it is important not to add to the disempowerment of already disempowered groups, but it is also important actively to promote their empowerment or to leave then untouched and in the condition in which contact was first made (Munro et al., 2004: 299).
What does the researcher do, for example, if she finds that women are ‘talking down’ their own achievements, lives, capabilities or career prospects, such that they will not achieve? If she simply notes this and reports it then she could be seen as complicit in the oppression of women; if she decides not to report it then she could be seen as distorting the research; if she decides to challenge it with the women in question then she could be seen as coming out of the role of the neutral researcher and invading the research site, or, indeed to be raising expectations that are not realistic.
Powerless groups may well feel resentful of the well-dressed researcher (Munro et al., 2004), even if the researcher’s intentions are honourable, or they may feel unable to disclose their true feelings and opinions for fear of bringing yet further negativity to their own situation. They may feel antagonized if interviews are conducted in well-kept surroundings which are very different from their own. Indeed for many, an interview may be the first occasion in their lives that they have experienced such an activity.
Children may well feel powerless and insecure in the presence of a researcher (Greig and Taylor, 1999) and may say what they feel the researcher wishes to hear, what is the school’s view, what is socially desirable (p. 131). They may be too shy or embarrassed to reveal their true feelings or to say what really happened in a situation (e.g. child abuse). The researcher must be acutely sensitive to this, and must recognize her/his own limitations in conducting such research on sensitive matters with vulnerable participants, if necessary handing over such interviews (and, for example, handling projection or displacement techniques) to trained professionals. The setting for such interviews should be familiar to the children, non-threatening and designed to put them at their ease.
Hart (1992) sets out a ‘ladder of participation’ in research with children. At the bottom of the ladder is ‘manipulation’, in which children do what the adults say, without necessarily understanding why. The rungs of the ladder move up from ‘decoration’ to ‘tokenism’, to ‘assigned but not informed’, to ‘consultation and information’, to ‘child initiated: shared decisions with adults’, and, at the top of the ladder, ‘child initiated and directed’. The researcher should locate her/his research more to the upper rungs of the ladder in order to be inclusive.
Whilst this may be seen as an argument supporting covert research, it need not be: researchers can conduct honest, sympathetic research on the participants’ home ground (as did researchers examining poverty ín Hong Kong, who conducted structured interviews in the participants’ own homes (Sequeira et al., 1996)). Care must be taken by researchers to avoid sounding condescending, patronizing, powerful, domineering or high-handed. This is a matter of non-verbal behaviour, dress and, significantly, choice of language, such that it becomes inclusive rather than exclusive yet without being contrived or artificial. As mentioned in Chapter 5, data are gifts, not entitlements. The researcher has to conduct the research with respect, affording dignity to the participants, whilst not necessarily making promises (e.g. to change their situation) which cannot be kept.
The researcher studying powerless and vulnerable groups has an obligation to be inclusive (i.e. to enable all members of the group in question to participate and on an equal footing, and to feel valued), and to abide by the ethical principles outlined in Chapter 5 (e.g. informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, recognition of participants’ time and efforts, consultation, keeping participants informed, maintaining and concluding relationships, addressing the well-being of participants, indicating any possible adverse effects of participation, ensuring the safety and well-being of researchers) (Connolly, 2003). In many senses, powerless participants might feel ‘used’ in educational research, not only providing data but advancing the careers of the researchers whilst leaving themselves disempowered. The researcher must avoid this.
Box 9.4 summarizes some key issues in researching powerless and vulnerable people.
It can be seen that very many of the issues that were raised in considering researching powerful groups are identical to those raised in researching powerless and vulnerable groups (Boxes 9.3 and 9.4). This is deliberate, as both concern ethical, sensitive behaviour and, though perhaps interpreted differently for the two groups, they apply equally powerfully to both.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (www.jrf.org.uk/search/site/Ethics) publishes ethical guidelines for researchers working with vulnerable, marginalized groups, powerless people and children.
Even though an anonymized questionnaire may give participants the freedom to respond in private, in depth and with honesty, and even though a face-to-face interview may be very threatening in connection with some sensitive issues, such that honest or complete answers may be unlikely, as a general rule, the more sensitive is the research, the more important it is to conduct face-to-face interviews for data collection. In asking questions in research, Sudman and Bradburn (1982: 50–1) suggest that open questions may be preferable to closed questions and long questions may be preferable to short questions. Both of these enable respondents to answer in their own words, which might be more suitable for sensitive topics. Indeed they suggest that whilst short questions may be useful for gathering information about attitudes, longer questions are more suitable for asking questions about behaviour, and can include examples to which respondents may wish to respond. Longer questions may reduce the under-reporting of the frequency of behaviour addressed in sensitive topics (for example, the use of alcohol or medication by stressed teachers). On the other hand, the researcher has to be cautious to avoid tiring, emotionally exhausting or stressing the participant by a long questionnaire or interview.
Lee (1993: 78) advocates using familiar words in questions as these can reduce a sense of threat in addressing sensitive matters and help the respondent to feel more relaxed. He also suggests the use of ‘vignettes’ (p. 79) – ‘short descriptions of a person or a social situation which contain precise references to what are thought to be the most important factors in the decision-making or judgement making processes of respondents’ (Lee, 1993: 79). These can not only encapsulate concretely the issues under study, but can also defect attention away from personal sensitivities by projecting them onto another external object – the case or vignette – and the respondent can be asked to react to them personally, e.g. ‘what would you do in this situation?’.
BOX 9.4 RESEARCHING POWERLESS AND VULNERABLE GROUPS
What renders the research sensitive?
How to gain and sustain access to powerless and vulnerable people.
How much are the participants likely to disclose or withhold?
What is on and off the record?
How to prepare for interviews with powerless and vulnerable people.
Where will the interviews/data collection take place?
How to probe powerless and vulnerable people.
How to ensure non-maleficence and beneficence, dignity and respect.
How to avoid further stigmatization, negative stereotyping, and marginalization of participants.
How to act in the interests of the participants.
How, and whether, to gain informed consent.
Is the research overt or covert, with or without deceit?
How to conduct interviews that balance the interviewer’s agenda and the interviewee’s agenda and frame of reference.
How to reveal the researcher’s own knowledge, preparation and understanding of the key issues.
How to equalize status between the researcher and the participants.
How to ensure inclusiveness of participants.
Who should conduct interviews with powerless and vulnerable people?
Does the researcher have the expertise to conduct interviews with the participants?
What protections are there for the participants?
Whether to identify the participants in the reporting.
How to balance the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy.
What is in the public interest?
Researchers investigating sensitive topics have to be acutely percipient of the situation themselves. For example, their non-verbal communication may be critical in interviews. They must, therefore, give no hint of judgement, support or condemnation. They must avoid counter-transference (projecting the researchers’ own views, values, attitudes, biases, background onto the situation). Interviewer effects are discussed in Chapter 21 in connection with sensitive research; these effects concern:
The characteristics of the researcher (e.g. sex, race, age, status, clothing, appearance, rapport, background, expertise, institutional affiliation, political affiliation, type of employment or vocation, e.g. a priest). Females may feel more comfortable being interviewed by a female; males may feel uncomfortable being interviewed by a female; powerful people may feel insulted by being interviewed by a lowly, novice research assistant.
The expectations that the interviewers may have of the interview (Lee, 1993: 99). For example, a researcher may feel apprehensive about, or uncomfortable with, an interview about a sensitive matter. Bradburn and Sudman (1979, in Lee, 1993: 101) report that interviewers who did not anticipate difficulties in the interview achieved a 5–30 per cent higher level of reporting on sensitive topics than those who anticipated difficulties. This suggests the need for interviewer training.
Lee (1993: 102–14) suggests several issues to be addressed in conducting sensitive interviews:
How to approach the topic (in order to prevent participants’ inhibitions and to help them address the issue in their preferred way). Here the advice is to let the topic ‘emerge gradually over the course of the interview’ (p. 103) and to establish trust and informed consent.
How to deal with contradictions, complexities and emotions (which may require training and supervision of interviewers); how to adopt an accepting and non-judgemental stance, how to handle respondents who may not be people whom interviewers particularly like or with whom they agree.
How to handle the operation of power and control in the interview: (a) where differences of power and status operate: where the interviewer has greater or lesser status than the respondent and where there is equal status between the interviewer and the respondent; (b) how to handle the situation where the interviewer wants information but is in no position to command that this be given and where the respondent may or may not wish to disclose information; (c) how to handle a situation wherein powerful people use the interview as an opportunity for lengthy and perhaps irrelevant self-indulgence; (d) how to handle the situation in which the interviewer, by the end of the session, has information that is sensitive and could give the interviewer power over the respondent and make the respondent feel vulnerable; (e) what the interviewer should do with information that may act against the interests of the people who gave it (e.g. if some groups in society say that they are not clever enough to handle higher or further education); and (f ) how to handle the conduct of the interview (e.g. conversational, formal, highly structured, highly directed).
Handling the conditions under which the exchange takes place, Lee (1993: 112) suggests that interviews on sensitive matters should ‘have a one-off character’, i.e. the respondent should feel that the interviewer and the interviewee may never meet again. This, can secure trust, and can lead to greater disclosure than in a situation where a closer relationship between interviewer and interviewee exists. On the other hand this does not support the development of a collaborative research relationship (Lee, 1993: 113).
Much educational research is more or less sensitive; it is for the researcher to decide how to approach the issue of sensitivities and how to address their many forms, allegiances, ethics, access, politics and consequences.
In approaching educational research, our advice is to consider it to be far from a neat, clean, tidy, unproblematic and neutral process, but to regard it as shot through with actual and potential sensitivities. With this in mind we have resisted the temptation to provide a list of sensitive topics, as this could be simplistic and overlook the fundamental issue which is that it is the social context of the research that makes the research sensitive. What may appear to the researcher to be a bland and neutral study can raise deep sensitivities in the minds of the participants. We have argued that it is these that often render the research sensitive rather than the selection of topics of focus. Researchers have to consider the likely or possible effects of the research project, conduct, outcomes, reporting and dissemination not only on themselves but on the participants, on those connected to the participants and on those affected by, or with a stakeholder interest in the research (i.e. to consider ‘consequential validity’: the effects of the research). This suggests that it is wise to be cautious and to regard all educational research as potentially sensitive. There are several questions that can be asked by researchers, in their planning, conduct, reporting and dissemination of their studies, and we present these in Box 9.5.
These questions reinforce the importance of regarding ethics as ‘situated’ (Simons and Usher, 2000), i.e. contingent on particular situations rather than largely on ethical codes and guidelines. In this respect sensitive educational research is like any other research, but sharper in the criticality of ethical issues. Also, behind many of these questions of sensitivity lurks the nagging issue of power: who has it, who does not, how it circulates around research situations (and with what consequences), and how it should be addressed. Sensitive educational research is often as much a power play as it is substantive. We advise researchers to regard most educational research as involving sensitivities; these need to be identified and addressed.
BOX 9.5 KEY QUESTIONS IN CONSIDERING SENSITIVE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
What renders the research sensitive?
What are the obligations of the researcher, to whom, and how will these be addressed? How do these obligations manifest themselves?
What is the likely effect of this research (at all stages) to be on participants (individuals and groups), stakeholders, the researcher, the community? Who will be affected by the research, and how?
Who is being discussed and addressed in the research?
What rights of reply and control do participants have in the research?
What are the ethical issues that are rendered more acute in the research?
Over what matters in the planning, focus, conduct, sampling, instrumentation, methodology, reliability, analysis, reporting and dissemination might the researcher have to compromise in order to effect the research? On what can there be compromise? On what can there be no compromise?
What securities, protections (and from what), liabilities and indemnifications are there in the research, and for whom? How can these be addressed?
Who is the research for? Who are the beneficiaries of the research? Who are the winners and losers in the research (and about what issues)?
What are the risks and benefits of the research, and for whom? What will the research ‘deliver’ and do?
Should the researcher declare his/her own values, and challenge those with which he/she disagrees or considers to be abhorrent?
What might be the consequences, repercussions and backlash from the research, and for whom?
What sanctions might there be in connection with the research?
What has to be secured in a contractual agreement, and what is deliberately left out?
What guarantees must and should the researcher give to the participants?
What procedures for monitoring and accountability must there be in the research?
What must and must not, should and should not, may or may not, could or could not be disclosed in the research?
Should the research be covert, overt, partially overt, partially covert, honest in its disclosure of intentions?
Should participants be identifiable and identified? What if identification is unavoidable?
How will access and sampling be secured and secure respectively?
How will access be sustained over time?
Who are the gatekeepers and how reliable are they?
Companion WebsiteThe companion website to the book includes PowerPoint slides for this chapter, which list the structure of the chapter and then provide a summary of the key points in each of its sections. This resource can be found online at www.routledge.com/textbooks/cohen7e.