Research characteristics

Question 1

five main groups

Answer 1

Pupils
Teachers
Parents
Classrooms
Schools

Question 2

pupils

Answer 2

According to Malcolm Hill there are three major issues that raise P, E and T problems when researching pupils
Power and Status
Ability and Understanding
Vulnerability

Question 3

power and status pupils

Answer 3

Children and young people generally have less power and status than adults. This makes it difficult for them to state their attitudes and views openly, especially if they challenge those of adults

Question 4

how do schools reinforce the problems of power and status - pupils

Answer 4

Schools are hierarchical institutions that give teachers higher status and power over pupils. Teachers may use this power to influence which pupils are selected for research in order to promote a good image of themselves or the school. They may the researcher as a teacher in disguise - pupils in anti-school subcultures- WC boys, black boys, may be uncooperative, some pupils - those with positive labels and in pro-school subcultures - MC, may feel empowered by the research and overexaggerate or some may express their feelings about school

Question 5

what research methods reinforce power differences

Answer 5

Formal methods like structured interviews or questionnaires tend to reinforce power differences. This is because it is the researcher and not the young person who determines what questions are asked and how answers should be formulated.

Question 6

how can sociologists overcome the power and status differences between adult researchers and young participants

Answer 6

They can use group interviews rather than formal structured interviews, this may overcome the power and status differences between researchers and young participants. However, it is likely that whatever method is used, some power and status differences between researchers and pupil will remain

Question 7

ability and understanding

Answer 7

Pupils vocabulary, powers of self-expression, thinking skills and confidence are likely to be more limited than those of adults. Given that abstract concepts are a central part of sociological research, this poses a problem for the researcher. For example, the sociologist will need to take care in how they word their questions so as to make sure they are understood by younger respondents. - may not provide a full picture

Question 8

what other problems can limitation in pupils understanding lead to

Answer 8

Limitations in pupils’ understanding can make it difficult to gain their informed consent. The sociologist may not be able to explain the nature of the research in words that young pupils can clearly understand.

Question 9

young people and understanding

Answer 9

Young people use language in different ways from adults, which makes the construction of appropriately worded questions demanding. Younger children in particular are likely to require more time than adults to understand questions. A young person’s memory is less developed than that of an adult, so maybe unable to recall in detail relevant material when asked to do so by the researcher

Question 10

counter argument against pupils ability and understanding.

Answer 10

Pupils are not a homogenous group. Pupils of different social backgrounds have different speech codes

Question 11

vulnerability and ethical issues

Answer 11

As a result of their more limited power and ability, young people are often more vulnerable to physical and psychological harm than adults. This raises ethical issues.

Question 12

what do research guidelines emphasise about young people and vulnerability

Answer 12

Research guidelines emphasise that young people too should be aware of what the research entails and it is not enough to simply obtain the informed consent of parents or teachers. However, it may be difficult to explain this to a child, and they may not be mature enough to decide whether to participate.

Question 13

what does the vulnerability of young people mean

Answer 13

Given the vulnerability of school-age pupils child protection issues are very important, personal data should not be kept except it is vital to the research. It also means that research cannot be carried out for a long time due to the physical stress it may have on the pupil. It also means that there will be more gatekeepers controlling access to pupils than there are for most other social groups. These include parents, teachers, heads etc. The more gatekeepers involved the more difficult it is likely to be to carry out sustained research.

Question 14

laws and guidelines - kids

Answer 14

Child protection laws such as the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 operate a vetting and barring scheme on adults working in schools, which requires researchers to have Disclosure and Barring Services(DBS) checks, which may delay or prevent researchers from carrying out their research.

Question 15

researching teachers

Answer 15

Teachers often feel overworked and may be less than fully cooperative, even when they want to be helpful. This may mean that interviews and questionnaires need to be kept short which will restrict the amount of data that can be gathered.
Power and Status
Impression management

Question 16

power and status

Answer 16

Teachers have more power and status because of their age, experience and responsibility within the school. They also have legal responsibilities and a duty of care towards the young people they teach. The nature of the classroom reinforces the power of the teacher, as they often see it as ‘my classroom’ in which the researcher would be viewed as a trespasser. However, teachers are not fully independent even in ‘their’ classroom, heads and governors, parents and pupils all constrain what teachers may do.

Question 17

what do researchers have to do in response to teacher’s power and status

Answer 17

Researchers will need to develop a cover if they intend to carry out covert investigations, which may mean representing themselves as a supply teacher or classroom assistant. Although this gives researchers access, these groups have a lower status within the school and other teachers may not treat them as equals.

Question 18

impression management

Answer 18

Teachers are used to being observed and scrutinised for example in OFSTED inspections. As a result, they may be more willing to be observed by a researcher since it is something they are accustomed to experiencing. However, because a major part of the teacher’s role is to ‘put on an act’ for pupils and others, teachers are often highly skilled at what Goffman calls ‘impression management’ - manipulating the impression people have of us. The researcher may therefore have to find ways to get behind the public face that teachers put on.

Question 19

researching teachers backstage

Answer 19

Getting backstage with teachers poses particular problems. The staffroom is a relatively small social space and, because teaching staff are generally known to each other, a newcomer will stand out and may not be treated with some suspicion.

Question 20

teachers and career

Answer 20

Teachers will be aware that any critical comments they make about the school where they work could affect their career prospects. As a result, they may be reluctant to answer certain questions honestly. However, the researcher may be able to overcome this problem by using observational methods rather than methods that involve asking direct questions such as interviews or questionnaires.

Question 21

headteachers and impression management

Answer 21

Headteachers may try to influence which staff are selected to be involved in the research and these may not be fully representative of all teachers in the school. For example, a head may handpick teachers who will convey a favourable image of the school - threatens validity

Question 22

researching classrooms

Answer 22

The classroom is a closed social setting with clear physical and social boundaries, it is also a highly controlled setting for example, the teacher and the school control classroom layout and access, pupils’ time, activities, language etc while they’re in the classroom - students experience a lot of surveillance and control.

Question 23

what happens as a result of the amount of surveillance and control children experience in the classroom

Answer 23

Classroom behaviour that the researcher observes may not accurately reflect what those involved really think and feel. Furthermore, in classroom interactions, teachers and pupils are very experienced at concealing their real thoughts and feelings from each other - another example of impression management - and they may conceal them from the researcher too. The classroom is a simple social setting, in most cases, there are just two social roles in the classroom - teacher and pupil. All this makes classroom interaction relatively straightforward to observe and analyse.
- Gatekeepers
- Peer groups

Question 24

Gatekeepers

Answer 24

Access to classrooms is controlled by a wide range of gatekeepers. These include - head teachers, teachers and child protection laws. The more gatekeepers there are to a particular research setting, the more difficult it is for the researcher to obtain and maintain access.

Question 25

Peer groups

Answer 25

Young people may be insecure about their identity and status. When in school-based groups, they may be more sensitive to peer pressure and need to conform. This may affect the way they respond to being researched. It may therefore be necessary to supervise pupils when they are filling in questionnaires, especially if this is done in class, to prevent peers from influencing one another’s answers. Similarly, in group interviews, the true attitudes of individual pupils may be hidden behind the dominant attitudes of the peer group - laddish subcultures and anti-school subcultures.

Question 26

researching schools

Answer 26

Sociologists using observational methods may be unlikely to have the time to investigate more than very few schools and their research risks being unrepresentative. Using large-scale surveys or official stats instead may overcome this problem, - though they may lose the insight that can be gained from the detailed observation of a single school.
- Schools’ own data
- the law
- gatekeepers
- school organisation

Question 27

schools own data

Answer 27

What goes on in education is closely scrutinised by the media, parents and politicians. The education system is also highly marketised with parental choice and competition between schools at its heart. As a result, there is a lot of secondary data publicly available about schools, often produced by the schools themselves.

Question 28

types of secondary data about schools

Answer 28

Exam results
League Tables
Figures on truancy and subject choice
OFSTED reports
Government inquiries and school policy documents
Personal documents such as reports on individual students

Question 29

problems with schools data

Answer 29

Schools are therefore ‘data-rich’ places and sociologists may be able to make use of some of these secondary sources in their research. However, school records are confidential and so researchers may not be able to gain access to them. Other school data may pose particular difficulties. For example, schools with a truancy problem may falsify their attendance figures in order to present a good image and not deter applications. Similarly, although schools have a legal duty to record all racist incidents, there may be a tendency to downplay such incidents so as to maintain a positive public image. Official Stats on exam performance should be treated with care. Schools may make changes in the curriculum in order to improve their results, for example, by entering pupils for easier qualifications, and, create the image that the school is improving when in reality there may have been little or no change.

Question 30

the law

Answer 30

The law requires young people to attend school - provides researchers with a large population. Having such a ‘captive population’ to study has both advantages and disadvantages. For example, the researcher will know where everyone is or where they should be. On the other hand, since the school’s primary role is to educate pupils, heads and teachers may see involvement in research as interfering with the school’s most important function. Schools operate within a particular legal framework. For example, the law requires them to collect information on pupils’ attendance, achievement and so on, and this duty may be useful to sociologists. On the other hand, the legal duty of care that schools have towards their pupils may mean that researchers’ access is restricted.

Question 31

gatekeepers - schools

Answer 31

Headteachers and governors are gatekeepers who have the power to refuse access to the school. They may do so if they believe that the research will interfere with the work of the school or undermine teachers’ authority.

Question 32

sociologists on schools acting like gatekeepers

Answer 32

Meighan and Harber, heads sometimes view research negatively. For example, heads’ reaction to a research project that Meighan wanted to carry out on consulting pupils about teaching included the following views:
- It is dangerous to involve pupils in commenting on their teachers
- Discipline would be affected
- It would be bad for classroom relationships
- Children are not competent to judge teachers
Some situations and school settings may be ‘off limits’ to a researcher - for example, head teachers’ interviews with parents. Beynon and Atkinson note that gatekeepers such as heads often steer the researcher away from sensitive situations, such as classes where the teacher has poor classroom control.

Question 33

school organisation

Answer 33

Schools are formal organisations with rules and hierarchies. Researchers may come to be seen as part of the hierarchy. For example, students may see them as inspectors. In schools where there is a conflict between students and teachers, researchers may be seen as ‘the enemy’. Some schools are single-sex. This may pose problems where the researcher is of a different gender from that of the pupils. For example, sociologists may become the focus of attention when they might prefer to keep a low profile when conducting participant observation. Schools are relatively large-scale, complex, highly organised social institutions. They have yearly and daily timetables and these may affect when and how a study can be carried out - school holidays and exam periods may severely limit the sociologist’s research activities. Furthermore, the size and complexity of schools can cause difficulties for researchers.

Question 34

researching parents

Answer 34

Parents can influence what goes on in education for example -
- By how they bring up their children
- By their involvement in school through parent-teacher contacts, parents governors, attendance at parents’ evenings
- Marketisation policies encourage parents to see themselves as consumers, for example in the choice of school
However, parents are not necessarily an easy group to study as they are not a single homogenous group, their class, gender and ethnicity may all affect how willing or able they are to participate in research.

Question 35

middle class parents

Answer 35

Middle-Class parents who often enjoy a better relationship with their children’s school may be more likely to return questionnaires about their children’s education and this will make the research findings unrepresentative.

Question 36

parental permission

Answer 36

Parental permission is required for many forms of research with pupils. How likely parents are to give their permission may depend on the sensitivity of the research issue and on whether they can see their children benefitting from being involved. In general, the more sensitive an issue appears to be for parents, the less likely they are to consent to their children participating in research.

Question 37

parents and impression management

Answer 37

Parents may engage in impression management, presenting themselves to researchers in a positive light by exaggerating their involvement in their children’s education. For example, they may lie about whether they attend parents’ evenings or how often they read to their children, this will result in invalid data being gathered.

Question 38

access to parents

Answer 38

Parents play a vital role in children’s education. However, most parent-child interaction takes place in the home. As a private setting is often closed to researchers, this presents particular difficulties. For example, while classroom interactions between teachers and pupils can often be observed easily, there are few opportunities to observe whether parents help children with their homework.

Question 39

why are parents an unusual group

Answer 39

Parents are unusual in that they are for the most part physically located outside the school. This may make them more difficult to contact and research. Although lists of parents’ names and addresses exist in school records, a school would not normally release such information to researchers. However, the school might well be happy to help a researcher contact parents by using the usual method of sending letters or questionnaires home with pupils. However, this would not necessarily guarantee that parents received them or that pupils always returned the questionnaires that their parents had completed.