Schools

Question 1

Schools’ own data

Answer 1

Due to education being closely scrutinised by the media, parents, politicians and marketisation - schools have a lot of secondary data availability on them, often made by the school itself. While this makes schools ‘data-rich’ environments, some is confidential and much can be misleading or falsified to give a good appearance - e.g. exam results (use lower qualifications to appear like progress is made), truancy reports (underreport), incident reports (downplay)

Question 2

The law

Answer 2

Requires young people to attend. A captive population has advantages and disadvantages: researchers know where everyone should be at anytime but the schools primary focus is education, a so teachers and heads may see involvement as interference

Question 3

Gatekeepers

Answer 3

Governors/heads may refuse a researcher’s access - doing so if they think they will interfere with the work of the school, or undermine teacher authority. Mieghan and Harber - heads sometimes have negative views on research

Question 4

School organisation

Answer 4

Formal institutions like hierarchies that researcher may be seen to become part of (teachers see them as inspectors, pupils as teachers). They may also be seen as ‘the enemy’ in schools with high conflict levels. Single-sex schools or those with overwhelming population of a single ethnicity may provide more attention to a researcher than what was wanted from a more covert study. Complex daily/ weekly/ yearly timetables + site layouts can be confusing + impact research