This case study is based on original research for a new teaching toolkit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), in Norwich, UK. The toolkit seeks to support the cultivation of equitable, fair, and dignified learning environments in UK Higher Education. It is grounded in decolonial principles that emphasize the relevance of ongoing reflexivity and…

The transgender community is rich with wisdom about how to live authentically, embrace duality, and embody intersecting identities, but our stories have been widely missing from or misrepresented in research. "Insider" community-engaged research offers a framework for boundary-spanning researchers to blend their "insider" and…

This article seeks to move beyond the Euro/North-centrism recurrent in methodological discussions on what we may learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Such debates often centre on uncertainty and involuntary immobility -- aspects which are hardly new for many researchers. In this article, we argue that the pandemic offers an opportunity to rethink…

Urban planning research usually requires researchers to undertake fieldwork. This fieldwork is frustrated or enabled by gatekeepers who can influence effective data collection. Traditionally, gatekeepers are perceived as monolithic, neutral, and static individuals, yet they are complex individuals with varying needs and expectations from the…

Direct contacts with research participants in online ethnography are an important tool to better understand complex social dynamics in cyberspace. The current ethical approaches guiding academic research, however, can be problematic in this regard, creating unintended tensions leading to potential research biases as well as safety and wellbeing…

Quantitative social scientists have adopted the positivist epistemology and methodology of natural sciences, seeking objectivity, generalisability, and neutrality. However, in social sciences -- unlike in natural sciences -- humans are both the investigators and the object of investigation, leading to intricate interconnections between researchers…

This case study investigates the practical and methodological challenges associated with conducting interviews with high-ranking public figures ("elites") in politically fragile environments, with a particular focus on education and gender issues in Turkey. The original research utilised a qualitative methodology, emphasising an…

This article presents some of the challenges that arise in research aimed at listening to children under three years of age in order to improve everyday school life. The article is based on research carried out over several years in schools and funded by the Spanish Ministry responsible for Research and Development (R&D). Drawing on a…

This powerful resource is for researchers and educational leaders who are interested in understanding and applying research methods that emphasize youth voice. The authors argue that most educational research either omits critical understandings of youth or, even worse, presents inaccuracies due to faulty techniques. Researching how youth…

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. This article draws on…

This paper proposes a strategy for ethnographically investigating politically disparate education organizations. I develop the notion of researching as a critical secretary: a method of participant-observation conducted alongside those observed to hold the least formal power. Drawing on data from an initial empirical effort to implement this…

Much of qualitative interview research encourages researcher reflexivity, though there seems some uncertainty of how one actually does reflexive research. We show in this case that reflexivity includes examinations of the researcher in relation to the interviewed "other," and that transcriptions--a common element of interview-based…

Ethics dumping is the practice of undertaking research in a low- or middle-income setting which would not be permitted, or would be severely restricted, in a high-income setting. Whilst Kenya operates a sophisticated research governance system, resource constraints and the relatively low number of accredited research ethics committees limit the…

Interview-based research in multilingual situations can present researchers with specific ethical challenges relating to language-based power play, data handling and presentation. Studies indicate favouring the L1 (first language) as an interviewing language may produce better quality data, but external pressures can favour English as the dominant…

This commentary revisits compelling arguments put forth by the contributors to this special issue on the role of race and ethnicity in academic motivation research. First, an overview of how race and motivation have been positioned in prominent theories of motivation is provided and juxtaposed with those offered in culturally responsive…