Interviews to study Education

What issues may sociologists use interviews to study?

• Pupil subcultures

• Pupils’ experience of health and sex education

• Class, ethnicity and language

• Gender identity and the male gaze

• Class and parental choice of schools

What practical issues are involved in interviewing young people?

• They could be less articulate/more reluctant to talk

• They may not understand long, complex questions + abstract concepts (e.g. labelling)

• Have limited vocab + use words incorrectly/different from adults (e.g. slang)

• Have shorter attention span + poorer memory retrieval

• Read body language differently to adults

• = incorrect/incomplete answers = less validity

What are the practical issues with conducting interviews in school?

• Schools have active informal communication channels, content of interview (maybe inaccurate) gets round fast = decreased validity of future responses

• Unstructured interviews take 1hr+, teachers work under time constraints so interview needs to take place outside of school hours, interruptions/distractions if conducted during school time

• Parents are busy- will only co-operate in lengthy interview if see benefit to child’s education

• Schools = hierarchical, lower down hierarchy interviewee is = harder to access (e.g. to interview pupils you might need headteacher, teacher and parental consent)

• Schools reluctant to allow interviews in lesson time as disruptive

What are the ethical issues of using interviews to research education?

• Children could be unsettled by strange situations, need to take care not to distress them

• School may object to researcher topic (e.g. drug use)

What did Field find about parental permission and research topic?

Studied health/sex education in schools, high refusal rate of 29% due to parents withholding consent

What do Powney and Watts note about young children and interviews?

• More literal-minded

• Pay attention to unexpected details in questions

• Use different logic to adult interviewer

• Training needs to be more thorough = increased cost

What are the practical strengths of interviewing schoolchildren?

• Usually have better verbal than literacy skills = better than questionnaires

What are the theoretical issues of using interviews to investigate education?

• If conducted in school, pupil/parent may feel less comfortable- school + classroom represents higher status + authority = off-putting, teachers can be put off by concept of headteacher/colleagues overhearing

• Structured wont produce valid data as young people unlikely to respond favourably to formal style as interviewer appears too much like a teacher

• Personal approach of unstructured interviews cant be standardised = less reliable

• Interviewees may lie/exaggerate/conceal info + seek to please if feel have less power than interviewer, could be less confident/responses less articulate = less valid data

• Peer pressure can influence group interviews, reduces validity

How can a hierarchy occur during an interview concerning education?

• Pupil seeks to win ‘teachers’ (interviewers) approval by giving untrue but socially acceptable answers (e.g. time spent on h/w)

• Pupils accustomed to adults ‘knowing better’ so defer to them in interviews (e.g. children more likely to change OG answer when question repeated- think likely to be wrong)

• w/c parent perceive interviewer as higher status, questions =patronising/intrusive, power inequalities less pronounced when interviewing m/c teachers

What does Bell say about pupil perception of interviewers?

see them as ‘teacher in disguise’

How did Bentley use an informal approach in interviewing pupils?

showed them ‘jokey’ image of her + daughter, maintained relaxed atmosphere by nodding, smiling + eye contact

What are the theoretical strengths of using interviews to investigate education?

• Structured: reliable data as standardised

How can researchers improve the reliability of their data when investigating education?

• Use open-ended questions

• Not interrupt children’s answers

• Tolerate long pauses to allow time to think

• Recognise that children are more suggestible- avoid asking leading questions

• Avoid repeating questions

What are the benefits of using group interviews to investigate education, according to Greene and Hogan?

• Create safe peer environment

• Reproduce familiar small group setting of classwork

• Reduces power imbalance

• Reveals interactions between pupils