Methods in Context: Education context

Researching Pupils - Power & Status:

• Young people have less power than adults - harder to express views openly, especially if they oppose adults

• Schools have hierarchical institutions that give teachers more power & status

  • Can use this to influence pupils chosen for research - present schools positively

• Formal methods (questionnaires & S.I) reinforce power differences because researcher determines questions asked & how answers should be given

• Leads to problem of “teacher in disguise” - students see sociologist as being like teachers as both are adults hence are more closed & guarded and not open making it hard to build rapport

• Group interviews can overcome power/status differences

Researching Pupils - Ability & Understanding

• Pupil’s vocab, self-expression, thinking skills & confidence can be more limited than adults, especially when expressing abstract ideas

  • Abstract concepts central to sociology - researcher has to word question differently so pupils can understand

• Limited pupil understanding makes it difficult to get their informed consent - researcher not able to explain research in way they can understand

  • May need more time to fully understand questions

Researching Pupils - Ethical Issues & Vulnerability:

• Informed consent needed from pupil & parents and teachers - may be too young to understand & decide (primary school age)

• Confidentiality - personal data shouldn’t be kept unless vital to researcher

• Protection from harm - must ensure form of research & method is appropriate for young children

  • Shouldn’t put children under stress - negative impacts of labelling, streaming or achievement

  • Also can’t be questioned for a long time - shorter attention spans

• Young people more vulnerable so parents or teachers will control access - ‘Gatekeepers’ make it harder to carry out or start research

Researching Pupils - Law & Guidelines:

• DBS checks required under ‘The Safeguarding and Vulnerable Groups Act’ (2006)

  • Can delay or prevent researcher in starting

• Compulsory education - children legally required to be in school so easy to research pupils

  • HOWEVER: hard if target group are anti-school pupils who may truant regularly - not part of captive population

Researching Teachers - Power & Status:

• May not be fully cooperative - overworked, interviews or long questionnaires time-consuming so less willing

• Nature of classrooms reinforce power of teacher - see it as ‘their classroom’ & researcher is trespassing

• Teachers not fully independent - can’t be critical as constrained by heads or governors & worried about losing job

• Researchers doing covert research need to develop a ‘cover’ e.g supply teacher

  • Although gives them access, cover gives them lower status & teachers not treat them as equals

Researching Teachers - Impression Management:

• More willing to be observed - used to being observed & scrutinised during Ofsted inspections

• GOFFMAN: but teachers highly skilled at “impression management” - manipulating impression we give of ourselves to others

  • Harder for researchers to see beyond the public act teachers on, impacting validity

• Some study teachers in staffroom as more private setting - but small social space & researcher may not have access

• Teachers less willing to answer questions honestly as aware of how critical comments could impact career prospects - observations used to overcome this

• Headteachers affect representativeness - choose certain teachers who may convey a favourable image of school

Researching Classrooms - Validity:

• Unusual as ‘closed’ social setting with clear physical & social boundaries

• Highly controlled setting - clear boundaries & restriction on access and how to behave (P)

  • Young people rarely have this level of surveillance in other areas of their lives

  • Classroom behaviour observed by researcher might not be accurate reflection of what those involved really think (T)

  • Teachers & pupil experienced in disguising real thoughts and feelings - ‘impression management’

Researching Classrooms - Gatekeepers:

• Unlike other social environments, access to classroom controlled by range of gatekeepers

  • Headteachers, teachers & child protection laws

• More gatekeepers there are, harder it is for researcher to obtain & maintain access

Researching Classrooms - Peer Groups:

• Peer groups ave significant influence over behaviour of others - young people may be insecure about status, so more sensitive to peer pressure when in classes & friend groups

  • Affects way they respond to being researched - boys may want to show masculine dominance

  • More necessary to supervise pupils filling out questionnaires to overcome this

• True attitudes of individual pupils may be hidden when they’re interviewed as a group of peers

Researching Schools - Time:

• Large number of schools means a sociologist using observations won’t have time to investigate them at all

  • Could lead to unrepresentative data

• Using large scale surveys or official statistics can overcome issue

  • Lose validity & detailed insights however

• Easy to identify research population - gov publishes lists of schools, where they’re located & what type of school they are

Researching Schools - School Data:

• Education scrutinised by media, parents & politicians - highly marketised system puts parents choice & competition between school as a priority

  • Hence, great deal of publically available information about it - exam results, league tables, truancy figures, Ofsted reports etc

  • Also personal documents - individual reports

  • Schools have significant data so sociologists can make use of secondary data

• However access to school records limited due to confidentiality

• Schools also prone to ‘doctoring’/‘off-rolling’ data to make them look better in tables

  • Truancy figures may be falsified

  • Official statistics about exams may be false - schools can change curriculum to get bette results e.g entering pupils for lower entry exams

Researching Schools - The Law:

• Law requires young people to attend school for education

  • Advantage - ‘captive population’, researcher is aware of where students should be

  • Disadvantage - school’s role is to educate pupils so teachers may see researchers as interfering with this

• Legal framework requiring schools to record pupils’ attendance, achievement etc useful

  • But, legal duty of care schools have to pupils may mean they’ll deny researchers access to this

Researching Schools - Gatekeepers:

• Headteachers & governors have power to refuse access to school - if undermines teachers’ authority or interferes with work of school

• MEIGHAN & HARBER: headteachers sometimes view researchers negatively, argued

  • It’s dangerous to involve pupils in commenting on teachers

  • Discipline would be adversely affected

  • Would be bad for classroom relationships

  • Children not competent enough to judge teachers

Researching Schools - Organisation:

• Formal organisations with rules & hierarchies - researchers may become part of this

  • Pupils see them as teachers - in schools where students & teacher conflict, researcher can be seen as ‘the enemy’

  • Headteachers see them as inspectors

• Issues with single-sex schools - researcher is opposite gender & attracts unwanted attention (personal characteristics)

• Schools also run in large scale, organised way, with timetables, meetings etc - operate a yearly timetable

  • Exams, holidays & schedules limit activities

Researching Parents - Power:

• Parents have significant influence on education by:

  • How they raise children

  • Involvement in schools - parent’s evenings, governors etc

  • Marketisation policies encourage parents to be consumers - choice of school

Researching Parents - Weaknesses:

• Not a homogenous group & made up of different social classes and ethnic groups - impacts ability to participate

  • pro-school MC parents moe likely to complete questionnaires than WC parents - unrepresentative

  • WC have restricted code & some BME may not speak English well - unable to understand questions

• Parental permission required for many forms of research with pupils - only likely to give permission if issue isn’t sensitive, won’t cause harm & benefit child

• Also engage in ‘impression management’ - exaggerate involvement in child’s education to look good, cause invalid data

Researching Parents - Access:

• Parent mostly are physically outside of school - sociologists see them as playing vital role in children’s education, but most interactions take place at home

  • Makes them more difficult to contact & research - less opportunities to observe a parent

Researcher’s Own Educational Experiences:

• Researchers may draw on their own experience of education when formulating their hypothesis or interpreting data

• Personal experience & familiarity with classrooms can reduce their awareness of how different school environments are to other social settings

• Sociologists who have spent years in schools may find them ‘natural’ - need to be aware of taken for granted assumptions about schools, classrooms, teacher & pupils

• Likely that researcher did well in school - makes it harder for them to empathise with underachieving pupils in anti-school subcultures

• Class, gender & ethnicity differences between researcher & students can hinder research