Qualiti Workshop 1 Ethics

Qualitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Innovation, Integration and Impact

Qualitative Research and Ethical Approval One day workshop, 14th March 2007, Queens’s University Belfast

Social Sciences Research Ethics Resources

The following list of resources has been compiled in part using information available from the following centres that provide web resources with information on social science research ethics:  Developing a Framework for Social Science Research Ethics - ESRC project at the Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU), University of York and the School of Social Sciences and Law, Oxford Brookes University http://www.york.ac.uk/res/ref/kb.htm  Lancaster University - Unpacking the Moral Maze: Ethical Guidelines for Social Researchers http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/resources/ethics/codes.htm  University of Southampton - Informed Consent and the Research Process project http://www.sociology.soton.ac.uk/Proj/Informed_Consent/ - including references from the Annotated Bibliography on Informed Consent, by Wiles, R., Charles, V., Heath S., & Crow., G.

Ethical Guidelines and Guidance

The Association for Qualitative Research - Best Practice Rules and Guidelines http://www.aqr.org.uk/refsection/recruitment-bestpract.shtml

Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth - Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice http://www.theasa.org/ethics/ethics_guidelines.htm

Barnardo’s – Statement of Ethical Research Practice http://www.barnardos.org.uk/ethical.pdf

British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) - Recommendations on Good Practice http://www.baal.org.uk/about_goodpractice_full.pdf

British Educational Research Association (BERA) - Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research http://www.bera.ac.uk/publications/guides.php

British International Studies Association (BISA) - Guidelines for Good Professional Conduct http://www.bisa.ac.uk/code.htm

1 The British Psychological Society – Code of Conduct http://www.bps.org.uk/the-society/ethics-rules-charter-code-of-conduct/

British Society of Criminology - Code of Ethics for Researchers in the Field of Criminology http://britsoccrim.org/ethical.htm

The British Sociological Association: Statement of Ethical Practice http://www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/63.htm

Central Office for Research Ethics Committees (COREC) - Guidance on the NHS REC application http://www.corec.org.uk/recs/guidance/guidance.htm

The Council for Industry and Higher Education – Ethical Issues and Higher Education http://www.cihe-uk.com/ethics.php

Department of Health – Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/ResearchAndDevelopment/Research AndDevelopmentAZ/ResearchGovernance/fs/en

The Economic and Social Research Council - Research Ethics Framework http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ref

The Glasgow Centre for the Child and Society – Code of Practice on Research ethics http://www.gccs.gla.ac.uk/docs/pdf/CodeOfPractice.pdf

The Market Research Society – Code of Conduct http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/codeconduct.htm

Medical Research Council (MRC) - Ethics and Research Governance Policy and Guidance http://www.mrc.ac.uk/PolicyGuidance/EthicsAndGovernance/index.htm

National Children’s Bureau (NCB) - Guidelines for Research http://www.ncb.org.uk/Page.asp?originx1838gs_81330095622449n31q531441

Nuffield Council on Bioethics – Public Health: Ethical Issues http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/go/ourwork/publichealth/introduction

Oral History Society – Ethical Guidelines http://www.ohs.org.uk/ethics/ethics.html

Office for Research Ethics Committees in Northern Ireland – Guidance on the HPSS REC

2 http://www.orecni.org.uk

Royal College of Nursing – Research Ethics RCN Guidance for Nurses http://www.rcn.org.uk/publications/pdf/researchethics.pdf

The Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers - Research Ethics and a Code of Practice http://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/CBD85FFC-9B56-4C2F-A615- 7B41DD02C6B8/0/ResearchEthicsCodeofPractice190606.pdf

The Social Research Association (SRA) – Ethical Guidelines http://www.the-sra.org.uk/ethical.htm

Socio-Legal Studies Association - First Re-statement of Research Ethics http://www.slsa.ac.uk/download/ethics_drft1.pdf

The Welcome Trust – Guidelines on Good Research Practice http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_wtd002757.html

3 Academic centres concerned with research ethics

University of Birmingham – Centre for the Study of Global Ethics http://www.globalethics.bham.ac.uk/

The Economic and Social Research Council Methods Programme – Links to Ethical Guidelines and UK Resource Centres http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/links/

University of Southampton - Informed consent and the research process http://www.sociology.soton.ac.uk/Proj/Informed_Consent/

Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) – Ethical and Legal Considerations http://www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/create/ethical.asp

University of Lancaster - Ethics and Ethical Practice in Social Science Research http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ihr/events/esrcResearchTrainingProgramme.html

Recent references on research ethics

Alderson, P. (2000) Ethics Review of Social Research: ten topics for social researchers to consider. Education-line database.

Alderson, P. & Morrow, V. (2004) Ethics, social research and consulting with children and young people, Barkingside, Barnado’s

Butler, I. (2002) A code of ethics for social work and social care, British Journal of Social Work, 32, 239-248

Christensen, P (2004) Children’s participation in ethnographic research: Issues of power and representation, Children & Society, 18, 2, 165-176

Christensen, P & Prout, A (2002) Working with ethical symmetry in social research with children, Childhood, 9, 4, 477-497

Christians, C. G. (2005) ‘Ethics and politics in qualitative research’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of qualitative research, Third edition. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

Coomber, R. (2002) ‘Signing your life away?: why Research Ethics Committees (REC) shouldn’t always require written confirmation that participants in research have been informed of the aims of a study and their rights – the case of criminal populations (Commentary). Sociological Research Online 7,1.

Cloke, P. (2002) Deliver us from evil? Prospects for living ethically and acting politically in human geography, Progress in Human Geography 26(5) 587-604.

4 Cutcliffe JR, Ramcharan P (2002) Leveling the playing field? Exploring the merits of the ethics-as-process approach for judging qualitative research proposals, Qualitative Health Research 12 (7): 1000-1010

Eby, M.A. (2000) Producing evidence ethically, in Gomm R & Davies C (eds) Using evidence in health and social care, London, Open University Press, 108- 128

Ensign, J. (2003) Ethical issues in qualitative health research with homeless youths. Journal of Advanced Nursing 43,1: 43-50

Epstein, M. & Wingate, D.L. (2007) Outsourcing the NHS REC system - Is the NHS research ethics committees system to be outsourced to a low-cost offshore call centre? Reflections on human research ethics after the Warner Report, Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (1): 45- 47

Forbat L, Henderson J (2003) "Stuck in the middle with you": The ethics and process of qualitative research with two people in an intimate relationship, Qualitative Health Research 13 (10): 1453-1462

Fraser J (2004) A case report: ethics of a proposed qualitative study of hospital closure in an Australian rural community, Family Practice 21 (1): 87-91

Grinyer, A. (2001) Ethical dilemmas in nonclinical health research from a UK perspective. Nursing Ethics 8,2: 123-132

Haimes, E. (2002) What can the social sciences contribute to the study of ethics? Theoretical, empirical and substantive considerations. Bioethics 16,2: 89-113.

Hammersley M (2006) Are Ethics Committees Ethical? Qualitative Researcher, 2, 4-7

Hannigan, B. & Allen D. (2003) A tale of two studies: research governance issues arising from two ethnographic investigations into the organisation of health and social care. International journal of nursing studies 40: 685-695

Harden, J., Scott, S., Backett-Milburn, K. & Jackson, S. (2000) 'Can't talk, won't talk?: methodological issues in researching children. Sociological Research Online 5 (2)

Hay, I. (2003) Ethical practice in geographical research, in Clifford, N.J. and Valentine, G (Eds) Key Methods in Geography. London: Sage, 37-54.

Herdman, E. (2000) Reflections on “making somebody angry”. Qualitative Health Research 10,5: 671-702.

5 Hill, M. (2005) Ethical considerations in researching children’s experiences, in Greene, S. & Hogan, D. (eds) Researching children’s experience: methods and approaches, London, Sage, 61-86

Hill, M., Davis, J., Prout, A., & Tisdall, K. (2004) Moving the participation agenda forward, Children & Society, 18, 77-96

Hoeyer K, Dahlager L, Lynoe N. (2005) Conflicting notions of research ethics: the mutually challenging traditions of social scientists and medical researchers, Soc Sci Med. Oct;61(8):1741-9. Journal of Advanced Nursing 43 (1), 43–50.

Katz J (2006) Ethical escape routes for underground ethnographers, American Ethnologist 33 (4): 499-506

Kennedy, J.E. (2006) Grey Matter: Ambiguities and Complexities of Ethics in Research. Journal of Academic Ethics 3:2-4, 143

Kent, G. (2000) Ethics and qualitative research, Psychologist 13 (1)

King, N.M.P & Churchill, L.R. (2001) Ethical principles guiding research on child and adolescent subjects, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 710-724

Krayer A (2003) Fieldwork, participation and practice: Ethics and dilemmas in qualitative research., Sociology of Health & Illness 25 (1): 134-136

Lawton, J. (2001) Gaining and maintaining consent: ethical concerns raised in a study of dying patients Qualitative Health Research 11: 69-73.

Lincoln, Y. S. (2005) ‘Institutional review boards and methodological conservatism: the challenge to and from phenomenological paradigms’, in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

Mauthner, M., Birch, M., Jessop, J., and Miller, T. (eds.) (2002) Ethics in qualitative research. London: Sage.

Mulhall, A.(2003) In the field: notes on observation in qualitative research. Journal of Advanced Nursing 41 (3): 306-313.

O’Kane, C. (2000) The development of participatory techniques: facilitating children’s views about decisions which affect them in Christensen, P. & James, A. (eds) Research with children: perspectives and practices, london, Falmer Press, 136-159

Orb A, Eisenhauer L, Wynaden D (2001) Ethics in qualitative research, Journal of Nursing Scholarship 33 (1): 93-96

6 Philipp, E. (1999) Ethics committees and qualitative research, New Zealand Medical Journal 112 (1094)

Ramcharan, P & Cutcliffe, JR (2001) Judging the ethics of qualitative research: considering the 'ethics as process' model, Health and Social Care in the Community, 9, 6, 358-366

Richards, H.M. & Schwartz, L.J. (2002) Ethics of qualitative research: are there special issues for health services research? Family Practice 19 (2): 135-139.

Sayers GM (2007) Research ethics - Should research ethics committees be told how to think? JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS 33 (1): 39-42

Schuklenk, U. (2000) Protecting the vulnerable: testing times for clinical research ethics Social Science and Medicine 51:6: 969-977.

Seymour, J. & Skilbeck, J. (2002) Ethical considerations in researching user views European Journal of Cancer Care 11: 215-219.

Small, R. (2001) Codes are not enough: what philosophy can contribute to the ethics of educational research. Journal of Philosophy of Education 35 (3): 387- 406.

Smith, D.M. (ed) (2000) Moral Geographies: ethics in a world of difference. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Smythe, W E & Murray, M J (2000) Owning the story: ethical considerations in narrative research, Ethics and Behaviour, 10, 4, 311-336

Thompson, P. (2003) Towards ethical practice in the use of archived transcripted interviews: a response International Journal of Social Research Methodology 6,4: 357-360.

Truman, C. (2003) Ethics and the ruling relations of research production Sociological Research Online 8(1)

Truscott D (2004) Fieldwork, participation and practice: Ethics and dilemmas in qualitative research, Science Education 88 (5): 811-813

Valentine, G. (2003) Geography and ethics: in pursuit of social justice - ethics and emotions in geographies of health and disability research, Progress in Human Geography 27(3) 375-380.

Valentine, G., Butler, R. & Skelton, T. (2001) The ethical and methodological complexities of doing research with ‘vulnerable’ young people. Ethics, Place and Environment 4:117-178

Wainwright, P. & Saunders, J. (2004) What are local issues? The problem of the local review of research, Journal of Medical Ethics 30 (3): 313-317

7 Williamson, G. & Prosser, S. (2002) Action research: politics, ethics and participation. Journal of Advanced Nursing 40(5): 587-593.

Williamson, E., Kent, J., Goodenough, T. & Ashcroft R. (2002) Social Science gets the ethics treatment. Sociological Research Online 7,4