Researching Ethically and Responsibly with Marginalized Communities

Abstract

Research is fraught with ethical dilemmas and sometimes with political consequences. In this chapter, we argue that a self-reflexive consideration of the ethical and political dimensions of research about and with marginalized communities (Basit, 2013), together with advocating research ethics as a set of instantiated institutional and individual practices, will enable researchers to conduct research that is ethically responsible and might even contribute to helping to transform these communities. This means that researchers need to be able to identify, and to be aware of and attentive to, these ethical and political dimensions in their interactions with research participants, and to understand how these issues might manifest themselves as potential risks to those participants. Thus the chapter investigates examples of ethical and political risks while education research is being undertaken with marginalized communities, as well as ways of reducing and managing those risks.