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Research and ethics. The case for refleXIVity. Summary and review
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Research and ethics
Research is not just a social and political activity but also an ethical activity, as David Scott further describes in Chapter 6. Ethics is about the standards to be adopted towards others in carrying out research. Sometimes these standards are mandatory to the practice of research, for example in certain kinds of medical research, whereas in other contexts and disciplines they are merely guidelines. Sometimes they are formally expressed in professional codes of conduct such as in the ethical codes of the British Society of Criminology, the British Sociological Association and the British Psychological Society, whereas in other disciplines there is a much less formal body of custom and practice.
One ethical principle which is often expressed in social research is that of informed consent. This can be rather elastic but basically it refers to the principle that the subjects of research should be informed of their participation in research, which may be taken to include giving information about possible consequences of participation. Further, it includes the belief that subjects should give their consent to participation, and its possible consequences, prior to their inclusion. Another principle which is sometimes propounded is that no person should be harmed by research, for example that the introduction of ‘experimental treatment’ in some styles of research should not cause physical or psychological damage to subjects or, perhaps, disadvantage some individuals in comparison with others.
Matters of ethics interact with the pursuit of validity and also with the political dimensions of research. If the principle of informed consent is applied in full and in
such a way that subjects are aware of all aspects of research, including its purpose, it is highly likely that they will behave or react in ways in which they would not nor- mally do. Such reactivity on the part of subjects is a threat to the validity of findings. Further, the challenging of the ideological positions of certain groups in society – perhaps with a view to replacing them with others – is a central aim of some forms of research, especially critical research. However, this inevitably involves doing harm to the interests of such groups. In this way, the fundamental aims of critical research can come face to face with the ethical principle that research should not harm or damage individuals or groups of individuals.
The case for reflexivity
It has been emphasized that your reflexivity is a vital part of planning and doing criminological research. This is because criminological research is a social, political and ethical activity. There are several roles which reflexivity can play in research, for example the assessment of validity. Validity is the extent to which conclusions drawn from a study are plausible and credible and the extent to which they can be general- ized to other contexts and to other people. Validity is always relative, being dependent on the decisions which have had to be taken in the planning and doing of research. Making such decisions explicit and, more importantly, assessing the prob- able effect on validity is the main purpose of a reflexive account (which is sometimes published alongside conclusions).
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SUMMARY AND REVIEW
Throughout this book, we suggest that the conduct of research can be expressed in terms of decision making. Such decision making inevitably involves trade-offs, for example trading off the weaknesses of one course of action against the strengths of another. Some decisions have to be taken about the minutiae of research, say in deciding whether to have a sample of 100 or of 1200. Such tech- nical issues matter, but so do the fundamental principles of criminological inquiry. These include validity (the pursuit of credible and plausible knowledge); politics (whose side am I on, if any? ); and ethics (what standards should I adopt and in relation to what? ). Unfortunately, as noted earlier, the pursuit of one prin- ciple may inhibit the pursuit of another. So, the most fundamental decision you must make is how to position yourself in relation to the validity, the politics and the ethics of research and the trade-offs which may have to be made between these.
STUDY QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS
1. Read this chapter and Chapter 2 and then write a sentence describing each of the following terms: research proposal; research focus; research problem; research question; research hypothesis.
2. Read Chapters 3, 4 and 5 and then write a sentence describing each of the fol- lowing terms: research strategy; research design; quantitative research; qualitative research; systematic literature review; narrative review.
3. Read Chapter 10 and then answer the following:
a. What are the challenges and opportunities of doing quantitative crimino- logical research?
4. Read Chapters 12, 14 and 17 and then answer the following:
a. What are the challenges and opportunities of doing qualitative criminologi- cal research?
5. Read Chapters 4 and 5 and then answer the following:
a. What are the challenges and opportunities of doing mixed method crimino- logical research?
6. Read Chapters 14, 16 and 17 and then compare the strengths and weaknesses of each of the following:
¡ semi-structured interviews
¡ biographical interviews
¡ participant observation
¡ appreciative ethnography.
7. Read Chapters 11, 13 and 15 and then, drawing on the innovative ways of doing criminological research that these chapters discuss, plan a strategy to conduct research on your chosen topic. You should aim for methodological triangulation in your research design.
8. As you read Chapters 6, 15, 17 and 22, write down the differing ways in which politics intrudes into social research.
9. Reflecting on Chapters 1, 4, 6, 15 and 17, describe the main ethical issues fac- ing criminology research.
10. What are the ways in which people can be harmed by criminological research? Are there some categories of people (e. g. corrupt police officers) who should not be protected against the harmful effects of criminological research?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
There are a number of texts on social research methods and on doing criminological research, many of varying quality and content. The two, in our view, that offer authoritative, clear and well-authored overviews of doing criminological research for students are:
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Caulfield, L. and Hill, J. (2014) Criminological Research for Beginners: A Student’s Guide. London: Routledge.
Crowther-Duffy, C. and Fussey, P. (2013) Researching Crime. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
In relation to understanding the detail, breadth and scope of doing criminological research, we would still recommend our ex-colleague, Victor Jupp’s classic criminological text- book: Jupp, V. (1989) Researching Crime. London: Routledge; and the first two editions of this book, namely: Jupp, V., Davies, P. and Francis, P. (eds) (2000) Doing Criminological Research, 1st edition. London: Sage; and Jupp, V., Davies, P. and Francis, P. (eds) (2010) Doing Criminological Research, 2nd edition. London: Sage.
Francis, P. (2007) ‘Young people, victims and crime’, in P. Davies, P. Francis and C. Greer (eds), Victims, Crime and Society. London: Sage.
Green, N. (2008) 'Formulating and Refining a Research Question', in N. Gilbert, Researching Social Life (third edition). London: Sage.
HEFCE (2014) Research Excellence Framework 2014: The Results. Available at: www. ref. ac. uk/2014/media/ref/content/pub/REF%2001%202014%20-%20full%20document. pdf (accessed 18 March 2018).
Hollands, R. G. (2000) ‘“Lager louts, tarts, and hooligans”: the criminalisation of young adults in a study of Newcastle night-life’, in V. Jupp, P. Davies and P. Francis (eds), Doing Criminological Research. London: Sage.
Letherby, G. (2003) Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Loader, I. and Sparks, R. (2007) ‘Contemporary landscapes of crime, order and control: governance, risk and globalization’, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 78–101.
Martin, C. (2000) ‘Doing research in a prison setting’, in V. Jupp, P. Davies and P. Francis (eds), Doing Criminological Research. London: Sage.
Pain, R. and Francis, P. (2003) ‘Reflections on participatory research’, Area, 35(1): 46–54. Reed, M. S. (2016) The Research Impact Handbook. Fast Track Impact.
Silverman, D. (2007) Doing Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Stanley, L. (1993) ‘On auto/biography in sociology’, Sociology, 27(1): 41–52.
Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1993) Breaking Out Again: Feminist Ontology and Epistemology. London: Routledge.
van Dijk, J. (2015) ‘The case for survey-based comparative measures of crime’, European Journal of Criminology, 12(4): 437–45.
van Kesteren, J., van Dijk, J. and Mayhew, P. (2014) ‘The international crime victims sur- veys: a retrospective’, International Review of Victimology, 20(1): 49–69.
Walklate, S., Fitz-Gibbon, K. and McCulloch, J. (2018) ‘Is more law the answer? Seeking justice for victims of intimate partner violence through the reform of legal categories’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 18(1): 115–31.
Wright Mills, C. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
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