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The nature of participation in qualitative research
raises particular and distinct questions about the ethical dimensions
of social research practice. There are compounded by the wide
variety of potential modes of data (including visual and sound
data) currently available to social researchers engaged in undertaking
some form of qualitative inquiry. This seminar will particularly
consider qualitative research in relation to the ethical dimensions
of contemporary research governance (for example ethical guidelines,
data protection, freedom of information) and in the context of
methodological innovation. The seminar will contribute to the
facilitation of new and interdisciplinary ethical dialogues across
the social sciences. The seminar is organised and co-hosted by
the Cardiff Institute for Society, Health and Ethics and the Cardiff
Centre for Ethics, Law and Society.
Purpose of seminar
Stimulate debate within the research community on the development
of innovative research strategies in a climate of increasing emphasis
on ethical governance.
Programme
Welcome and Introduction - Paul
Atkinson, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Martyn
Hammersley, Open University.
Are ethical Committees ethical?
Ethical regulation of social science research is currently
increasing, not least as a result of the new ESRC research ethics
framework. In this paper I want to raise some questions about
the role of ethics committees, both in terms of what they are
able to do and what they have the authority or right to do. The
practical problems are twofold. First, the literature on research
ethics indicates that there are significant disagreements among
social scientists about key ethical issues, so that there is very
little consensus on which ethics committees can operate. Secondly,
researchers' decisions about how to pursue their inquiries involve
weighing ethical and other considerations against one another,
and this requires detailed knowledge of the contexts concerned,
which ethics committees will not have. Even aside from the question
of whether ethics committees have the expertise they claim, there
is also the issue of what authority their members have, or a university
has, in telling individual researchers and research teams how
best to do their work. Given that these committees seek prospectively
to control how research is and is not done, it can be argued that
there is an illegitimate infringement of the autonomy and integrity
of researchers here. There are also reasons to expect that this
bureaucratic control will worsen the quality of research in the
future. The problems here are especially severe for qualitative
work. While ethics committees can play a worthwhile role, this
is limited to giving feedback and offering forums for discussion;
they are not a legitimate instrument of governance.
click
here to read Martyn's article in the Qualitative Researcher
click here for the list of references
handed out at the seminar
Katie
Featherstone, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
Informed consent: the ethnography of 'ethics' and the 'ethics'
of ethnography
This paper focuses on the requirement to obtain 'informed
consent' from research participants. I argue that the adoption
of a biomedical model of research governance by the social sciences
is misplaced and is particularly inadequate for the promotion
of ethical research practice within qualitative paradigms. Rather
an ethical approach must be developed that is driven by the core
principles central to the use of these methodologies. In addition,
the social sciences should apply qualitative, ethnographic approaches
to understand ethical practice within biomedical and social science
research more widely. I draw upon three qualitative studies to
examine the requirement of obtaining 'informed consent' from participants
within three randomised controlled trials, the main evaluative
technique within biomedicine, to demonstrate the huge gap between
regulatory protocols and research practice. I suggest that the
ethical regulatory frameworks and research governance enforced
within clinical trials should not be the model adopted by qualitative
researchers, because these bureaucratic tools merely serve to
mask underlying inequalities within the research process. Instead,
qualitative research must develop ethical principles informed
by social scientific research and driven by professional values,
not driven by protocols derived from biomedicine.
Roger
Penn and Keith
Soothill, Lancaster University
Ethics in Sociological Enquiry - The Enemy within
Click here to download
Roger and Keith's presentation (do not cite without authors
permission)
Soren
Holm, School of Law, Cardiff University
Ethics, ethics committees and official regulation - why chairs
of ethics committees are not bad people after all
In this paper I will explore 3 issues. 1) what are the
main ethical issues in qualitative research seen from the point
of view of the professional ethicist, 2) what is the role of research
ethics committees in the social sciences and why are they suddenly
proliferating, 3) are the problems researchers complain about
in relation to ethics review problems concerning strict ethics
or strict regulation. All of this to convince you that the chairman
of your local research ethics committee is a really nice person
caught between a rock and a hard place.
Debate (Chair - Paul Atkinson)
Ethics committees: a necessary safety mechanism or a hindrance
to innovation?
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