Designing and delivering socially just and authentic research projects

Hardacre, Charlotte ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3155-4132 and Stuart, Kaz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7952-5779 (2018) Designing and delivering socially just and authentic research projects. In: 10th Annual Conference for Research in Education: Social Justice in Troubling Times: What does it mean and what’s to be done? Critical issues in socially just research and practice (ACRE 2018), 27 September 2018, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Practitioners’ whose work is driven by emancipatory and socially-just notions often wish to transfer these aims to their research (Fraser, 2009; Lyons and Bike, 2013). However, researchers in the UK can find themselves diverted from these values by neoliberal demands for quantitative impact measurement and ‘cause and effect’ models in qualitative research (Davies, Nutley and Smith, 2000; Rigney, 2001; H.M. Treasury, 2010; Nesta, 2014). Whilst these methods are valuable in certain settings, they are not congruent with a critical-ethical methodology (Stuart and Shay, 2018). Conducting research that is authentic to practice values may be counter hegemonic to the current culture of measurement, demanding that researchers stand firm in their beliefs and enter the wilds (Brown, 2017). Charting a clear path, from design to delivery, which maintains the socially-just aims that drove the desire to do research in the first place, is a vital task for both established and early career researchers. To do so the researcher engages in a reflexive process to disentangle the enmeshed values, beliefs and practices that shape research. This endeavor will lead to what some call an inequalities imagining (Hart, Hall, Henwood, 2003), cultural sensitivity (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012), a criticalethical approach (Stuart and Shay, 2018), or socially just research (Fine, 2017). The resulting epistemology, ontology and methodology are critically conscious of knowledge democracy, seeking to reveal knowledge that enhances social justice and wellbeing (Maynard and Stuart, 2018). This talk will support you to identify what you value most about your practice and to use this knowledge to create a checklist that mirrors these values throughout your research. This will be a useful tool for developing congruence between theory and practice, supporting radical or unorthodox methods and reducing ethical barriers by setting out a transparent, authentic and explanatory protocol for your socially-just research project. The tensions that may arise in this process provide reflexive insights of key areas for critically conscious practice.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Departments:	Academic Departments > Health, Psychology & Social Studies (HPSS) > Children, Youth, Families and Community Work
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2018 14:58
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 20:31
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/4136

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