Sharing the world: the researcher and the

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Sharing the world: the researcher and the researched

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Qualitative Research Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) vol. 6(2) 207–220.

SONALI SHAH Nottingham University

A B S T R A C T This article explores the methodological opportunities and challenges I encountered, as a disabled researcher, while doing research on the educational experiences and career aspirations of a group of young disabled people, still in full-time mainstream or special education. While the key barriers facing disabled researchers are recognized, they are challenged in this article and rather seen as opportunities. Further, they are diluted by the ontological privileges that are at the disposal of the disabled researcher, including the use of empathy, which provides a way of understanding other people’s experiences in the context of both similarities and differences between the researcher and the researched. This article focuses on three methods of qualitative enquiry – namely, classroom observation, forum theatre workshops and individual interviews. It explores how they were employed to ensure the voices of young disabled people were captured by the research process in ways that reflect their views and recognize them as active social agents who are able to make decisions about their own futures.

KEYWORDS:

choices, disabled, education, empathy, forum theatre, researcher, schools

Introduction The transition from school to work has always been a crucial time in the lives of young people. Students become increasingly aware of career opportunities and vocational pathways during their final years of senior school (Harvey, 1984). How and when such transitions are made can have a major impact on the young person’s sense of identity, the kind of person they want to be and their view of the world in general (Hodkinson et al., 1996).

Furthermore, the individual school, coupled with the legislative climate at DOI: 10.1177/1468794106062710

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the time, inevitably has significant influence on the young people’s transitions.

Policy and practice, particularly within the school arena, can either support young people’s subjective realities or constrain them. Warton and Cooney (1997) found, in their study, that students were unlikely to make optimal choices as they lack sufficient and appropriate vocational information. Other studies (e.g. Ainley et al., 1994) have identified a range of external factors that influence young people’s career-related choices within schools. These include type of school, subject availability, timetabling restrictions, choices made by friends and eligibility for entry to further education courses.

Where young people have disabilities and require additional support to their peers, the choices available to them, in relation to academic subjects and future careers, may be severely truncated. Despite the UK government’s commitment to remove barriers to learning and increase staff training in mainstream schools so disabled students can be educated alongside their non-disabled peers (DFEE, 1997; DfES, 2004), not much progress is apparent at grassroots level. Research suggests disabled children have not been given the same educational opportunities, or been expected to achieve the same, as their nondisabled peers (Disability Rights Commission, 2000). According to official statistics from the Disability Rights Commission Educational Research Study (2002–03), many young disabled people in England and Wales feel marginalized and excluded at mainstream schools. Some young people are not able to access all school resources, and may have to forego certain activities and classes. Furthermore, many feel they receive insufficient support in school and are discouraged from taking standard educational qualifications required for university entrance (Martin, 2004).

While a number of studies have explored issues relating to post-school choices of non-disabled young people (e.g. Hodkinson and Bloomer, 2003; Hodkinson et al., 1996; Whitely and Porter, 2004), there is a dearth of work about the educational experiences of young disabled people and how their career ambitions are influenced. Further, there is growing recognition that gaining the views of young people is crucial for understanding issues that affect their lives (Morris, 1998b).

Therefore, one of the concerns of the project, on which this article is based, is how young disabled people, still in full-time education, perceive their school environment influences their subject selection, aspirations and career decisions. For the purposes of this work, the term ‘young disabled people’ defines males and females, aged between 13 and 25, who are in full-time education (in school or FE (Further Education) college) with physical impairments relating to mobility, dexterity and speech.

Young people are increasingly seen as active social agents, able to articulate their own experiences and express their views (O’Kane, 2000). This shift in thinking has brought, and will continue to bring, new methodological challenges and opportunities for researchers (Christensen and James, 2000). This article focuses on such issues, as experienced by me, a disabled researcher

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doing qualitative research with young disabled people in educational settings.

It explores how such research relationships can generate opportunities for the researcher and researched in a number of areas including personal, professional and educational. One of the intended outcomes of the research is to give voice to young disabled people so they can inform policy and other research about their futures. As Vernon (1997) suggests, liberation must be the aim of all research with the oppressed.

Such research is particularly important now, as the UK government moves to implement new strategies for supporting the transition of young people into work, and recognizes the importance of consulting them about what they want, need and feel. The Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs (DFEE, 2001) states that children have the right to be heard and should be encouraged to participate in any decision-making process to meet their special educational needs (Read and Clements, 2001).

Therefore, designing research that is driven by their values and opinions seems particularly timely.

Research context During the first half of 2004, seven educational institutions, within a city and county in the UK East Midlands, were approached to participate in an ESF (European Social Fund) qualitative study entitled ‘Future Selves: Career Choices of Young Disabled People’. These included two special schools (one with a sixth form unit), two mainstream secondary schools, two mainstream sixth form schools and one specialist further education college.

I talked to 30 young disabled people, in special and mainstream education, in order to understand their educational experiences and how they make particular decisions about their occupational futures. The respondents were identified and invited, by teachers or Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs) of the individual school or college, to participate in the research.

Recruitment of students was, on the whole, based on the research sample criteria outlined in the research booklet which was sent to each school and college prior to the start of the fieldwork.

The selection of the sample was based on the following criteria: (1) young people with different types of physical impairments including congenital, acquired and deteriorating conditions, and those who are non-verbal and use a communication device; (2) young people with a range of ages from 13 to 19 in schools, and 16 to 25 if at college; (3) young people who attend special school and mainstream school; (4) young people who are either just choosing their GCSE or A-Level options, or choosing to apply for further or higher education, or for jobs; (5) young people from a variety of different social class, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The intended sample was of young people who were expected to participate in vocational decision-making, focusing on significant points of choice. These points coincided with the following four age

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bands: 13–15, 15–16, 16–18, 19–25. This also corresponds to the points in time when the Connexions services (English government’s support service for all young people) are available to disabled people.

Method The study adopted a range of methods broadly subsumed within a qualitative methodology. Qualitative techniques provide those involved in the research with a more direct voice than is possible through participation in quantitative research, such as experiments and surveys. Further, qualitative methods are particularly suited to giving voice to the ‘underdog’ in society (Becker, 1966/7): ‘people who are often the subject of research, yet whose voices are rarely heard.’ Becker argued that qualitative research challenges the ‘hierarchy of credibility’ which gives more credence to the experiences and opinions of those with greater power. In addition, the techniques typical of qualitative research – interviews, observation, focus groups – enable access to groups such as disabled people and children, who are difficult to reach if quantitative techniques are used. In relation to disabled people, Gerber (1990: 4) stated: . . . People with disabilities were little more than objects of study. Their voice had less legitimacy and less authority than that of the medical, rehabilitation, educational and welfare bureaucracy professionals who studied and worked with them . . . But their conceptions of disability and disabled people give rise to the development of social policy that imposed, in the name of benign paternalism, bureaucratic manipulation and socio-economic dependence, and ultimately deadend lives, on people with disabilities.

The combination of qualitative data generation methods, used in this study, included classroom observation, group discussions using forum theatre workshops and individual interviews. These tools were used to generate young disabled people’s stories about their lives, allowing me to understand how they make particular decisions about their occupational futures.

U S E O F E M PAT H Y

The research process itself has unique effects and outcomes. It may be argued that the acquisition of rich quality data, during this study, was facilitated by the fact that the interviewer and the participants came from the same minority group – that is, both parties shared experiences of challenging oppression, disablement, special education and partial integration. It can be argued that my ontological position, as a disabled researcher, was key to the development of this research. Leicester (1999) and Oakley (1981) suggest that interviewing individuals with similar experiences encourages the generation of richer material. Stanley and Wise (1993: 227–8) describe this experience of knowing as an ‘epistemological privilege’, with researchers having access to a priori

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knowledge of their informants’ subjective realities by virtue of their shared experiences.

This shared culture and background, between myself and the target sample, was also helpful in accessing potential respondents and building rapport with them, encouraging them to be more open. However, I was aware of the dangers of ‘overrapport’, and, taking Moser’s (1958: 187–8) advice, adopted a ‘pleasantness and a business-like nature’. Further, it generated positive rolemodelling effects, encouraging the young disabled people to ask me questions about my own life, including whether I had encountered similar barriers to them when growing up and the coping strategies I had used to overcome them.

They were particularly enthusiastic to learn how I achieved my personal and professional choices in a society often perceived as working against the young disabled people. While I was aware that my responses might bias the interview, I was also conscious that I was asking a great deal from the young people, in the way of their time, cooperation and confidences on some personal and difficult matters in their lives, matters which they had every reason not to disclose to a stranger. Therefore, I attempted to answer their questions as honestly as possible at the end of the interview.

However, no research is completely free of bias. It is recognized that the closer our subject matter is to our own life the more we can expect our own worldview to enter into and shape our work, to influence the questions we pose and the interpretations we generate from our findings. As Wheatley (1994: 422) pointed out: Ethnographic relations, practices and representations as well as the metaphors we use to make sense of them are contextually contingent – their character is shaped by who we look at, from where we look, and why we are looking in the first place.

Moreover, it is argued that there is a thin dividing line between identification with one’s research subjects and their exploitation (Reay, 1996). Power-laden differences, in terms of race, gender or disablement, all have potential to disrupt any possibility of identification between the researcher and the researched. Finch (1984) has pointed out how, if interviewers assume commonalities and identification in the context of such differences, they are liable to reproduce structures of oppression and exploit research respondents.

Thus reflexivity, the examination of how one’s own social reality influences the data collected and picture of the social world produced (Vernon, 1997), is a critical exercise for those researching oppression.

Nevertheless, as a British Indian professional disabled woman in her early 30s, only part of my life history resembled that of each respondent, so, as a researcher, I could still retain a fair level of objectivity. As Bondi (2003) contends, this enables the interviewer to be emotionally present and reactive to the interviewees’ responses while simultaneously staying in touch with, and reflecting on their own feelings. In this way, there is not a danger of the interviewer becoming unconsciously overwhelmed by the respondents’ stories,

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reacting to, rather than reflecting on, what is going on, and blurring the interviewer/interviewee boundary.

Further, I kept in mind the danger of exposing my own vulnerability and assuming too much commonality of perspective with respondents, without losing empathy. Indeed this is not an easy task, and could lead to me, the researcher/interviewer, being over-critical of the researched. Further, it could result in the former’s exclusion in certain professional activities. This is illustrated by the Tyson versus Washington rape trial, where women were more likely to condemn Washington, the female victim, in order to distance themselves from their own daily encounters of sexual harassment and victimization (Crenshaw, 1995). Prosecutors who handle sexual assault cases acknowledge that they often exclude women as potential jurors because they tend to empathize least with the victim for fear they would reveal their own vulnerability.

Data collection O B S E RVAT I O N

Classroom observation, the first phase of the fieldwork, provided a means to examine the ways in which disabled young people interact with different environments, with their peers and adults in different contexts, and the meanings which they bring to such interactions. During each observation, within the seven educational settings, I, the researcher/observer, positioned myself so I could clearly observe the teacher and students without being intrusive. While the students were informed of my presence from the onset, I attempted to avoid significantly affecting their behaviour during the lesson.

The criticism that observation without participation can lead to the worst kind of subjectivism, where the observer’s surmises are substituted for those of the actor’s, is to some degree removed by subsequent informal access to individuals (Blumer, 1971; Schutz, 1967). The degree of researcher influence also becomes less exaggerated, for ‘putting on a show’ becomes difficult to sustain for individuals who tend to be more drawn in by the social reality that is more important to them than the researcher’s presence (Becker, 1970).

Roberts et al. (1988) recommended using observation as a research tool prior to conducting interviews with respondents who require a breakdown of questions. One reason for this is to ensure the questions reflected the respondents’ concerns and assumptions, not those of the researcher. Furthermore, observation provides an indication of the level at which questions should be phrased, based on participants’ communication styles and how they interacted with others. This would allow the researcher to determine the need to modify the interview schedule to include specific subjects within the topic guide.

Another important function of observation, especially for this research with a sample of young people in an educational environment, was for me, the

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researcher, to become familiar with the environment and also make myself known to potential participants.

The second and third phases of fieldwork – the forum theatre workshops and the individual interviews – took place between May and July 2004, when summer term ended for schools and colleges in the East Midlands county.

F O RU M T H E AT R E WO R K S H O P S

The second phase of the investigation was intended to generate dialogue and creative activity between young disabled people about unsolved issues relating to post-school pathways and factors influencing career-related decisions.

Therefore, the forum theatre technique was employed. This method, developed by the Brazilian educator and activist Augusto Boal between the 1950s and 1960s, seeks to transform theatre from traditional ‘monologue’ to creating a ‘dialogue’ between audience and stage. Further, it works to encourage autonomous activity among the young disabled people, to set a process in motion, to stimulate transformative creativity and to change spectators into protagonists. By transforming the spectator into the protagonist of theatrical action, forum theatre encourages the young people to consider ways by which they can try and change society rather than being content with merely interpreting it. Boal (2002: 225) argued that the goal is to open up a path to liberation, not drive people up a wall of resignation.

The fundamental position is not conflict resolution, but the ‘dynamization’ of the community towards community enhancement (including social or economic positions, relationships and power structures, of emotional and psychological strictures or internal conflicts, and role confusion). Springgay (2003) argued that inquiry as enactment is provocative; it invites the reader or viewer into an interplay of meaning-making, and it creates openings through which excess, unravelling and absence seep through. According to hooks (1995), it demands an interrogation of our individual subjectivity and locations. Furthermore, these kinds of approaches can effectively facilitate the inclusion and participation of young disabled people within the research process (Fitzgerald et al., 2003a, 2003b).

According to O’Kane (2000: 40): . . . we need to develop communication strategies which engage children, build upon their own abilities and capabilities, and allow their agenda to take precedence.

Drama is just one of a number of innovative research techniques that are increasingly been used to engage young people within the research process (see Christensen and James [2000]; Save the Children [1999]). However, it is still perceived as a ‘new’ approach that has only been used by a small number of researchers in a handful of fields. These include self-advocacy, emancipatory disability research, social justice (Barnardo’s, 2001; DIY Theatre Company and Goodley, 1999) and physical education (Fitzgerald, 2004).

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Researchers who choose to use drama usually do so within two key dimensions of the research process. First, some researchers use drama within the research process as a strategy for presenting data generated (Donmoyer and Yennie-Donmoyer, 1995). It has been suggested that presenting research in this way enables the audience to ‘. . . access and consider deeper levels of meaning’ (Lawrence and Mealman, 2000). Second, other researchers have used drama as an interactive form of data generation (Barnardo’s, 2001; Norris, 2000; Taylor, 1998). In this context, the research process often becomes much more than the generation of data and may also seek to challenge oppressive aspects of our society (Boal, 1998).

The technique of forum theatre was used in this work to generate rich discussion among young disabled people about experiences of oppression when making transitions to adulthood, the choices open to this group of people as they negotiated their way through school, and the barriers encountered when striving to meet their career aspirations after school. This method was deemed suitable as it is flexible, democratic and emphasizes the skills of the group. Further, it encourages everyone to participate, explore their own creativity, and be activated and inspired by the process (Clifford and Herrmann, 2002). From this context, ‘the research process becomes far more than merely the generation of data to be analysed and reported’ (Fitzgerald, 2004: 6).

For this phase of the research, I collaborated with a drama facilitator to develop and plan a theatre workshop which included an overview of the key issues to be explored in the drama session. These issues were also informed by the wider aims of the research project. Each workshop included two brief introduction and warm-up games, followed by a 20-minute scene acted out by the drama facilitator and me. The participants were shown a short play involving two characters. I played the role of a 15-year-old disabled student named Angela who had just started at her local mainstream school, having previously been at a residential special school for three years, and who was thinking about her occupational future. The scene took place between Angela and her mother (played by the drama facilitator). It explored the issues surrounding Angela’s experiences at school and home, and the barriers she encountered when trying to make her own choices.

Through drama, students are encouraged to explore their ability to empathize, place themselves in other people’s shoes and search for practical and emotional solutions. So, after watching an initial performance, the play is re-run and the young people are invited to suggest how the character (i.e.

Angela) could have behaved and acted differently. In forum theatre, the students cannot advise the actors on what to say or do, but they can cross the performing area, adopt a role and show the group exactly what they believed the characters could do differently, influencing the outcome of the play.

Each theatre workshop was conducted in different educational environments with between 4 and 10 disabled students from various year groups. The

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fieldwork team included two observers/facilitators whose roles included supporting the drama facilitator and me in the physical set-up and running of the workshops, being aware of the practical needs of the participants, and recording the sessions by video as well as taking written notes. Video-recording the sessions enabled detailed and repeated ‘retrospective analysis’ (Edwards and Westgate, 1987) that would not be possible using other forms of recording. Data were also generated after each workshop, focusing on the inputs, processes and outcomes of the individual sessions. This included notes from informal discussions within the fieldwork team (involving researcher, drama facilitator and two observers), my own reflexive notes and discussions with my colleagues who supervised the running of the project. The discussions also had an evaluative component to identify the particular strengths and weaknesses of each workshop which were taken into account when delivering the next one. For example, two teaching assistants were present during the first workshop, although not requested by the research team or the young people. Their presence and participation in the games and forum were thought, by the research team, to weaken the workshop in terms of restraining the young people from voicing their views and concerns. Therefore, in the following workshops, teaching assistants were asked to leave the room before the workshop started. On one occasion, a young person requested for the teaching assistant to be in the same room, although not actively involved in the workshop.

Through providing a quality issue-based drama to students, the study explored their personal experiences and how they connect to other people’s experiences. Boal (2002) argues that such a method of discovery breathes real life into issues, to enliven and develop young people’s confidence and communication skills in presentation, negotiation and persuasion. Further, it creates a safe environment into which young disabled people can bring different qualities and learn from each other, ask questions that they may have found difficult to ask previously, or questions that may never have occurred to them before. Assumptions and judgemental attitudes are challenged, creating awareness of experiences of inclusion and exclusion that result from living in our society. In this way, the drama experience is educationally relevant and supports a critical pedagogy (Giroux and Freire, 1993).

Another reason for using forum theatre in this way was to introduce the research to the young people before conducting the individual interviews.

Also, by now, the young people were familiar with the researcher, associating her with a positive experience. This is likely to generate richer data than if they were being interviewed by a stranger.

The workshops gave the young people an opportunity to explore the research topic and express their own views and experiences in relation to it.

Further, it encouraged the young disabled people to believe in their own contributions and those of others, and to develop self-confidence and self-esteem. It is not about ‘egos’, it is about participation, expression and communication (Clifford and Herrmann, 2002). Therefore, at this stage, the young people are

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already partly prepared for the individual interview that follows. Indeed, there is a danger that this could over-sensitize the young people to the issues to be explored in the interview, thereby creating rather than eliciting their views.

However, there was always a minimum of three days between the workshops and the interviews that we (two supervisors and I) believed was a sufficient lapse of time for the ‘over-sensitizing’ problem to be avoided.

I N T E RV I E W I N G A N D L I F E S TO R I E S

The third phase of fieldwork involved interviewing each of the young disabled people who participated in the theatre workshops. For this, semi-structured interviews were used, with prompts and follow-up questions to generate accounts of the young disabled people’s career decisions in terms of why and where they originated, who influenced these accounts, the young people’s perceptions of how they would achieve their choices, what and who might enable or constrain their transitions. These included factors like disabling barriers (physical, social and attitudinal), impairment, ethnicity, friends, family background, educational opportunities, type of school and the expectations of significant others. Interviews were conducted within the young person’s educational environment, and typically lasted between 20 and 40 minutes. With the permission of the young people and, where they were under the age of 18, their parents, the interviews were recorded and fully transcribed. I assured the young people that their identity would be protected and, to make sure of this, they could choose pseudonyms for themselves. While some selected these from the pre-prepared list I provided, other young people preferred to invent alternative names of their own. Further, the young people were told that the recordings would be labelled with their pseudonym, and destroyed after being transcribed.

Although I carried out the interviews, a non-disabled support worker was present to facilitate access to fieldwork settings, ensure the data collection tools (i.e. mini disc recorder) were working, and assist with any problems that emerged. She could also reflect on the visual dynamics that were shaping the discussions between the interviewer and participant, and take additional field notes when required. Her presence prevented me from becoming too immersed in the young people’s stories and participating in an intersubjective exchange, and thus encouraged me to take stock in a more detached way and retain contact with an observer position. On the few occasions where I could not make myself understood to the participant, the support worker would amplify my voice and repeat the question for the participant, thus changing the dynamics between the three people and enriching the interview situation.

However, from the outset it was agreed that the support worker should have her own strategies to avoid being drawn into the formal discussion between the researcher and the young person. She did this by positioning herself out of the young person’s visual range.

The stories told by the young disabled people were guided by the topicsetting questions so certain themes were explored with every participant.

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However, each story also generated sub-themes that the individual participant chose to identify: the aspects of current context they highlighted as significant and the ambiguities and contradictions within and between accounts (Jones, 1983). In this way, stories were both products and processes. As products, stories have the potential to capture the richness and ambiguity of social life while simultaneously providing a sense of order and sequence. As processes, they are able to work as dynamic, sense-making and -giving processes during which participants retrospectively construct a version of their story (Weick, 1995). So, although sequence is important in providing the ‘sense’ of the story, only when added to emotion, subjectivity and meaning can a real story be created. For example, a career story is different from a curriculum vitae because, although both contain the same facts, the latter lacks ‘the meaning of the career as lived’ (Cochran, 1990: 77). According to Bogdan (1974), this sort of autobiography can lead the researcher to a fuller understanding of the stages and critical periods in the processes of each participant’s development.

It enables the researcher to look at the participants as if they have a past with successes as well as failures, and a future with hopes and fears. Further, Bogdan argues, the life story technique allows the researcher to see an individual in relation to the history of their time, and how they are influenced by the various religious, social, psychological and economic currents present in their world. From this, the researcher is able to understand the choices, contingencies and options open to participants.

Conclusion This article presents a rationale for using three methods of qualitative data generation in research, led by a disabled researcher, with young disabled people in special and mainstream education who have not been typically given a voice within the research process. It discusses how the combination of forum theatre workshops and individual interviews can be used to provide worthwhile insights into young disabled people’s experiences and perceptions of educational inclusion, and the challenges and opportunities it produces in relation to their future career pathways. Adopting such research strategies, which support concepts of empathy and identification, can help to reflect more productively on the richness of research relationships. This can be utilized to conduct effective social research.

This article explores the methodological privileges available to a disabled researcher doing disability research. The personal ontological research resources on hand to the researcher can be crucial for the generation of rich quality data from young disabled people about their experiences of disabling practice. Reinharz (1979) suggests human research should use the researcher as a research instrument with tools like personal experiences and imaginative identification, which have become recognized as valid sources of scholarly knowledge (Riessman, 1994). Further, the disabled interviewer/researcher

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tool can uncover the social realities of young disabled people, and, so doing, bring their voices into the future research and policy agenda.

As I noted previously, there were many similarities as well as differences between my own experiences and those of the young people who participated in the study. However, the differences were sufficient to ensure I retained enough objectivity to be able to reflect on my own feelings while, at the same time, being emotionally reactive to the young people’s responses. So, in this way, the young people are not exploited but indeed empowered as they have an opportunity to share their experiences and concerns with an empathetic other. As Karl (1995) observes, a sense of empowerment comes from being respected and recognized as equal citizens with a contribution to make.

AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T

A special thanks to the research participants for sharing their views and experiences; my supervisors Robert Walker and Gillian Pascall for their constructive suggestions; the fieldwork team Nicky Wildin (the drama facilitator), Melissa Walker and Nicola Kilvington (research facilitators).

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S O N A L I S H A H is a research fellow in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Nottingham University. Her research interests are connected with disabled young people, education, career choices and transitional development.

Address: School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. [email: sonali.shah@nottingham.ac.uk]

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