Ethics and access when consent must come first: consequences of formalised ethics for ethnographic research in schools

Abstract

Schools as fieldwork sites are tempting because they appear to provide easy access to a field. The researcher has permission to be in the place of study, and those studied are obliged to be there – teachers through their work contracts and children through compulsory school attendance. Yet the compulsory attendance of actors in schools is also a challenge, particularly because schools involve minors who may not themselves consent to participating in the research. In this chapter, I discuss the ethical considerations and, embedded in these, the methodological challenges involved in doing participant observation in an institutional setting where not everyone has consented to participation in the research. More specifically, I focus on the implications of having to obtain consent first – before the onset of the study. I also discuss the ethical and methodological challenges encountered when doing research in schools and classrooms when not everyone participates – what I will define as partially participating collectives.