Ethical appraisal boards: Constitutions, functions, tensions and blind-spots

• Ethical appraisal boards are often argued as being modelled on utilitarian ethical conventions and as operating from a perspective of national political sovereignty that is potentially marginalising and possibly even harmful toward critical qualitative educational research, particularly ethnography. However the argument we advance is that the legislative responsibility of human rights in research shouldn’t be confused with unnecessary bureaucratic intervention, for although the work of ethical appraisal can be experienced as intrusive, threatening toward researcher autonomy and professionalism and unnecessarily bureaucratic, using qualitative research methods to elicit people’s perspectives on their environment is not uncomplicated from the perspectives of human rights, not the least those of young people in school. This tension between a notion of imposed bureaucracy and a necessary protection of rights is considered in the present chapter, which tries to bring a balanced critique of the work of ethical appraisal into view by keeping sight of the value of appraisal without denying that there are some potentially troubling tensions.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Ethics

Ethical appraisal

Education Research

Lärarutbildning och pedagogisk yrkesverksamhet

Teacher Education and Education Work

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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