When ethical issues meet cultural differences

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When ethical issues meet cultural differences

• Working with English underachieving adolescents
• Kai Ren
• Graduate School of Education, Bristol University

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My PhD a Mixed Methods Case Study

• Quantitative data collection of learning power
  data and achievement and demographic data of 1000
  Y9 students in 4 English schools.
• Qualitative data collection to gain an in-depth
  view of student learning identity and agency.
• Intervention study with a sub group of
  underachievers, based on the data acquired .

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General ethical concerns

• Data protection
• Participants consent and right of withdrawal
• Access to findings

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More moral concerns

• The identification as underachiever may risk
  some negative effect on the selected students.

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To adopt

• A positive, respectful and caring attitude
  towards every participant when working amongst
  them.

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Real-world ethics more complex

• Episode 1
• The story about me directly emailing my
  teenage participants

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My ethical dilemma

• Is it inappropriate to write to your
  adolescent participants even if you are trying to
  help them?

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Real-world ethics more complex

• Episode 2
• The story about meeting one-on-on with my
  teenage participants

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My ethical dilemma

• I am only a male PhD student from China doing
  research with English teenagers. Do I really
  need a criminal record check before I can talk to
  them individually?

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Reflections

• Tensions exist between doing my research
  conveniently and strictly following the ethical
  guidelines.

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Reflections

• Cultural differences seem to complicate the
  ethical issues in educational research .

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Reflections

• The researcher needs to develop awareness of
  cross-cultural ethics and handle the issues
  carefully.

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Ethics A beautiful mind

• Thanks !