Gender sensitive research in schools: gender, social class,

economic wealth, and intersectionality

Scottish Universities Insight InstituteGlasgow

23 June 2014

Joan Forbes & Gaby Weiner

1. What research approaches?2. Specific ethical issues applying to research3. What contribution made to social justice

and equity4. Specific [participatory] methodological

approaches used for hearing marginalised children’s views

5. What [methodological/research] lessons learnt?

Seminar Questions

The Scottish Independent Schools Project (SISP) (2006-08)

Question: How do social and other capitals work in and through independent schools in Scotland?

Methodology: case study Methods: - Analysis of school histories, magazines & other published

documentation; school websites; - Observations of classrooms, assemblies, student & staff refectories

physical amenities & resources, sports facilities, boarding accommodation [supplemented with field-notes of informal discussions with staff/students in these contexts];

- Interviews with school managers, teaching staff, department heads, heads of PE & directors of sport & one former student. All interviews tape-recorded and transcribed.

- Focus groups of selected S2 pupils (13-14 year olds)- Questionnaire completed by whole S2 cohort in each school.- Researcher reflexive questionnaire – separate data collection in

2010-11 after main empirical study

Schools in project:

Ailsa, urban, single sex (girls), all-age 500 -1000 students.

Brodie, urban, single sex (boys) primary and secondary stages school. 400 - 500 students, largely residential.

Cockburn, small town, all age, co-ed. 1000 – 1500 , mainly day, with c100 boarders.

[Researchers, core of 4]

Framing ideas… Scottish policy and governance takes little

account of the intersectional nature of aspects on in/equality such as the interlocking effects of gender and social class (F,Ö,W 2011).

Gender and other [intersectional]power relations are everywhere

Social structures and relations demand scrutiny and critique (Davies & Banks, 1992).

The research process itself necessitates scrutiny and critique

Key intersectionalities in the project: Wealth: Average fees (2013) £10, 173pa (day);

£26,910pa (boarding). Extras: uniform, stationery, textbooks, lunch, English language tuition etc.

Exclusivity: 4.7% of pupil pop. in Scotland attend - in Edinburgh – 25%

Influence : Over 40% of Scottish ‘people of influence’ attended (1990) (Walford).

Internationality: 25% of boarders (2013) from ‘overseas’: viz. Germany 200+, Mainland China c160; Russia c80; Hong Kong c75; elsewhere in Europe c75; Spain c70; North America c27; South Asia c26; France c25; Nigeria c25

Gender & class-based regimes

Ailsa: high aspirations for girls… (O). Brodie: new men, caring masculinities’

discourse … positioned against … an essentialised discourse of boys needing space to run (M).

Cockburn: much emphasis on examinations, and girls clearly do well, the influential school sports culture clearly favoured the boys (E).

(Forbes & Weiner 2014) (Regimes, see Connell 1987)

Website analysis insightful, and generative; likewise open-ended student questionnaire ‘metaphor’ item Case-study enabled rounded picture to be gained

of institutional policies and practices Post-research reflexive study productive but should

have been included in main body of research

Reflection: What research approaches?

Documentation: SERA/BERA guidelines, access contracts with schools which agreed to participate (private institutions);

Access: extent to which ‘powerful researched’ seek to control access, the research process and outcomes

Research relations: between researched and researchers - cut-across by class, status, personal biographies –e.g. final feedback session

Reflection: ethics

Necessary critique of gender and other norms & assumed practices. ‘What frames our seeing?’ (knowledge as perspectival, partial, provisional)

Importance of researcher reflexivity re- own self/positioning as researchers in the contexts of knowledge production and nature of the research process – including its power.

Cross –cutting investigation of impact of specific (economic, cultural and social) school [gender] regimes on research process.

Attention to practices that exclude, e.g. fee-charging; exclusive practices - space, time and resources etc…

Reflection: What contribution made to social justice and equity?

Importance of intersectionalities sensitivity in research:

1. Incorporate conscientisation of gender (and intersectionalities) in research at all stages

2. Investigate hierarchies of power/knowledge on both institutional re/productions and research design, implementation, and writing.

3. Interrogate social orderings of space-time evident in particular power/knowledge relations, i.e. networks, subjectivities, affect, and possibilities for agency.

4. Integrate reflexivity in research design (all aspects)

Reflection: What methodological/ research lessons learnt?

Importance of conscientization Characterised by design of research which is alert

to the [inter/sectional] cultural and social determination of gender roles and relationships in research, and the ethico-political imperative to strive for greater equality.

Cf. Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: NY: Continuum

Reflection: What methodological/ research lessons learnt?

Importance of researcher reflexivityConsciously reflexive as researchers - self-

aware of positioning and [in this research] how specific socially, culturally and economically-privileged school regimes impact on research process.

(Forbes, J. (2008) Reflexivity in Professional Doctoral Research.

Reflective Practice, 9.4, 449-460)

Reflection: What [methodological/ research] lessons learnt?

Summary Would we do it the same way again? What might we have done differently? Did the project actually do what we wanted? How did we use intersectionalities – and to

what effects e.g. conscious of economic wealth, social class, gender, and ethnicity?

Reflection: What methodological/ research lessons learnt?

Selected project publications

Forbes, J. & Weiner G. (2014) Gender power in elite schools: methodological insights from researcher reflexive accounts. Research Papers in Education, 29.2, 172-192.

Forbes, J. & Weiner, G. (2013) Gendering/ed research spaces: insights from a study of independent schooling. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26.4, 455-469.

Forbes, J., Öhrn, E. & Weiner, G. (2011) Slippage and/or symbolism: Gender, policy and Educational governance in Scotland and Sweden. Gender & Education, 23, 761-776.

Forbes & Weiner (2008)Understated powerhouses: Scottish independent schools, their characteristics and their capitals. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 29, 509-525.

Horne, J. Lingard, B., Weiner, G. & Forbes J. (2011) Capitalizing on sport. ... British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32.6, 861-879.

References

Arshad, R., Forbes, J. & Catts, R. (2007) The role of social capital in Scottish education policy. Scottish Educational Review, 39.2, 127-

Bishop, R. & Glynn, T. (1999) Culture counts: Changing power relations in education. Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press.

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble. New York & London: Routledge. Connell, R.W. (1987) Gender and Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Davies, B. & Banks, C. (1992) The gender trap: a feminist

poststructuralist analysis of primary school children's talk about gender. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 24, 1, 1-25.

Delamont, S. (2009) The only honest thing: Autoethnography, reflexivity and small crises in fieldwork. Ethnography and Education, 4.1, 51-63.

Gordon, C. (Ed.)(1980) Michel Foucault: Power/knowledge. Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. Brighton: Harvester.

Lather, P. (1993) Fertile obsession: validity after poststructuralism. The Sociological Quarterly, 34.4, 673-693.

Walford, G. (1990) Privitization and Privilege in Education. London: Routledge.

Contact details:j.c.forbes@abdn.ac.ukgaby.weiner@btinternet.com