Amanda Coffey

Qualitative Data Analysis: Technologies and Representations

In this paper we address a number of contemporary themes concerning the analysis of qualitative data and the ethnographic representation of social realities. A contrast is drawn. On the one hand, a diversity of representational modes and devices is currently celebrated, in response to various critiques of conventional ethnographic representation. On the other hand, the widespread influence of computer- assisted qualitative data analysis is promoting convergence on a uniform mode of data analysis and representation (often justified with reference to grounded theory). We note the ironic contrast between these two tendencies, the heterodox and the orthodox, in contemporary qualitative research. We go on to suggest that there exist alternatives that reflect both the diversity of representational approaches, and the broader possibilities of contemporary computing. We identify the technical and intellectual possibilities of hypertext software as offering just one such synthesis.

Anonymisation and visual images: issues of respect, ‘voice’ and protection

A central ethical issue confronting researchers using visual methods is how to manage the use of identifiable images. Photographic and other visual materials can make the anonymisation of individuals problematic; at the same time many researchers, as well as research participants, view image manipulation as undesirable. Anonymisation is one of a range of ethical concerns that need consideration in relation to the use of identifiable images. Other concerns include the contexts in which images were produced and through which they may be consumed, the longevity of images in the public domain and the potential for future uses and secondary analysis of images. This paper explores some of the ways in which researchers specifically approach anonymisation in relation to visual methods, drawing on a qualitative study of ethical issues in visual research. Focus group discussions and interviews with researchers who use visual methods revealed the ongoing challenges of identification and anonymisation. While decisions about visual identification are inevitably complex and situated, our explorations revealed ongoing tensions between, on the one hand, research participants’ rights and researchers’ desire for participants to be seen as well as heard and, on the other hand, researchers’ real and perceived ethical responsibility to safeguard participants.

Sound and the Everyday in Qualitative Research

In this article, a constitutive aspect of the everyday world is attended to, which is too often absent or suppressed in social scientific accounts of social life: noise. A question is raised as to how social science has addressed the question of noise, through a reconsideration of sound and the everyday. Conventional “good practice” for the organization and conduct of research interviews is compared with alternative approaches more open to the space of everyday sounds, and the practice of soundwalking—the mobile exploration of (local) space and sounds—is offered as a productive context for the creative disturbance of the conventional interview. In closing, some of the possibilities of noise as these have been brought home to us in our own research with young people in noisy, everyday settings are set out.

Conceptualizing citizenship: young people and the transition to adulthood

This paper examines the relationship between citizenship and young peoples’ social identities. The concept of social citizenship is explored in the context of contemporary debates about the transition to adult status. In the light of recent calls for an education for citizenship, at both compulsory and post‐compulsory levels, the paper makes a timely contribution to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes social citizenship, by whom and to what end. The paper has three main sections. In the first, Marshalls (1950) contribution to our modern‐day understanding of citizenship is examined. In the second section the paper particularly addresses the connections between young people, adulthood and citizenship. In the final section attention is turned to the problems of combining citizenship with other, complex, aspects of young peoples’ social identities. In doing so the paper offers a critique of the concept of active citizenship.

A debate about our canon

enter into debates about the canon. She was writing specifically about and within the discipline of anthropology. Our scope is wider than that, and we intend to cover a broader range of the social sciences. But it captures a task we have set ourselves for Qualitative Research. As qualitative research methods achieve ever wider currency in the social and cultural disciplines, we need constantly to apply a critical and reflective gaze. We cannot afford to let qualitative research become a set of taken-for-granted precepts and procedures. Equally, we should not be so seduced by our collective success or by the radical chic of new strategies of social research as to neglect the need for methodological rigour. We see this new journal as a forum where innovations will be explored and celebrated, without in any sense deserting the more established values and disciplines. In founding this new journal, then, we have set ourselves a number of tasks and a number of guiding principles. We shall outline some of them in this first editorial. We do not intend this to be taken as a manifesto. Our intention is to be inclusive. We do not seek to impose our own perspectives on the entire field. Rather, we seek to map out the sort of terrain we hope our authors will cover, and the sort of papers we hope to publish as the journal develops in the years ahead. The task is not to defend canonical readings of the past, or to prescribe a new canon for the future. Rather, we want to encourage a critical engagement with the orthodox and the heterodox, the familiar and the innovative, the modern and the postmodern, the experimental and the traditional. In this inaugural editorial, therefore, we do a number of things. We outline the scope of ‘qualitative research’ as it applies to this new journal. We locate the journal in the traditions of qualitative research. We outline the journal’s raison d’être. We introduce the contents of this first issue. We extend an invitation to potential contributors to Qualitative Research. A debate about our canon

The power of accounts: authority and authorship in ethnography

This paper focuses on the production of ethnographic texts. It explores how claims to authority and authenticity are contested within the ethnographic enterprise and help to shape the finished written product. The paper draws upon fieldwork in an elite occupational setting and argues that in such settings the crafting of ethnographic texts may be particularly problematic. The paper explores the parallels between ethnographic writing and fiction and attempts to make sense of the texts researchers create and the status these texts carry. The paper concludes that the right of the author to construct versions of social reality cannot be divorced from the rights of the researched to impose their own definitions of reality.

Ethical regulation and visual methods: Making visual research impossible or developing good practice?

The ethical regulation of social research in the UK has been steadily increasing over the last decade or so and comprises a form of audit to which all researchers in Higher Education are subject. Concerns have been raised by social researchers using visual methods that such ethical scrutiny and regulation will place severe limitations on visual research developments and practice. This paper draws on a qualitative study of social researchers using visual methods in the UK. The study explored their views, the challenges they face and the practices they adopt in relation to processes of ethical review. Researchers reflected on the variety of strategies they adopted for managing the ethical approval process in relation to visual research. For some this meant explicitly ‘making the case’ for undertaking visual research, notwithstanding the ethical challenges, while for others it involved ‘normalising’ visual methods in ways which delimited the possible ethical dilemmas of visual approaches. Researchers only rarely identified significant barriers to conducting visual research from ethical approval processes, though skilful negotiation and actively managing the system was often required. Nevertheless, the climate of increasing ethical regulation is identified as having a potential detrimental effect on visual research practice and development, in some instances leading to subtle but significant self-censorship in the dissemination of findings.

Steps and stages: rethinking transitions in youth and place

This article is concerned with the interplay of young peoples biographies and transforming landscapes in south-east Wales. In particular the article focuses on a South Wales Valleys town, Ebbw Vale, to explore how changes to a place can be understood in relation to, and alongside youth transitions. The article reports on the ways in which narratives of the transformation, redevelopment and regeneration of place sit alongside the biographical transformations of young people themselves, as they make their transitions into adulthood. The article draws on concepts borrowed from geography, anthropology and architecture to advance a sociological argument for the consideration of continuity and everyday registers of meaning as a way of understanding change – both to place and in young peoples lives. The focus on a place which has undergone significant material, economic and landscape change enables the argument to be developed in relation to the transformation of communities and post-industrial economies. The article thus explores some of the connectivities between young people, locality, and (both imagined and real) biographical and material changes.

Hypermedia ethnography in educational settings: possibilities and challenges

This paper considers some of the methodological implications of undertaking and representing multimedia and digital, ethnographic work. It explores some of the challenges and opportunities of working with and across a range of media, and explores some of the consequences of bringing hypermedia applications to ethnographic work. The paper draws on a project that sought to explore the learning opportunities and experiences of an interactive science discovery centre, and that utilised a multimedia, ethnographic approach. The paper locates this methodological approach alongside recent and ongoing developments within qualitative research, and aims to situate educational research within the context of these developments. The paper particularly addresses issues of integrating different forms of qualitative data, ethnographic ‘design’, the ethics of research practice, communication and capacity building.

Daps, Dykes and Five Mile Hikes: Physical Education in Pupils' Folklore

abstract This paper explores the relationship between the school and the body. It does so by considering the transfer from primary to secondary school. Analysing childrens and young adults stories about transfer reveals that physical education (PE), and more generally the body, are central to pupils’ anticipations and anxieties about the move to secondary school. The paper argues that the fears pupils express about the dangers associated with secondary school PE should be placed within the context of the transition to adulthood. Secondary school PE is an integral part of the status passage to adulthood, during which the recognition of the body as physical, social and sexual is central. [1] Daps are plimsolls—the shoes in which primary children do PE.