Andrea Quinlan

Representations of Rape: Transcending Methodological Divides

This article presents a mixed methods research design that embeds social network analysis, a quantitative method, into the qualitative approach, institutional ethnography, using an illustrative example of rape reporting. There are two practical outcomes of the embedded mixed methods research design, underwritten by the pragmatist paradigm: it offers a visual depiction of the ‘line of fault’ between the lived experience and its institutional representation, and it facilitates an analysis of the internal structure of the associated texts. Through its unusual blend of two methods, commonly considered to be at opposing ends of the methodological spectrum, the article advances the agenda of mixed methods and contributes to the recent debates about the nature and benefits of mixed methods research.

Suspect Survivors: Police Investigation Practices in Sexual Assault Cases in Ontario, Canada

Despite several decades of institutional reforms in sexual assault policing, sexual assault police investigators continue to dismiss a disproportionate number of sexual assault reports as unfounded. This article examines the policing practices behind these trends by outlining the techniques that police use to assess the credibility and truthfulness of survivors’ reports of sexual assault. Drawing on 17 semistructured interviews with sexual assault investigators working in urban policing organizations in Ontario, Canada, this article reveals how investigative techniques in sexual assault cases often rest on normative assumptions about who real survivors are and how they behave. Through this analysis, this article illustrates how survivors of sexual assault can become suspect in sexual assault investigations.

The ‘problem’ of abuse in Ontario’s Social Inclusion Act: A critical exploration

Employing Carol Bacchi’s What’s the problem? approach, this article examines the abuse policy recently implemented through the Social Inclusion Act of Ontario, Canada’s developmental services sector (DSS), and how it constitutes sexual abuse of people with intellectual disabilities as a policy problem. Politically committed to preventing and addressing abuse, we examine how sexual abuse is ‘given shape’ in the policy and its compliance training materials, and how the policy’s mandatory police reporting requirement ‘subjectifies’ victims according to a taken-for-granted legal ‘worldview’ that presumes justice is achieved through criminalisation. We also demonstrate the everyday ‘deleterious effects’ of this policy in relation to how it leaves both support for sexuality and the long-standing crisis management approach of Ontario’s DSS unproblematised. This analysis calls into question the abuse policy of the Social Inclusion Act and demonstrates the pressing need to re-problematise abuse prevention and redress for people with intellectual disabilities.

Cyber Backlash and the Maintenance of Sex Segregation in Professional Sport

Abstract In 2013, Mark Cuban, the team owner of Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), announced that he would consider selecting female basketball player Brittney Griner to play for his professional men’s team. Within 24 hours after ESPN posted an online article reporting Mark Cuban’s statement, 921 online comments were posted in response. This study analyzes these comments to investigate the pervasive sexism and gender discrimination found in online sporting news arenas. It investigates how Brittney Griner’s sex, gender, and athletic ability became subjects of scrutiny and debate in these online comments and how discriminatory comments about Griner were routinely extended to all female athletes and to women even outside of sport. By examining the online backlash against Mark Cuban’s proposal, this paper investigates the maintenance of sex segregation in professional sport and the systemic devaluing of female athletes and privileging of male athletes that upholds it.

Ethical Issues in Socio-Historical Archival Research: A Short Skit

Qualitative methods associated with historical sociology have enjoyed a revival. Yet, the ethical issues raised by these methods have not been adequately explored. This paper fills this gap through a short skit performed by a researcher, a qualitative research methods textbook, and the Tri-Council Policy. The researcher in the skit is conducting archival research on the historical involvement of women in Canadian labour struggles. By employing a scripted narrative, this paper challenges conventional writing on method and ethics. Through this innovative approach many of the ethical issues and tensions that socio-historical researchers encounter in their research are captured. Questions about the ethics of socio-historical archival research, as well sociological research more generally, are raised.