Personal reflections: my positionality within the data

In this section I draw on the discussion at the beginning of this chapter to highlight a number of tensions and dilemmas that arose during the collection and analysis of interview data. I describe the steps taken to deal with each of these issues and reflect upon my

positionality within the data.

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Many of these methodological issues are related to conducting research with and relying on the insights of individuals who operate inside the policy process: policy actors. These individuals can often be constrained in interview situations by their professional positions and stick to the ‘official line’ (Welch et al., 2016). The potential implications of this are that interview data will consist of carefully edited representations of information that it is already publicly available. While I was conducting my interviews, I noticed that this often appeared to be the case. Individuals were constrained by their professional positions, but also by their positions within the NPG or sub-groups. This was evident because some respondents would often find ways to answer the question without actually answering the question. While others would provide me with details and thoughtful insight once the tape was switched off, commenting that they could not do this on record. However, the extent to which this happened appeared to vary depending which institutional actor they represented.

For example, one member of the civil service appeared to be extremely restricted in what they could say. Two meetings and a copy of the interview questions were requested prior to acceptance of the interview request and during the interview process, the respondent declined to answer specific questions. Responses provided appeared to align closely with official information provided on the Scottish Government website, the government’s official response to ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ (Scottish Government, 2011a) and the original ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ report. It was extremely difficult to obtain any additional details that were not already publicly available.

It is important to consider the timing of interviews here as well. Given the ‘real time’

element of this research, some interviews were conducted at the beginning of the NPG, while others were conducted towards the end or even once the NPG had come to a close.

Those conducted at the beginning tended to much less revealing than those at the end of the process. The interview described above was one of the very first interviews that I conducted. Not only was this individual constrained by their professional position, they were also constrained by time. Furthermore, as the NPG was established and governed by the Scottish Government, there might be a larger degree of accountability afforded to this actor. A reluctance to comment on future directions while the policy was still in early stages of translation can only be expected.

However, this is where an actor-network theory approach becomes particularly useful, as it allows the researcher to distance themselves from the ‘human’. As well as trying to gain

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actors’ views about the process, my research was interested in the way that institutional actors positioned themselves within the process. In such an exploration, the ‘official line’

is actually quite useful as it provides an insight into the way that institutional actors would like to be perceived within the policy process and the wider policy space, which is linked closely to their interests and agendas.

My experience of interviewing teacher union representatives was quite different. These individuals tended to be more open in their responses, freely stating their thoughts and concerns about the process and wider reform agenda. Bold claims were made about the underrepresentation of teachers within the process, and the consequences of this for implementation. Initially, this surprised me, but then I realised that this was their role within the process: to act as the voice for the teaching profession. Although thoughts and concerns appeared to run freely in the interviews, when I returned to analyse the data, I realised that their responses were simply unedited versions of the ‘official line’ and that they were using the interview process to position teacher unions within the policy space.

As I conducted more interviews, I realised that a large majority of respondents were using this process in a strategic manner to promote particular positions and place their

institutional actor in a positive light. Some respondents even used this platform to subtly complain about the role of institutional actors (and individuals) within the wider process of reform, highlighting the competitive nature of reform. This made it quite difficult to

determine whether respondents were giving me an honest description of the process, or distorting their experiences to better position themselves. It was interesting to note that when I pushed respondents to elaborate on these kinds of comments, they were reluctant to do so, stating that ‘everybody gets on in Scottish education, we all agree’. It was clear the

‘myth’ around consensus in Scottish education (as described in Chapter 1) was being used as a ‘mask’ within the interviews to cover up the disconnects and divergent agendas that were being revealed.

Although methodologically alarming, such responses need not be problematic. One way around this is to consider each interview as being part of a ‘story’ (Grek, 2011), with a particular plot and following certain conventions. Once I became familiar with these stories, I could begin to look for tensions between actor narratives and official discourse from the NPG and its sub-groups. In the end, these ‘stories’ were particularly useful as

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they gave me some insight into the way that institutional actors were positioning themselves within this space.

Another methodological tension that I introduced at the beginning of this chapter arises from the nature of the policy community in Scottish education. Given the size and close-knit nature of the Scottish education policy community, it was possible to identify actors from interview data even if this was anonymised, which held clear ethical implications for the use of my data. Lancaster (2017) highlights the fluid nature of policy actors, power, and vulnerability in the research interview process, which she suggests became particularly evident in the post-interview analysis. I was acutely aware of issues of confidentially and anonymity within my research, given nature of the policy community and the ‘real time’

element of the study. The majority of actors I interviewed had prominent positions within key organisations in Scottish education, so the nature of the data obtained could be regarded as being politically sensitive.

Following a lengthy application process for ethical approval from the University of Glasgow, I made the decision to only use direct quotations from interview data once permission had been granted from the interview participant. On the plain language statement and consent form, I made it clear that I would seek permission to use direct quotations in presentations and papers by email. Thus far, this has not been problematic.

While I was choosing what data to use as examples in conference presentations and in the findings chapters of this thesis, I consciously omitted any data that could be used to identify respondents. In many ways, this was frustrating, as I felt restricted in my ability to describe particular statements and views. I also decided to exclude any data where individual actors were using the interview process as a channel to complain about the way that particular individuals behaved within the NPG, its sub groups or the wider process.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that just because I did not use this information does not mean that it did not inform my analysis.

Additional pieces of data that were removed were instances where respondents were unsure about elements of the policy and visibly concerned about their lack of knowledge.

One example of this was one respondent told me that they did not know what teacher professionalism actually means. Given that all fifty of the recommendations centre on the need to improve teacher professionalism, this was quite a significant finding. However, I felt that it would be unethical to use this within my thesis.

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The findings of this research deal with some sensitive issues around the politics of partnership between key organisations in Scottish education, including the government.

Throughout this thesis, I have been aware of the delicate nature of my findings, as well as the need not to offend key organisations that I may collaborate with in the future.

Furthermore, as my research career began to grow, I became more familiar with a number of my respondents, embarking on new projects with them. It became particularly difficult to decide on a way to present my findings that would not be offensive to these individuals.

What is presented in Chapters 5 and 6 must therefore be understood as a carefully edited version of the interview data.

While it can be notoriously difficult to gain access to the policy community, a well-connected network can increases the number of opportunities to connect with potential participants, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will agree to an interview. I certainly found this to be the case. It was not unusual for respondents to pass me contact details for other members of the NPG or its sub-groups. There were also a number of times where I travelled to an organisation to conduct an interview and was introduced to another potential interview participant. Initial access to the NPG and its sub-groups was difficult, as described earlier in this chapter. However, once the research grew momentum and I began making more connections with this community, it became much easier. It should also be noted here that having the author of ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’, Professor Graham Donaldson, as my supervisor may have also been beneficial in this respect. I say more about this particular issue at the end of this chapter.

An alternative method for gaining access to the policy community is to play the role of

‘outsider’. Female scholars in this area (Grek, 2011; Ozga & Gewirtz, 1994) have previously written about the benefits and limitations of being an early-career female researcher in this area of research, suggesting that these characteristics can often lead to being perceived as the ‘unthreatening’ or ‘unimportant’ researcher. Within my research, I felt that I was often perceived as young and inexperienced, which is perhaps to be expected as a doctoral student. At times, this worked to my advantage. Working on the presumption that I lacked knowledge about the politics of Scottish education, respondents would often go into great detail about the nature of policy processes, describing the behaviour of different institutional actors, the traditions and beliefs that shaped their work, and the unique culture within which they operated. There were also times when I felt that

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respondents were more open than I expected this to be, and I put this down to an assumption that this research was relatively harmless. Being a young researcher worked to my advantage and some instances, and led to the collection of richer and more detailed data.

The downside of being regarded as the ‘inexperienced’ researcher is that experienced respondents can take control over the interview process, deflecting and reshaping questions to suit the type of response they want to provide. I often found that this was the case, particularly with individuals who might be considered as key members of the traditional

‘policy community’. They would often control the flow of the interview and speak at great length about issues that were not always entirely relevant to my questions. There was even the odd occasion where they tried to tell me what I would find in other interviews, for example: “You’ll find that I’m quite sure when you talk to people” and “you will have found all that” (Interview Respondent, Anonymous). The same respondent also used this technique to add in new questions: “it’s a question you probably want to ask anyway…” I became aware of this when I listened back to the recording but I did not see it as methodologically problematic. The worst implication of this behaviour was that it led to lengthy interview transcripts with content that was slightly off topic.

The final methodological issue that I discuss here – although it might also be considered as an ethical issue - concerns having the author of ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ as my supervisor: Professor Graham Donaldson. This might be considered as a somewhat unusual supervisory arrangement, and indeed, many interview respondents (and colleagues) shared concerns about my ability to evaluate the process objectively. In many ways, this arrangement did shape my research; however, I was aware of the potential implications from the very beginning, and made a conscious effort to take a step back and reflect on the decisions that I was taking. Although it was sometimes difficult to take a critical standpoint and to argue this within supervision meetings, a number of factors reduced the extent to which this was problematic. Firstly, I had three supervisors from the beginning, and two towards the end, which allowed for balanced guidance. Second, I was exploring the process by which the recommendations from ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ were implemented, not the content of the policy itself. While Professor Graham Donaldson was responsible for the recommendations and overall agenda set out within the Report, it was the Scottish Government who established the NPG and the processes by which it would

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work. Therefore, what I was looking was not anything that my supervisor had created, but a process that was put in place to implement his recommendations.

In many ways, having access to the mind behind the policy was incredibly useful and I felt very lucky to be in this position. He provided me with a great deal of contextual understanding, particularly around the politics of Scottish education and the relationships between different institutional actors. As someone who was a complete ‘outsider’ to this world, this was invaluable. It allowed me to approach data collection and analysis with a level of insight that would not have been possible otherwise.