Qualitative Data: Semi-Structured Interviews

Additional justifications for using a mixed methods approach apply to my second stage: qualitative interviewing. The interview data was not only used to facilitate understanding of a number of issues relevant to those topics covered in the survey but not explored directly, but also to provide further elaboration and contextualisation of certain findings from the survey.26 _{Providing a context for the}

25 _{Braun, V. & C. Clarke, ‘Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology’ (2006) 3(2) Qualitative Research in}

Psychology 77-101 at 86.

basic information about HRE gleaned from the survey was necessary for revealing the explanations underlying the quantitative data and for enabling wider theoretical inferences to be drawn from the findings. To borrow the words of Irving Seidman, ‘[a]t the root of in-depth interviewing is an interest in understanding the lived experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience’. I wanted to really understand teachers’ practices in this area, and drill down into the personal reasons underlying their action, or in many cases inaction, regarding the provision of education about, through and for human rights.27

Semi-structured interviews are recognised as a means of allowing a researcher to ‘keep more of an open mind about the contours of what he or she needs to know about, so that concepts and theories can emerge out of the data’.28 _{The emphasis}

must therefore ‘be on how the interviewee frames and understands issues and events – that is, what the interviewee views as important in explaining and understanding events, patterns, and forms of behaviour’.29 _{The use of semi-structured interviews}

thus enabled me to maintain a degree of structure and ensure that all relevant issues were covered with each interviewee, whilst at the same time permitting further questioning for clarification and elaboration on certain answers.30 _{This not only}

provided interviewees with a degree of flexibility to describe how they view their teaching practice in this area, but also allowed them to freely express their opinions more generally. Whilst this technique can raise ‘problems concerning the way in which the responses can be utilised and compared’,31 _{I sought to maintain enough}

consistency in the core subject matter of each interview to justify the conclusions and inferences drawn.32

27 _{Seidman, I., A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences (3}rd _{edn, Teachers College Press,}

New York 2006), 9.

28 _{Ibid, 12.} 29 _{Ibid, 471.}

30 _{Hakim, C., Research Design: Successful Designs for Social and Economic Research (2}nd _{edn, Routledge,}

London 2000), 35; May, T., Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process (4th _{edn, OUP, Maidenhead 2011),}

134; Goode, W.J. & P.K. Hatt, Methods in Social Research (McGraw-Hill, New York 1952); Savin-Baden, M & C.H. Major, Qualitative Research: The Essential Guide to Theory and Practice (Routledge, London 2013), 359; & Sayer, A., Method in Social Science (revised 2nd _{edn, Routledge, Oxford 2010), 165.}

31 _{Burgess, R.G., ‘The Unstructured Interview as a Conversation’ in Burgess, R.G. (ed), Field Research:}

A Sourcebook and Field Manual (Routledge, USA 1982) 107-110 at 109.

32 _{May, Social Research (n 30) 93; & Gerber, P., From Convention to Classroom: The Long Road to Human}

A copy of the interview schedule is included in Appendix 6. Whilst the semi- structured nature of the interviews meant that the schedule was not rigidly adhered to, it does provide the general order of questioning followed in each interview. In summary, the first part of the interview aimed to probe more deeply into the teacher’s survey responses. Interviewees were asked in detail about the values taught in their classrooms and about the practice of such teaching. Similar questions were then asked about HRE. If teachers had indicated in their survey that they do not teach about human rights, I queried the reasons for this. I also sought to ascertain their views on the appropriateness of using human rights language with their particular year group. Teachers’ survey responses on rights respecting learning environments and on empowerment in the classroom and school more widely were then explored and their views elicited on the importance and relevancy of these ideas to primary education.

The second part of the interview sought to probe more deeply into teachers’ opinions both about human rights generally and about the teaching of HRE in primary schools. To avoid assuming that participants defined and understood ‘human rights’ in the same way as myself, I commenced this part of the interview by asking what teachers took the term ‘human rights’ to mean. It was important to engage in such a bottom-up framing of the issue, rather than imposing a top-down assumption of what teachers understand by human rights, in order to develop a more comprehensive picture of understanding and practice in this area. This was then followed by questions concerning any reservations that they had about HRE and about their awareness of influences external to their own personal opinions, such as parents, the media or politics, that do or may affect their teaching practice. The final question sought to ascertain what teachers consider to be the benefits, if any, of providing HRE.

Most of the interviews took place at the interviewees’ schools, with two being conducted in teachers’ homes and one in a coffee shop. Three teachers were interviewed by telephone due to their unavailability during the time that I was in their county. Where interviews were conducted in schools or in teachers’ homes, this may have contributed to countering the problem of researcher power identified in section 4.2. In their own domain, teachers are more likely to be comfortable and confident,

though conversely in the workplace they may also be more concerned about being overheard by colleagues.33 _{Only one teacher from each school was interviewed,}

except in the case of one primary school where a class teacher and the head teacher had both requested an interview. For ease, and to make optimal use of their available time, they were interviewed together. All interviews were audio recorded for accuracy and subsequently transcribed in full.

It must be acknowledged that a particular limitation of this research was the restricted time that teachers had to spare for interview. As the majority of the teachers were interviewed in school, this had to be during a free – and usually limited – time slot within their working day. Typically, this was in their lunch hour, during a period in which their class were in another lesson, such as PE, or at the end of the school day when they were, presumably, tired and eager to get home. In these circumstances, my opportunities for interrogating deeply the meanings of certain things or for following up interesting points with detailed further inquiry were limited.