Reflexivity

The researcher is integral to the case, through collection and interpretation of the data (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995, p. 317; Merriam, 1988, p. 19). The effect the researcher has on the data, such as the Hawthorne effect (L. Cohen, et al., 2000), i.e. the psychological effects of being aware that you are being observed, is well documented and needs to be taken into account when analysing data. The very presence of a researcher is a potentially transforming relationship. For example Nesbitt’s research into the beliefs of a group of Hindus affected the way those young people saw their faith, (Nesbitt, 1998a). Observing people and interviewing them about one aspect of their life will cause them to reflect and possibly effect changes on that particular aspect. As long as it is explicit, it does not need to be a negative, and detract from the research. The audience needs to be made aware of the researcher’s role within the research, one more voice within

the multi layered reality. Clifford (1986) argues that the self of the ethnographer should be decentred in terms of the authority of the voice, but should be front and centre in the text so that the reader is aware of the bias, and of the incomplete and selective nature of the materials being presented (Wolf, 1999). A weakness of this centrality of the researcher is that an researcher can choose which data to reflect, (Merriam, 1988, p. 34); distort the data findings (Bell, 2005, p. 11), or become an authorative abstraction (Østberg 2003b, p. 25). The researcher unwittingly produces and creates the participants’ views, rather than reflecting them.

Researchers are never able to be detached observers as they bring to any observations the baggage of their own culture. Where they are coming from influences what they see (Agar, 1980, p. 43). Therefore, researchers must reveal their own cultural biases, explicitly acknowledging and disclosing their own selves in research, and to do this requires reflection on the part of the researcher (L. Cohen, et al., 2000). Researchers need to monitor their interactions with participants both for their effect on them and vice versa. There must be a transparency, involving a reflection on the effect the data is having on the researcher and the effect that the researcher is having on the data at each stage of the research. A good example of this is Lubna Nazir Chaudhry’s work (Chaudhry, 1997). In my own case study my role as a Religious Education teacher in secondary schools in England from the 1980s to the present day influences the way I perceive and am perceived by others. Although it may not be visible, my Christian faith impacts in a variety of ways, for example sharing a faith with the

understand religion a belief, or faith is necessary; only an insider can ever portray the social reality that they live in, for

religion is an area which is not easily accessible to the outsider, foreigner or non-participant (Darshan Singh [1999] cited in Knott, 2005, p. 244).

This view is perhaps based on a misunderstanding that knowledge comes from closer contact with reality (Hammersley, 1992). Some (Harris (1979) cited in McCutcheon, 1999, p. 18) have argued that it is necessary to be outside the religion to fully understand it, while others (Jaffee, 1999, p. 283) claim that belief is irrelevant. This issue of insider/outsider is much more complicated than a straight dichotomy of in or out. Heilman (1973) in his research uses the metaphor of ‘doors’ and ‘rooms’ in his research as an Orthodox Jew. Collins (2001) rejects Heilman’s image of doors and rooms and of being in or out, and highlights the fact that membership of a group is multifaceted, an intricate process of negotiation, (Collins, 2001, p. 87; Dandelion, 2004). An understanding of the insider/ outsider issue is crucial to this present research in two ways, in my role of researcher and in the participants’ perceptions of themselves as being insiders or outsiders in the context of the Catholic school.

In my role as a researcher, sometimes I am perceived as an insider, sharing the same faith, and sometimes as an outsider, because I am not a member of that school community. There is the danger that participants falsely assume that I share, or know more than I do about their beliefs and practices. It is

school setting, and not to assume they are all insiders, as it is to make the participants aware of my role as an outsider so they explain everything rather than presuming my understanding. However, there is a danger of too much reflexivity, for:

[I]f classical ethnography’s vice was the slippage from the ideal of detachment to actual indifference, that of present day reflexivity is the tendency for the self-absorbed Self to lose sight of the culturally different Other. (Rosaldo [1993 p.7] cited in Anderson, 2006, p. 385)

For educational research to remain true to its aims it must remain focused on the ‘Other’, and avoid the trap of falling into a reflection on the researcher’s experience of research. Throughout the thesis my role as researcher needs to be visible, as who I am affects the generation of data, the interpretation, analysis, and the final written thesis, yet it is not the main focus of the research.