Purpose: In this paper, we outline a method for working with the long past materials of social research to forge a method for engaging and co-producing knowledge with new audiences in the present. Findings: Situated in a conceptual landscape of queer theory and feminist archive activism, through this paper we share what happened when a 30-year-old…

Our research community has limited understanding about the potential of video. This paper uses double stimulation and transformative agency to analyse two video modalities, extraction, and reflection; in a study about learning as it develops through family interactions. As researchers we were interested in children's motives. However, the children…

This article explores the nature of ethnographic collaboration during the harrowing and unpredictable times of a global pandemic. Documenting Year Two of a five-year, multi-sited ethnographic study, which necessitated virtual fieldwork in global drama classrooms (in Canada, India, Colombia, Taiwan, England, Greece), we offer a theoretical picture…

This paper takes the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is well known in teacher education, and applies it in research methods education where it has not been previously used. It asks how experienced social science research methods teachers, who know their subject (method) well, teach advanced social research methods to others.…

Conducting large multi-site research within universities highlights inconsistencies between universities in approaches, requirements and responses of research ethics committees. Within the context of a social science research study, we attempted to obtain ethical approval from 101 universities across England to recruit students for a short online…

This paper explores the potential of an online TimeBank for inclusive research to address some of the challenges related to the unequal distribution of power and money for researchers within and outside the academy working in collaboration. The problem, the concept of TimeBanking, and the relationship of TimeBanking to inclusive research…

This article reflects on methodological and ethical issues that have shaped a collaborative project which aims to chart social, legal and political responses to child sexual abuse in England and Wales across the twentieth century. The etymological problem of searching for child sexual abuse in the historical archive is discussed, given that the…

This article draws on a doctoral study carried out across seven counties in England which focused on twelve parents' experiences of carrying out the role of a "suitable person" ("SP") by managing a direct payment for an adult child (living in her/his own home) who has severe learning disabilities, autism and very complex…

In this paper we present our experiences of conducting focus groups with young people as part of a participatory approach to research design and participant recruitment. The research is a prospective, 10-year, qualitative, longitudinal project investigating young people's daily lives, relationships, and identities, and the ways these change over…

Secondary data analysis as a methodological approach is not without its critics. Indeed, three main objections to the use of secondary data analysis in social research stand out: first that because of the socially constructed nature of social data, the act of reducing it to a simple numeric form cannot fully encapsulate its complexity. Secondly,…

This article describes a research project undertaken as part of a Master's degree drawing on the author's recent professional experience as a primary teacher and headteacher. It explores the possibilities and benefits of supporting the development of social research skills with a class of seven- and eight-year-old (Year 3) children in one English…

Since the 1960s, the epistemological-cum-methodological orientations of American and British comparative education changed from being historical to being social scientific. This metamorphosis has impoverished the field, and a return to a re-invented historical mode of comparative analysis would help to humanize comparative education in a cosmos of…

This document describes the process of initiating an ethnographic research project at a non-elite school in England that asked the question: "Why do ordinary youngsters bother to go to school?" The study followed a selected group of students for 2 years of high school before they took the public examinations at age 16. The school was…

This article draws on the authors' experiences of undertaking health and social research involving children in Australia and England and focuses on securing the informed consent of children to participate in such research. A clear trend within literature, service provision, legislation and international conventions recognizes children as…