In Goffman's terms, qualitative interviews are social encounters with their own realities. Hence, the 'situational critique' holds that interviews cannot produce knowledge about the world beyond these encounters, and that other methods, ethnography in particular, render lived life more accurately. The situational critique cannot be dismissed; yet…

This article examines an important and thorny problem in interview research: How to assess whether what people say motivated their actions actually did so? We ask three questions: What specific challenges are at play? How have researchers addressed them? And how should those strategies be evaluated? We argue that such research faces at least five…

An increasingly multicultural Aotearoa early childhood education (ECE) landscape forms the context for my doctoral study in progress. My research explores the culturally embedded and negotiated environmental identities of a growing number of migrant Indian teachers. This article documents my experiences of confronting and navigating the unexpected…

Qualitative fieldwork research on sensitive topics sometimes requires that interviewees be granted confidentiality and anonymity. When qualitative researchers later publish their findings, they must ensure that any statements obtained during fieldwork interviews cannot be traced back to the interviewees. Given these protections to interviewees,…

This article describes methodological and ethical issues?associated with examining?discourses of?'normality'?in the context of?the normalisation of?HIV and relationships. It considers?how sensitivity was anticipated, encountered and managed in the recruitment of participants and during research interviews, discussing the implications of these in…

This article examines the practices of ethnographers carrying out research in and, especially, on organizations. Ethnographers studying organizations, like other ethnographers, emphasize close observation and understanding the meaning of actions, words, and artifacts; they differ from other fieldworkers, though, in focusing on the organization…

In this paper, we explore the methodological implications of conducting qualitative interviews when researchers and participants come from different social classes. Singling out class on its own terms, rather than considering it as an auxiliary structural factor, we examine the unique challenges that arise during cross-class interviews. Such…

Much of qualitative interview research encourages researcher reflexivity, though there seems some uncertainty of how one actually does reflexive research. We show in this case that reflexivity includes examinations of the researcher in relation to the interviewed "other," and that transcriptions--a common element of interview-based…

The article presents the problem of conducting interviews for research and educational purposes with elderly people. It is not the purpose of the article to analyze the process of collecting interviews for clinical purposes in medical sciences. The article refers only to the epistemological issues in social sciences. The importance of proper…

While the methods used to study 'elites' are of particular relevance in policy research, to date there has been little examination of the particular challenges associated with 'elite' interviewing in this field. More specifically, the issues associated with interviewing 'elites' while conducting qualitative research in a contested policy domain,…

Threshold concepts were introduced nearly 10 years ago by Ray Land and Jan Meyer. This work has spawned four international conferences and hundreds of papers. Although the idea has clearly gained traction in higher education, this sub-field does not yet have a fully fledged research methodology or a strong critical discourse about methodology.…

This reaction article highlights areas of agreement and disagreement with the study conducted by Hughes, Rycus, Saunders-Adams, Hughes, and Hughes on the current state of research and practice in differential response (DR). Overall, we agree with several of the arguments put forth by Hughes et al. regarding the limitations of DR research and the…

College students from the working class have interesting stories to tell about the meaning and operation of mobility through education. The author, herself a "working-class academic," explores some of the issues and dilemmas of uncovering and presenting these stories. Specifically, the author addresses: (1) the effects of interviewing those…

The New Zealand Council for Educational Research's (NZCER's) Families and Communities Engagement (FACE) project is investigating ideas and practices involved in bringing together teachers, families, local communities and students to contribute to collective conversations and decisions about education. This report concerns a sub-project of FACE…

Children's views are essential to enabling schools to fulfil their duties under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 and create inclusive learning environments. Arguably children are the best source of information about the ways in which schools support their learning and what barriers they encounter. Accessing this requires a…