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Child related ethics in quantitative research: some reflections . Anne Kielland Fafo. Theme. Children in quantitative research: the household survey DHS, LSMS, MICS, SIMPOC, etc. Means: interviews with adults about children,
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Child related ethics in quantitative research: some reflections Anne Kielland Fafo
Theme • Children in quantitative research: the household survey • DHS, LSMS, MICS, SIMPOC, etc. • Means: interviews with adults aboutchildren, • … affecting adult relationships to children, and that way the children themselves.
Topics Objectifying children: the survey questions Classifying children: ready made answer categories Attitudes of the survey interviewer The survey interviewer and direct intervention What to do?
1. Objectifying children Converting this… …into to this...
The researcher: spectator or participant? • Two ways of relating to a statement: • As a student of an object (the statement, the speaker) • By personal engagement • By engaging, a topic is developed on in a reflexive process between researcher and informant, possibly towards greater shared understanding, possibly towards manipulated outcomes, and possibly with no useful results at all. • The latter is often the case with children. Children do not follow our structured ways of thinking. They possess very interesting knowledge, but the insight into this knowledge is often provided in a way that is rarely structured and timed the way often expected in research. We typically get a lot of answers to questions we did not think of asking. • To do the personal engagement approach well is therefore time consuming and sometimes end up either with no useful results at all, or with manipulated outcomes resulting from the unbalanced power relations of researchers and children, and the immense distance between their respective styles of reasoning.
“Objectification” • Surveying children through their adult representatives is the opposite extreme to the engagement approach: • It is a “double objectification”. • The child becomes a complete object – someone the interviewer doesn’t even need to see or relate to. • I addition, survey design objectifies their representative. Interviewers rarely engages in dialogue with the informant: the questions are read out. Statements to be made in between are inserted into the questionnaire in italics. • By the strictly limited participation of the informants interviewers create a rigid ”casus” supposed to reflect the child.
The dual face of interviews • A research interview has the power to change people’s self perception and their perception of the social relations they are involved in. • “Institutional ethnography” has this as an explicit objective: to empower people through joint development of experiences, and joint mapping of sets of relationships that were not entirely clear to the informant. • Aim: to be empowering to those researched. • But: If the interview can empower, it certainly can do the opposite by leaving behind a feeling of • hopelessness • personal shortcoming • An impression of having been turned into a an object may enforce both.
2. Classifying children Converting this… …into to this...
The power of discourse • Nietzsche: What you call something more important that what it is. • Ian Hacking: Interactive classifications • The classification label interacts with context: Eg: ”fat”. • The looping effect: classifications talking back • Michel Foucault: • Classification is the exercising of power legitimized by knowledge • …forcing identities on people … • … even constituting structural violence.
The power of discourse • Theories and discourse develop reflexively, and together they constitute the necessary basis for survey design. • Discourse exists, but is often relatively indifferent to people. • The special feature of quantitative research is the sending of representatives of such (academic) discourses into the homes and personal relationships of (a large number) of people.
Experience • Experience is made available to people through speech (D. Smith, J.Scott, Mauthner et al.) • Two people create the frame within which experience is spoken and thus created: the interviewer and the informant. • Brings to awareness; • things people know but do not think of (in that way) • things people try not to think of • ” - I hadn’t thought of that…” • We (our representatives) contribute to a production of peoples experiences about their children within the conceptual framework of our discourse. • We leave behind those new (framed)experiences as a footprint when we go.
How may this affect children? • If it frames and contributes to the formulations of lasting experiences of parents … • …so, the impact is primarily on the relationship between the adult representative and the child, • …then secondly, a change of adult perceptionmay affect the child more directly. • This can be used for good, and is often deliberately used so in qualitative research (disputable practice of the ethos of science). • In quantitive research the veil of objectivity typical for the positivist research perception derails awareness and insight to such effects.
An example from feminist research: - How balanced would you say your relationship to your husband is? (…after answering this question the woman is asked…) • - I would now like to ask you some questions about household shores. Who would you say shoulders the main responsibility for the following tasks (1=I do, 2=He does): • (Imagine only the questions in black are asked. How will she feel about the balance in her relationship? Then imagine that the questions in red had also been included – how would that change the impression she is left with of her relationship?) • preparing meals • dishing • laundry • ironing • folding clothes • dusting • vacuuming • cleaning floors • grocery shopping • preparing the children’s clothing in the morning • preparing the children’s school meal • … • gardening • fixing stuff that is broken • maintain the house/apartment • cleaning the car • buying hardware • negotiate our insurances • follow op on consumer complaints • fetching children from friends and • hobbies • …
A child related case - How would you consider the overall health of the child? (First imagine that only the questions in black are asked. How would the mother’s perception of her child change if also the rare diseases in red were included, so she would only say yes for some of the cases?) • Did the child ever suffer from • ARI • Diarrhea • Malaria • Intestinal worms or parasites • Possible reflections if only the black questions (common illnesses) are asked: • Do they classify my child as sickly? • Is he sickly (relatively speaking), and not the robust child I thought of him to be? • Worms may be socially stigmatizing. • Do they think we are not not clean, and do they look down on us? • Should I be ashamed when my child gets parasites? • Measels • Tuberculosis • Smallpocks • Polio
3. The attitude of the interviewer ” - What does he think about me? ”
The representative • What types of moral condemnation do survey interviews convey, or are interpreted to convey? • Urbaners/foreigners/intellectuals who do not understand our ways of rearing children? • …who knows more than we do, and will judge our ignorance? • …who do not understand the difficulties of living up to standards even we know about under our current life conditions?
Covert prejudice? (The survey already assumes that poverty or poor schools are the only explanations why children work, so it provides no possible answer category for the possibility that a child prefers to work, and would be sad if he/she could not. ) Have you heard of the Convention for the Rights of the Child? Have you heard of ILO convention 182?
Overt prejudice • The child labor surveys in the cocoa sectors of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana: • The survey was initiated by putting up tents on the village square, informing about the hazards and immoral of child labor -- before information was collected.
4. Direct interventions (When) Should survey workers intervene for children? We gathered the consent of both the father and his Marabou to use the picture of this kid – himself he did not quite know what to say. Does this mean we are ethically right in doing so? And in leaving him behind in misery?
The limits to objectification – When should survey researchers intervene? • What does the interviewer do when there is reason to suspect severe abuse, risk of permanent harm or death to a child found during a survey? • Option 1: Emphasizes non-intervention / the ethos of disinterestedness of research. Researchers as “nobody”. • Option 2: Report suspected cases detected during the survey to local police, social offices or child rights organizations. • Parallels: • Like doctors and psychologists there should be limits to researchers’ confidentiality. • Like for lawyers and journalists there should be limits to protecting sources. • Where is not clear. For the other professions, the main issue is to prevent someone from killing or seriously causing harm to him/herself or other human beings. • Where should survey workers stand with regards to children?
5. What to do? • Quit surveying about children? • - We should not throw baby out with the bathwater. • - We need surveys on childhood. • Conscientious awareness may reduce damage • Questionnaire development • Training of field staff • What do you think?
