Student teachers are oftentimes encouraged to apply theoretical principles of social justice to their professional practice. However, this can be problematic when theoretical knowledge is contested, or if it is inconsistent with the practices in their future workplaces. Studies in this area often examine student teachers' beliefs and understanding of their roles without taking account of how concrete working contexts shape what they see as possible in their practice. This study explored how students in two teacher education programmes based at the University of Edinburgh perceived their roles, practices and contexts for acting as agents of social justice. Mixed methods were used for data generation and triangulation including a questionnaire survey (n=299) and scenario-based interviews (n=9) to explore how students think about social justice issues in context. Student teachers generally saw agency for social justice as part of their role. Their understanding of the ways of addressing context-embedded issues of social justice focused on classroom practices while they raised concerns about how their practice depends on others in the system. We discuss the implications of these findings for teacher education.

This paper discusses the methodological and logistical complexities that underpin multi‐method, multi‐sited, multi‐phased research with vulnerable communities. The project on which we draw was a 3‐year Australian government‐funded, longitudinal and cross‐sectional exploration of students from refugee backgrounds (SfRBs) as they moved into, through and out of higher education from three different contexts, educational pathways and localities in Australia. While all students entering and participating in higher education may experience challenges, for SfRBs these are compounded by their linguistic and cultural diversity, instability, possible trauma and disrupted schooling. In the project presented in this article, these complexities and their relationships with transitions to higher education were captured through diverse methods and methodologies at three research sites, including longitudinal research with repeat interviews and cross‐sectional, explorative methods. The opportunities provided by this methodological approach far outweighed the ethical and practical difficulties navigated by each of the research teams. The ‘thick’ data produced through prolonged and repeat engagements with a small cohort of participants at one site were made richer through explorations of differing social and geographical contexts across all three sites. Further, our collective interpretations of the data were made more robust through the reciprocity and reflexivity inherent in ethically researching with (not on) SfRBs and through multiple cross‐site research team interactions.

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