Field Research in Minority Communities: Ethical, Methodological and Political Observations by an Insider

Zinn, Maxine Baca

doi:10.1525/sp.1979.27.2.03a00080

Cited by 135 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Research methods used included participant observation, as well as informal interviews and conversations with a total of 26 students in the tenth year of their education as well as teachers (n=20) entirely in the English language. Being a member of the school community and participant observer was particularly advantageous in allowing for the researcher to understand the multilayered experiences accessible only to an insider (Zinn, 1979(Zinn, , 2001 within the school's domain. In addition to participant observer ethnographies in the school's canteen, playground, assemblies and other open spaces, student behavior in Geography, English and History were carefully observed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student–parent attitudes toward Filipino migrant teachers in Indonesia

Lowe

Lin

Ghaill³

2016

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

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Using ethnographic data gleaned from a foreign managed Christian school in Indonesia, this article situates the ethnic prejudices of Indonesian Chinese parents and students towards Filipino teachers within the organizational and cultural politics of private schooling. It is argued that the commoditization of education as a form of market consumption alongside the masculinized international curriculum help shape the feminization of teachers from the Philippines. Catering to the aspirations of the country's minority ethnic Chinese, privately managed schools actively recruit trained teachers from the Philippines, many of whom are female and are perceived by students and their parents as exhibiting negative symbolic capital. In the process of their employment, they encounter occasional moments of less than complete success and challenges in their jobs. This article situates this prejudice within the cultural politics of masculinized Chinese schooling in Indonesia, while seeking to shed light on the role of Filipino work migrancy in Indonesia's formal employment sector.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student–parent attitudes toward Filipino migrant teachers in Indonesia

Lowe

Lin

Ghaill³

2016

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

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“…Conducting research about women's work and labor conditions, especially with undocumented workers, would otherwise not have been possible. Being a researcher from the same ethnic community as the women I interviewed, I definitely enjoyed some advantages because of my "insider" position, as discussed by Zinn (1979).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nepali Female Migrants and Informalization of Domestic Care Work: Service or Servitude?

Gurung¹

2009

Journal of Workplace Rights

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Nepali female migrants are among the fastest-growing immigrant workforces in the South Asian community, particularly in service and domestic work in big cities of the United States. However, there has not until now been a study investigating the work experiences of Nepali immigrants/migrants employed in the service and domestic sectors in these cities. This article investigates the work experiences of Nepali female migrants who work in service and domestic/child care work in Boston and New York, focusing on examining the type and nature of women's work, labor practices, work and living conditions, women's experiences and views about their work, and their responses to labor policies. The data for this research were collected through semistructured, informal, in-depth interviews and narrative collection in [2005][2006]. Twenty research participants (16-65 years of age) were selected using snowball sampling. The cases of Nepali women reported here support existing literature asserting that migrant/immigrant women are greatly involved and preferred in domestic (including child care) work, and that they encounter labor exploitation, emotional abuse, and prejudice. By demonstrating the downward occupational mobility/status of educated professional Nepali female migrants, however, this study also deconstructs the myths *The first version of this article was presented at about domestic/child care workers (for example, that they come from impoverished and nonprofessional backgrounds; this is not necessarily true). The downward mobility of Nepali immigrant women is a significant factor in leading women to quit their jobs, as a last resort, when work conditions and labor relations become unbearable. Since quitting a job does not solve the underlying problems in these women's work lives, I suggest that these women need to become active in community-based social and political organizations to learn about workers' rights.

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“…What is less clear is whether the insider or the outsider is more prone to this kind of informant bias. Parades (1977) and Zinn (1979) both argue that informants are more likely to present outsiders with a distorted image. "Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, the informant may seek to confirm the stereotypes he thinks the Anglo fieldworker has of him rather than expressing his own attitudes and opinions" (Parades, 1977, p. 29).…”

Section: Part 1: the Concept Of Insidernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, much has been written about the insider/outsider debate in contexts other than education. These include studies from the fields of anthropology (Aguilar, 1981;Narayan, 1993;Ohnuki-Tierney, 1984), ethnic studies (Beoku-Betts, 1994;Wilson, 1974;Zinn, 1979); family research (Christensen and Dahl, 1997;Olson, 1977;Surra and Ridley, 1991); feminist studies (DeVault, 1996;Finch, 1984;Reay, 1995;Reissman, 1987); geography (Mullings, 1999); management (Cassell, 2005); nursing (Carter, 2004); social work (Kanuha, 2000) and sociology (Griffith, 1998;Merton, 1972). Rather less, however, has been published specifically about "the unique epistemological, methodological, political, and ethical dilemmas" (Anderson and Jones, 2000, p. 430) facing educationalists researching the management of their own institutions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges of insider research in educational institutions: wielding a double‐edged sword and resolving delicate dilemmas

Mercer

2007

Oxford Review of Education

379

272

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This paper explores the challenges faced by educational researchers investigating the places where they work. It reviews the literature on insider research and draws upon the author"s own experience of researching faculty appraisal at two Higher Education institutions where she taught. It argues that the insider/outsider dichotomy is actually a continuum with multiple dimensions, and that all researchers constantly move back and forth along a number of axes, depending upon time, location, participants and topic. The assumption that one kind of research is better than the other is challenged, and the advantages and disadvantages of insider research are discussed in terms of access, intrusiveness, familiarity and rapport. Finally, three dilemmas relating to informant bias, reciprocity in interviews, and research ethics are examined from an insider researcher"s perspective, and the ways in which the author responded to these dilemmas at different points in her own four-year two-site study are critiqued.

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Field Research in Minority Communities: Ethical, Methodological and Political Observations by an Insider

Cited by 135 publications

References 0 publications

Student–parent attitudes toward Filipino migrant teachers in Indonesia

Student–parent attitudes toward Filipino migrant teachers in Indonesia

Nepali Female Migrants and Informalization of Domestic Care Work: Service or Servitude?

The challenges of insider research in educational institutions: wielding a double‐edged sword and resolving delicate dilemmas

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