Abstract

Educational qualitative research can easily become both a vehicle and a target for ethical, political, and methodological attack. Moral conflicts surface in even the most systematically organized study, though those closest to the study are usually the last to recognize them as such. The intent of the study, the research questions, the relationship between the researcher and the participants, and the interpretation of data are embedded in a wider epistemological context. The process of turning the text into a display of developing narratives rather than narrations of participants’ life stories, of allowing space for interaction among perspectives, and grasping material rich enough to undergo re-analysis in different ways entails serious implications in qualitative research. The engagements among the people involved in the study mediate the outcome of the research and the construction of knowledge. An analysis of the movements in power between the researcher and the participants must be weighed against the results achieved in the research process. Therefore, political issues such as the researcher’s cultural encapsulation, ethical conflicts between the researcher and the participants, and methodological considerations in conducting qualitative interviews should be taken into consideration by the research community.