Flashcards on Education: The Research Context (3.2)

There are five main groups and settings in education, each of which have their own distinctive characteristics. Name them:

In education, many of the people that sociologists study are children and young people. Which sociologist suggests that there are three major differences between studying young people and studying adults?

What are the three differences Hill suggests exist?

What does Hill mean by 'power and status'?

What does Hill mean by 'ability and understanding'?

What does Hill mean by 'vulnerability and ethical issues'?

What is one major advantage of studying pupils?

Why may teachers be less than fully cooperative, even when they want to be helpful to researchers?

As a result of teachers being less than fully cooperative, what may sociologists need to do to their interviews and questionnaires? How does this negatively impact the research?

There are practical, ethical and theoretical problems that arise when researching teachers. One problem, which overlaps with problems arising in studying students, is power and status. What is meant by this?

Another issue is 'impression management'. Which sociologist coined this term, and what does it refer to?

Is the classroom an open or closed social setting?

The classroom is also a highly controlled setting. How?

Unlike many other social environments, access to classrooms is controlled by a wide range of gatekeepers. Give examples of said gatekeepers:

Young people are often insecure about their identity and status and may be more sensitive to peer pressure. This can affect their responses to research. What may it therefore be necessary to do?

There are tens of thousands of schools of many different kinds within the UK alone. If a sociologist uses observational methods, what will happen?

Using large-scale surveys can overcome the difficulties involved in gaining a representative sample, but what can the sociologist risk losing?

The functioning of the education system is highly scrutinised and marketised, and there is thus a large amount of secondary data available about schools. Give examples:

Although schools are data-rich places, why may researchers be unable to access data?

School data is not always correct. Why?

All children under the age of 18 are required to attend school. How can the school population be described?

Why is studying a captive population a positive?

Why is studying a captive population a negative?

Head teachers can refuse researchers access to their school. What do Roland Meighan and Clive Harber note?

Some situations and school settings may be 'off limits' to a researcher. What do John Beynon and Paul Atkinson note?

Schools are relatively large-scale, complex, highly-organised social institutions, with daily and yearly timetables, management structures, meeting schedules and so on, and these can do what to a study?

Parents also have a major impact on what occurs within education. However, as a group, that aren't always easy to study. Why?

What concept applied to the study of teachers can also apply to the study of parents?

How will the researcher's own experience of education impact their research?