Designing Qualitative Research to Do No Harm

H. Richard Milner IV is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Education, Professor of Sociology, and Professor of Education Policy Studies at Vanderbilt University. Tyrone C. Howard is the Pritzker Family Endowed Chair and professor of education in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA.

• Contents Series Foreword  xi Introduction: Commitments to Do No Harm in Qualitative Research  1 Areas of Research to Address Harm  3 Qualitative Research and Harm Prevention  6 Harm in Research Processes  8 Positionality: Who Are We? And Why Us and This Book?  10 Do No Harm Research Commitments  14 1.  Framing Phases of Do No Harm Research  21 Credibility as Harm Prevention  21 Preactive Phase of Research  23 Interactive Phase of Research  27 Postactive Phase of Research  30 Summary and Conclusions  33 2.  Do No Harm in Interviewing  34 What Are Interviews and Why Do They Matter?  34 Why Trust Matters in Interviewing  37 Remembering Culture in Interviews  38 Pláticas as a Form of Interviewing  43 3.  Do No Harm in Observations  49 Culture and Bias in Observation  50 Seeing and Not Judging  52 Structured Observation  54 Field Experiments  57 Participant Observation  59 4.  Do No Harm in Document Analyses  63 What Is Document Analysis and Why Does It Matter?  65 Benefits of Document Analysis  68 Selecting  70 Meaning-Making  71 Synthesizing Information  73 5.  Applying Do No Harm in Research Commitments to Scenarios  78 Case Study 1: Homework Policy and Outside of School Responsibility  79 Case Study 2: Studying a Teacher’s Professional Development Reflections and Her Subsequent Practices  82 Case Study 3: Dress Code Reminder, Corridor Interactions, and a Scarf Annalise Loves  83 Case Study 4: Math Labeling, Tracking, and Special Education Referral  86 Case Study 5: Assumptions About Demond, Basketball, and Family History  87 Case Study 6: Evaluating Campus Climate  90 Case Study 7: Community Organizations, People, and Advancing Vision  91 Summary and Conclusions  93 Conclusion: Making Do No Harm Commitments Normalized Practices  97 Research as a Form of Punishment  98 Moving Beyond Research as a Form of Punishment  99 Positionality as Essential to Do No Harm  100 Harm-Preventative Research From the Very Start  102 Endnotes  107 References  109 Index  117 About the Authors  123