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- Title
The effects of research on participants: findings from a study of mothers and employment.
- Authors
Brannen, Julia
- Abstract
This article explores the effects of research on participants. Participants are affected at all stages of the research process from the theoretical framework to the research methods and the findings themselves. Different research designs and methods serve to construct participants as subjects of research in different ways. From a methodological standpoint the success of research is dependent on the willingness of people to take part and their definitions of what participation means. In the study discussed in the paper the participants' motivations were clearly apparent: mothers' concern about their children's development and their desire to gain an understanding of the broader political and practical context of day care. The article has suggested the ways in which research participants are socially constructed through the theoretical focus of the research, in this case the taken for granted assumption that the mother was the spokesperson for the household and the omission of fathers as key participants. It has suggested that such omissions have political as well as methodological consequences since they reinforce dominant ideologies of motherhood and fatherhood. By failing to engage men as fathers in the research process itself they also prevent the possibility of innovation in individual households.
- Subjects
RESEARCH; FATHERS; MOTHERS; CHILD care; HOUSEHUSBANDS; MOTHERHOOD; HOUSEHOLDS
- Publication
Sociological Review, 1993, Vol 41, Issue 2, p328
- ISSN
0038-0261
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-954X.1993.tb00068.x