1. When ethical issues meet cultural differences
Working with English underachieving adolescents
Kai Ren
Graduate School of Education, Bristol University

2. My PhD: a Mixed Methods Case Study
Quantitative data collection of learning power data and achievement and demographic data of 1000 Y9 students in 4 English schools.
Qualitative data collection to gain an in-depth view of student learning identity and agency.
Intervention study with a sub group of underachievers, based on the data acquired .

3. General ethical concerns
Data protection
Participant’s consent and right of withdrawal
Access to findings

4. More moral concerns
The identification as underachiever may risk some negative effect on the selected students.

5. To adopt
A positive, respectful and caring attitude towards every participant when working amongst them.

6. Real-world ethics: more complex
Episode 1
The story about me directly ing my teenage participants…
This is sth. about ethics.

7. My ethical dilemma:
Is it inappropriate to write to your adolescent participants even if you are trying to help them?

8. Real-world ethics: more complex
Episode 2
The story about meeting one-on-on with my teenage participants
This is sth. about ethics.

9. My ethical dilemma:
I am only a male PhD student from China doing research with English teenagers. Do I really need a criminal record check before I can talk to them individually?

10. Reflections
Tensions exist between doing my research conveniently and strictly following the ethical guidelines.
This is sth. about ethics.

11. Reflections
Cultural differences seem to complicate the ethical issues in educational research .
This is sth. about ethics.

12. Reflections
The researcher needs to develop awareness of cross-cultural ethics and handle the issues carefully.
This is sth. about ethics.

13. Ethics ~ A beautiful mind
Thanks !
This is sth. about ethics.