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The need for and challenges of culturally sensitive qualitative research

Mary MaynardUniversity of York

Thinking about cross-cultural research: 4 personal reasons for dwelling on issues of cultural sensitivity

The nature of culturally sensitive and cross-cultural research

Issues for qualitative studies Conclusions

Overview

1. 1. Collaborative research on gender and ageing in the UK which included minority ethnic groups

2. Supervising international students who undertake qualitative research at home

3. Globalization and social work becoming an international profession

4. The need to think about research in relation to comparative and international issues

Reasons

Main research question: how do older women understand and evaluate their quality of life and how might this quality be improved or extended?

Empowerment and Disempowerment: a Comparative Study of African- Caribbean, Asian and White British Women in their Third Age

The only unproblematic words here are those in lower case

The Initial Prompt

Empowerment and Disempowerment as dualistic

Definition of ethnicity Social construction of ‘old age’ Issues of able-bodiedness Recent attempts at providing more positive

models of ageing: managing ageing and resisting stereotypes

Active ageing = successful ageing: consumer society, moral responsibility for a youthful body, identity and social life

The Initial Prompt

But concept of successful ageing is laden with western liberal assumptions where ‘success’ is linked to detachment from others and self-reliance

Associated with autonomy, independence, self- empowerment and agency

But those women who do not/cannot act in this way do not necessarily feel disempowered or disengaged

Ideas about successful ageing and quality of life cannot be applied across cultures. Saturated with values and meanings

The Initial Prompt

What are the issues when conducting cross-cultural research at ‘home’?

What is ‘home’ and who is defining the perspectives to which this gives rise?

Are there differences between cross-cultural research in one country and that which takes place internationally or comparatively?

Do qualitative research methods travel? How far are our assumptions affected by

western liberal views?

The Questions

Focus on quantitative approach, surveys, statistics and government data

Often poorly defined and terms used interchangeably

Some acceptance of qualitative research but it needs to be promoted

Cross-cultural, International and Comparative Research

Gives people a voice, learns about and from their experiences, listens to personal narratives and uses participants own language. In order to understand people’s behaviour we need to understand the meanings and interpretations they give to this behaviour. A particularly useful approach to social work research

Qualitative Cross-cultural Research

Writing about what she terms positivistic research, Liamputtong says;’ It is impossible to ‘measure’ people, or to ‘generalise’ about people, if the researcher wishes to understand people within the context of their own society and culture...Social scientists have a moral obligation to do something to improve the lives of many marginalised people in different cultures and it is more likely that a qualitative approach will allow us to accomplish this task ‘ (2010).


There is a history of qualitative work in areas such as development studies and anthropology but paucity of critical engagement with research issues

In the past ethnographers have been seen as taking and using people’s accounts for their own purposes and exploiting their generosity

Assumption that qualitative research can be unproblematically transported cross-culturally. Not much on culturally sensitive methodologies


Qualitative research texts tend not to discuss cross-cultural or comparative work

This is not seen as part of the mainstream methodology agenda

Shared lessons to be learnt methodologically

Danger of uncritically imposing a methodological canon

Significance of de-colonizing research and methodologies (Mutua and Swadener, 2004; Smith 1999; Denzin et al. 2008)


Assumptions containing Eurocentric philosophies and paradigms

Relates to: established minority ethnic groups; indigenous people; recent arrival of those with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds as immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees; international research, which may or may not have a comparative dimension

Pranee Liamputtong (2008 and 2010)

Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research

Culturally sensitive approach involves treating cultural knowledge in its own right. Can be used as a standpoint for framing the research

A decolonizing approach against that which can be seen as a colonizing construct

They came, they saw, they named, they claimed – the methodology of imperialism

Issues

Tillman’s (2006) culturally sensitive approach:

1. Culturally congruent research methods2. Culturally specific knowledge3. Cultural resistance to theoretical

dominance4. Culturally sensitive data interpretation5. Culturally informed theory and practice

Issues

Different kinds of qualitative methods work differently in different situations

What is meant by ‘work’ here may have a cultural dimension as does ‘good pracice’

Issues of access and gatekeeper involvement

Informed consent: signing; literacy; confidentiality; gender; individual v collective. Trust and rapport rather than a mechanistic act

Research Method Issues

Reciprocity: money; information; action Place of interviews Insider/outsider issues and power Gender, class, age, status Language and communication: whether the

researcher is an indigenous speaker; what can/cannot be discussed/researched; translator or interpreter involvement; translation issues

Writing cross-cultural research

Research Method Issues

At least three ways in which this might be possible on an individual basis:

1. Personal empowerment through participation

2. Therapeutic effect of reflecting on an re-evaluating their experience

3. Some kind of transformation of situation for self and/or group

4. Not immediate but later enhancing of others

Effect on researcher

Can this be Empowering? Should it be Empowering?

Difficult to define and to find an alternative Not just about providing services or agency Different kinds. Access to resources alone

may not translate into empowerment but is related to the perception of their value

Can differ according to the individual and changes over times – a process

Relational concepts – not a definitive state

Empowerment and Disempowerment

Critical of connotations of autonomy and self-help.

Power-sharing. 4 kinds to which research might aspire

‘Power over’ (top down ) ‘Power to’ (advocacy/group leadership) ‘Power with’ (collective activity) ‘Power from within’ (sense of self, identity,

belonging)

Jo Rowland’s (1998) Model