Gatekeepers and the Social Control of Social Research

On the application of ethnographic inquiry to education: Procedures and possibilities

“…Gaining access for the sole purpose of data collection is often not treated as an isolated and contained event by those responsible for granting entrance. In return for entry, gatekeepers may negotiate certain prerogatives in the areas of defining the focus of the study, the areas of the organization that may be researched, the right for prepublication clearance, ownership of the data, and frameworks for the analysis (Broadhead & Rist, 1976). Seldom can a researcher expect access without conditions of reciprocity.…”

Federal Funding and Policing Research

“…In this view, sponsorship is need induced, and knowledge becomes an instrument, a tool in the hands of specialists who employ it to meet specific human needs (e.g., Kreidler, 1964;Gans, 1971;Hall, 1972;Wohlstetter, 1964;Brodie, 1964;Vandervelde and Miller, 1975). Others have misgivings about private and federally sponsored research because it is too conservative (D. Horowitz, 1969aHorowitz, , 1969bHorowitz, , 1969cLindeman, 1970), dangerously politicized (Deutscher, 1966;Gouldner, 1968;Raskin, 1971;Broadhead and Rist, 1976;Hoult, 1968;Nicolaus, 1972), or an instrument of class domination (Aptheker, 1966(Aptheker, , 1972D. Smith, 1974;Schulman et al, 1972), ineffective (Dror, 1971), or even too radical (Orlans, 1973;Wormser, 1958).…”

Boundary encroachment and task delegation: clinical pharmacists on the medical team

“…Although I learned that entree in a setting is much more a process than an event, access to the setting and negotiating with the 'gatekeepers' at all levels (see Broadhead and Rist 1976) was already taken care of by the time 1 entered the scene. Nonetheless, passing through these otherwise closed doors as an outsider posed its own set of unique problems.…”