Gender power in elite schools: methodological insights from researcher reflexive accounts

Abstract

The main task of this paper is to understand the methodological insights from researchers’ reflexive accounts about the production of gender in the specific practices of three Scottish elite schools. Accordingly, the paper poses three questions: How is gender re/constructed through the specific practices of these elite schools? What insights into these specific school gender regimes are offered in researchers’ reflexive accounts? What methodological insights are gained for future such studies? The paper opens with a discussion of gender policy in Scotland which suggests that the country’s policy and governance take little account of gender, equality and in/exclusion issues, in particular their intersectional nature. The methodology for the wider study from which this paper emerges is then outlined followed by the methodology for this researcher reflexive sub-study. Then, the data relating to the three schools’ gender practices’ regimes and the researchers’ reflexive data are presented and analysed. The paper concludes by delineating a number of important gender power issues which the researcher reflexive accounts highlight and argues that the insights thus gained will aid the development of gender and power sensitive methodology

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ELITE GIRLS’ 21STCENTURY SCHOOLING IN SCOTLAND: HABITUS CLIVÉ IN A SHIFTING LANDSCAPE

“…Methodologically, access to independent sector Heads can be difficult. Powerful institutional actors' may attempt to 'manage' the empirical research in various ways, a circumstance encountered by other researchers and in our earlier SISP research (Forbes and Weiner, 2014). However, in this case, gaining access and interviewing four Heads, past and present, proved fairly straightforward, partly due to our work on the SISP.…”

Researching elite education: affectively inferred belongings, desires and exclusions

“…There is a long tradition of using the self to make sense of research data through processes of reflexivity, and this has been a particularly strong stance in feminist research approaches (Archer, 2002;Bott, 2010;Currie et al, 2007;Datta, 2008;Epstein et al, 2013;Forbes & Weiner, 2014;Pini, 2004;Rooke, 2009). In recent years, however, some of this work has been strengthened by an interest in how emotions and broader affective structures shape the focus and conduct of research (Gillies & Robinson, 2010;Hume, 2007;Procter, 2013;Renold & Ringrose, 2014).…”

“…As Rooke (2007), Bondy (2012) and Proctor (2013) argue in relation to research on urban lesbian space, minority children's experiences in different communities, and collaborative research in primary school, respectively, being reflexive about affective responses within the field and the kinds of relationships developed with participants in particular spaces offers insight into both 'spatialised feeling rules' (Procter, 2013: 81) and local regimes of power (Forbes & Weiner, 2014).…”

“…Gatekeepers are critical when negotiating access to study participants, not only in terms of entry to a research field, but also with respect who the researcher will be able to talk to and/or observe (Epstein et al, 2013;Forbes & Weiner, 2014). However, as Cipollone & Stich (2012) have argued, access is an on-going process that requires constant negotiation (see also Bondy, 2013).…”