The purpose of the Social Research and Educational Studies series is toprovide authoritative guides to key issues in educational research. Theseries includes overviews of fields, guidance on good practice anddiscussions of the practical implications of social and educational research.In particular, the series deals with a variety of approaches to conductingsocial and educational research. Contributors to this series review recentwork, raise critical concerns that are particular to the field of education,and reflect on the implications of research for educational policy andpractice.

Part of the popular BERA/SAGE Research Methods in Education series, this is the first book to specifically focus on the ethics of Education research. Drawn from the authors’ experiences in the UK, Australia and mainland Europe and with contributions from across the globe, this clear and accessible book includes a wide range of examples The authors show how to: identify ethical issues which may arise with any research project gain informed consent provide information in the right way to participants present and disseminate findings in line with ethical guidelines All researchers, irrespective of whether they are postgraduate students, practising teachers or seasoned academics, will find this book extremely valuable for its rigorous and critical discussion of theory and its strong practical focus. Rachel Brooks is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Sociology Department at the University of Surrey, UK. Kitty te Riele is Principal Research Fellow in the Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity and Lifelong Learning, at Victoria University in Australia. Meg Maguire is Professor of Sociology of Education at King’s College London.

Formal ethical review of research proposals is now almost the default requirement for all – staff and students – planning research under the auspices of colleges and universities in many parts of the world. With notable exceptions, the extant literature discussing educational research ethics takes a meta-ethical overview, is negatively critical about the ethics review process per se, or comes from America and focuses specifically on the workings of the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) there. This book, however, contains stories of lived experience from the UK, Spain, New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Australia dealing with, inter alia: dissatisfactions with criteria against which research proposals and designs and, by extension, researchers themselves, are judged to be ethical; problems encountered in obtaining ethical clearance; changes which have had to be made to plans which are believed to have affected the ensuing research process and outcomes; cases where ethical issues and difficulties arose and required considered responses despite permission to undertake the research in question being granted; and benefits perceived to accrue from ethical review procedures. Ethics and Academic Freedom in Educational Research will be of interest to researchers, students, members of ethics review boards and those teaching research ethics, primarily at postgraduate but also at undergraduate level. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Research and Method in Education.

Ethics has traditionally been seen as a set of general principles which can be applied in a range of situations. This book argues that in fact ethical principles must be shaped within different research practices and hence take on different significances according to varying research situations. The book develops the notion of situated ethics and explores how ethical issues are practically handled by educational researchers in the field. Contributors present theoretical models and practical examples of what situated ethics involves in conducting research on specific areas.