ABSTRACT

Chapter 3 makes a claim that qualitative research ethics are unique and not an easy fit with more biomedically derived ethics codes. In Chapter 5 van den Hoonaard outlines why the Canadian ethics code he designed exclusively for qualitative researchers fits the bill. This chapter collates a number of published articles that establish qualitative researches uniqueness. In Fitzgerald and Tolich (2006) we characterized qualitative research as a round peg trying to fit within the square hole of the ethics committee’s review process and suggested a more qualitative researchfriendly ethics review system that was governed by a set of qualitative assumptions that diffused the power imbalance between the researcher and the committee and recognized the emergent nature of qualitative research. Yet ethics review committees may not be the whole problem. Tolich and Tumilty (2014) suggest that qualitative researchers’ saturated jargon may speak past ethics review committee members, assuming basic terms like observation are not unequivocal.