ABSTRACT
One of the most important considerations for the educational researcher is the position they occupy in relation to the research setting, the participants in the research and the data analysis and presentation. For some, researchers are ‘experts’, removed from the site of study and capable of theorising from an objective standpoint. For others, the researcher is bound up in the research itself and incapable of presenting anything other than a partial and subjective account – personal judgements defining the topic of study, the methods used, the analysis and presentation of data and so on. Given the current prominence of this second position, strategies for dealing with the inherent subjectivity of research should be considered – most notably, the quality of reflexivity. Much educational research today is ‘practitioner’ or ‘insider’ research, and this chapter considers the benefits and problems associated with the role of the ‘insider researcher’ – issues such as friendship, familiarity, shared histories and futures, over-rapport and taken-for-granted ‘truths’.
