ABSTRACT
Ethical approval and ethical conduct of research are interrelated concepts. In this chapter, the authors describe reasons why paying attention to both are necessary. They begin by considering the current functions of ethical review boards and provide questions to help researchers think through the approval process. They shift to a discussion of the some of the challenges of ethical approval for social science researchers. Finally, they advocate for moving beyond the minimal requirements of typical ethical approval processes towards the excellent treatment of people. They also suggest in this chapter that, while ethical approval processes are typically fixed, researchers face a series of choices related to how they will situate their research and themselves ethically. When compared with the experimental research used, particularly, in health settings, ethical questions in social sciences are arguably more nuanced.
