Power and Positionality in Interactions with Staff

While the previous discussion centered around discourses touching upon power dynamics and researcher positioning in interactions with students, I

will now turn to similar negotiations in my interactions with staff. Here, my whiteness, a characteristic which I shared with the majority of staff, did not

“other” me nor did my educational background. In fact, both served to make me more like rather than unlike them. However, there were other aspects inherent in my position and perceived power status which shaped staff expectations and raised ethical concerns.

One such issue pertained to how educators perceived the objectives of my study. If one could make an imprecise distinction, there were apparent differences between teaching/support staff and administrators in the reception of my study. Though this cannot be generalized to all, administrators were often more guarded in both informal discussions and interviews when talking about the programs. I frequently found myself having to work much harder in creating a positive, buoyant atmosphere in interviews with them to assuage doubts about the non-judgmental nature of the research. Correspondingly, these discussions were also less free flowing and yielded fewer critical insights. Terms such as critical social inclusion and anti-oppression seemed to raise red flags:

She also appeared rather hesitant about allowing me to observe her as she felt like I would be evaluating her level of “oppression” or “anti-oppression”[…]

I was at pains to reassure her and emphasize that the experiences of both staff and students occupied the focal point of my research and that the theory would serve as a mirror rather than a blunt assessment tool. I hope that I made a difference but am still unsure. (Observation log, 10.10.2016)

An added complicating factor may have been that all three educational institutions were experiencing sweeping structural and curricular changes adding to feelings of vulnerability on the part of administrators. My presence may thus have been interpreted as just one more attempt to find fault in a situation where administrator resources, and rooms for maneuvering were already circumscribed.

One common element which defined my interactions with teachers as well as students related to my location as a semi-outsider within the institutional hierarchy. The latter entailed that students saw me as an advocate who could possibly affect program changes, while with teachers my location posited me as an emotional ally, one who could offer support

against what many perceived to be unresponsive and sometimes oppressive institutional cultures as the following quotes illustrate:

I continue with an interview with “R” which turns into a very frank and almost cathartic experience for him. He states many times that teachers do not have any opportunities to plan or discuss the program and no access to occupational therapists. He feels that the interview gave him an opportunity to offload. (Observation log, 18.10.2016)

She jokes with me after coffee that I have become somewhat of a garbage can allowing her to offload something which she is not alone in being in need of. I simply say that this, in part, is why I am here. (Observation log, 19.10.2016)

The admission, in the previous sentence, that a part of my researcher role included providing active emotional support aligns with participant-centered research approaches but also presented me with ethical challenges.

Negotiating role components of immersion, empathy, critical distance and self-reflection was a recurring challenge. It was a process in which positionalities, role and power dynamics were consistently reconfigured.

Being considered an ally proved beneficial in eliciting in-depth critical reflections in interviews with teachers to the extent that some asked to review transcripts for fear of having been too outspoken. However, it also raised the question if it was possible to be an ally to all. It was especially when divisions among the teaching staff were exposed during my embeddedness within the school environments that my allegiances were tested. Occasionally, I would be asked “indirectly” what I thought about certain staff or their teaching styles, as in the following example:

“Maren” stops me outside of the class and states that it must be difficult for me to just sit and keep quiet. It seems as if she is not satisfied with how the class was run and my suspicions about a certain level of discomfort with proceedings shared by her are confirmed. (Observation log, 7.4.2016)

In the above case, the criticism was well-founded as a colleague used her power in ways which patronized, frustrated and disempowered students during the course of a joint information session. Maren was also correct in her assessment that it had been difficult for me to “keep quiet” and had probably interpreted certain non-verbal clues. I deflected her question by answering that observing all manner of learning situations was essential for

me in order to build a complex understanding of how social inclusion is practiced on an everyday level, but this reply seemed disingenuous. Deep down, I felt that I had betrayed Maren’s implicit trust in me as an ally because we had openly discussed the program and its developmental needs on many prior occasions. She had also confided that she often felt like being on the margins of the teaching community and I knew she needed support.

Assuaging one’s conscience with ethical mantras espousing researcher impartiality helped very little here.

It is on a question of personal empowerment, that I will conclude this section on power dynamics and researcher positionality. Choosing Swedish as my linguistic homeland in Finland had, essentially, always othered me except in Nordic networks. Therefore, I was unprepared when I was asked by both teachers and students at Arbis and Medis to help out during grammar exercises, language games and discussions:

I help out where I can and am glad to be utilized as a resource as this is the first time where my expertise in Swedish is being recognized as an asset to help other learners. (Observation log Arbis 9.3.2016)

This very personal example of inclusion attests to the reciprocal nature of exchanges in research whereby all parties are altered by the interaction. In being thus empowered, my view of myself and my agency changed over the course of my study. It also reveals the malleability of power relations, where a perceived deficit in one context can become a strength in another and how dependent such shifts are on the structural factors which can work to either facilitate or impede.

6.7.4 INFORMED CONSENT, HARM REDUCTION AND