Ethics, Place & Environment

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The Ethical and Methodological Complexities of

Doing Research with 'Vulnerable' Young People

Gill Valentine , Ruth Butler & Tracey Skelton

To cite this article: Gill Valentine , Ruth Butler & Tracey Skelton (2001) The Ethical and
Methodological Complexities of Doing Research with 'Vulnerable' Young People, Ethics, Place &
Environment, 4:2, 119-125, DOI: 10.1080/13668790123540

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13668790123540

Published online: 02 Jul 2010.

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 Short Communications 119

The Ethical and Methodological Complexities of Doing Research

with ‘Vulnerable’ Young People

GILL VALENTINE, RUTH BUTLER AND TRACEY SKELTON

Original manuscript received, 9 January 2001

ABSTRACT In discussing methodological and ethical codes for working with children
there is a danger that young people can become homogenised as a social category. In
this paper we examine the way in which common methodological and ethical dilemmas,
such as accessing potential interviewees or gaining consent, can become more complex
and signiŽ cant when the research involves work with a ‘vulnerable’ group of children
or youth. Here, we draw on our own experience of working with self-identiŽ ed lesbian
and gay young people, to demonstrate that research with sexual minorities is particu-
larly sensitive because of the speciŽ c laws which frame (or until recently have framed)
homosexuality and because of the way in which children are popularly constructed as
asexual or innocent. In doing so we also highlight the importance of Ž nding a safe space
where interviews can be conducted in privacy and conŽ dence.

Recent studies of children and young people have drawn attention to the fact that youth
is not a homogeneous group (Cohen, 1997). Indeed, there is increasing evidence that
some groups of young people Ž nd the period of transition from childhood to adulthood
particularly difŽ cult and as such are at risk of failing at school, of becoming estranged
from their families and of experiencing homelessness, unemployment and social iso-
lation (Coles, 1997). The term ‘vulnerable youth’ (Coles, 1997, p. 81) has been coined
to describe those who have a greater likelihood of becoming socially excluded in these
ways. In this paper we focus on some of the methodological and ethical issues involved
in working with one particular ‘vulnerable’ group: lesbians and gay young people.
These young people are ‘vulnerable’ because lesbian and gay sexualities are largely
stigmatised identities. In most Western countries anti-discrimination legislation does not
cover sexual minorities, lesbian and gay relationships have only limited recognition
before the law and homophobia is still commonplace (Valentine, 1993, 1996a). As a
result children who begin to experience same-sex desire or to identify as lesbian and gay
(research suggests that young people tend to become aware of their sexual orientation
between the ages of 10 and 16) can feel very confused and isolated. It is common for
them to internalise negative representations of homosexuality and as a consequence to
be too ashamed or fearful of rejection to ‘come out’ to friends and family members
(Hunter et al., 1998). This in turn can make them vulnerable to low self-esteem,
depression and self-hatred. Numerous studies suggest that lesbian and gay youth are at

Gill Valentine, Department of Geography , University of ShefŽ eld, Winter Street, ShefŽ eld S10 2TN, UK. E-mail:
G.Valentine@shefŽ eld.ac.uk
Ruth Butler, CAS, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, UK. E-mail: R.e.butler@cas.hull.ac.uk
Tracey Skelton, Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Department of Geography , Loughboroug h
University, Loughborough , Leicestershire, UK. E-mail: tracey.skelton@all-souls.oxford.ac.u k

1366-879 X Print/1469-670 3 On-line/011/020119-0 7 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1366879012006149 7
120 Short Communications

high risk of making suicide attempts (McBee and Rogers, 1997; Savin-Williams, 1998).
For example, in a study of members of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth groups in the
USA and Canada, Proctor and Groze (1994) found that over 40% had attempted suicide
at least once, while a further 26% had seriously contemplated it. While many young
people who ‘come out’ have positive experiences, it is also commonplace for children
to be rejected by their families and to face bullying and victimisation from their peers
(Nardi and Bolton, 1998; Valentine et al., 2000).
Given the speciŽ c ways in which lesbian and gay young people are marginalised, there
is obviously a need for research to explore how such processes can be resisted and how
appropriate support can be provided for them. Commonly, academics carrying out
research with young people are able to contact them and to work with them either at
school or in the ‘family’ home (Valentine, 1999).1 Yet, the very nature of lesbian and
gay young people’s vulnerability means that both of these environments are potentially
difŽ cult spaces in which to access and work with this group. Here we use examples from
our own research project with young lesbian and gay men aged 16–24 from two towns.
One town in the Midlands and one in the north of England are used to examine in detail
the speciŽ c methodological and ethical issues that arise in the locations of the school and
home when sexuality is the topic under investigation.

The School
In 1988 the UK’s Conservative government passed a Local Government Act which
included a section dealing with the question of homosexuality in schools. Section 28
stated that a local authority shall not: (1) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish
material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; or (2) promote the teaching in
any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family
relationship.
In the debates which surrounded the introduction of this law the moral right
constructed heterosexuality as ‘natural’ but also paradoxically as precarious in that their
support for this legislation implied a recognition that teenagers’ sexuality is not
biologically Ž xed, but rather is emergent and as such subject to in uence. In the eyes of
the moral right, information about homosexuality might corrupt children’s ‘innocence’
and incite them to engage in ‘inappropriate’ sexual activity. As such they argued that the
emphasis on school sex education should be Ž rmly on heterosexual monogamy and the
biological facts of reproduction (Gordon et al., 2000; Thorogood, 2000). Indeed, sex
education guidelines which are being developed by the current Labour government in
conjunction with churches are expected to stress the importance of marriage and family
life (Department for Education and Employment, 2000).
Although a prosecution has never brought under Section 28 of the Local Government
Act 1988, nonetheless it remains on the statute books in England and Wales (it was
repealed in Scotland in 2000) and has had a profound impact on teachers. In a study of
307 schools commissioned by Stonewall and the Terrence Higgins Trust, Douglas et al.
(1997) found that 82% were aware of homophobi c bullying within the institution.
However, while 99% of the schools had an anti-bullying policy in place, only 6% had
a speciŽ c anti-homophobic bullying policy. In the following quotations, Bob (now aged
20) describes his experiences of bullying and his teachers’ reluctance to address the way
he was treated by his peers:

… it [homophobi c bullying] started up in year 10 and it put me right off my studies,

 Short Communications 121

I used to really enjoy school up until I got into secondary school, I used to, I used
to love it but then I got to secondary school and I hated it, I just wanted it to be
over, I just thought, I just can’t do this, I was glad the day I walked out, I know
I got really, really poor grades.
They did, they’d hear it, they, they’d sort of half heartedly tell the students off, but
they didn’t mean it, deep down they weren’t bothered, either way, it was like oh
stop being homophobi c but they wouldn’t take the, they’d say oh stop saying that
about that person or whatever, but they wouldn’t say stop being homophobic , they’d
just say oh you shouldn’t say that about people, so they, they weren’t really
bothered. I think there was one or two teachers that knew about homophobi a but
again they were scared, I think they were scared of saying anything.
The explanation for such failures to acknowledge or respond to homophobi a is found in
Epstein’s (2000) research. This suggests that both heterosexual and lesbian and gay
teachers are unsure about the parameters of Section 28, and that as a result of their
uncertainty and confusion they feel inhibited about discussing homosexuality within the
classroom, or responding to cases of homophobi a lest they break the law. Indeed, Epstein
(2000) suggests that homophobic teachers may actively hide behind the law, using it as
an excuse to avoid addressing homosexuality and to condone prejudice. Given the legal
context of Section 28 and this uncertainty about how the legislation should be inter-
preted, it is not surprising that headteachers are fearful of entertaining research about
homosexuality within their schools.
Even it if were possible to get beyond cautious gatekeepers it is unlikely that lesbian
and gay young people would be willing to come forward and participate in such
research. Children have to negotiate their individuality within the context of intense
pressure to conform with their peers (James, 1993). While the location of children within
narratives of identity predicated on ‘innocence’ (Valentine, 1996b) tends to ‘nurture an
apparent desexualisation of schools as institutions’ (Epstein and Johnson, 1998, p. 217),
numerous studies have demonstrated that the school is an environment saturated with
heterosexuality (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Holland et al., 1998; Holloway et al., 2000;
Hyams, 2000; Valentine, 2000).
Sex and sexuality are important in a whole repertoire of student–student and even
student–teacher interactions, including name calling,  irting, harassment, homophobic
abuse, playground conversation, grafŽ ti, dress codes and so on (Haywood and Mac an
Ghaill, 1995). Lesbian and gay pupils commonly experience harassment and social
exclusion at the hands of their peers (Epstein and Johnson, 1998; Khayatt, 1994; Epstein,
1994). Abusive terms such as ‘poof’ are also levelled at those children who are not gay,
but who do not Ž t in with hegemonic understandings of masculinity and femininity for
other reasons (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill, 1995; Holloway et al., 2000). Indeed,
children also use similar accusations of homosexuality in a derogatory way to harass
teachers (Lahelma et al., 2000). Consequently, in the face of the overwhelming
heterosexuality of young people’s peer group cultures and the stigmatisation of lesbian
and gay sexualities, to ask young people to identify themselves as gay in school-based
research would be tantamount to putting them at risk of bullying and social exclusion.

The ‘Family’ Home

Several studies have highlighted the crucial importance of parents, relatives and friends
in supporting and sustaining young people through the transition from dependent
childhood to independent adulthood (Jones, 1995; Coles, 1997). Yet, for lesbian and gay
122 Short Communications

youth the overwhelming, and taken for granted, heterosexuality of the family home can
be experienced as oppressive and alienating (Johnston and Valentine, 1995; Elwood,
2000). As Nardi and Bolton (1998, p. 141) explain, ‘frequently, gay youths are rejected
and abused by parents, siblings and other kin because of their homosexuality. Thus,
where other minority youth generally do not face problems with racism and religious
intolerance within their own families, for gays and lesbians often abuse begins at home.’
A fear of such a reaction prevents many lesbians and gay young people from
disclosing their sexuality to their families even though they may be ‘out’ to other people
in their lives. Peter describes the risks he has to weigh up:
My mother would be Ž ne, but she would tell my Dad. My Dad is okay sometimes,
other times he sounds off, in the recent debate about gays in the military he said
that all gays should be destroyed. He wasn’t serious, but it still hurt. I need to work
out if he hates gays more than he loves me.
Such secrecy raises a number of issues in relation to the ability of lesbians and gay
young people who are legally minors (under 18 years of age) to consent to participating
in research without their parents’ knowledge and agreement. Legal minors are normally
regarded as the responsibility of their parents or guardians. The implication is that they
do not have the competence to understand and make a decision in their own best
interests. If such an approach were to be adopted in relation to participation in academic
research, a young person could only give their assent or agreement to take part in a
study. Consent for their participation would have to be obtained from their parents or
guardians (Tymchuck, 1992). As such it would be impossible to gain permission for
many lesbian and gay young people to take part in research about their sexuality because
this would necessitate them ‘coming out’ to their families.
However, in the 1980s a UK court case about a child’s ability to consent in relation
to their own medical treatment established a legal deŽ nition of a child’s competence to
consent. This states that a competent child is one who ‘achieves sufŽ cient understanding
and intelligence to enable him or her to understand fully what is proposed’ and that the
competent child has ‘sufŽ cient discretion to enable him or her to make a wise choice in
his or her interests’ (Morrow and Richards, 1996, p. 95). Although this ruling has not
been tested in the courts speciŽ cally in relation to a young person’s right to consent to
participate in social research, it does provide a justiŽ cation for not involving parent(s)
and guardians where to do so would harm the interests of the young person concerned.
The need to conceal the content of interviews from family and friends also creates
methodological problems in relation to where to conduct the research. While the home
is usually reiŽ ed as a private space, in practice it is a space where young people are
under the constant surveillance of other family members (although children do also
oppose or subvert the way adults circumscribe their lives). Indeed, children have fewer
rights to the same degree of privacy as adults (Allan and Crow, 1989). As such the
dangers of attempting to conduct a ‘private’ interview in most familial homes where
space is at a premium and other household members may be tempted to eavesdrop are
self-evident. Instead, community spaces (such as women’s centres, health centres and
youth drop-in spaces) and venues within the lesbian and gay scene can prove effective
substitutes for the home, offering safe and private environments for sensitive conversa-
tions. E-mail also emerged for us as an important way of contacting and working with
some lesbian and gay young people. The cloak of anonymity provided by the disembod-
ied nature of on-line forms of communication can provide closeted young people with
the self-conŽ dence and security necessary to overcome their fears about talking about
their sexuality. Hinkinson-Hodnett (1999) argues that young men in particular can Ž nd
 Short Communications 123

it easier to deal with their emerging sexuality through a computer screen rather than by
talking face-to-face.
Indeed, young gay men had, until recently, particularly good reason to be fearful about
discussing their sexuality because the legal age at which a gay man could consent to sex
was 21. As a result young men under this age engaging in consensual sex were breaking
the law. In December 2000 the UK government Ž nally reduced the age of consent for
gay men to 16, in line with the heterosexual age of consent. Where our informants told
us about ‘illegal’ sexual relationships during their interviews we necessarily sought to
protect their conŽ dentiality. For this reason we have taken great care to anonymise all
the material arising from the project. This includes not only the extracts from interviews
and information which are used in publications but also the notes and interview
transcripts which are stored on Ž le. We are also aware of the need to tailor the way we
disseminate our Ž ndings to individual participants in order to avoid unwittingly breach-
ing their conŽ dentiality, for example by not sending our Ž ndings to familial homes
where they may be read by household members who are not aware of the informants’
sexuality.

Conclusion
In discussing methodological and ethical codes for working with children there is a
danger that young people can become homogenised as a social category. In this paper
we have tried to draw attention to the way that common methodological and ethical
dilemmas, for example in relation to accessing potential interviewees or gaining consent,
can become more complex and signiŽ cant when the research involves work with a
‘vulnerable’ group of young people. Here we have outlined some of the speciŽ c issues
that arise in the locations of the school and home when homosexuality is the topic under
investigation. Research with lesbians and gay young people is particularly sensitive
because of the speciŽ c laws which frame (or until recently framed) homosexuality and
because of the way that children are popularly constructed as asexual or innocent. While
we do not wish to be prescriptive about how the problems outlined in this paper should
be addressed, our research does demonstrate the fundamental importance of Ž nding safe
and private spaces in which to carry out research with young people and the crucial
signiŽ cance of making every effort to protect the anonymity and conŽ dentiality of those
who agree to participate in such studies.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council (award no. L134 25 1032)
for funding the research on which this paper is based. Thanks to Sara McNamee who
was employed as a research assistant on this project from May 1999 to December 2000.

Note
1. Stacey (1990, p. 269) argues that the notion of family is ‘an ideological concept that imposes mythical
homogeneit y on the diverse means by which people organise their intimate relationships [such that] “the
family” distorts and devalues this rich variety of kinship stories’. She suggests using the term ‘postmodern
families’ to capture the diverse,  uid and complex composition of modern households . While it is intensely
problematic to retain the term ‘family’ at all, given its ideological weight, we use it in this paper in the way
Stacey does—as an insufŽ cient shorthand for many varied household arrangements
124 Short Communications

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Fielding Diversity and Moral Integrity

STUART C. AITKEN

Original manuscript received, 9 January 2001

ABSTRACT This paper outlines some of the moral issues I faced when working in the
Ž eld with homeless children and children with cerebral palsy. Bill Bunge argues that the
‘immediacy’ of Ž eldwork requires that we divest ourselves of theoretical and philosoph-
ical pretensions to attend the urgency of our participants’ context. I use personal
examples of powerful and contradictory experiences from working with young people in
the Ž eld to highlight the importance of a moral integrity that recognizes vulnerability
and the needs of the moment.

Working with diversity is not just about being in the Ž eld with different kinds of young
people; it is about negotiating complex and contradictory geographical and historical
contexts. This paper outlines some moral issues I faced when working in the Ž eld with
homeless children and children with cerebral palsy. For me, this work raised opportuni-
ties for what Bunge (1971, p. 170) calls ‘immediacy’ in Ž eldwork because it obliterated
the notion of my research agenda, at least for a while. In this paper I use two personal
stories of powerful and con icted experiences to highlight the importance of moral
integrity in the Ž eld and to suggest ways in which this is connected problematically to
the social and spatial world in which academic research Ž tfully resides.
The Ž rst story begins on a characteristically bright and sunny afternoon in San Diego.
To the extent that we existed in bright light and sharply distinguished shadows, the sun
seemed to wash away the context for the deep and meaningful interaction that I thought
I craved.
In the immediacy of that moment, I realized that my theories and academic rumination

Stuart C. Aitken, Department of Geography , San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA. E-mail:
saitken@mail.sdsu.edu

1366-879 X Print/1469-670 3 On-line/01/020125-0 5 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1366879012006150 5