International Journal of Research & Method in EducationVol. 28, No. 1, April 2005, pp. 8393

ISSN 1743-727X (print)/ISSN 1743-7288 (online)/05/01008311 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdDOI: 10.1080/01406720500036786

Research ethical guidelinesand anonymity1

Geoffrey Walford*University of Oxford, UKTaylor and Francis LtdCWSE103661.sgm10.1080/01406720500036786International Journal of Research & Method in Education1743-272X (print)/1743-7288 (online)Original Article2005Taylor & Francis Group Ltd281000000April 2005GeoffreyWalfordOxford University Department of Educational Studies15 Norham GardensOxfordOX2 6PYgeoffrey.walford@educational-studies.oxford.ac.uk

That researchers should give anonymity to research sites and to the individuals involved in researchis usually taken as an ethical norm. Such a norm is embodied internationally in most of the ethicalguidelines and codes of practice of the various educational, sociological and psychological researchassociations and societies. This paper challenges this assumption on the basis that it is usuallyimpossible to ensure anonymity and that it is often undesirable to try to do so.

Introduction

It is an almost unquestioned belief that anonymity for individuals and research sitesshould be the standard ethical practice for educational research. Such a belief isembodied in the various ethical guidelines and codes of practice produces by suchprofessional associations as the American Educational Research Association, theAmerican Sociological Association, the British Sociological Association and theBritish Psychological Society. The British Educational Research Association took asimilar view when it published its Revised ethical guidelines for educational research inApril 2004 (BERA, 2004). These replaced earlier guidelines first issues in 1992(BERA, 1992) and were produced by a small working group of members of theAssociation in consultation with other interested parties. The penultimate draft of theRevised ethical guidelines for educational research were brought to the Annual Meetingof the British Educational Research Association at its annual conference, held inSeptember 2003.

As is usually the case, the meeting was small and there was little time available forreal discussion, but one of the paragraphs in this penultimate version caused someconcern amongst a few members (including myself). Following a dispute at the meet-ing the President agreed to take the matter back to the committee and ask them to

*Oxford University Department of Educational Studies, 15 Norham Gardens, Oxford OX2 6PY,UK. Email: geoffrey.walford@educational-studies.oxford.ac.uk

84 G. Walford

reconsider the issue. The paragraph under discussion was paragraph 23. In its initialform it stated:

The confidential and anonymous treatment of participants data is considered the normfor the conduct of research. Researchers must recognise the participants entitlement toprivacy and must accord them their rights to confidentiality and anonymity, unless they ortheir guardians or responsible others, specifically and willingly waive that right. In suchcircumstances it is in the researchers interests to have such a waiver in writing.

After reconsideration by the working party a further sentence was added to the orig-inal so that the revised paragraph now reads (BERA, 2004):

23. The confidential and anonymous treatment of participants data is considered thenorm for the conduct of research. Researchers must recognise the participants entitlementto privacy and must accord them their rights to confidentiality and anonymity, unless theyor their guardians or responsible others, specifically and willingly waive that right. In suchcircumstances it is in the researchers interests to have such a waiver in writing.Conversely, researchers must also recognise participants rights to be identified with anypublication of their original work or other inputs, if they so wish. In some contexts it willbe the expectation of participants to be so identified.

The original version was subject to questioning at the meeting for two separatereasons. The first was that the increasing amount of action research and cooperativeresearch within education challenges the idea that confidentiality and anonymityshould be regarded as the norm in educational research. While it might be theaccepted norm in many forms of more quantitative research where large numbers ofrespondents or subjects complete questionnaires or are experimented on, in manyqualitative research studies co-participants in the research play a vital part in co-constructing and co-conducting the research. Their contribution should thus, if theywish it, be identified by their names being given prominence in any publicationsresulting from the work. While the revised version of paragraph 23 still sees confiden-tiality and anonymity as the norm, it does now recognize that there are some forms ofeducational research where it is ethical to recognise participants rights to be identi-fied with any publication of their original work or other inputs.

In contrast, the second reason why paragraph 23 was questioned has not beenrecognized in the reworded guidelines. The second reason is the subject of this paperand relates to the fact that in many forms of qualitative educational research it is oftenactually impossible to offer confidentiality and anonymity. Further, it may be unde-sirable to try to do so.

Anonymity and confidentiality

It is first necessary to clarify exactly what is meant when it is suggested that we offerconfidentiality and anonymity. Anonymity is reasonably straightforward. At root, itsimply means that we do not name the person or research site involved but, inresearch, it is usually extended to mean that we do not include information about anyindividual or research site that will enable that individual or research site to be iden-tified by others.

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Confidential, on the other hand, brings more difficulties. Confidential informationis information that is private or secret. The implication is that what is being saidshould not be passed on to others. If, in an interview, someone states that what theyare about to say is confidential, I take it to mean that (while they wish me to know thefacts or the full story) they do not wish me to pass this information on to anyoneelse. It is ethical, of course, for researchers to keep confidential any information thatthey receive in this waybut it is totally ludicrous to offer confidentiality to respon-dents about the totality of the information that they give to researchers. Theresearchers job is essentially that of generating information from respondents and,after due analysis, passing this on to others. In short, it is not confidentiality that isthe problem at issue, but that of the anonymity of the people associated with the infor-mation. Most information is given in the expectation that it will, in some form orother, be made public in research publicationsthere would be little point in takingpart in research unless this were the case.

Thus, the bulk of this paper deals with the very common assumption that anonym-ity should be the norm in educational research.

Anonymity in ethnographic and qualitative case study research

Anonymity is a particular problem with ethnographic work which requires long-term engagement with a group of people who know each other (Massey & Walford,1998) but it can also apply equally to small-scale interview-only studies or short-term observational studies. In a wide range of work the practice of giving a falsename to a research site and to the people within it has become almost unquestioned.Anonymity has become the default option for most ethnographic work in educa-tion. It is usually thought of a principle that researchers should simply adhere toalmost without question. Researchers do it simply because it is seen as the ethicalthing to do, to protect those involved in the research from any potential possibleharm or embarrassment deriving from publication of books or articles about them.It is such a common part of ethnographic or small-scale qualitative work that its usegoes unquestioned.

Yet it often does not work and it is hard to see how it can ever really work if whatis being said in the reports is significant and worthwhile. The fundamental difficultyis that there are very many people involved with any organization that is the site of anethnographic or qualitative case study who know the identity of the researcher. In aschool, for example, the head teacher, teachers, administrative staff and students allknow (or should know) what is going on. In many cases the list may also includemembers of the governing body, parents and others connected with the school. Thevery essence of ethnography is that the researcher is present in the organization overan extended period, and such exposure means that a great number of people come toknow the researchers identity. With so many people knowing about the research, itis very difficult to hide the identity of the school or individuals involved if any of thereports have local or national exposure. A good journalist can easily find the schoolinvolved through a few telephone calls. Indeed, in some ways any researcher might be

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concerned if no attempts are made by anyone to identify the schoolare the findingsof so little interest?

A non-educational example can be found in Scheper-Hughes (1979) study of aparticular village in rural Ireland where she conducted an ethnography which tried tounderstand why Ireland had the highest rates of hospitalized mental illness in theworld. Her study uncovered a process by which particular children where denied fulladult status so that they remained in Ireland to work the farm and care for theirparents in their old age. The book received the Margaret Mead Award from theSociety of Applied Anthropology in 1980 and was greeted with a storm of contro-versy. In particular, the findings were not appreciated by Irish-Americans or by thosein the village itself, who felt that she had betrayed them. They had welcomed her intothe village, yet she had written only about the bad things about their livesnothinggood. It was, to the villagers, a one-sided account. Following the publication of thebook, a journalist cycling through the area of Ireland was easily able to identify thereal village through questioning local people. He published articles about it in TheIrish Times, which subsequently exposed the village to a continued tourist gaze. WhenScheper-Hughes returned to the village some 20 years later she was very antagonisti-cally received and was quickly forced to leave the village.

Nespor (2000, p. 549) summarizes the overall problem:

Anonymization protects participants from identification and consequent harm or embar-rassment only insofar as local people have no objection to whats written (or cannot bebothered to read it) and whats written is of too little import to attract the scrutiny ofoutsiders.

I have discussed elsewhere (Walford, 2001a) the process of site selection withineducational ethnography. I argued that insufficient attention is often given to theappropriateness of particular sites for research. It is evident (either from internalevidence or from personal communications) that studies are frequently undertaken inparticular locations simply because they provide convenient sites for the researchers.Often, a particular local school is known to the researcher, or contacts can be madethrough colleagues or friends. Researchers settle for research sites to which they caneasily gain convenient and ready access rather than thinking through the implicationsof particular choices. In my own department at Oxford University, for example, if astudy is to be conducted concerning the English educational system, it is highly likelythat schools within our Partnership Scheme will be selected. The department has verygood relationships with these local schools through its Postgraduate Certificate inEducation and continued professional development work, so the path to access issmoothed. The inclusion of a few basic facts about the school often narrows the possi-bilities down to just a handful. It would take only a few telephone calls to identify theexact school, for head teachers and teachers can be caught off-guard by a call fromsomeone who already seems to have the knowledge that is being sought.

Of course, it is understandable that academics and research students shouldinclude convenience in their considerations of which sites to approach to try to gainaccess. There are time, financial and personal costs to be considered, and a distant

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location may involve accommodation away from home. Additionally, and obviously,research can only proceed where access has been achieved, and this is not alwaysstraightforward. There are obvious temptations to accept sites that appear to bereadily available rather than work harder to try to achieve access to the most appro-priate sites for the research. I do not believe access is as difficult as some would haveus believe (see Walford, 1999) but the perception of difficulty is widely held. Howeverchoosing a site on the basis of geographical convenience challenge the promises ofanonymity that are so often given.

Other researchers may use a pseudonym for a school but give so much additionaldata that the school can be easily recognized. Alan Peshkin, who was one of Americasmost well-known educational ethnographers, provides an interesting example. Whatturned out to be his last book before his death was of a private elite college preparatoryhigh school to which he gave the name Edgewood Academy (Peshkin, 2001).

In one of the early chapters of this latest book Peshkin gave some basic facts aboutthe elite school in which he conducted the research. Geographically, it is in NewMexico, has a 312 acre main campus and another 270 nearby mountain acres. Quot-ing from the prospectus, it is stated that the school has 25% pupils of colour and 30%receive more than $1,200,000 in financial aid based entirely on demonstrated finan-cial need. It can do this because it has an endowment of approximately $200 million.

My guess is that most American educators could immediately identify the schoolfrom these facts. Being British, it took me a few minutes to do so. First I checked theprivate schools in New Mexico in the Handbook of private schools (1991) that I had tohandonly Albuquerque Academy looked likely. I quickly found the schools website which told me about the 312 acre main campus and the 270 acre Bear Canyontract. I then went into the schools library catalogue and looked under Peshkin. Ifound that the school had three copies of the book and the catalogue entry on it help-fully told me that Alan Peshkin spent approximately one year visiting and studyingAlbuquerque Academy as preparation for this book. It was absolutely clear whichschool was researched and little attempt had been made to disguise its identity.

Similar difficulties with the anonymity of sites are evident in many publishedreports. Which British reader has not been able to unearth, for example, the real iden-tities of Gewirtz et als (1995) Local Education Authorities or Gerald Graces (2002)Diocese (Walford, 2003)? (Interestingly, some of Balls more recent work, while stillusing pseudonyms for people, now does name the geographical areas involved: seeVincent et al., 2004.) Vulliamy (2004, p. 277) gives an example of a Ph.D. thesis hewas examining where he was able to identify an anonymized site simply by typingfive consecutive words from a quoted Ofsted report into an advanced internet searchengine. Within seconds he was looking at the photographs and names of the teachersabout whose working lives and views he was reading in the thesis.

But even if the identity of the community or organization could be concealed, it isvery unlikely that individual anonymity can be maintained through pseudonyms inrelation to the other people involved. Robert Burgess (1985) gives a good example ofthe negative impact of presenting some of his research on Bishop MacGregor Schoolto the staff. While he had used pseudonyms for the four staff involved in the main

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department he studied, it was not difficult for the head teacher and others to identifyindividuals. Within a school, the head teacher and other teachers will know whichteachers were involved in the research and a few details may be sufficient for them toidentify each person quoted or whose activities are described in a report. Moreover,the people who are in a position to identify individuals are exactly those to whomexposure has the greatest potential risks of harm or embarrassment. For a teacher tobe identified in a book or article as behaving in an incompetent or racist or sexist way,for example, could bring great harm on that person. While a few researchers mightthink such exposure to be acceptable, I do not believe it is ethically appropriate forthe researcher to act as prosecution, judge and jury with no chance for the teacherinvolved to even present any defence.

Put simply, giving anonymity through pseudonyms to sites and people often doesnot work. It does not protect organizations from exposure if the reports have suffi-ciently significant or damaging findings. And, even where the location of the site canbe concealed, it does not protect individuals involved from harm that might resultfrom exposure to those with the most direct power over them. Ironically, pseudonymsonly act to protect people and organizations where there is little to protect them from.

Why, then, is the promise of anonymity so much an accepted part of most ethno-graphic and qualitative work? My guess is that anonymity is most frequently initiallyoffered by researchers as part of an access strategy. It might be argued that, at a timewhen teachers and schools are the subject of so much external scrutiny and evalua-tion, offering anonymity takes some immediate pressure off them. Now that there isincreased choice of school and competition between schools for students, head teach-ers will try to avoid any possibility of damaging the image of the school, and it iswidely believed that they are more likely agree to research if the school is not to bementioned by name in any report. If the research turns out to present the school in agood light, the school itself can break its anonymity. In a similar way, it is reasonableto believe that teachers will be more willing to agree to research if they know that theirnames will not be used in any report. Again, if the research shows them in a favour-able light, they can identify themselves with it.

As far as I know, there is little evidence to support these beliefsindeed, it is diffi-cult to think how such evidence could be found. Denying or agreeing to access canbe due to many different factors and it is not clear that an experiment that tried toisolate such factors would be ethical. However, it is worth remembering that manyschools have now allowed television cameras into their classrooms and corridorswhere they usually have little control over the finished product which can be seen bymillions. Here, not only are the schools named, but so are the individual teacherswhose words and actions can be replayed endlessly to enable any viewer to come totheir own conclusions about particular interactions. If schools are prepared to allowsuch detailed and open disclosure by television reporters, documentary filmmakersand journalists in, why not by researchers?

While promising anonymity is usually seen as an ethical matter, in reality, promis-ing anonymity to schools and individuals where it cannot be maintained is ethicallyhighly questionable. We might be able to gain access and calm any initial concerns

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with this promise, but we do so only because the head teachers and others involvedhave not fully thought through the impossibility of keeping such a promise if theschool or researcher was put under sufficient pressure or if investigators or all typesmade determined attempts.

Perhaps there are other reasons

While promising anonymity is probably most often initially used as a means of foster-ing access, there may be further reasons for its almost unanimous acceptance inethnographic and small-scale qualitative work. In a recent article, Scheper-Hughesreflects on her research in Ireland and her revisit after 20 years. She writes (Scheper-Hughes, 2000, p. 128):

Still, were I to be writing the book for the first time and with hindsight, of course there arethings I would do differently. I would be inclined to avoid the cute and conventional useof pseudonyms. Nor would I attempt to scramble certain identifying features of the indi-viduals portrayed on the naive assumption that these masks and disguises could not berather easily decoded by the villagers themselves. I have come to see that the time-honoured practice of bestowing anonymity on our communities and informants fools fewand protects no onesave, perhaps, the anthropologists own skin. And I fear that thepractice makes rogues of us alltoo free with our pens, with the government of ourtongues, and with our loose traditions and interpretations of village life.

Anonymity makes us unmindful that we owe our anthropological subjects the samedegree of courtesy, empathy and friendship in writing as we generally extended tothem face to face where they are not our subjects but our companions without whomwe quite literally could not survive. Sacrificing anonymity means we may haveto write less poignant, more circumspect ethnographies, a high price for any writer topay. But our version of the Hippocratic oathto do no harm, in so far as possible, toour informantswould seem to demand this.

In this article Scheper-Hughes begins to suggest less altruistic reasons for whyanonymity might be offered to participants and organizations that are involved inethnographic research. It may benefit the researcher rather than the researched.

Perhaps the idea of anonymity allows researchers to write their books and articleswith less concern for absolute accuracy and to base their arguments on evidencewhich may not be as strong as desirable. If named schools and people are beingdiscussed the need for very strong evidence before claims are made becomes obvious.At the extreme, writers could be sued for libel in a way that is difficult to do wherenames are not used. Researchers are able to hide poor evidence behind the pseud-onyms without those researched being able to make a challenge. Using pseudonymsmeans that readers are unable to verify any of the material presented in a researchreport. Even where a reader believes that he or she knows where the research wasconducted and has contradictory information, it is impossible to challenge the find-ings as it is never entirely certain which site was the subject of the research (Wolfe,2003). Indeed, naming a site in any criticism would break the guarantees ofconfidentiality offered by the original author.

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But there are further worrying possibilities. Jan Nespor (2000) sees anonymizationas a representational strategy with interesting ontological and political implications,the most striking of which, he believes, have to do with the way anonymization natu-ralizes the decoupling of events from historically and geographically specific loca-tions. In other words, the fact that we do not name a site gives the findings of theresearch a spurious generalizability. If we attempt to conceal details about a school,it becomes a more general placea school that could be any school, a school whichis just one example of many. Ethnographers thus implicitly invite readers to see theirfindings as being applicable to other situations. Yet, to be able to understand anyschool, readers really need to know the schools history and geographical location, itsphysical facilities and appearance, and the nature of the students it serves and the staffwho teach there. Each school is unique in structure and organization. The way itresponds to change can only be understood in the context of its history and socio-political location.

While, as readers, we intellectually accept the lack of generalizability of ethno-graphic work, we are seduced by the lack of specific details about the site and situationsuch that the significance of particular pieces of research expands to fill our generalunderstanding of the issues. Thus, Learning to labour (Willis, 1977) has been widelytaken to explain why working class kids get working class jobs, yet it is based mainlyupon a study of only 12 young men in a single school in a particular social, politicaland economic context. Similarly, Beachside comprehensive (Ball, 1981) is seen asgiving information on the effects of banding and streaming in secondary schools andRebels without a cause (Aggleton, 1987) is taken to explain some of the middle classexperiences of the transition from school to work. More recently, Jo Boalers (1997)work in two somewhat contrasting schools has been widely accepted as indicating therelationship between teaching styles, setting and gender and success in mathematicsteaching, and Gillborn and Youdells (2000) ethnographic study of two schools hasshown the nature of the AC economy that has resulted in secondary schools as aresult of recent policy changes.

The fact that none of the research schools is identified, implicitly gives the writerand reader the chance to broaden the findings of each study beyond the situationsinvestigated. It gives a spurious generalizability of time and space to the results ofspecific studies. I recognize, of course, that giving the names of places and peopledoes not automatically stop readers from making unwarranted generalizationsbutit would certainly make writers more circumspect.

What could be done?

If ethnographers are to name our research sites and even the people within them, itdemands changes to the way access is gained to those sites and in how books and arti-cles are written. It demands a much fuller discussion of the possible effects of researchthan is still common.

This is hardly a new idea. Researchers such as Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) andHelen Simon (1987) wrote about the need to democratize research many years ago.

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The Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia, UK,was well-known for its attempts to negotiate each step of its many research projectswith the schools involved. Unfortunately, they were equally well-known for the prob-lems that such a time-consuming process can bring, for the publication of reports canbe delayed or abandoned altogether if it is not possible to come to an agreement onwhat should be published. Interestingly, while such processes of negotiation canshield schools and individuals from public exposure, it is still difficult to protect indi-viduals from harm or embarrassment that might result from internal exposure withinthe schools (Snyder, 2002). While teachers can be given control over what ispublished, others with power in the school still know who has been involved inresearch. To refuse to have anything published once research has been conducted canstill be potentially damaging.

I have no full solution to these problems, but some aspects of my work with the CityTechnology College, Kingshurst, do offer a possible way forward. In that research Iundertook a compressed ethnography of the first of a new type of school within awider study of the development of that policy at the national and local levels (Walford& Miller, 1991). The City Technology College initiative was highly politically contro-versial as the schools were to be non-fee-paying independent schools jointly fundedby central government and industry. I have written elsewhere (Walford, 1991, 2001b)about the very difficult and highly fraught process by which permission was negoti-ated into the school. After a long period of trying to negotiate access I came to anagreement with the Principal of the College that the resulting book should includeboth an insiders and an outsiders account of developments. I suggested that shemight write 15,000 words for the book with no editorial control being exercised byme, if she would give me access to the college and help with information. In order thatI should really understand the college and be able to write about it, she insisted thatI attend for about two days each week and that I went to some of the special collegeevents during the following term which was, of course, exactly what I wanted to do.

Sadly, in the end, the book did not include this contribution by the Principal. Inorder for it to be topical and to make a contribution to the debate, the book had to bewritten quickly, and the period for writing coincided with the time that the collegewas preparing for its first Post-16 intake. The Principal decided that developing newcourses and planning for a virtual doubling of staff and student numbers were higherpriority activities than writing. I guess that by that time she was also more confidentthat I would be honest and fair in the major part of the book, so the perceived needfor her to contribute was lessened.

While far from perfect, the agreement that we came to does offer a model thatmight be of wider utility. The key element of it is that, following negotiation aboutthe nature and scope of the research, the researcher has the right to write an accountand someone in the school has a right of reply. This idea has been put forward previ-ously in various forms (see Lawless, 1992), but the main point is that those aboutwhom the ethnographer writes should themselves be given a platform. Editorialcontrol of each part is not ceded to the writer of the other but, of course, both writersare given the chance to comment on the others work. Such an interchange can be

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highly beneficial for factual errors or misinterpretations in the report can be indicated.Given that in most cases a degree of trust will have developed between the variousparties, such a process immediately avoids outright error, and has the potential for areduction in misrepresentation.

More controversially, the agreement also recognizes that the researcher hasinvested a great deal of time and systematic work in the research, for the researchersfindings are given precedence over the response. It deals with the situation whereresearchers not only have responsibilities to those in the research site, but to externalsponsors of research, and to the wider community. Others have a right to know aboutthe results of systematic research even if those involved would prefer it otherwise.Democratic research thus recognizes the sometimes competing demands of the manyparties involved in the research processnot just the researcher and the researched.The agreement also suggests that the researcher will have the leading role in seekingout potential publishers and guiding submission to academic journalsit is a partner-ship where all involved have their say, but it is not an equal partnership. In the end,the researcher is offering the possibility of publication to someone who would other-wise not publish in this way.

The details of such an agreement may still raise considerable problems. For exam-ple, it is not always clear who should be given the right of reply. In the case discussedabove, it was evident that the Principal potentially had the most to loose, so shouldbe allowed to respond. In other cases individual teachers who have cooperated withthe research should be given the right, and there may well be cases where severalreplies are required. The further main problem is that it may, indeed, be more diffi-cult to obtain access. On the other hand, the offer of a right of reply might actualenhance access. As teachers and head teachers become more aware of researchthrough their own study and involvement with higher degrees, they will become moreaware of the possibility of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The promise ofa right of reply if something does go wrong may be more of an enticement to becomeinvolved in research than a promise of anonymity that offers little protection andteachers realize cannot be kept.

Perhaps it is time to take seriously the need to be more open about our research.As Wolfe (2003) argues:

Transparency is now a virtue much on the public mind, when corporations hide profits,churches protect criminals, and politicians make unsubstantiated claims for their policies.Transparency is best achieved by frankness. Research subjects should be told that goodscholarship requires trust between writers and readers, and that such trust is best achievedwhen no promises or anonymity are made. Most people would understand and cooperate,and social scientists would no longer have to engage in deceptive practices, no matter howinnocent the deception.

Note

1. This paper draws heavily upon and develops a chapter published in Walford (2002) Educationalethnography and methodology, studies in educational ethnography, volume 6 (Oxford, Elsevier).

Research ethical guidelines and anonymity 93

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