Considering
the importance of my research and who am I doing the research for brings up a
lot of questions. In particular, will I go through the IRB process and also
what is the importance of my research. Outside of my personal interests in
outdoor education, my research acts in response to David Louv’s book calling
attention to the necessity of engaging children with the wilderness and as an
act of ecocriticism, hoping to engage children, particularly teens, in the
natural world and greater concerns for the environment. For concerns of IRB and
conducting human research I am still trying to figure out what level of human
research is needed. At the moment I would only be involving interviews of
educators involved in outdoor and experiential education. The question that I
am facing is including my projected target audience. If I am doing research
directing a curriculum at high school teens, isn’t it more important to have
their voices heard instead of teachers or should I let the IRB complications
influence the silence of that research group based on difficulty of proper
approval for minors to participate in research?
My next question involves the importance of
the research. I understand the calling for more youth being engaged in the
natural world, but what is the importance of this research and will it better
the world by conducting the research. So far I have found a limited selection
in this field which gives power to my research. On the other hand am I just
pushing against the norms of traditional education in response to many
political changes in the current educational process? I do not have any answers
to these questions at the moment but as I continue my research I hope to have a
better understanding of the importance and for who I am doing this research.
I really enjoyed your questions and how critically you're exploring the roles and purposes of "research." I feel that it is difficult to want to work with youth but then also discover ways to appropriately conduct research with (and perhaps not for) youth. Like you mentioned in your post, it is vital to critically reflect on who we're doing this type of research for and how we can best center their voices/stories. There is a really great book by Linda Tuhiwai Smith called, "Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples" that raises important points on how "researchers" in academia can rethink using Western methodologies and epistemologies. I think you might enjoy it!
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