Queering the consent process: (un)masking participant identity in risky LGBTQ + teacher ally work

Abstract

Researcher-based efforts to protect participant identity are common in qualitative research. Most Institutional Review Boards expect statements regarding researchers’ plans to protect participants’ privacy, often including assigning participant pseudonyms. These confidentiality practices are ubiquitous in qualitative scholarship, yet relatively unexamined. Drawing on Barad’s discussions of queer intra-action, this paper explores the implications of a U.S. Southeast-based K-12 educator’s efforts to participate in a research project as an LGBTQ + teacher ally, when such discussions put her and those she discussed at substantial personal and professional risk. Based primarily on two interviews, during which the participant explicitly examined, and sometimes rejected, the researcher’s efforts at achieving participant confidentiality, this paper centers the participant, her perspectives, and her needs as we explore the importance of an overt and iterative participant confidentiality process in qualitative research.

Keywords:

• confidentiality
• LGBTQ+
• interview transcript
• research participant
• intra-action

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council of Teachers of English ELATE Research Initiative Grant (A18-0044-001).

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Anne Shelton

Stephanie Shelton is Associate Professor of Qualitative Research in the College of Education at The University of Alabama, and affiliate faculty member in the Department of Gender and Race Studies. Research interests include examining intersections of gender identities, gender expressions, sexualities, race, and class in educational contexts. Publications have appeared in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitative Research Journal, and GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. She can be reached via email at [email protected] and on Twitter @stephshel78.

Tamara Brooks

Tamara Brooks is an English Language Arts teacher and college counselor at Escola Americana de Belo Horizonte in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She has previously published in English Journal and the Journal of Language and Literacy Education.