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ABSTRACT
Qualitative research is an inherently complex landscape which continually presents researchers with difficult, ethically challenging dilemmas. This paper foregrounds some of those challenges, experienced during a qualitative research study which focused on preschool children’s opportunities to access different forms of play in early year education settings and the impact of this on their learner identities and understandings of health. Specifically, the paper focuses on the challenges faced by the researcher when addressing issues of access, including dealing with gatekeepers and the influence they potentially have upon the meaning and authenticity of the data collected. The analyses explore how well the three methods (interviews, structured activities and observations) employed to ensure that the voices of young children, rather than those of gatekeepers and other adults, were captured by the research process, reflected their views, and recognised them as active, embodied, social agents.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Within the UK, Government at the time of data collection, provided 15 h free childcare to parents of children aged 3–4 years who meet the entitlement requirements. As of September 2017, this entitlement has been increased to 30hours for some members of society (DfE, Citation2017).
2. Bernstein’s (Citation1975) endeavour to characterise the modalities of education led him to introduce the notions of invisible and visible pedagogies, with the difference between the two relating to the manner in which knowledge is transmitted. Invisible pedagogies feature weak frames and weak classification. This reduces the teacher’s overt authority and blurs the boundaries between every day and school knowledge.