RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

152 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
typically, more power resides with the interviewer:
the interviewer generates the questions and the
interviewee answers them; the interviewee is
under scrutiny while the interviewer is not. Kvale
(1996: 126), too, suggests that there are definite
asymmetries of power as the interviewer tends to
define the situation, the topics, and the course of
the interview.
J. Cassell (cited in Lee 1993) suggests that elites
and powerful people might feel demeaned or
insulted when being interviewed by those with
alowerstatusorlesspower.Further,thosewith
power, resources and expertise might be anxious
to maintain their reputation, and so will be more
guarded in what they say, wrapping this up in wellchosen,
articulate phrases. Lee (1993) comments
on the asymmetries of power in several interview
situations, with one party having more power
and control over the interview than the other.
Interviewers need to be aware of the potentially
distorting effects of power, a significant feature of
critical theory, as discussed in Chapter 1.
Neal (1995) draws attention to the feelings
of powerlessness and anxieties about physical
presentation and status on the part of interviewers
when interviewing powerful people. This is
particularly so for frequently lone, low-status
research students interviewing powerful people;
alow-statusfemaleresearchstudentmightfind
that an interview with a male in a position of
power (e.g. a university Vice-chancellor, a senior
politician or a senior manager) might turn out to
be very different from an interview with the same
person if conducted by a male university professor
where it is perceived by the interviewee to be more
of a dialogue between equals (see also Gewirtz
and Ozga 1993, 1994). Ball (1994b) comments
that, when powerful people are being interviewed,
interviews must be seen as an extension of the ‘play
of power’ – with its game-like connotations. He
suggests that powerful people control the agenda
and course of the interview, and are usually very
adept at this because they have both a personal
and professional investment in being interviewed
(see also Batteson and Ball 1995; Phillips 1998).
The effect of power can be felt even before
the interview commences, notes Neal (1995),
where she instances being kept waiting, and
subsequently being interrupted, being patronized,
and being interviewed by the interviewee (see
also Walford 1994d). Indeed Scheurich (1995)
suggests that many powerful interviewees will
rephrase or not answer the question. Connell
et al. (1996) argue that a working-class female
talking with a multinational director will be
very different from a middle-class professor
talking to the same person. Limerick et al. (1996)
comment on occasions where interviewers have
felt themselves to be passive, vulnerable, helpless
and indeed manipulated. One way of overcoming
this is to have two interviewers conducting each
interview (Walford 1994c: 227). On the other
hand, Hitchcock and Hughes (1989) observe that
if the researchers are known to the interviewees
and they are peers, however powerful, then a
degree of reciprocity might be taking place, with
interviewees giving answers that they think the
researchers might want to hear.
The issue of power has not been lost on feminist
research (e.g. Thapar-Björkert and Henry
2004), that is, research that emphasizes subjectivity,
equality, reciprocity, collaboration, nonhierarchical
relations and emancipatory potential
(catalytic and consequential validity) (Neal
1995), echoing the comments about research that
is influenced by the paradigm of critical theory.
Here feminist research addresses a dilemma of
interviews that are constructed in the dominant,
male paradigm of pitching questions that demand
answers from a passive respondent.
Limerick et al. (1996) suggest that, in fact,
it is wiser to regard the interview as a gift,
as interviewees have the power to withhold
information, to choose the location of the
interview, to choose how seriously to attend
to the interview, how long it will last, when
it will take place, what will be discussed – and
in what and whose terms – what knowledge is
important, even how the data will be analysed
and used (see also Thapar-Björkert and Henry
2004). Echoing Foucault, they argue that power is
fluid and is discursively constructed through the
interview rather than being the province of either
party.