Tvisebrivi meTodebi socialur kvlevaSi - Center for Social Sciences

Week 8.
Ethics of Qualitative Research
Lecture, 2 hours; discussion, 2 hours
It’s hard to overestimate significance of ethical issues while doing fieldwork. During our
last class, we will focus on the responsibility of the researcher while doing fieldwork and the
requirements of professional communities towards their members.
Codes of ethics have been elaborated in a systematic way after the Second World War
by professional associations of the social scientists in Europe and North America; other
countries joined them later. Nowadays, most of the professional association are
international, which leads to unification of ethical standards of the respective professional
activity over the state boarders.
Codes of ethics should be distinguished from the legal requirements, and from mutual
responsibilities outlined in the contracts signed between the researchers and clients; during
the class, we discuss the specific character of ethical norms.
Two Codes of Ethics we are focusing on in this class are ICC/ESOMAR International
Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice (ICC/ESOMAR, 1995) and Code of Ethics
and Policies and Procedures of the ASA Committee on Professional Ethics (American
Sociological Association, 1999). We focus on: (a) Rights of the respondents; (b) Rights of
the clients who commission research; and (c) responsibility towards the society in general.
Sanctions against those who violate ethical norms are discussed based on the hierarchy
of sanctions in the ASA Code of Ethics.
We will also discuss special rules that try to regulate publications of research results in
the media, in order to avoid misinformation and deception of public.
Two case studies are presented during the class, to be discussed during the seminar;
one is a CNN publication where survey results are presented, and the second is a paper
where an ethnographer (Eric J. Arnould) discusses ethical dilemmas he faced while doing
fieldwork in Chad.
Homework assignments for this week are:
1. the students are required to find on the web codes of ethics of several professional
organizations whose members are involved in social research, and to compare these Codes;
2. Assess the quality of presentation of the finding in the CNN publication distributed in
class.
3. Discuss the case study concerning ethical dilemmas that Eric J. Arnould faced during
his fieldwork and provide their own assessment of the situation and best ways to deal with it.
Required readings for this week are:
W. Lawrence Newman. 2003. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches. Fifth edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Pp. 396-398 (“Ethical Dilemmas of Field
Research”).
Earl Babbie. 2004. The Practice of Social Research. 10 th Edition. Belmont, Calif.:
Thomson/Wadsworth. Pp. 306-307 (“Research Ethics in Qualitative Field Research”).
Eric J. Arnould. 1998. “Ethical Concerns in Participant Observation/Ethnography,” in
Advances in Consumer Research 25: 72-74.
ICC/ESOMAR International Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice.
http://www.esomar.org/esomar/show/id=65961
American Sociological Association. 1997. Code of Ethics.
http://www.asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html
American Sociological Association Committee on Professional Ethics. 1997. Policies
and Procedures. http://www.asanet.org/members/enforce.html
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