Research participation and its impacts: ethical and methodological considerations in qualitative research on sexism in academia

This article explicates key ethical and methodological considerations in qualitative research on sexism in academia. We draw on a longitudinal qualitative study that combined focus groups, diaries and repeated individual interviews with 15 female PhD students. First, we outline prospective considerations in the design phase. Previous studies document how sexism and gender biases may be hard for individuals to recognize; we explicate how we took this research into account in our methodological design. Second, we examine the cognitive, emotional and social impacts that participants experienced, such as an increased awareness of sexism. Instead of treating research participation impact as an unexpected and potentially harmful by-product of the research process, we actively engaged with the possibility of ‘ethical change’ and embraced a process-oriented conception of validity. We outline the limitations, risks, and potentials of various methodological tools, discussing them in relation to qualitative research on other oppressive practices reflecting structural injustices.