Researching the lives of Irish Roman Catholic clergy who have sexually abused minors: Collaborative inquiry

Rationale for the research

Narrative research with victims of sexual abuse has been shown to greatly enhance public and practitioner knowledge that has contributed to more informed public debate and to more informed therapeutic work with survivors of sexual offences. Equally, the small but significant literature on first-person narrative inquiry with sexual offenders in general has contributed to sexual abuse prevention and to more informed understanding of the place and meaning of violence and abuse in the lives of men who have committed sexual offences (Conte, Wolf and Smith, 1989; Elliott, Browne and Kilcoyne, 1995; Hudson, 2005; Gilgun, 2008). In following the tradition of narrative and interpretative inquiry I wanted to understand the subjective experience of clerical men who had become abuse perpetrators and to add to the empirical literature on sexual offending. I also wanted to consider the specific features of the lives of Roman Catholic clergy that they believed may have contributed to their sexual offending. In undertaking this task I wanted to hear the men’s stories, not through the preconceived ‘consensus’ of a diagnostic or pathologizing lens, but in a manner that would allow for the individual and contextual meaning of their narratives to emerge, without challenge to their basic integrity. This required a collaborative approach to the research design and methodology. However, in undertaking such an approach to the research I was acutely aware that the men who were participating in my study had already brought great pain and suffering to the lives of many children and in attempting to understand their perspectives I was concerned that my research would not amount to ‘excuse-making’. I was also aware that in undertaking research with men who had sexually abused minors that I had an obligation to keep my responsibilities to all those affected by child sexual abuse in view and to be mindful that the fruits of such research could have lasting and potentially devastating consequences for all, as in other fields of criminological research (Ward and Willis, 2010: 408).

The aim of my research was to create an environment in which the participants could discuss the meaning of the abuse for them and how it came to be, from their own perspective and in their own words. Arising from these accounts and incorporating a comprehensive review of the relevant literature, and my clinical experience and research observations, the overall aim of the research was to deepen current understanding of the problem, contribute to theory development and to more informed therapeutic practice. I wanted to develop a model of performance that could help conceptualize, but never justify, the perplexing phenomenon of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

Whilst all social science research involves a number of ethical and epistemological considerations, in undertaking my research I had a number of additional issues to consider which made the research context both complex and demanding. First, the research was undertaken with clients in therapy, thereby involving dual relationships which had to be negotiated carefully, reflexively and sensitively. Whilst some practitioners might argue that practitioner-research should never be undertaken with clients in therapy because of the potential conflict of interest between the practitioner-researcher and the clients, the vastly growing literature on emancipatory and participatory action research (Fenge, 2010; Lather, 1991; Mercer, 2002) which argues that persons ‘as autonomous beings, have a moral right to participate in decisions that claim to generate knowledge about them’ (Heron, 1981: 34) persuades me otherwise. Undertaking empirical work from an emancipatory and participatory perspective offers an opportunity for ‘a more collaborative approach to critical inquiry that will empower the researched, build emancipatory theory and move toward the establishment of data credibility within praxis-oriented, advocacy research’ (Lather, 1991: 69). Such an approach to research enables both the researcher and the researched to change and be changed, by encouraging self-reflection and reflexivity and a deeper understanding of their particular situations (p. 56). I discuss how I addressed the complexities involved in undertaking research with clients in therapy later in this article.

Second, the social and moral status of men who had committed sexual offences raised other issues about their participation in my research, as it does in other fields of criminological research (Ward and Willis, 2010: 405). In essence, one asks if men who have perpetrated sexual abuse against children have the right to have their voices heard as other men, and if they should they be treated with the same dignity and respect as other members of the community in the face of such wrongdoing? Normative and cultural assumptions about social justice, moral accountability and punishment can colour one’s response to these questions. For me, a human rights framework that is based on dignity, compassion and respect for all human beings offered an important, if not a simple, template for addressing the complexities and dilemmas involved in undertaking research and clinical practice with men who have sexually abused children. ²

Social science research

Much has been written on the nature of ‘science’ and the scientific inquiry and these debates form part of the philosophical landscape in which all social science research now takes place. Whilst it might be reasonable to argue that there is no one thing called ‘science’ and that there are multiple sciences, multiple disciplines, multiple forms of enquiry and multiple practices of research, contention among modernist and postmodernist research paradigms and between objectivist and interpretive perspectives for legitimacy in social scientific inquiry continue to be a feature of current scholarship. Adopting an approach to research that does not fit neatly into what might be regarded as the dominant positivist paradigm particularly in the area of sexual offending was therefore a real challenge in terms of legitimacy and respect. Nonetheless, I was interested in adopting an interpretive approach to the research in which I could engage with the lived experience of the men who had abused, as a vital perspective, amongst others, in coming to an explanation of how the problem came to be.

Interpretive understanding

Whether it is ever possible to achieve interpretive understanding or an understanding of an actor’s intent however, is widely debated (Schwandt, 2000: 192). Geertz (1979: 225) argues that genuine understanding comes from the act of looking over the shoulders of the actor and trying to figure out, both by observation and conversation, what it is he means. Following Gadamer (2003: 471) I see understanding as being influenced by interpretation and both as fundamentally interlinked. In the act of interpreting, bias or prejudice is not regarded as a characteristic or attribute that an interpreter must strive to get rid of, in order to come to a ‘clear’ understanding. Rather, it is a reflexive process involving participation, conversation, dialogue, and a readiness to challenge one’s assumptions and to have them challenged by colleagues in the field (Schwandt, 2000: 194). Interpretation and understanding are also intrinsically related to language, and better understanding is achieved through the process of dialogue and clarification, consisting of questions and answers, a collaborative research relationship and a reflexive positioning on the part of the researcher.

In attempting to achieve an interpretive understanding I was also influenced by a non-obectivist view of meaning, which broadly holds that text or human action is not seen as ‘out there’ independent of its interpretations (Schwandt, 2000: 195). Unlike the positivist tradition, I took the view that the participant’s constructions of their reality were not ‘objective’ facts or some things to be studied in an ‘objective’ manner; independent of the tools, methods and context with which and within which the study was achieved (Steier, 1991: 3). I recognized that the stories of offending told in the context of this research might be very different to the stories told in different contexts, to different people for different purposes. The men’s narratives were regarded as having been influenced by the questions I asked, the distinctions I made and what was specified. The narratives were also influenced by the fact that the research began in a treatment programme for sexual offenders, in which I was the participants’ therapist and in which I was therefore, by definition, in the power position. The participants were also assumed to want to complete a ‘successful’ treatment, as viewed by their therapist. Nonetheless, despite the complexities and constraints involved in undertaking this research, the men’s perspectives formed a crucial, but largely unheard part of the story of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

In adopting an interpretive approach to understanding it was also important that I understood the importance of taking a reflexive positioning towards the research process and the research participants. White (2001: 101) argues that ‘insider’ qualitative researchers need to be clear about the distinctions between ‘reflexivity’ and ‘reflection’ and she suggests that researchers who are insider/outsiders, as are practitioner-researchers, need to consider reflexive enquiry, not as a process of internal reflection but more as a process of ‘defamiliarization’. Such a radical version of ‘reflexivity’ involves ‘a form of destabilization, or problematization of taken-for-granted knowledge and day to day reasoning’ (p. 102). Treated in this way, reflexivity becomes a process of ‘looking inward and outward, to the social and cultural artefacts and forms of thought which saturate our practices’ (White, 2001: 102) and to the dominant discourses in which the subject matter of the research is narrated, and to the researcher’s own narrating of the subject itself. At the same time, it is important to aim to achieve an ‘accurate’ understanding of what the participants are trying to tell, despite the epistemological and methodological complexities involved, recognizing that what is said must be interpreted in the light of the context in which the research is located, the questions that are asked and what is privileged (Schwandt, 2000: 195).

Undertaking ‘lay’ research

In undertaking research with individuals based on their narratives it is important to contemplate the possibility that these narratives are shaped and guided by the core social explanations of the condition under review and the forms of discourse that are available to them. For the participants in my research it could be argued that they were influenced by the societal discourses of child sexual abuse and by the professional discourses in which they were embedded. Their narratives could thus be seen as re-presenting a number of storylines influenced by such perspectives, the narratives acting as a powerful describer of society or of therapy. To counteract this possibility I noted in their narratives, data relating to their explanations for how they came to act as they did, as well as descriptions of their experience of living that somehow took them down an abusive path. Their explanations for their offending tended to portray storylines strongly influenced by societal or therapeutic discourses, such as ‘distorted thinking’, ‘minimizations’ and ‘justifications’ that appeared to be filtered through legal, psychological and medical rationality that were then ‘owned’ by the participants. In contrast, their description of their lived experiences portrayed much less societal and therapeutic judgements and overtones. This is an observation also reported in other fields of ‘lay’ narrative research (Shaw, 2002: 289). De Swaan (1990: 100–101) observed that lay people redefine their troubles in line with the basic concepts of the particular profession with which they are in close contact. This reflects the fact that the discourse surrounding particular problems is dominated by professional rationality (Shaw, 2002: 293).

Interpretive and constructionist grounded theory

I chose an interpretive and constructionist grounded theory approach for conducting my research because it provided me with a set of tools that allowed the research questions to be investigated and analysed in a systematic and focused manner. Three of the main distinguishing characteristics of grounded theory that were attractive, included the fact that grounded theory methodology includes simultaneous involvement in data generation and data analysis; the analytic codes and categories are developed from the data and not from preconceived hypotheses; and theoretical sampling is the method of sampling recommended – that is the selection of information-rich cases for study in depth and for theory construction (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 45; Strauss and Corbin, 1990).

The interpretive and constructionist aspect of grounded theory has been developed mainly by a younger generation of researchers who have brought interpretive and constructionist ideas to bear on Glaser and Strauss’ (1967) original work (Burck, 2005; Charmaz, 1995, 2000, 2006; Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994, 1998). The refinement of Glaser and Strauss’s original work focuses on a number of issues. First, it is suggested that Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) approach centred on a hidden positivism, since Glaser and Strauss saw the data generated in their studies as ‘objective’ representations of the participant’s ‘reality’ (Burck, 2005: 244; Charmaz, 1995: 30; Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994: 49). They did not see themselves or the context of their research as significant in what was seen as the final analysis or interpretation. In contrast, an interpretive and constructionist grounded theory approach, maintains that the researcher in interaction with the research participants brings forth the research findings, and interpretation plays a key part in this process (Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994: 49). Second, the interpretive and constructionist grounded theory researchers take issue with Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) assumption that it is both possible and necessary to approach text and research without any prior hypothesis or assumptions (Burck, 2005: 245; Charmaz, 1995: 32; Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994: 45). In contrast, they argue that the researcher’s implicit hypotheses, theoretical interests, assumptions and presuppositions will always influence the work and the research outcome. From this perspective, concepts do not ‘emerge’ from the data – they emerge through the process of doing the inquiry and analysis, which is constituted by the triangular interaction of the researcher, the participants and the research data, which sometimes takes the form of video or audio recordings or of transcribed text (Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994: 50).

In summary, an interpretive and constructionist grounded theory approach assumes there are multiple realities, that researcher and respondent co-create understandings, and it employs a set of methodological procedures that are set in the natural context of the participants’ world as much as possible (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 21). Working from this perspective, the conception of the research account that is finally produced is presented as a narrative version, not fixed or final, but one that can inform the work of practitioners and scholars as they compare and contrast their own versions with that which is produced in similar research contexts. An approach to knowledge construction is therefore adopted in which the research can be assessed in particular situations and contexts similar to the one in which the original study is located. No great claims are made by researchers adopting such a perspective. In this sense, the aim is the transferability of knowledge rather than generalizability (Costain Schou and Hewison, 1994: 64; Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 21). Working from this perspective, I took the position that an interpretive orientation is concerned with understanding as a kind of moral-political activity that is capable of contributing in a special way to the broadening of human experiences, self-knowledge and the broader human vision. Schwandt (2000: 195) observes that an interpretive orientation implies that there is never a final or correct interpretation.

Selecting the participants

The men who were approached to participate in my research had admitted to the abuse of minors and they were attending for therapy at a community-based treatment facility in Ireland. At the time, clergy and non-clergy participants attending the therapy centre were treated in separate therapy groups. I was involved as co-therapist in all of the therapy groups. The group of men that were approached to participate in the research consisted of those clergymen who had a long record in taking part in the treatment programme, with the exception of one man. I believed these men would be in a good position to reflect honestly and openly on the questions posed, as they had spent on average 18 months in therapy prior to being approached to participate in the study, and in my opinion they were beyond the point of trying to cover over their abuses or be dishonest with themselves or each other. This group of men were also living through a critical time in their lives; some were awaiting legal proceedings and they had all lost their clerical ministries.

In choosing to interview the research participants initially in a group setting rather than individually, I had considered the merits and limitations of generating data from within a group setting as distinct from individual interviews alone. My decision to proceed with group interviews was based on a number of factors. First, a group setting was a ‘natural’ setting for this group of men, as they were used to meeting in this particular group at the treatment centre, and to engaging in personal and intimate conversations. I also knew that the men felt comfortable with and supported by each other, and I believed that this aspect of the group process would enable the men to speak openly and honestly, and to give full responses to the questions posed.

Whilst a group setting may be quite a constraining environment for some people, and may even be a force in preventing some from discussing intimate matters, I believed that this would not be so for the men in this research. I was aware from the therapeutic relationship that many of the barriers to intimate and personal disclosure had already been broken down and overcome by the participants during the previous months when they worked together in therapy. I was aware from my clinical work of the richness of the conversation that can be stimulated in a group setting, a richness that would be enhanced by inviting the men to ask questions of each other and comment on each other’s responses, as part of the research process. By generating the research data initially in a group setting, I was also able to follow up and interview particular individuals later, to clarify ideas that were developing and to fill in gaps in the analytical work. Theoretical sampling facilitated this process.

By choosing to generate the initial data in a group setting I was also aware that obtaining agreement from all group members might pose problems, and I had to develop an alternative research strategy in the event of some men refusing to participate. Clearly, for ethical reasons, had this occurred, the participants’ needs would have been privileged over the research imperative. The ethics involved in whether clients in therapy are free to give informed consent to participate in research is of course one of many important ethical considerations in undertaking this kind of research.

The question of informed consent

Concern for the dignity and respect of individual participants is at the heart of research ethics and one of the important ways in which this principle is codified is through the principle of informed consent (Antle and Regehr, 2003: 137; National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research, 1979). Given the inequalities in power that are present, by definition, in the therapeutic relationship, with its potential for manipulation and control (McLeod, 2001: 18) I was concerned that the clients who were approached to participate in the research might feel obliged to do so, or be afraid to refuse. I was concerned that the men might fear rejection by me if they refused to engage in the research and that such concerns could prompt them to place maintaining a relationship with me above their own needs and desires. With these concerns in mind, a number of safeguards that would try to ensure that the participants were free to give informed consent were employed.

I met the men in a group on a number of occasions over the period of several weeks and the idea and purpose of the study was described. The proposed research methodology was outlined. Issues of confidentiality were spelled out. During these discussions the proposed methods of data generation, in particular the use of video-recordings raised most concerns. Confidentiality and fear of identification emerged as real concerns. Given that the research was being conducted in a small country, this concern was indeed understandable. An offer to replace videotaping with audio-recording was refused by the participants. No changes in the methods were found to be necessary after the men stated that they merely wanted to voice their anxieties and to seek further reassurances about the research process.

Because of the power differential involved in the therapeutic relationship the men were met as a group with a member of the treatment centre without me, the researcher, in order to discuss their potential involvement in the project and any concerns or objections they were not able to voice in their meetings with me. This meeting did not produce any concerns. As a final safeguard for ensuring informed consent as much as possible I met with all of the participants individually, principally to ensure that group pressure was not being applied to individuals to participate in the project. These meetings were completely confidential and participants were informed that all objections to participation, if there were any, would be kept as such. The men were advised that if any individual felt unable or unwilling to participate in the project then this group would not become part of the study. In such an event an alternative group of participants would be approached. However, this was not necessary. Individually and collectively the men indicated their willingness to participate in the study. Their motivation for doing so they said was to give something back to the victims, to their Church and to society. I was also hopeful that this research might help prevent other clerical men from going down a sexually abusive path. A potential benefit for the participants was the hope that the research might lead to greater understanding of the complexities of their lives and struggles. Overall, I was hopeful that the research might bring about individual and social good.

All participants were given a signed declaration guaranteeing confidentiality and they were afforded an opportunity to withdraw from the research at any stage. No participant withdrew from the research. In engaging with the issues of participation and consent I became even more convinced that a collaborative, participatory and reflexive methodology was indeed the only way to proceed with such sensitive research. From the outset of this research the participants in my study were not regarded as research subjects but as collaborators in a research project.

From therapy client to research participant

Conducting research with men engaged in psychotherapy creates changes in the therapist/client relationship and therefore this issue had to be addressed. Whilst significant caution must be exercised regarding the risks involved in simultaneous engagement in dual relationships, for example a clinical and a research relationship, I was convinced that if managed carefully the relationships that existed between the participants and myself could prove to be a rich soil for important ethnographic and narrative inquiry on a topic as sensitive and complex as sexual offending. I was also of the view that as a practitioner-researcher I was well placed to develop an authentic understanding of the men’s situations and attitudes that would be reliable and valid. This is a perspective that also finds some support in the social work and criminological literature (Regehr and Antle, 1997; Ward and Willis, 2010: 407). However, it was very important that the men and I understood the ethical distinctions between participating in therapy and participating in research. It was also important that the worker’s duty of care to therapy clients was not ignored during the research process.

I was concerned to ensure that the participants would not be harmed by the research or that they would face undue hardship and the question of what exactly this meant had to be addressed specifically. For example, it was important that any potential symbolic discomfort such as further embarrassment or stigmatization that might arise from the research would be avoided. This is an issue that is debated in the literature (Antle and Regehr, 2003: 138; see also Bloor, 2010; Peled, 2010; Shaw, 2003b). I was also of the view that the duty of care cannot be subsumed by the research agenda when one is engaging in research with clients in therapy and the duty of care to the participants as therapy clients and as collaborators in a research project was of paramount importance. In the practice of my research this often necessitated a space being afforded for conversations that were not immediately pertinent to the research topic, but that were pertinent to the lived and immediate reality of the men’s lives. Such conversations for example concerned the sickness of a relative, or the details relating to a court appearance or meetings with solicitors or religious superiors. It also involved my commitment to contextualize the research and to attempt to tell the men’s stories in their own words as much as possible, adding my interpretation in the interest of theory building. As trust forms the heart of the therapeutic relationship, and truth-telling is a crucial component of trust building, the participants in my research were also informed of all potential aspects of the research.

As part of the methodology, twelve two-and-a-half-hour group interviews over a ten-week period (amounting to 30 hours of interviews) were video-taped as the first tranche of data generated. This enabled sufficient time for the most significant issues for the men to be raised and discussed in relation to their lives and their sexual offending. A broad schedule of open-ended questions guided this process. The men were aware that my role during this period was that of a researcher. My co-therapist in the therapy programme was in attendance during these group interviews, in the event that issues arising needed attention. The men’s individual therapy also continued during this time, where they were supported in a more focused way in their therapeutic journeys. As each group conversation was completed I reviewed the videotapes a number of times and these reviews influenced the subsequent group interviews.

Once the initial batch of data had been generated in this manner, the group reformed as a therapy group, and the co-therapist and I resumed our roles as co-therapists. The reformulation of the group from a research group to a therapy group was symbolized by the abandonment of the video-recording equipment. The men went on to complete their treatment and I continued as their group therapist.

Some eighteen months later, I moved employment from the therapy centre to an academic appointment, and many of the men graduated from the treatment programme and/or were imprisoned. As the research progressed I later reconnected with the participants in their new lives and interviewed some of them individually, in order to clarify aspects of my analysis and seek further comment on particular themes that were being generated. This time I returned as the researcher. However, the fact that I had once been the men’s therapist at a critical moment in their lives clearly influenced the subsequent relationships. The frankness, with which the participants shared important and sensitive aspects of their lives, may be related to the trust that existed from the therapeutic relationship.

Whilst my main focus shifted as I moved from therapist to researcher and back again during the process of generating the research data in the group context, the men appeared to carry on in conversation as though they were in therapy. The research process and the therapy process appeared in fact to be almost similar processes for the participants. This is understandable as there were a lot of similarities in both processes: location, participants, interviewer and timing. When I discussed these observations with some of the men they expressed the view that they had begun to talk about issues that were of concern to them during their time in therapy and when it came to talking for the purposes of the research there was no going back.

The main difference between the therapeutic and the research processes for the men in this research centred on confidentiality and the purpose of the conversations that were taking place. The data gathered during the research conversations would be analysed and presented in a public forum, unlike the content of the therapeutic conversations, which would not. For these reasons, I committed to giving the men feedback on the research as it progressed, and to giving them the penultimate draft of the study for feedback and appraisal and to eliminate any biographical or identifying personal details that may have been overlooked.

Potential compromise of confidentiality in reporting client narratives

In order to overcome the potential compromise of confidentiality that is possible when client narratives are reported in a research project, I adopted a collaborative approach that would allow for the research participants to be involved in the study until its completion. I took on a practice of going back to the research participants many times during the lifetime of the study, and finally with the penultimate draft, for their recommendations on its contents and for the removal or amendment of any identifying details that might have been overlooked and which they felt might compromise their anonymity. I had promised the participants that they would have access to the research findings before the final account was written, to check that confidentiality was not breached and to offer comments that would keep my analysis of their narratives grounded in their experience.

When the penultimate draft of the analysed data was written, copies were given to six of the nine participants for comments and appraisal. One man was deceased and two were unable to participate. The men were invited to check that the final document did not contain identifying material that would amount to a breach of confidentiality. They were asked to consider this fact also on behalf of the men who were unable to participate or who were deceased, as they had come to know each other well. The men were also invited to write comments in red ink on hard copies of the analysed text and to give an overall impression of each chapter. All six participants gave detailed responses to the sections of the research that related to their narratives and to my interpretation of what they were trying to convey. Some men made general comments on the text; others asked for an identifying detail to be omitted and two men suggested refinements to a particular argument that related to their particular situation. Whilst this method of returning to the participants throughout the lifetime of the research was instituted for the purpose of preserving the participants’ confidentiality, it also served another purpose; it helped me to follow up on ideas that emerged in the early analysis of the data and it facilitated increased respondent validity. ⁴

Commitment to social justice, social transformation and social change

My approach to research is based on a perspective which views research as a moral and political activity that cannot be taken as devoid of context. Sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is a highly politicized and policed social problem of global proportions in which abuse perpetrators are regarded as a homogenize mass who are thought to pose risk to all children in all circumstances, despite research to the contrary (Hanson and Morton-Bourgon, 2005; Hanson, Morton-Bourgon and Harris, 2003). In Ireland and the United Kingdom some of these men are run out of their homes, out of the Church, and out of their country. Even following retraining it is difficult for these men to secure employment. Some are forced to live nomadic lives in exile and in no-man’s-land, in which their personal and social identity is reduced solely to that of ‘abuse perpetrator’. In the Irish situation this can apply equally to men whose abuse of minors is classified as ‘historical’, having occurred sometimes up to twenty years prior, and who are assessed as ‘low risk’, just as to men who are of serious and immediate risk and danger to children. These issues raise a number of fundamental concerns for practitioner-researchers who are engaged in such potentially controversial or critical research; issues that relate to the social and political context into which the research ‘findings’ will be placed, the role of research in shaping public discourse and the obligation or otherwise to bring about good for the participants in clinical practitioner research.

Houston (2010: 85) argues that if oppressive mechanisms are discovered when one is conducting social research, there is an onus on the researcher to expose their influence and to develop mechanisms to overturn, ameliorate or challenge them. In a debate that has re-emerged in social work research, there is the suggestion that it is not enough to create new knowledge, but also that social work researchers should bring about good (Antle and Regehr, 2003; Bogolub, 2010). The literature has numerous suggestions regarding how this can occur such as using a methodology that is empowering for the research participants (Antle and Regehr, 2003; Munford et al., 2008) or disseminating the findings in a manner that can be helpful for them (Jenson, 2006; Munford et al., 2008). Munford et al. (2008) and Bogolub (2010) used research findings to report service gaps and to encourage change in social service provision, even within agencies in which the research was located.

In relation to my own research, the social and moral status of the participants raised issues in relation to the social work ethic of bringing about good for research participants. What are the ethics involved in situations when a social work practitioner-researcher undertakes research with men who have sexually abused minors? Should social work researchers work to bring about good in such research participants’ lives?

Meta-ethics in social work research

In working my way through some of these dilemmas I found the work of Antle and Regehr (2003) to be illuminating. Antle and Regehr encourage social workers to learn from research ethics in other fields of study, but also to consider carefully social work research in the light of the profession’s own mission and code of ethics (p. 136). Drawing from recent ethical codes in social work, Banks (1995/2006: 47–8) illuminates the principles of social work as including respect for the dignity and worth of all human beings, promotion of welfare or well-being of service users and of society in general and the promotion of social justice. In the practice of social work and in conducting research, this means the obligation to balance the ethical principles that are individually focused such as self-determination and non-malfeasance (the obligation to do no harm), with values that have a collective focus, such as justice and beneficence (the obligation to bring about good) (Banks, 1995/2006; Reamer, 1997). Antle and Regehr suggest that such an overarching focus on both individual and collective interests calls for social workers and practitioner-researchers to take a meta-ethics perspective in research pursuits (2003: 136).

At least three issues are to the fore when considering a meta-ethics perspective for practitioner-research, particularly in relation to sensitive research on complex topics such as sexual abuse. First, vulnerable and marginalized populations must be included in the research agenda and these groups must benefit from the research that will hopefully ultimately lead to improved social conditions (Antle and Regehr, 2003: 141), and to improved social understandings that strengthen the social bonds. Second, practitioner-researchers must give consideration to how vulnerable and stigmatized groups are viewed in the wider social discourse and ensure that the research does not contribute to the continuation of any misrepresentations. Third, by adopting a collaborative relationship with individuals whose stories have gone unheard and by developing a methodology that recognizes such individuals as experts in their own lives, as well as keeping in mind one’s obligations to all those affected by child sexual abuse, an approach to research can be developed in which the principles of serving both the individual and the social good can be simultaneously embraced.

Post-research reflections and further considerations

In reviewing my research with the benefit of hindsight, a number of reflections have led me to consider what I will do differently in future research projects and what I will repeat. First, instead of going to the potential research participants with the research problem already framed, I will begin the collaborative research relationship by working on the research problem definition as an emergent and collaborative undertaking (Munford and Sanders, 2003) and not as something defined by the researcher alone. Second, I will work with future research participants to develop collaborative plans for dissemination of research findings in a way that I did not fully achieve in the current project. However, as with the current project, I will continue to see every research activity as an exercise in research ethics, every research question as a moral dilemma and every research decision as an exemplar of values (Clegg and Slife, 2009). Just like social work practice, I will also continue to see research activity as inherently political, in which the imperative is to explore the topic area in relation to the broader social forces that may be generating and sustaining it. As Lather (1991: 172) puts it so well: ‘we who do empirical research in the name of emancipatory politics must discover ways to connect our research methodology to our theoretical concerns and political commitments’. In my case, this relates to creating a safer society for all human beings in a world in which even those who have failed are treated with dignity, respect and compassion. Research that is reflexive and visioning, contextual and culturally sensitive and which integrates methodological rigour with social relevance offers a significant agenda for practitioner-researchers for much time to come.