Research ethics in comparative and international education: reflections from anthropology and health

Within methodological debate on comparative and international education (CIE), issues around research ethics have rarely been directly interrogated. By bringing together insights from discussions in the fields of anthropology and health research, this paper aims to develop a ‘situated’ approach for exploring educational research ethics across cultures and institutions. The paper begins with a critique of the legalistic starting point on educational research ethics existing in many Northern institutions, which have often been imposed on other cultural contexts, with a particular focus on examining issues of consent, anonymisation and harm. Cultural values implicit in current UK educational research ethical procedures have been shown to conflict with values in the local context. By focusing on the micro community interactions, ethical concerns discussed in the anthropological literature can provide a resource for learning about differing beliefs and ethical codes of practice. While debates in the health research adopt a social justice agenda, which makes it feasible to interrogate issues such as the processes of knowledge production, the purpose of research and who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the research. The paper concludes by arguing that these reflections can contribute to developing a new lens for exploring research ethics within CIE.