Inside–out: analysis of the insider–outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research

Abstract This paper focuses on one approach to making research students more reflexive in their writing. It is argued that the development of the ability to be reflexive in regard to their own qualitative research does not come easily to a significant number of students. A range of possibilities which supervisors might present to their research students as questions to be considered in these respects is outlined. Four relevant case study vignettes are presented of the work of doctoral students (with the full cooperation and written permission of all involved) who have been supervised by the author of this paper. It is argued that these demonstrate that the students concerned have found consideration of their own, sometimes shifting, positions on the insider–outsider continuum of considerable value in developing their reflexivity in relation to their own research. Acknowledgments My thanks go to the four researchers who not only gave me permission to quote their work but also approved my summaries of their 'case studies'. They are in alphabetical order by surname: Bob Bates, Tricia Le Gallais, Justine Mercer and Kath Ringwald. In researching into their research, I certainly felt myself to be both insider and outsider, although not necessarily simultaneously. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees and to Peter Earley and Richard Hatcher for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Notes 1. Because so many of the writers I refer to in this article use the male forms of pronouns, possessive adjectives et cetera, to cover both male and female observers, I have not wanted to litter the article with (sic) to indicate my awareness of the fact that this is now anachronistic.