RESEARCHING ETHICS IN SOCIAL WORK

The interactive session is created to foster community and mutual support among social work researchers through the discussion of works in progress and structured problem-sharing and problem solving. Following introductions, several researchers will share brief overviews of current research projects and the salient learnings to-date, engaging in conversation with participants about shared interests and dilemmas. Next, building on past workshops, organized by SWERG SIG, the group will discuss three challenging areas in research on social work ethics. These issues, while possible in any form of research, resonate with social work’s tenets about the ‘people in their environments’ and correspondingly invoke the ‘researchers in their environments’ – one that must be both responsive and responsible to a wider societal environment. In this session, the following issues will be introduced and discussed: 1. Ethical issues as a byproduct of research (vs. the focus of the research) - Observing unethical behavior - Discovering unjust practices - Divided or blurred obligations to research participants and the challenges of transparency and benefit. 2. Impediments to candid analysis - Findings foreclosing dissemination or publication options - Funding - “What are we free to conclude and write?” 3. Positionality of the researcher - Who are we (researchers) to judge what is ethical? - The challenges of “me-search” - Faculty researchers (ivory tower intellectual) in tension with practitioners’ realities - Researchers own values, experiences and perspectives.