Developing Ethical Standards for Student Participation in Protest Research ¹

Abstract

We are long overdue for a conversation about ethical treatment of student researchers. Ethical treatment of research participants has been carefully defined through decades of public conversation, and ethical practices have been institutionalized through mechanisms like mandatory ethics trainings and Institutional Review Boards. Student researchers deserve the same level of consideration. While there are many types of ethical violations of student labor in research projects, there are two that are of particular concern to social movements researchers: use of volunteer labor without clear academic or professional benefits, and failure to ensure the safety of student researchers. The first of these ethical violations is especially common in social movements research because of the emergent nature of protests: new rounds of protests begin and researchers seek to rapidly collect data on a tight timeframe, making grant funding to pay student researchers challenging. The second situation emerges when faculty researchers do not consider the ways students' race, gender identity, or other characteristics, or the nature of the protests themselves might create potential risks for students.

In this paper, I propose using the Belmont Report principles to create guidelines for ethical treatment of student researchers. While these principles were developed for the purposes of protecting research participants, the principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice help us to clarify the risks and benefits for student researchers, to find ways to maximize the benefits of student research participation, and to understand and address the inequalities that plague graduate student training.

Citation

Heideman, L.J. (2023), "Developing Ethical Standards for Student Participation in Protest Research ¹ ", Maher, T.V. and Schoon, E.W. (Ed.) Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change (Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Vol. 47), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 143-167. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-786X20230000047007