Research

Recent research reports

‘Race Back from Equality - has the CRE been breaching race equality law and has race equality law been working?’ (2007)

In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the ‘racial’ equality duties were introduced to combat institutional discrimination on the part of ‘public authorities’.

This research attempted to better determine whether these laws have been working; and whether the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) - the statutory body charged with their oversight and enforcement - has itself complied with them. It also, however, took a preliminary look at how, in more general terms, the CRE has directed its efforts over the last five years and with what results.

Click here to download a pdf of Race Back From Equality.

‘Teeth and their use-enforcement action by the three equality commissions’ (2006)

The report looks at the use that the three equality Commissions (Commission for Racial Equality, Disability Rights Commission, and Equal Opportunities Commission) made of their direct enforcement powers between 1 January 1999 and 1 June 2006; considers the impacts that the Equality Act 2006 could have on enforcement of the equality enactments; and proposes changes designed to improve the effectiveness of the future Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR).

Click here to see the press release or download a pdf of the full report.

‘The End of the Beginning - a critical analysis of the first decade of the Disability Discrimination Act employment provisions’ (2005)

For this report, PIRU analysed employment tribunal and court cases, and documents from public authorities; interviewed lawyers, trade unions, employers and employees; and reviewed the existing literature.

The report identifies and assesses some of the factors which appear to have limited the Act’s success; considers the likely impact of the 2005 amendments; and makes proposals for further reducing employment discrimination.

Click here to see the press release or download a pdf of the executive summary of the report.

‘Trick and Treat - psychiatric treatment in old age in rural Wales’ (2004)

This preliminary report, based upon a limited number of in-depth interviews with patients, relatives and medical staff, and analysis (with informed consent) of medical records and hospital notes, indicates that some doctors were using powerful anti-psychotics inappropriately with some of their elderly patients. The problems it identifies include the drugs having been administered without agreement or valid consent; without good clinical reason; and despite there having been strong contra-indications, such as, for instance, the patient suffering from severe respiratory disease.

The recommendations include, for example, “a greater focus on prevention …. addressing the social and health factors associated with mental illness in old age. For instance, our research suggests that, in some nursing homes, it would be useful to facilitate greater social support among the patients themselves.”

Click here to see the press release.

PIRU’s Approach to Research

We have tried, in the following paragraphs, to outline some of the more basic beliefs and perspectives which seem to guide our research.

Ethics

Research should have ethics at it’s heart. Ethical research should be ethically conducted and should aim to achieve ethical outcomes; and will include:

  • adopting a ‘care ethic’ towards research participants; gaining informed consent; avoiding harm; protecting privacy; respecting confidentiality; and enabling, where possible, research participants to co-determine the nature and use of the research.
  • being honest, such as, for example, being explicit about short-comings in the research; and being rigorous, so as to increase the likelihood that an honest report will also be, in some senses, a ‘reliable’ one.
  • attempting to ensure that the research improves the situation, including prospects, of the research participants and others.

We recognise, however, the need to be sensitive to the often conflicting nature of ethical imperatives. For instance, to obtain information about (and so help stop) abuse of vulnerable individuals, it might be necessary and excusable to not gain fully informed consent from the abusers. In such circumstances, research might become a form of ‘public journalism’, and might need to look to journalistic ethics.

Ontology and Epistemology

Our ontological and epistemological perspectives/ standpoints/ working assumptions include the following:

  • We can see no alternative to, or perhaps no point in, adopting other than ontological agnosticism. We can, perhaps, never know whether there is a ‘real’ world ‘out there’, in the sense of something which exists apart from each one of our individual apprehensions of it.
  • Even the most hardened relativist, acts and thinks as if there is such a real world (and he or she is able to function as a consequence of so doing). It is important, therefore, to be aware that, whether we like it or not, naive realism straddles our work. We note our suspicion, however, that there is some sort of ‘real’ world, albeit, perhaps, a shifting composite of individual realities.
  • We can have no direct knowledge of whatever ‘real’ world there might be, since, for instance, the mind constructs mental models from the sense data it receives. It is the mental models we experience (or which constitutes the experience), not any ‘external’ happening which may have influenced their construction.
  • The construction of a mental model will also be under the influence of (or the event interpreted through) pre-existing mental models; consisting, for instance, of (often inter-related and overlapping) empirical assumptions and ideological beliefs.
  • We cannot free ourselves from the ‘distorting’ influence of pre-existing models (as these constitute sentience and consciousness). We can, however, including through reflexive practices, change some models and be more alert to the effects of others (such as, for instance, realising that we might be making stereo-typical assumptions about research participants).
  • Since different paradigms produce different perspectives, and none can show itself to be true or to produce truth, there appears no good reason for not addressing a particular problem using a range of paradigms.

Strategies and Methodologies

Our preferred strategies and methodologies, and strategic and methodological assumptions, include the following:

  • Most strategies and methodologies are, in principle, compatible with most paradigms, so long as the choice of the later guides the application of the former.
  • The choice of paradigm should also define the parameters within which the collected data is analysed and the research ‘validated’ (including what, if anything, validation is taken to mean).
  • We will use more qualitative methodologies, such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and discourse analysis, to gain a greater understanding of the complexities of individual experience and perception, to provide ‘thick’ descriptions, and to build up ‘rich’ conceptual models of social action.
  • We will use more quantitative approaches, involving, in particular, surveys and statistical analysis, to assess the frequency of, for instance, identified perceptions, and the generalisability of causal relationships within conceptual models.

Appearicism (a rigourous social constructionism)

Drawing upon, but also departing from, some of the social constructionist ideas set out above, PIRU is attempting to adopt, what we have called, an ‘appearicist’ approach to research. In practice, this requires an emphasis upon the rigourous testing of the appearance of things; including, for example, through the ‘bracketed’ application (as a methodological tool) of non-dualist (pragmatic and, sometimes, ironic) positivism.


assumptions
The central assumptions in ‘appearicism’ are that - (1) all appearances are realities but not all realities are appearance i.e. there are realities which exist without being apprehended; and, (2), we construct the realities we experience, but do so through interaction with realities which we don’t construct. It follows from these assumptions, we would argue, that everything is not interpretation. Whilst our interpretations are, to a great extent, self-validating, we also test them against more external realities. Further, these more external realities (the world outside our mental models and processes) set limits on the usefulness (and perhaps ‘correctness’) of different interpretations. We thus avoid, it is hoped, the nihilism of radical constructionism, and have some reason for putting the research findings to work.
application
While we hope that ‘appearicism’ will be applicable to all our research, it might be of particular use in a planned attempt to assess the credibility of some of the qualitative research used to justify major government policy decisions (including, for example, reports which appear to draw positivistic sounding generalisations - supportive of what may well have been predetermined positions - from the application of what appears to have been brief and pretended interpretavism). We also wonder whether such interested and simulacrous interpretavism - also apparent among NGO reports (including, it might be argued, in parts of PIRU’s recent reports) - risks dragging the whole interpretavist project down with it, and leaving silent the marginalised voices (hidden among the statistics) which it has helped to be heard. Qualitative research, we would argue, needs to regain its rigour (both through researchers improving their own qualitative research and through exposing the abuse of qualitative ‘research’ for political ends).