Abstract
As researchers, we cannot be outside society and thus activities such as "science," or "objectivity" are striated with procedures for minimizing or celebrating the presence of the researcher in the research product. Our recognition of the situated character of scientific knowledge is the context in which questions about the researchers relation to the group she studies have arisen. The paper begins with a review of the Insider/Outsider debate which circles around the researcher's relation to those she studies. Where the researcher enters the research site as an Insider - someone whose biography (gender, race, class, sexual orientation and so on) gives her a lived familiarity with the group being researched - that tacit knowledge informs her research producing a different knowledge than that available to the Outsider - a researcher who does not have an intimate knowledge of the group being researched prior to their entry into the group. This paper describes the research issues that arise and the various strategies researchers have used to manage them. The argument then shifts to query the social boundaries implicit in the construction of research Insiders and Outsiders. Reflecting on research that explored mothering for schooling, the article shows that researchers are rarely Insiders or Outsiders. Rather, research is constructed in a relationship with many Others. The interaction of individual biography and social location shape the research relation in complex ways which undercut the common-sense translation of historical familiarity into epistemological privilege.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brewer, R. (1986, Winter). Research for Whom and by Whom: A Reconsideration of the Black Social Scientist as Insider. The Wisconsin Sociologist. 23 (1), pp. 19–28.
Comer, J.P. (1986). Parent Participation in the Schools. Phi Delta Kappan 67, pp. 442–446.
Comer, J.P. (1988). Educating Poor Minority Children. Scientific American 259, pp. 42–48.
Dauber, S.L. and Epstein, J.L. (1993). Parents' Attitudes and Practices of Involvement in Inner-city Elementary and Middle Schools. In N.F. Chavkin (Ed). Families and Schools in a Pluralistic Society. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. pp. 53–72.
Denzin, M. (1992). Whose Street Corner Is This Anyway? Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 21, April, pp. 120–132.
DeVault, M.L. (1990). Talking and Listening From Women's Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis. Social Problems. 37 (1), February, pp. 96–116.
Epstein, J.L. (1987). Parent Involvement: What Research Says to Administrators. Education and Urban Society, 19 pp. 119–136.
Griffith, A.I. and Smith, D.E. (1990). 'What Did You Do in School Today?' Mothering, Schooling and Social Class. Perspectives on Social Problems. 2, pp. 3–24.
Griffith, A. (1992,). Interviewing Mothers: The Social Organization of Interview Data. Paper presented at the Thirteenth Annual Ethnography in Education Forum, University of Pennsylvania, February 21–23.
Griffith, A. (1995a). Coordinating Family and School: Mothering for Schooling. Educational Policy Analysis Archives. 3 (1), January 2, 1068 lines. ISSN 1068–2341 electronic journal
Griffith, A. (1995b). Mothering, Schooling and Children's Development. In Manicom, A. & Campbell, M. (Eds). Knowledge Experience and Ruling Relations: Studies in the social organization of knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto.
Harraway, D. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.
Jackson, N. (1982). Stress on Schools + Stress on Families = Distress for Children. Ottawa: Canadian Teachers Federation.
Krieger, S. (1991). Social Science and the Self: Personal Essays on an Art Form. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Mohanty, T.C. (1997). Preface – Dangerous Territories, Territorial Power and Education. In Roman, L.G. & Eyre, L. (Eds). Dangerous Territories: Struggles for Difference and Equality in Education. London: Routlege.
Merton, R.K. (1972, July). Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge. American Journal of Sociology, 78 (1), pp. 9–47.
Osbourne, B. (1989, January). Cultural Congruence, Ethnicity and Fused Biculturalism: Zuni and Torres Strait. Journal of American Indian Education. 28 (2), pp. 7–20.
Smith, D. (1993, March). The Standard North American family: SNAF as an Ideological Code. Journal of Family Issues, 14 (1), pp. 50–65.
Smith, D.E. (1987). The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Northeastern University Press: Syracuse NY.
Smith, D. E. (1990a). The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Syracuse: Northeastern University Press.
Smith, D.E. (1990b). Texts, Facts and Femininity. London: Routledge.
Styles, J. (1979). Outsider/Insider: Researching Gay Baths. Urban Life, 8, pp. 135–52.
Williams, C. &. Heikes, E.J. (1993, June). The Importance of Researchers' Gender in the Depth Interview: Evidence from 2 Case Studies of Male Nurses. Gender and Society, 7 (2), pp. 280–291.
Zinn, M.B. (1979). Field Research in Minority Communities: Ethical, Methodological and Political Observations by an Insider. Social Problems. 27, pp. 209–219.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Griffith, A.I. Insider / Outsider: Epistemological Privilege and Mothering Work. Human Studies 21, 361–376 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005421211078
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005421211078