“Through the researcher’s gaze”. Field roles, positioning and epistemological reflexivity doing qualitative research in a kindergarten setting.

Abstract

Qualitative research is an intersecting contextual relationship between place, time and people. A focus on reflexivity will increase the credibility of the findings and deepen the understanding. The field roles and interaction between you as the researcher and the informants is vital in this respect (Berger, 2015; Crapanzano, 1992; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019). With an ethnographic starting point focusing on participatory observation and field roles where distance, closeness and interpretation are relevant concepts, this paper aims to illuminate and discuss how to implement reflexivity in qualitative research. Grounded in concepts of epistemological reflexivity based on empirical examples from an empirical study of pedagogical leaders’ understandings and work for cultural diversity and leadership in a kindergarten setting, it raises the following questions: What consequences do field roles and relations have for constructing and interpreting knowledge? What challenges and opportunities does the field role give? The methodological discussion of empirical findings suggests that the closeness of participant observation, reflexivity and transparency of the researcher’s field role thus provide a deeper understanding of the field studied. I argue that awareness and reflexivity in power relations, biases, preconceptions, and interactions with people give a more holistic insight and knowledge into the field studied.