Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Ethics in social sciences fieldwork draws on the perspectives of philosophy, law, and psychology to guide decision-making by researchers and policymakers. Ethics can be defined as “the study of right and wrong; of the moral choices people make and the way in which they seek to justify them” ( Thompson 1999 : 1). Consciously or otherwise, field researchers make ethical decisions whenever they gather, interpret, or present their data. There is a growing consensus that ethical practice in fieldwork cannot simply be guided by the rules that govern biomedical or psychological research in laboratory settings. These rules are based on the Nuremberg Code (1949), which established the principle of “informed consent,” and the Declaration of Helsinki (1964), which mandated the protection of human participants in biomedical research. Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Research Ethics Committee (REC) reviews have their roots in such notorious abuses as the experiments by Nazi physicians on concentration camp prisoners. In the United States, the Tuskegee syphilis study recruited indigent black men for research they believed would include treatment; instead, researchers documented their illness and eventual deaths for 40 years, even after the discovery of penicillin offered a cure. Since 1974, all research conducted in US colleges and universities that receive federal funding must be approved ... log in or subscribe to read full text