G ENERANDO CÓDIGO FUENTE

While interviewing is integral to social research, the challenges involved should not be underestimated. Jones (1985:45) for example, argues that interviewing requires a wide range of social skills. I would argue that a high level of reflexive awareness is also required.

In another seminal paper (Benney and Hughes, 1956:219) the research interview is described as an implicit ‘contractual’ arrangement into which the participant has entered

‘freely and willingly’. However, its authors warn against the simplistic general assumption that 'information is the more valid the more freely given’ (ibid). Instead, we must be aware of the hidden agendas and complex strategies at play on both sides in the social

construction of meaning which constitutes the interview (Jones, 1985), and which reflect the reciprocal expectations about the encounter and the roles played in it by each side (Benney and Hughes, 1956).

The purpose of interviews is 'to understand other persons' constructions of reality... and to ask them in such a way that they can tell us in their own terms ... and in a depth which addresses the rich context that is the substance of their meanings' (Jones, 1985:46). In

order to enable such an exchange to take place, the researcher has to continually make choices 'about which data they want to pick up and explore further with the interviewees, and which they do not' (Jones, 1985:47). In this way the choices made during the interview process, and the skills deployed to facilitate the interview, have major implications for the data analysis (Fine et al, 2000).

The interview is generally considered by feminist researchers as ‘a situation in which women should be able to feel comfortable enough to tell their own story as they see it’

(Puwar, 1997, n.p.). The researcher’s task is, then, to provide conditions in which a non-hierarchical friendly interview relationship can take place (Oakley, 1991; Puwar, 1997). As explained previously, even though this research included interviewees from both genders, it applied feminist principles in order to give a voice to the powerless, or to those whose voices were normally not heard on this topic. They included people with learning

disabilities, people with mental health issues, women from disadvantaged parts of town (some with low educational qualifications) and male and female carers.

The researcher thus has to gain the trust of participants and ensure that the data remains confidential and is not used against their interest. This implies more than merely

anonymity. Fine et al. (2000) also emphasised how social responsibility applies to the representation of data. But I would argue that this starts with the data collection and the interview, and even with the invitations to participate in research. This is especially so when the intention is to 'empower' research participants through the interview process, in which ‘self-expression is facilitated to an unusual degree and that this is inherently

satisfying’, as Benney and Hughes (1956:210) argued. Amongst the skills that researchers need to have, Les Back called for the importance of the ‘art of listening’. It takes account of the fact that ‘sociological subjects are selves-in-process, not fixed at the point of

interview but part of their own past and the socio-cultural history that has helped shaped them, and of course selves in the process of becoming’ (Smart, 2009:299).

The feminist researcher’s attempt ‘to give away the maximum level of the space to the interviewee, in order to create an ‘empowering experience for the researched’ (Puwar, 1997, has to be balanced against her own requirements for addressing the research questions or topics (Jones, 1985). To this end, semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were selected as offering a practical compromise between maximum

opportunity for self-expression and an overall framework for the questions that needed to be covered (Jones, 1985). But, I applied great flexibility - within this semi-structured framework. As Jones (1985:47) pointed out:

'Yet although we are tied to our own frameworks, we are not totally tied up by them. … [If we] modify, elaborate and sometimes abandon our prior schemes in a contingent response to what our respondents are telling us is significant in the research topic, then we are some way to achieving the complex balance between restricting structure and restricting ambiguity' (Jones, 1985:47)

In fact, my decision to adapt to each individual and, in a few cases to almost abandon the structure altogether, did pay off in other ways. For example, I spent one interview simply listening to the participant. In this case the interviewee’s recent experiences in a public sphere had had a huge impact on him, and he used the entire session to 'off-load' his troubles. It was apparent that this interviewee, who had attended a number of TPP courses, had mental health issues (which he himself mentioned), but also aware that the insights gained from such a perspective might be particularly valuable since people with mental health issues were one of the priority target groups for the CVS. Thus I allowed this exchange to take place (for almost 3 hours) and then, having felt we had established rapport and trust, I invited him back to a second interview, in which I was able to prioritise my research questions.

In another situation, a participant arrived with her own agendas and the expectation that I would be able to prompt the CVS to intervene on her behalf in a local charity that was a CVS member organisation. I soon made clear that this was neither the purpose of the interview nor within my or the CVS’ powers, and she was content to pursue the interview.

And while we did not address many of my questions directly, she (and a few others, in different ways) added to the data by representing a 'negative case' or ‘anomaly’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Charmaz, 2000). A 'negative case' is valued in grounded research as a way of disproving the theory (Charmaz, 2000), contributing to maximum variation; in my case, as I am not undertaking grounded research, it is nevertheless a useful way of accounting for the full range of data.

This was valuable to my research because it could be argued that the participants who self-selected were generally positively biased towards the courses, and hence, were keen to talk about their positive experiences. In contrast, three or four of the learners

interviewed had not found the courses particularly useful in relation to their aims or expectations – in most cases it was established that this was as a result of a mismatch between the learner's specific aims and the aims of their specific course. However, regarding the participant who had hoped that the CVS would take action against the charity which had upset her, her story not only gave some insights into the less 'civil' and egalitarian practices within the sector (age, gender and other forms of discrimination) but provided me with a 'negative case' to my sample in a different way: this participant represented active and activist citizens whose ‘learning’ had taken place in form of their participation in social movements. As Benjamin Barber (2011) pointed out at a conference,

‘citizenship classes’ in some form or other did not appeal to this group (see also,

Waterhouse and Scott, 2013). Not long after the interview I found out that she was taking part in the local 'Occupy' protest camp. In this way, by having been open to a range of perspectives to emerge in the interviews with learners, and by being very flexible and adapting to each individual learner, the shortfalls and limitations of the learning programmes were able to emerge, despite a potential bias in the interviewee self-selection sampling process that overall favoured positive learning experiences.

The learner interview questions were structured around the three main lines of enquiry, with open-ended questions (Appendix 2a). As an easy start to the interview, learners were asked to describe the courses they had attended, their reason for attending them, their course experiences, and then to reflect upon their outcomes. I was able to follow the topic guide of questions with very few learners in the order in which they were written.

Consequently I had to be vigilant when listening to interviewees to ensure that I did ask all the questions – this did not always work out, as I often allowed interviewees to talk more freely. With others, in contrast, the interview only moved along with the help of questions.

In these cases it could be said that the lack of engagement could have compromised the depth and quality of the data (Jones, 1985), but there were only one or two interviews which did not directly contribute to the research questions.

One of my aims was to elicit a discussion on active citizenship in an accessible way. The important point was to 'adapt [my] style to the particular person [I was] with', as argued

by Jones (1985:51). This started by asking people whether their course had mentioned the phrase 'active citizen' in some way, and if so what they thought of it. Their responses, and knowing which courses they had attended, gave me some indication whether or not this topic was worth pursuing with this participant. For some, the term was meaningless, which was a finding in itself. Others consistently talked about their 'volunteering' or shared their views on the 'Big Society', which had been very topical in the press at that time (Alcock, 2012). With one learner in this category (who had ignored the term active citizen in the two short TPP sessions she attended) I had a revealing exchange about terminology (see 'Yolande' in Chapter Six), while with two others it felt inappropriate to mention 'active citizenship' at all, to avoid putting them into a 'deficit' position that would have emphasised their lack of knowledge, their cognitive or linguistic abilities.

My strategy to put interviewees at ease and therefore, to make it easier for them to ‘open up’ to the interviewer, started with the invitation to participate in the research which had included all necessary information on the research and on its main lines of enquiry

(appendix 1). This enabled those who volunteered to be interviewed to prepare

themselves. Some, indeed, brought along with them course materials, learner portfolios and even their ‘active citizen’ CVs, to show me their list of involvements. By giving people opportunity to reflect on their experiences as active citizens the interview gave them recognition and contributed to legitimising their active citizen 'persona' and rendering their actions intelligible (Jones, 1985).

Another strategy I used to enhance the participant's positive experiences during the interview was by not only treating them as ‘informants’ but giving them useful information in the course of the interview, whether on free courses or resources, or relevant local projects or organisations. In addition, I made the point of learning from them on various issues, to elevate them into the ‘expert position’, to use Benney and Hughes’ phrase, wherever possible. Indeed, regardless of how much I asserted my interest in their views about active citizenship, it was clear that many regarded me as ‘the expert’ on active citizenship. Although Benney and Hughes’ notion of the contractual nature of the interview is pertinent, the majority interviewees evidently enjoyed having been able to share their views and experiences, judging from their responses or direct comments of appreciation, and several offered to help beyond the interview.

Interviewing colleagues in the organisation represented a different kind of challenge. This more closely linked to the dilemmas of being an insider-researcher, and will be discussed in the next section. Interviews with external stakeholders presented a different challenge yet again, with the main issues having been the need to protect their own position and the reputation of their organisation. Some were more cautious about what they said, and differentiated between their opinions and the stance of the organisation. For interviewees who had positions in local organisations that could very easily be identified, confidentiality of the interviews was essential. This realisation prompted me to anonymise the case study location. Sensitivity as to what was published arose with one particular local partner and officer who had been interviewed both for this PhD research and for the project

evaluation. In the overall orientation and focus of the research, however, the views of the stakeholders, while providing an invaluable insight into aspects of policy development and implementation, were less likely to be given the same degree of exposure as those given by learners and colleagues, as they were more on the periphery than in the centre of the issues, and their main purpose was to provide additional insights from a different

perspective (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000:5).