Pushing back the margins: power, identity and marginalia in survey research with young people

Muddiman, Esther ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2630-6134, Lyttleton-Smith, Jennifer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0704-2970 and Moles, Kate ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1926-6525 2019. Pushing back the margins: power, identity and marginalia in survey research with young people. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 22 (3) , pp. 293-308. 10.1080/13645579.2018.1547870

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Abstract

The study of marginalia has not been widely discussed in social sciences research and occupies a marginal space in terms of methodological legitimacy. We highlight the value of paying attention to the ways in which participants speak back to the researcher. This paper draws on marginalia found in surveys written or drawn by young people in classrooms across South Wales, demonstrating how various notes and marks made spontaneously by participants can tell us something important and worthwhile about how young people engage with research. We position marginalia as a manifestation of complex power dynamics in the research process that illuminate participants’ negotiation of complex and multiple subjectivities in the literal margins and between the lines of the survey pages. Whilst the sensitive and rigorous analysis of marginalia is fraught with ethical and methodological challenges, we argue that paying closer attention to marginalia presents an opportunity for deeper engagement with participants when undertaking survey research.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD)
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	1364-5579
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 November 2018
Date of Acceptance:	5 November 2018
Last Modified:	07 May 2023 06:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/116474

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