In thinking about the broad area of ethics in relation to my AR, language came to mind. I considered:
People have disabilities vs People are disabled
People have dyslexia vs People are dyslexic
Though the differences have been debated for decades, for me as a tutor/researcher, it comes down to how the person defines themselves, whether their specific learning difference or their disability is a possession that they ‘have’ or whether the person considers this difference or disability as their ‘disablement’.
The facilitator from recent disability training that I attended very much insisted that she was disabled, her environment and society disabled her. To suggest otherwise was disingenuous.
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A little memory:
A student I supported years ago once said, ‘I hate it when people say I have autism. I don’t ‘have’ autism. I’m autistic! Obviously! It’s insulting to hear I ‘have’ autism.
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In tutorials, I try and take the students’ lead and use their language, their preferred nomenclature.
The statement ‘I have dyslexia’ indicates dyslexia is a noun, a possession belonging to the person.
The statement ‘I’m dyslexic’ uses ‘dyslexic’ as an adjective, describing the person’s being, how they are.
It’s the difference between me saying:
‘How does your dyslexia affect your studies?’
This positions the ‘thing’ of dyslexia as an object or noun that the person possesses, and it creates a distance.
or:
‘How does being dyslexic affect your studies?’
The second statement is more personal and intimate and I would avoid it for a bit until my reading of our rapport made me feel this was okay.
But how to measure rapport? It’s a vastly subjective communication threshold to measure.
In speaking with a student who flags that they have difficulties with time management, I think I’ll just lead with:
‘Would you like to try a time management tool that I’m working on?’
If yes, we’ll take a look at it, I’ll give to the student and say something like, ‘tell me what you think of it when I see you next’.
It’s more on the follow up, when the student evaluates their experience of the tool, that a discussion of how their neurodiversity affects them could arise. And then the use of language discussed above will prevail.
I guess this leads to sampling. It think my approach above means I’m using purposive sampling.
Bryman (2012) explains that purposive sampling allows researchers extreme autonomy to chose participants for their research, to pick out participants with strategy aimed at getting answers to their research questions.
References
Bryman, A. (2012) Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.