Ethnicity in research with young children: invitation/barrier

Abstract

This paper explores special issues that a novice, minority researcher encountered at a multi-racial research site. The first author's personal experiences as a female, Tamil-speaking Indian Singaporean shaped the research process and its reception at the research site. In this paper, she observes that, while her ethnic membership operated as a barrier at times, it also shaped the research process in positive and unexpected ways. It invited conversation about ethnicity in a multi-racial setting, creating opportunities for meaningful dialoguing of sensitive topics, culminating in an expansive definition of differences. She also explores the place for researcher subjectivity in qualitative research analysis. The data presented are selected from her dissertation which studied if race and ethnicity affected friendship choices among preschool children in Singapore.