Hi, I am very new in this forum. I am just trying to post my small inquiry about my research interest. I am on early stage of my research project. I am male sociology researcher but I am particularly interested to study gender studies and racial studies.
My study attempt explores the role of school education system in the social reproduction of racial and gender inequality. It analyses the effects which pedagogical practices, textbooks and curriculum contents adopted by schools have on promoting the specific social inequality of race and gender.
Now, I am seeking your opinion on methodology. I am interested to do multiple methods of data collection, such as key informant interviews, participation observations, field notes, and focus group discussions. Now my questions are-
1. Do I need to do interview only girls ( African -American) from school to get information?
2. Who could be participants during the focus group discussions? for example- parents, teachers
3. I myself belongs to African-American, Do I need to hire some female (non- african american) interviewer to get actual information. I would be my positionality?
I hope you guys have ideas regarding on methodology.

Thanks

Dear emmaki,
First of all, thank you very much for posting your views on this thread. As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of the this study is to enhance understanding of public schooling system in particular in the context of process of reproduction of gender and racial inequality. In general, girl or women experience multiple forms of discriminations, humiliations, oppressions, exclusions, exploitations and unequal treatment.However, the girls from the minority community group from a rural area face in some respects doubly disadvantaged in education.
Therefore, I think , it is better to explore the girl´s perception and experiences on educational inequality. However, the problem is girl may not be open while doing interview by male ( or unkown person ). I believe, girl interviewer could get enough data from girl interviewee. Of course, the girl should be outsider ( not belongs to same community group), to get the reality of what those girls faced in their educational life in school.
As I plan to do focus group discussion with different group of people with separate time and place. For example- some teachers ( both male and female ) groups in school during the school off time.
Some school children parents ( usually nearby school ) as second groups somewhere in school building some other time.
In my opinion, if someone is belongs to the same community group of what he or she is studying about, there might be problems of having data biased. Becuase, the person is already familiar with the issues of the same community group.
What do you think about it?

To tell you the truth, if it was my research, i would interview boys as well inorder to see what they think about it. Maybe not as many as the girls, but i believe that they could give some intersting insights.

As far as the researcher is concerned, i think that as long as you ackowledge the issues that you will potentialy face bc you are male and African-Amertican, you won't have any otner issues. The children will open up.

Finally, in qulitative studies data isx alwasys biased. You cannot explain something without being influenced by your own experiences and perceptions. This you also have toacknowledge in your methodology