Social Science Project

Social science is a discipline that deals with the society and human nature. This paper will therefore look at a social science research project conducted and a developed plan on addressing ethical considerations of the subjects that will take part in the research.

Research project

The research project is based on children of immigrants in schools. This research will be conducted to find out the role of institutions of education when it comes to the policy of integrating children of immigrants. This research will be conducted in private as well as public school .the main objective of the project will be finding out how the children of immigrants cope in the new country especially in a school setting. Another objective is to find out any difficulties or problems that an immigrant child faces in the school. The research will also find out how well the immigrant’s children perform in the schools and if their performance has been influenced in any way by the change. It will finally seek to come up with solutions to any problems that they come across during the research that pertains to children of immigrants in schools.

Ethical considerations of subjects

In order to combat the sense of arrogance that has been rampant in various fields of research there should be ethical considerations made when any research is conducted especially a research that involves human subjects. There have been violations of research ethics that have made it necessary for the setting up of official codes of ethics. Therefore before conducting any research there should be a sound plan developed that will ensure that one considers any ethical concerns of the subjects taking part in the research. The plan includes voluntary participation; this means that the research subjects should take part in the research voluntarily. Anyone who will take part in the research will do so on their own free will and they will not be forced or lured into taking part in the research in any way. The immigrant children and their parents have a right to know that they are part of an ongoing study and they have the option or agreeing or disagreeing to take part in the research (University of Washington, 2010).

Avoidance of harm is another important aspect that is incorporated in the plan. The research will be conducted in such a way that the subjects will not be harmed in any way. In this particular research project it will be ensured that the subjects are not emotionally harmed or create conditions whereby harm can be caused by others. In the research it will also be ensure that the subjects remain anonymous. Anonymity is coupled with two other concepts confidentiality and privacy. Anonymity ensures that a subject has a right to have his identity shared or not. Therefore just as the decision to take part in the research is ones choice so will be the decision to disclose their identity remains their choice. In the research the issue of justice will also be considered as there will be efforts made to distribute any risks and benefits that are got from the research fairly without being bias. It’s therefore very sensitive to decide who to include or exclude in the research. Therefore the students and parents should all be given an equal opportunity to participate in the research and no form of favoritism of any way when it comes to the choice of subjects should be made. It will also be important to ensure that there is no manipulation so that the desired results are found. Invasion of privacy is another factor that will be considered when designing the questions that the subjects will be asked. In case a subject feels that their privacy is being violated then they can skip a question or withdraw from the research. Deception is another aspect that will not appear anywhere in the research, this means that every intent of the research will be made clear to the subjects (Resnik, 2011).if all this things are considered then the social research conducted will be ethical.

References

Resnik, J.D. (2011) what is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important? Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/University of Washington.(2010). Research Ethics.retrievd February 28, 2013 from http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/resrch.html