Resources: Ethics & Human Subjects

Before heading into the field—whether to observe, interview, or participate—you should consider carefully how your actions might impact the people you meet. This is as true for a researcher entering the field for an extensive, in-depth study as it is for a student working on a small class assignment. Click on the links below for resources to help prepare you to enter the field.

• Ethics Module: a teaching module designed to guide students t hrough the ethical dilemmas involved in conducting ethnographic research from proposal, to fieldwork, to publication.
• Codes of Ethics for Selected Fields: links to discipline specific codes of ethics
• Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Elon Unversity for guidelines about proposing and carrying out research involving human subjects.
• Sample IRB proposals for ethnography and community studies research. Be sure to familiarize yourself with IRB rules and regulations before adapting one of these samples.
  - IRB Proposal Example for Unnamed Sources
  - IRB Proposal Example for Named Sources

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