“If you just surround yourself with people who are thinking like you, you won’t learn. It will be mutually reinforcing”
Jane Bailey Full Professor, Common Law Section, Faculty of Law
Professor Jane Bailey of the University of Ottawa’s Common Law Section and Dr. Valerie Steeves of the Faculty of Social Sciences are co-holders of a Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which supports the ground-breaking eQuality Project. This multi-year research initiative is dedicated to the creation of new knowledge about young people’s use of networked spaces, with special emphasis of privacy and equality issues.
In carrying out this project, the two researchers have developed new ways of putting empirical social science research into conversation with policy and theory. Their ongoing commitment to listening to young people and giving youth a chance to articulate their own experiences and needs for better online policy and practice has necessitated the creation of new, inclusive methodologies.
In this video, which captures their presentation from the third day of the 4th Autumn School on the Methodology of Research in Law, Professor Bailey and Dr. Steeves share the invaluable lessons they’ve learned. Central to their research priorities is centring the voices of the communities they work with and giving them the power. They discuss the importance of being mindful about not burdening their research participants, and they explain how their experiences have led them to think more deeply and more carefully about their methods and, fundamentally, what it means to work in a community.
