BAICE is pleased to announce that the Student Prize for a paper presented at the BAICE conference  at Cambridge in 2012 has been awarded to Lizzi Milligan for her paper, ‘Using Participatory Insider Techniques in Cross-cultural Educational Research in Kenyan Secondary Schools‘.

Lizzi is a PhD student at the University of Bristol on ESRC scholarship. She is an active member of the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education Research Centre for International Comparative Studies and a Project Administrator of the BAICE Thematic Forum on Revisiting Insider Outsider Perspectives.

Lizzi’s doctoral research focuses on the Free Secondary Education initiative in Kenya and the lack of local voice in conceptualisations of quality in education. This is within a postcolonial framework which critiques the role of international agendas and development theories in education policy planning in low income countries.

Paper Abstract

Using Participatory Insider Techniques in Cross-cultural Educational Research in Kenyan Secondary Schools

This article reflects on the use of participatory techniques with final year secondary school students in one rural community in Western Kenya as an enabling tool for an outsider to both gain insider perspectives and develop a more ‘insider’ role in that community by privileging and legitimating participant-driven data. The article first describes the research context and participatory methods used – diary and photo linked interviews. Discussion then turns to the rationale for using such methods to challenge the ‘image of Africa’ and explore students’ lived educational realities. Conclusions consider how using this nuanced participatory approach allowed the researcher to enter the ‘third space’ between insider and outsider, build meaningful relationships in the field and formulate authentic participative knowledge (co-)construction.