Insiderness is an approach to conducting research in which the researcher is positioned within the setting where they are gathering and analyzing information. The insider researcher is a member of the group, organization, or community where they are conducting the study and, as such, may be assumed to have greater access to information, respondents, and data than a researcher who is external to the research setting. Although the concept of insiderness is applied primarily to qualitative methods of observation, interviewing, ethnography, and other normative techniques of gathering information, an insider researcher can also be positioned to gather quantitative forms of data. Insiderness is not a method of analysis, but a description of the relationship between where the researcher is located and the setting of the study.
In the social and behavioral sciences, it is assumed that an insider researcher has greater access to information because they possess a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the setting in which they are conducting the research. For example, a teacher studying the impact of standardized testing on the mental well-being of minority students at the high school where they work should already have preceding knowledge about the school's student support culture, access to classrooms to observe students, access to statistical data, such as, grades and attendance records, and working relationships with school administrators, counselors, and parents who could be participants in the study. A researcher who is not an employee of the school would have to negotiate and maintain this level of access to this type of data in order to conduct the research.
If you are conducting insider research, you must describe how your position as an insider facilitated access to information, documents, places, objects, or any other elements of the setting relevant to addressing the research problem and, conversely, how you managed your insiderness in a way that avoided unintentional bias, misuse of personal data, and potentially false conclusions based on unsubstantiated suppositions.
With this in mind, here is a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of being an insider researcher, framed in the context of values versus assumptions.
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
NOTE: A potential form of biased behavior in insider research is confirmation bias. This refers to an unconscious tendency to search for or interpret information that is consistent with or validates your existing beliefs, ideas, or hypotheses about the research problem. This type of bias is based on the idea that people have a predilection to more readily accept information that supports their existing worldview while, at the same time, being suspicious of information that challenges that worldview. As an insider, you must be critically aware throughout your study of any potential assumptions made about the group, organization, or community that, upon reflection, appears to only confirm existing beliefs about the research setting that you are a part of.
Labaree, Robert V. "The Risk of ‘Going Observationalist’: Negotiating the Hidden Dilemmas of Being an Insider Participant Observer." Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 97-122; Chavez, Christina. "Conceptualizing from the Inside: Advantages, Complications, and Demands on Insider Positionality." The Qualitative Report 13 (February 2008): 474-494; Collins, Heidi and Yvonne McNulty. "Insider Status:(Re) Framing Researcher Positionality in International Human Resource Management Studies." German Journal of Human Resource Management 34 (2020): 202-227; Irgil, Ezgi. "Broadening the Positionality in Migration Studies: Assigned Insider Category." Migration Studies (2020): https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaa016; Kanuha, Valli Kalei. "“Being” Native Versus “Going Native”: Conducting Social Work Research as an Insider." Social Work 45 (October 2000): 439-447; MacCoun, Robert J. "Biases in the Interpretation and Use of Research Results." Annual Review of Psychology 49 (1998): 259-287; Mercer, Justine. "The Challenges of Insider Research in Educational Institutions: Wielding a Double‐edged Sword and Resolving Delicate Dilemmas." Oxford Review of Education 33 (February 2007): 1-17; Savvides, Nicola, Joanna Al-Youssef, Mindy Colin, and Cecilia Garrido. "Journeys into Inner/Outer Space: Reflections on the Methodological Challenges of Negotiating Insider/Outsider Status in International Educational Research." Research in Comparative and International Education 9 (2014): 412-425.
In general, the amount of details describing your status as an insider depends on three factors:
These details should be well documented so that the reader has a complete picture of how your insiderness facilitated effective information gathering techniques. However, focus on only those elements of complexity that relate to studying the research problem. For example, if you spent time observing teachers in the classroom, there is no need to describe their interaction with objects in the setting [e.g., technology] unless the research is designed to include this in the study.
Regardless of your level of embeddedness or the complexity of the setting, you should describe the following aspects of being an insider researcher in the methodology section of your paper. These are in the general order in which they should be described in the methods section of your paper.
NOTE: Convenience is not a valid reason for conducting insider research! You must justify your choice to be an insider researcher in a way that reflects issues of not only access, but in terms of obtaining greater insight and understanding of the research problem. You must explain why your degree of closeness to the group, organization, or community specifically addresses the research problem that could be attained by an external researcher. Convenience is never the justification for why a research problem should be investigated in the social and behavioral sciences regardless of the method chosen.
ANOTHER NOTE: Insiderness is not just a methodological approach to doing research but defines your position as an author within the entire investigative and interpretive process of the study. While the details about your insiderness should be described primarily in the methodology section of your paper, you must first present yourself as an insider researcher in the introduction. The literature review should highlight any other relevant insider research studies or, if none exist, provide documentary evidence as to why an insider approach is crucial to building new knowledge about the research problem. In the discussion section, you should also detail how and in what ways your position as an insider helped [and perhaps, in some cases, hindered] your interpretation of the findings.
Labaree, Robert V. "The Risk of ‘Going Observationalist’: Negotiating the Hidden Dilemmas of Being an Insider Participant Observer." Qualitative Research 2 (April 2002): 97-122; Chavez, Christina. "Conceptualizing from the Inside: Advantages, Complications, and Demands on Insider Positionality." The Qualitative Report 13 (February 2008): 474-494; Collins, Heidi and Yvonne McNulty. "Insider Status:(Re) Framing Researcher Positionality in International Human Resource Management Studies." German Journal of Human Resource Management 34 (2020): 202-227; Irgil, Ezgi. "Broadening the Positionality in Migration Studies: Assigned Insider Category." Migration Studies (2020): https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaa016; Kanuha, Valli Kalei. "“Being” Native Versus “Going Native”: Conducting Social Work Research as an Insider." Social Work 45 (October 2000): 439-447; Mercer, Justine. "The Challenges of Insider Research in Educational Institutions: Wielding a Double‐edged Sword and Resolving Delicate Dilemmas." Oxford Review of Education 33 (February 2007): 1-17; Savvides, Nicola, Joanna Al-Youssef, Mindy Colin, and Cecilia Garrido. "Journeys into Inner/Outer Space: Reflections on the Methodological Challenges of Negotiating Insider/Outsider Status in International Educational Research." Research in Comparative and International Education 9 (2014): 412-425; Walsh, Russell. "The Methods of Reflexivity." The Humanistic Psychologist 31 (2003): 51-66.