Video and Voice
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Welcome to the UPRG website
This website sets out the work of Mark Hadfield and Kaye Haw who founded the Urban Programmes Research Group. They have worked together for many years producing video resources for practitioners, local communities and young people. Please use the links below to view the projects.
Video in Social Science Research: Functions and Forms
As a practical research tool this book shows how, why and when video should be used, representing an invaluable guide for postgraduate and doctoral students conducting research in the social sciences, as well as any researchers, academics or professionals interested in developing technologically informed research.
Find out more and purchase the book online at Routledge.
Video in Participatory Research
These materials arose out of a two year ESRC-funded project about the use of video with young people in participatory research projects. The first section ‘Differing Approaches’ looks at the use of video in the work of six different researchers and groups. The second section ‘Differing Issues’ is based on our own work on methodological and ethical issues faced at various stages of video projects.
Urbanfields
Urbanfields set out to provide a detailed description of the direct experiences of ‘at risk’ young people, as detailed by themselves and practitioners. To date it is one of the most complex pieces of research we have undertaken. The video process was based on young people making their own videos, the use of a series of trigger videos and the researchers making a final video product using a compilation of these materials to be used with a range of professionals working with young people.
Family Viewing
In this project different families have used video in different ways to talk about aspects of their lives. All of the families are from different ethnic minorities within their own countries. Our contribution features Afro-Caribbean and Asian families in Britain. The project set out to create materials from the perspective of young people and their families to document their experiences and outlook on the wider society they live in, including challenging and dealing with racism.
Being and Becoming
In this project members of a particular Muslim community were invited to participate in making a video that was in part conceived of as an act of resistance to how they are being stereotypically positioned by others. The purpose of the research was to study the shifting identities of British Muslims by returning to the same participants and their families who had taken part in a piece of doctoral research carried out over a decade ago.
What is Inquiry?
This video was developed to support practitioner research in schools. The complete DVD contained a series of case studies, but here the focus is presenting different practitioners views of education inquiry and providing an overview of the process. The Networked Learning Communities Programme released a shortened version of the DVD entitled 'Getting Started with Networked Collaborative Enquiry'.
Full Body Search
This research was based around capturing prisoners and prison officers experience of fully body searching. Although more traditional methods such as interviews and a questionnaire survey were used we also created two re-constructions of fully body searches on video. These videos were used as part of focus groups and as a way of introducing the questionnaire.
Seen But Not
Heard
In January 1998, five members of the Urban Programmes Research Group began a research project commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The main aim of the project was to devise, run and evaluate media work which could raise the voice of excluded young people, particularly those whose families were the focus of preventive work with different agencies.
Is there an epistemology of video?
This question was put to Mark Hadfield and Kaye Haw by Penny Lawrence, an EdD student from the University of Winchester. Penny asked whether we felt there was such a thing as an epistemology of video. Always up for a discussion, here you can see Mark and Kaye trying to work out whether this was a good question and if they had any good answers.
Mark Hadfield
Mark is Director of the Masters in Educational Practice at the Cardiff University and co-founder of the Urban Programmes Research Group (UPRG). His background was originally in researching professional development within primary schools, which often involved supporting action researchers. Over the last ten years he has become more and more interested in leadership and written and researched extensively in this area, particularly with reference to leading school networks and leadership in the early years. Throughout his career Mark has also been very committed to working in research that is participatory and collaborative and this had lead to an interest in how to use video technology.
Mark has undertaken editorial consultation on manuscripts for the journal School Effectiveness and School Improvement (2008 and 2009) and is Assistant Editor for the Journal 'School Leadership and Management' He is also on the editorial board of 'Educational Action Research Journal' and is a member of the ESRC Peer review College. Currently, Mark is looking at developing his teaching of research methods by exploring the issues practitioners face when they try and disseminate the findings from their small scale enquires our action research ‘back at the ranch’. Mark has a long term commitment to social justice and has produced a range of professional development materials for schools.
Kaye Haw
Kaye Haw is an Associate Professor and co-founder of the Urban Programmes Research Group (UPRG). UPRG arose out of the concerns of researchers and practitioners working in Nottingham about the way in which research is used to shape policy, inform decisions and legitimate existing preconceptions of the issues facing local. Driven by a methodological interest in obtaining access to groups that have been traditionally excluded, her research has involved working with difficult and hard to reach groups on sensitive issues through a participatory research process aimed at getting their ‘voices’ articulated heard and listened to. The key methodological challenges presented by these pieces of research have necessitated an innovative and varied approach to data collection in a range of research projects that have concerned working with British Muslim communities on identities, exclusion from school, pupil mobility, a project for the European year against racism and full body searching procedures in British prisons and Young Offenders Institutions.
The originality of these very different research projects concerns their subject matter but more importantly a mixed methods approach and involvement of academic and community researchers with implications for the future of participatory educational and social science research. Video has played an important part in her work over the last twenty years. Her recent work funded by the ESRC and AHRC includes working with young people to explore their risk behaviours leading to their involvement in criminal activities and in consequence the criminal justice system, a national review of participatory research projects that set out to use video and involve the voice of young people and an inter-generational piece of research funded by the Religion and Society Programme, which was a return to the research she carried out for her PhD to work with the same families 15 years on.