Page 55 - Social Sciences Humanities - The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 to 12 - 2013

ETHICS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
The social sciences and humanities curriculum provides varied opportunities for students to learn about ethical issues, explore ethical standards, and demonstrate ethical responsi­ bility. Many such opportunities arise in the Research and Inquiry strand, where students are required to follow ethical guidelines in developing and implementing research plans. It is crucial that teachers provide support and supervision to students at all stages of the research process, ensuring that students engaged in research are aware of potential ethical concerns and address them in acceptable ways. For example, when students are planning research that involves human participants, teachers need to monitor their plans to ensure that relevant discipline-specific ethical standards and principles are reflected in the research design. In social sciences and humanities research, the Tri-council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2005) provides the set of ethical standards to which research must adhere. Teachers must continue to supervise students’ activities
to ensure that all aspects of their research projects adhere to these ethical standards and that they respect the dignity, privacy, and confidentiality of their research participants (e.g., when conducting surveys or interviews). It is particularly important for teachers to ensure that students are aware of ethical considerations specific to working with vul­ nerable populations. In addition, teachers must closely supervise the choice of research topics to ensure that student researchers are not inadvertently exposed to information and/or perspectives for which they are not emotionally or intellectually prepared (e.g., personal interviews that lead to disclosure of abuse).
Teachers should ensure that they thoroughly address the issue of plagiarism with students. In a digital world in which we have easy access to abundant information, it is very easy to copy the words of others and present them as one’s own. Students need to be reminded, even at the secondary level, of the ethical issues surrounding plagiarism, and the conse­ quences of plagiarizing should be clearly discussed before students engage in research and writing. It is important to discuss not only the more “blatant” forms of plagiarism, but also more nuanced instances that can occur. Students often struggle to find a balance between writing in their own voice and acknowledging the work of theorists and researchers in the field. Merely telling students not to plagiarize, and admonishing those who do, is not enough. The skill of writing in one’s own voice, while appropriately acknowledging the work of others, must be explicitly taught to all students in social sciences and humanities classes.
SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROGRAM PLANNING
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