What is it about?
In our viewpoint we reflect on informed consent and voluntary participation by providing our thoughts on potential gate-openers/ gate-opening in Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) research. We navigated layers of vulnerability , such as consent, participation and minimising harm while optimising beneficence, in our individual LESLLA research contexts in Norway (Live), Australia (Skye and Jemima) and Finland (Eva) through various institutional and research gatekeepers and discuss relevant personal experiences and contextualized reflections. We illustrate situations where institutional advice and macro-ethical procedures might have undesirable outcomes for both researchers and participants. Despite the protective intention of such procedures, risks can be exaggerated and restrict research stakeholders’ agency. We also address how the principle of relationality between humans and artifacts becomes important when researching with LESLLA learners and suggest constructively utilizing all the “things” that constitute our Western research practices, to enable a deeper two-way understanding of one another in the participant-researcher relationship. We call for institutional support that fosters collective and personal responsibility for meaningful research participation among a group of learners with unique, multilayered backgrounds.
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Why is it important?
Our viewpoint is part of a recent collection on research ethics focusing specifically on the context of adult emerging readers learning a second language. This collection centers around the main contribution "Why should I care?" by Louise Shepperd and Kaatje Dalderop, in which they advocated for more consideration and care when assessing the vulnerabilities of this specific group of research participants. In our invited response, we argue that with their self-reflective article and vignettes, Shepperd & Dalderop provide valuable insights into their personal quest for ethical and reflexive research and make an important contribution to research ethics in applied linguistics.
Perspectives
In recent years, discussions of research ethics in applied linguistics and particularly adult migrant education, including adult second language and literacy learning, discussions are on the rise and I am happy to contribute to these discussions with my fellow LESLLA colleagues from Australia: Dr. Skye Playsted (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9855-2326) and Dr. Jemima Rillera Playsted (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9558-7251) and Norway: Live Grinden (https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2563-3463). Find my own publications in the field of 1) adult migrant literacy and second language education (aka LESLLA) with a special focus on technology-supported tools and 2) Education for sustainable development in language education, see https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2344-7553
Dr. Eva Malessa
University of Turku
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Gatekeeping and gate-opening: Ethical and reflexive research with LESLLA stakeholders, Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics, March 2026, Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics (DuJAL),
DOI: 10.51751/dujal24695.
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