Kiedy badacz jest tajnym agentem. O postrzeganiu niejawnej obserwacji uczestniczącej jako etycznie problematycznej, metodach badań ilościowych, zakul
When a researcher is a secret agent. On undercover participant observation as an ethic problem, quantitative and qualitative research methods, social

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on ethically sensitive matter, that’s using undercover participant obsevation as a sociological method. Do we always have to inform people, that they’ve become a research target (object), or maybe, in some cases, it’s better when we don’t? Knowing about being put under researchers eye people can subconsciously and consciously determine the results of research. Sometimes this influence is so intense, that it falsifies the truth. If it happens – when there’s a threat of violation of ethical norms - can we still use techniques, that aren’t udredcover? And can we surely state, that solely using undercover observation is an infringement of ethical norms? Or maybe, to a larger extend, it depends on what outcomes we decide to reveal? But even here we meet problems: if we consider unethical revealing somebody’s personal life secrets, that we became aware of unintencionally and this facts are not connected in any sense to conducted research, can we then consider unethical for example portraying a clerk as a “black sheep” when research conclusions forcibly show it, even if such our actions can seriously do bad for this person? Polish sociology avoids filds of research, that require facing such dilemmas, therefore, according to some (very few) sociologists, it lost the ability to give reliable opinions about today’s, transformational reality, in which to carry out research standard methods no longer can be used and undercover work is a sort of basic way of acting in this reality.

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