Just thinking..

When I was reading about Horvat and Antonio's study of African American girls in an elite high school in Chapter 3 of Knight, I thought about it in the context of the distinction that was made between empathy and sympathy. As the research being done was about unequal power distribution, sympathy was present. I thought about how an interviewer sharing their views with the interviewee, while perhaps seeming to 'lose objectivity', might engage people to expound views that they have but have not voiced without being prompted due to the fact that they are (in this case) a racialized group. This then led me to think about the interviewer's expectations when conducting interviews. In this case study, the subject matter was not neutral, and thus would cause some to believe that the data produced from such interviews would lose credibility. From my perspective, these interviews could only be conducted in such a fashion. The findings of a study like this are both anticipated and the motivation for doing the research. There is an idea that they will find that their is an inequality and they disagree with this inequality as the motivation for their research. It is not neutral. Is the information produced less valid when sympathy (if we are distinguishing it from empathy) is used in interviews? What is the measure for that?