Research subjects

We work so hard to protect the identity of our subjects and yet very often it is still impossible. For example, I am the teacher-participant in a study, and there are probably a great number of people who knew that I was the only one teaching the course described during the time the researcher completed her degree. It doesn't matter to me really, but it goes to show that you cannot hide the identity all the time. When Elaine collected her data, I always thought, I would read her dissertation one day. But then I felt so uncomfortable when she gave a talk at a conference about her dissertation. I felt like my presence in the room was compromising how honest she could be. So, I decided I wasn't going to read her dissertation. It might also be why I still have not published from my dissertation. There are many people who know who the teachers in my study were, and one of them is in our field, so I feel weird writing about them in a really public forum (beyond the dissertation that noone reads). Yesterday evening, one of my students stopped by and asked me if I ever published about their projects and I said, as a matter of fact I am just now completing the final revisions on the paper. He was very excited and asked me if he could have a copy of the paper when it is done, because he would like to share it with his family. That was a first for me. And it made me feel good about publishing about people, because in a way we make them famous (very little famous, but still...). And also a subject might learn something about himself/herself by reading about what we have to say about them. So, may be, it is not all bad that some participants can be traced or trace themselves in a publication.