De/signing research in education: Patchwork(ing) methodologies with theory (original) (raw)
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Are We (T) here Yet? Qualitative Research in Education
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in …, 2006
This essay addresses the topic of the state of qualitative research in education by asserting that qualitative research in education is in quite a state. Drawing heavily on Denzin and Lincoln's periodization of qualitative research as a guide, it outlines the various competing developments from within and outside that are vying to characterize the current moment and illustrates the difficulty of pinpointing the moment. Arguing for a conception of overlapping moments rather than a neat historical progression, the essay posits that the current period is simultaneously one of overt politicization, epistemological and paradigmatic proliferation, post-posts (post-postmodernism, postpoststructuralism, post-experimentation) and a new post (postcolonialism), as well as a new or renewed paradigm war. The conclusion drawn is that the current/next moment in qualitative research in education is one of methodological contestation, one that demands either complicity with or resistance to the government-sanctioned resurgence of the hegemony of positivism.
Internationally, an interest is emerging in a growing body of work on what has become known as ‘diffractive methodologies’ drawing attention to ontological aspects of research. Diffractive methodologies have largely been developed in response to a dissatisfaction with practices of ‘reflexivity’, which are seen to be grounded in a representational paradigm and the epistemological aspects of research. While work on ‘reflexivity’ and ‘critical reflection’ has over the years become predominant in educational and social science research methodology literature, our reading indicates that there is still important conceptual work to be done putting these two practices--reflection and diffraction--in conversation with each other and exploring their continuities and breaks as well as examining the consequences for research methodologies in education. This article raises important questions about how the concepts of diffraction and reflection are defined and understood and discusses the methodological implications for educational research.
Mustering as method: Ethnographic impulses and actor-network theory in education
Oxford Ethnography in Education Conference, 2022
This methodological paper engages with the implications of a growing appreciation of new materialist approach in general, and actor-network theory in particular, in the context of education. Originally developed in the social studies of science, over recent decades actor-network theory has been used to question and render complex social explanations for educational phenomena. Actor-network theory, ‘the social’ is taken to be an enactment of heterogenous assemblages of human and non-human entities. Rather than being a theory, actor-network theory is an approach to research that displaces humanism and foregrounds the assemblage and re/assemblage. The role of the researcher is to trace these processes; there is no method for actor-network theory. Rather, the researcher is involved in a mustering of processes of assemblage. This minute tracing of process most closely evokes ethnography; yet the implications of posthumanism demand different data generation techniques, guided by principles of symmetry, irreduction, translation and alliance. Findings: This paper builds on the notion of what Law (2004) referred to as ‘method assemblage’ – the process of crafting the boundaries between presence, manifest absence, and Otherness. Rather than striving for representativeness, Law uses the term ‘gathering’ to talk about relations between things without locating those relations within normative logics (2004: 160). For Law (2004: 146), the challenge is to extend the list of what is appropriate for method. In this paper, I work with my discomfort with the gentleness of ‘gathering’ and its implication that data is out there to be simply collecting. Mustering – which the dictionary defines as an assemblage in preparation for battle – gives a more apt vision of the struggle involved in ethnographic research that must trace an array of actors: texts (including but not limited to textbooks); playgrounds; visual depictions; maps; human apprehensions; bodies; machines; virtual learning environments and digital and other technologies; ceremonies; weather; musical performances; architecture; guide dogs; landscapes and so on. For Law, these are all ‘crafted forms of presence’ that can be used as methods of depiction and that, in their character, illustrate how our normative approaches to method are, on the one hand, limited materially – often to only textual or pictorial forms – in closing down what might be used to ‘craft a particular reality’ and, on the other hand, in terms of how they tend to strongly foreground ‘absences [the economy, gender, and so on] that are taken to be independent, prior, singular, definite and passive’ (Law 2004: 146-7). Contribution to education/ethnography: In education there had been, until recently, relatively little work done on the methodological implications of new materialist research. Yet, I argue (Kamp 2003) education is well-aligned to such an approach given its fundamental commitment to change and the sheer range of actors that are of necessity fully involved in that change. In this paper, I will present an overview of mustering as methodology, using the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand as my case.
a teaching and learning, university of Western cape, Bellville, South africa; b open university of cyprus, latsia, cyprus ABSTRACT Internationally, an interest is emerging in a growing body of work on what has become known as 'diffractive methodologies' drawing attention to ontological aspects of research. Diffractive methodologies have largely been developed in response to a dissatisfaction with practices of 'reflexivity' , which are seen to be grounded in a representational paradigm and the epistemological aspects of research. While work on 'reflexivity' and 'critical reflection' has over the years become predominant in educational and social science research methodology literature, our reading indicates that there is still important conceptual work to be done putting these two practices – reflection and diffraction – in conversation with each other and exploring their continuities and breaks as well as examining the consequences for research methodologies in education. This article raises important questions about how the concepts of diffraction and reflection are defined and understood and discusses the methodological implications for educational research.
Are we (t) here yet? Qualitative research in education's profuse and contested present
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in …, 2006
This essay addresses the topic of the state of qualitative research in education by asserting that qualitative research in education is in quite a state. Drawing heavily on Denzin and Lincoln's periodization of qualitative research as a guide, it outlines the various competing developments from within and outside that are vying to characterize the current moment and illustrates the difficulty of pinpointing the moment. Arguing for a conception of overlapping moments rather than a neat historical progression, the essay posits that the current period is simultaneously one of overt politicization, epistemological and paradigmatic proliferation, post-posts (post-postmodernism, postpoststructuralism, post-experimentation) and a new post (postcolonialism), as well as a new or renewed paradigm war. The conclusion drawn is that the current/next moment in qualitative research in education is one of methodological contestation, one that demands either complicity with or resistance to the government-sanctioned resurgence of the hegemony of positivism.
Theory's Spell: on Qualitative Inquiry and Educational Research
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