Showing papers in "International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education in 1998"
TL;DR: Critical race theory (CRT) as discussed by the authors is a counter-legal scholarship to the positivist and liberal legal discourse of civil rights, arguing against the slow pace of racial reform in the United States.
Abstract: Critical race theory (CRT) first emerged as a counterlegal scholarship to the positivistand liberal legal discourse of civil rights. This scholarly tradition argues against the slow pace of racial reform in the United States. Critical race theory begins with the notion that racism is normal in American society. It departs from mainstream legal scholarship by sometimes employing storytelling. It critiques liberalism and argues that Whites have been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation.Since schooling in the USA purports to prepare citizens, CRT looks at how citizenship and race might interact. Critical race theory's usefulness in understanding education inequity is in its infancy. It requires a critique of some of the civil rights era's most cherished legal victories and educationalreform movements, such as multiculturalism. The paper concludes with words of caution about the use of CRT in education without a more thorough analysis of the legal literature upon which it is based.
2,995 citations
TL;DR: Using critical race theory as a framework, this paper provided an examination of how racial and gender microaggressions affect the career paths of Chicana and Chicano scholars, finding that scholars felt out of place in the academy because of their race and or gender, scholars who felt their teachers professors had lower expectations for them, and scholars'...
Abstract: Using critical race theory as a framework, this article provides an examination of how racial and gender microaggressions affect the career paths of Chicana and Chicano scholars. This paper reports on open-ended survey and interview data of a purposive sample of six Chicana and six Chicano Ford Foundation Predoctoral, Dissertation, and Postdoctoral Minority Fellows. There are three objectives for this study: (a) to extend and apply a critical race theory to the field of education, (b) to ''recognize,'' ''document,'' and analyze racial and gender microaggressions of Chicana and Chicano scholars, and (c) to ''hear'' the voice of ''discrimination's victims'' by examining the effect of race and gender microaggressions on the lives of Chicana and Chicano scholars. Three patterns of racial and gender microaggressions were found: (a) scholars who felt out of place in the academy because of their race and or gender, (b) scholars who felt their teachers professors had lower expectations for them, and (c) scholars'...
960 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a meta-study of five research projects conducted within Maori contexts, an indigenous initiative in research within Aotearoa New Zealand, an initiative that is termed Kaupapa (agenda philosophy) Maori research, is presented.
Abstract: This analysis is undertaken by a researcher who is a member of an indigenous minority, the Maori people of Aotearoa New Zealand. This paper examines, by reference to a recent meta-study of five research projects conducted within Maori contexts, an indigenous initiative in research within Aotearoa New Zealand, an initiative that is termed Kaupapa (agenda philosophy) Maori research. This agenda for research is concerned with how research practice might realize Maori desires for self-determination, while addressing contemporary research issues of authority and legitimacy. This paper suggests that it is the cultural aspirations, understandings, and practices of Maori people that implement and organize the research process and that position researchers in such a way as to operationalize self-determination (agentic positioning and behavior) for research participants. The cultural context positions the participants by constructing the story lines and with them the cultural metaphors and images, as well as the ''...
720 citations
TL;DR: This paper used Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the higher education affirmative action debate surrounding the Hopwood v. T exas decision (1996) to explain the social construction and operation of racism in educational institutions.
Abstract: Critical race theory (CRT) has garnered increasing attention from various circles and disciplines as an emerging perspective in jurisprudence scholarship addressing race. CRT scholarship encompasses and borrows from a myriad set of sociopolitical and philosophical critiques that challenge the objective reality of the law and of legal doctrine and interpretation. CRT scholars have argued that racism is an endemic part of U.S. social relations and this racism has shaped the laws and policies of U.S. institutions.Recently, scholars in education have started to explore the utility of CRT and the ways theories about race can explain the social construction and operation of racism in educational institutions.This paper continues this inquiry by briefly illustrating how CRT can be used in the higher education affirmative action debate surrounding the Hopwood v . T exas decision (1996). Specifically,the presentationof definitive race-neutral legal interpretations of narratives vs. counterstories of race is discus...
184 citations
TL;DR: The authors studied teachers' attitudes towards research in the context of qualitative studies in education and found that teachers were less receptive to research in general than other groups of people. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 559-577.
Abstract: (1998). Teachers' attitudes towards research: A challenge for qualitative researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 559-577.
128 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a new methodological approach to research in Chicana o communities is proposed, which is grounded in social justice, both as objective and as process, and the most significant contribution of this work is that in attempting to reshape methods through a Chicana ontology, it addresses the ways in which researchers can effectively participate in community efforts at transformation and empowerment.
Abstract: This paper questions the epistemology underlying contemporary, innovative approaches to research. In particular, it is critical of the negative impact that institutions and their epistemological and methodological traditions have on Chicanas os. The paper retells the author's struggles in attempting to employ social justice as a critical measure of the strength of research. Critical race theory helps reveal the necessity and benefits of this approach. Chicana o epistemology then becomes the basis for the development of a new methodological approach to research in Chicana o communities. The method itself is grounded in social justice, both as objective and as process. The most significant contribution of this work is that in attempting to reshape methods through a Chicana o epistemology it addresses the ways in which researchers can effectively participate in community efforts at transformation and empowerment.
102 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a case-study approach within the rubrics of the qualitative research paradigm was used to establish the perspectives of geography teachers in a senior secondary school in Botswana vis-a-vis the learner-centered pedagogy advocated in Education for Kagisano ( Social Harmony ), a report produced by the 1977 Commission on Education.
Abstract: Attempts to improve the quality of education in Botswana have, inter alia, included an emphasis on a learner-centered pedagogy. Attempts at implementing this pedagogy have been made within the ambit of the technical rational model of curriculum development. The attempts, however, have produced inconclusive results, and these results have often been rationalized in technicist terms, e.g., as being due to lack of resources and poorly trained teachers. Overlooked in this technicist model are the teachers' perspectives on the innovation. Using the case-study approach within the rubrics of the qualitative research paradigm, this study sought to establish the perspectives of geography teachers in a senior secondary school in Botswana vis-a-vis the learnercentered pedagogy advocated in Education for Kagisano ( Social Harmony ), a report produced by the 1977 Commission on Education. The findings indicated that teachers' classroom practices were influenced by many factors other than technical ones: these included ...
94 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the author describes her experience of researching the creation of a culture-based curriculum in a tribal community, where she is situated in the community as both an insider and an outsider, represented through the use of an academic voice spliced with a narrative voice.
Abstract: In this paper the author writes in retrospect about her experience of researching the creation of a culture-based curriculum in a tribal community. She is situated in the community as both an insider and an outsider, represented in this article through the use of an academic voice spliced with a narrative voice. Both her research problem and methodology emerged as a response to the community. The methodology she used was inspired by a wide range of cultural and academic traditions. Finally, rather than prescribing a particular formula for research in Native communities, she is suggesting that the model of a ''situated response,'' particular and dependent on context, would ground research in community, as well as academic, concerns.
83 citations
TL;DR: As California's complexion and social panorama changes in color and class so must the directions for writing ethnicity and social analysis as mentioned in this paper, and this qualitative study seeks to break out of paradigmatic insulation by proposing innovative perspectives and directions for creating subversive narratives about our own realities.
Abstract: As California's complexion and social panorama changes in color and class so must the directions for writing ethnicity and social analysis This qualitative study seeks to break out of paradigmatic insulation by proposing innovative perspectives and directions for creating subversive narratives about our own realities It also seeks to inform current social analysis about Mexicana quality of life and about educationalpolicy on Mexicana educacion (education of the whole person) and school cultures This article examines how Mexicana identities are created, shaped, and developed through the construction of narratives I interpret these with the analytical tools of trenzas that ''braids'' critical race theory and multidimensional feminist frames, platicas (popular conversations) and cultural intuition, and the engagement of myself, the researcher, and the young Mexicanas participating in the study By claiming our space and voicing our feelings and meanings about language, Aztlan culture and identity, and wo
60 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the notion of the psychoanalytic dialogue and the qualities of resistance it offers, and bring a psychoanally-based understanding of resistance to bear on a research story that, at first glance, does not appear to qualify as a story of resistance.
Abstract: This essay raises questions about the category of "resistance" in educational research and the methodological dilemmas posed by its interpretation. It suggests that psychoanalytic theory provides a way of thinking about resistance that might be helpful for thinking about the gap between the narration of experience and the interpretation of experience. The essay provides a brief overview of conceptualizations of resistance in educational research, discusses the notion of the psychoanalytic dialogue and the qualities of resistance it offers, and brings a psychoanalytic understanding of resistance to bear on a research story that, at first glance, does not appear to qualify as a story of resistance. Finally, the essay explores the implications of these interpretive strategies for critical education research.
56 citations
TL;DR: This article used the ideas of Bernstein and Bourdieu on class and culture to make sense of children's difficulties with "realistic" mathematics test items and suggested that the use of such test items may discriminate against working-class testees as a consequence of these children's tendency to interpret formal educational contexts as legitimate arenas for the employment of everyday knowledge.
Abstract: This paper, which is exploratory in nature, uses the ideas of Bernstein and Bourdieu on class and culture to make sense of children's difficulties with "realistic" mathematics test items In particular, it suggests that the use of such test items may discriminate against working-class testees as a consequence of these children's tendency to interpret formal educational contexts as legitimate arenas for the employment of everyday knowledge when such use is actually "inappropriate" The paper's exploratory nature is reflected in its structure Rather than beginning with a presentation of the relevant theoretical ideas, the paper intersperses these with the presentation of data in the form of transcripts from interviews during which children attempted test items This structure reflects better the process by which the working model of the relation between culture and assessment presented in the paper was developed An introductory discussion of the curriculum and assessment policy context in England is follo
TL;DR: In this paper, critical race theory (CRT) is used to enhance educational studies and to improve schooling opportunities for students of color, and the authors argue that CRT and qualitative educational research, jointly used, would provide a powerful critique of current ''colorblind'' educational policies which unfairly privilege whites.
Abstract: This paper considers the potential for critical race theory (CRT) to enhance educational studies and to improve schooling opportunities for students of color. The author argues that CRT and qualitative educational research, jointly used, would provide a powerful critique of current ''colorblind'' educational policies which unfairly privilege whites. The author asserts that CRT could be beneficially used to inform whites about injusticesagainst students of color and to inspire new policies that would support the needs of diverse students. The author concludes that CRT could significantly aid efforts to make education more equitable.
TL;DR: The work in this article analyzes some of the methodological requisites for a Latino qualitative family research paradigm and explores the philosophical underpinnings, purposes, parameters, and influences of the role of the researcher.
Abstract: This paper analyzes some of the methodological requisites for a Latino qualitative family research paradigm. The paper explores the philosophical underpinnings, purposes, parameters, and influences of the role of the researcher. Elements of critical race theory, feminist standpoint theory, and Puerto Rican culture and experience are incorporated in the development of the paradigm. Thus, the framework reveals an epistemology that is sensitive to Latino cultural knowledge production and holds an explicit social objective to challenge existing structures, that is, to produce knowledge that presents Latinos as active agents facing constraints or exhibiting resistence behaviors within a social structure. The framework's parameters outline the boundaries all Latino groups share in the United States, such as bicultural identity, Spanish language, and cultural citizenship. The researcher's influence is examined from a Latina (Puerto Rican female) perspective to find some of the continuities and discontinuities th...
TL;DR: In this paper, a qualitative analysis of 154 life-histories with poor and working-class young adults uncovers both broad and deep concern with urban crime and violence and reveals how profoundly race, ethnicity, and gender shape the kinds of violence experienced and feared and the kind of remedies urban residents envision.
Abstract: This qualitative analysis of 154 life-histories with poor and working-class young adults uncovers both broad and deep concern with urban crime and violence. More powerful and unanticipated, however, the analysis reveals how profoundly race, ethnicity, and gender shape the kinds of violence experienced and feared and the kinds of remedies urban residents envision. Overall, the narratives portray urban communities traumatized by three kinds of violence, including street violence, state-initiated violence (e.g., police harassment), and domestic violence. White men speak most directly about street violence, Black and Latino men about police harassment, and women across racial and ethnic groups relate experiences of domestic violence. The article concludes with questions about this triplex of urban violence, asking why national policy, social science scholarship, and media coverage on crime fetishize street violence and yet remain typically silent on both state and domestic abuse.
TL;DR: In this article, a qualitative methodology, grounded theory, was used to examine the thoughts and emotions of teachers who delivered test feedback to students and developed a conceptual model of test-feedback processes that was grounded in observational and interview data.
Abstract: A qualitative methodology, grounded theory, was used to examine the thoughts and emotions of teachers who delivered test feedback to students. The goal of this study was to develop a conceptual model of test-feedback processes that was grounded in observational and interview data. Seven college teachers were interviewed and observed as they planned and conducted testfeedback sessions. During the test-feedback sessions, these teachers experienced a variety of negative emotions when they encountered challenges from students in the classroom. Strategies developed by these teachers reflected their attempts to organize test feedback in ways that were consistent with their goals and beliefs, but that also limited their negative emotions and stress during the feedback session. These findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to existing research on teachers' interactive thought and emotion and on the ways that teachers cope with stress in the classroom.
TL;DR: In this article, a reader's theater script is presented to represent the complex ways in which women teachers construct their life and work histories, and the authors have chosen to ''represent'' their data (gathered primarily from oral history interviews and document analysis) in a way that dramatizes how women story their lives and how women teachers' narratives disrupt the monolithic master narrative typically told about teaching.
Abstract: Grounded in feminist research methodology, the following reader's theater script seeks to represent the complex ways in which women teachers construct their life and work histories. The authors have chosen to ''represent'' their data (gathered primarily from oral history interviews and document analysis) in a way that dramatizes how women story their lives and how women teachers' narratives disrupt the monolithic master narrative typically told about teaching. Although the life histories have been collected individually, they have been orchestrated into a chorus of voices that express multiple ways of knowing and being, the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts.
TL;DR: In this article, language use in mathematics lessons in settings where the language of instruction is a second language for all or most of the learners is discussed, and four lessons taken from primary schools in Montreal and in Zimbabwe are compared, illustrating ways in which teachers in each setting couple development of the target second language with teaching of subject content.
Abstract: This article is concerned with language use in mathematics lessons in settings where the language of instruction is a second language for all or most of the learners. Four lessons taken from primary schools in Montreal and in Zimbabwe are compared, illustrating ways in which teachers in each setting couple development of the target second language with teaching of subject content. By doing so, we believe that instruction is effective in helping children to make the shift from the primary school emphasis on computing numbers to the secondary level emphasis on solving problems; in the long term children are also better prepared for the language-related demands of higher education.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine, using an ethnographic perspective, young children's gender behaviors using videotaped observations of a university laboratory preschool and reveal that gender behaviors in early childhood are constructed by the individual interacting with her his social world.
Abstract: The purpose of the study was to examine, using an ethnographic perspective, young children's gender behaviors. Four children, 3 to 5 years old, are described using videotaped observations of a university laboratory preschool. This study revealed, through individualprofiles of the children, that gender behaviors in early childhood are constructed by the individual interacting with her his social world. Also, gender behaviors were found to be integrated with other social processes, namely, student and peer behaviors. Finally, sociocultural and poststructuralist perspectives revealed the obvious and subtle gender behaviors of young children. Thus, researchers using ethnographic methods can explain the complexity in which children experience becoming a person .
TL;DR: In this article, an alternate epistemology is proposed to challenge all certified knowledge and open up the question of whether what has been taken to be true can stand the test of alternative ways of validating the truth.
Abstract: If the epistemology used to validate knowledge comes into question, then all prior knowledge claims validated under the dominant model become suspect. An alternate epistemology challenges all certified knowledge and opens up the question of whether what has been taken to be true can stand the test of alternative ways of validating the truth. (Collins, 1991, p. 219)
TL;DR: In this paper, a case-based biochemistry laboratory course is described and compared with a non-case-based course using a constant comparative analysis method, and three common themes are identified.
Abstract: Although the literature is replete with claims of the benefits of case-based instruction, few researchers have examined how individual students respond to and approach learning from this instructional method. In this paper we paint a picture of the contrasting experiences of two students enrolled in a case-based biochemistry laboratory course. These experiences are highlighted to support and extend knowledge gained from the first author's study of the responses and approaches of a freshman class of veterinary students recently introduced to case-based instruction. In the primary study, nine students were interviewed three times during the semester to explore their initial and changing responses and approaches to the case method. Using a constant comparative analysis method, three common themes were identified. In this paper we illustrate these themes by contrasting two students' responses and approaches to the same casebased course.
TL;DR: Carrie had a learning disability which interfered with the basic literacy skills of reading, writing, and language processing as mentioned in this paper, and she did not tell cooperating teachers or university supervisors about her difficulties until the incident in the high school resource room.
Abstract: Carrie wanted to be a teacher more than anything else. But Carrie had a learning disability which interfered with the basic literacy skills of reading, writing, and language processing. Although she had entered the university through a special private program designed to identify and support studentswith learning disabilities,Carrie kept her disability a secret when she was admitted to the teacher education program. She did not tell her cooperating teachers or university supervisors about her difficulties until the incident in the high school resource room. Her experiences and the immediate and future dilemmas created for all teacher educators by Carrie's experiences raise larger issues about the balance between individual rights and public interest.
TL;DR: The authors reviewed three qualitative junior high middle school studies and evaluated the usefulness and adequacy of the historical contexts the authors created to support their interpretations, and made recommendations for the construction of adequate and meaningful historical contexts.
Abstract: This paper addresses the process of creating a historical context for a qualitative, micro-level study, focusing specifically on the case of the junior high middle school. The author reviews three qualitative junior high middle school studies and evaluates the usefulness and adequacy of the historical contexts the authors created to support their interpretations. In two cases, they relied primarily on historical accounts written by education professors in textbooks about the junior high school, which provided a limited point of view. A survey of historians' treatments of the junior high school provides more varied, complex, and theoretical interpretations. In the third case, the author conducted an original historical study to support his present-day qualitative work and his theoretical framework. However, this kind of effort to create an historical context may not be practical in all qualitative studies. Finally, the paper makes recommendations for the construction of adequate and meaningful historical c...
TL;DR: In this article, the personal experiences of Black student teachers at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa, who were asked to write about one significant experience in their schooling careers were analyzed and recast as broader portraits of Black schooling in South Africa before and after the transition to democracy in 1994.
Abstract: This research captures the personal experiences of Black student teachers at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa, who were asked to write about one significant experience in their schooling careers. About 1,000 such individual stories, collected between 1991 and 1996, were analyzed and recast as broader portraits of Black schooling in South Africa before and after the transition to democracy in 1994. Five major themes were identified in these stories: (1) violence at school, (2) authoritarian climate at school, (3) learning as memorizing, (4) difficulties in schooling related to poverty, and (5) difficulties in schooling related to the language medium. The methodological strategy was influenced by the Dutch school of phenomenological pedagogy that takes the ordinary life-world as a starting point for inquiry. The findings of this research suggest that new education policies, to be effective, must take account of very significant continuities in students' experiences through the political tran...
TL;DR: In this article, the author locates the fictive voice of an administrator forced to deal with change at a small private university, the article begins with a flashback to confrontations demanding that he reexamine his positions in relation to both work and social life.
Abstract: Critical race theory now encompasses a polyphonic telling of story in which multiple, shifting identities are seen in relation to each other and situated within historical contexts. Locating the fictive voice of an administrator forced to deal with change at a small private university, the article begins with a flashback to confrontations demanding that he reexamine his positions in relation to both work and social life. The second part of the article is an analytic discussion of the voices of narrator and other actors and concludes with a critical reconceptualization of polyphony. Much in the same way that critical race theorists have injected story-telling into legal scholarship in order to deconstruct and then reconstruct knowledge, the authors urge education researchers to move away from methodologies and systems of analysis that derive from white liberal discourse and ironically serve to maintain the status quo by leaving in place conservative structures and reward mechanisms.
TL;DR: In this article, a wider ethnographic study of cross-cultural interaction in a Papua New Guinean tertiary institution is presented, where the interactions occurring in staff meetings are examined.
Abstract: Drawing on a wider ethnographic study of cross-cultural interaction in a Papua New Guinean tertiary institution, this paper examines the interactions occurring in staff meetings. While the cross-cultural context is important, there are patterns here that are illuminating for all who have participated in meetings in any context. Meetings are framed as ritual: stereotypic, quasi dramatic, repetitive behaviors that persevere and are valued regardless of what is actually achieved. Having access to prestigious forms of knowledge, along with the prerogative to determine which knowledge and discourse types may be legitimately drawn upon in the meeting frame, allows those with power to determine the rules. Perhaps more importantly, it allows them to treat these rules, once normalized, in a more flexible way than less knowledgeable participants. Those who have communication competence, as defined within this frame, not only exercise influence but determine others' ability to do so. Non-participants collude with th...