Showing papers in "International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education in 2009"
TL;DR: The reflective and interrogative processes required for developing effective qualitative research questions can give shape and direction to a study in ways that are often underestimated as discussed by the authors, and how the processes of generating and refining questions are critical to the shaping of a qualitative study.
Abstract: The reflective and interrogative processes required for developing effective qualitative research questions can give shape and direction to a study in ways that are often underestimated. Good research questions do not necessarily produce good research, but poorly conceived or constructed questions will likely create problems that affect all subsequent stages of a study. In qualitative studies, the ongoing process of questioning is an integral part of understanding the unfolding lives and perspectives of others. This article addresses both the development of initial research questions and how the processes of generating and refining questions are critical to the shaping of a qualitative study.
557 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a methodological approach popularized by critical race theorists is used to oppose dominant discourse concerning the social and educational status of Black men in America, and a counternarrative on student achievement was derived from face-to-face individual interviews with 143 Black male undergraduates at 30 predominantly white colleges and universities across the USA.
Abstract: A methodological approach popularized by critical race theorists is used in this article to oppose dominant discourse concerning the social and educational status of Black men in America. Specifically, this counternarrative on student achievement was derived from face‐to‐face individual interviews with 143 Black male undergraduates at 30 predominantly White colleges and universities across the USA. Exemplified via five composites constructed from the overall sample are resistant responses to subordination and racist stereotyping; confrontations with the cyclical reproduction of low expectations for Black male leadership and achievement; and an industrious rejection of what I refer to throughout the article as ‘niggering’. Also offered herein are implications for postsecondary faculty, administrators, and researchers.
381 citations
TL;DR: This article used a Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) framework to disrupt a narrowly defined process of knowledge production in academia, informed by Eurocentric epistemologies and specific ideological beliefs.
Abstract: This article utilizes a Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) framework to disrupt a narrowly defined process of knowledge production in academia, informed by Eurocentric epistemologies and specific ideological beliefs. This process has created an apartheid of knowledge in academia. Disrupting this apartheid allows critical race researchers to move forward in developing methodologies that can be used in anti‐racist social justice research. This article describes the use of testimonio as methodology in a LatCrit research study. This conceptual piece will describe how theory, methodology, and epistemology led to the development, collection, and analysis of 40 testimonio interviews with undocumented and US‐born Chicana college students. Specific methodological strategies for employing testimonio in LatCrit research are also provided.
221 citations
TL;DR: This article examined two Latino adolescents' everyday experiences of dropping out in the context of cultural and structural aspects of school and consciously worked against the common view of poor students of color as inherently "at risk" for school dropout.
Abstract: Only about half of Latino, Black and Native American students graduate from high school. Much of the research explains school dropout using statistical relationships between dropout rates and a variety of ‘risk factors’ attributed to students, like income, race/ethnicity, academic achievement and behaviors and attitudes. In contrast, this study examines two Latino adolescents’ everyday experiences of dropping out in the context of cultural and structural aspects of school and consciously works against the common view of poor students of color as inherently ‘at risk’ for school dropout. We illuminate how, through educational neglect and social and intellectual alienation, schools and school adults contributed to these two students’ progressive disengagement from school. Implications for practice and further research are explored.
141 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the contradictions and tensions embedded in disabled mothers' performances of ideal motherhood, drawing on qualitative interviews with 43 Canadian mothers with a variety of disabilities, and examined how women with disabilities reconcile the demands of ideal mothers against the realities of their disabilities.
Abstract: Women are expected to aspire to norms of femininity that include ideal motherhood, where mothers are positioned as ever available, ever nurturing providers of active, involved and expert mothering – indeed, being a caregiver is a master status for adult women in modernity. While this may be the case for all women, mothers who are disabled can have more a complicated relationship to ideal motherhood than others, because they are perceived of either as asexual and inappropriate to the role of motherhood, or conversely because they are seen as sexually victimized and at risk. This study examines the contradictions and tensions embedded in disabled mothers’ performances of ideal motherhood, drawing on qualitative interviews with 43 Canadian mothers with a variety of disabilities. The article examines how women with disabilities reconcile the demands of ideal mothering against the realities of their disabilities. I ask how these women perform motherhood in ways that will undermine or challenge the perceptions ...
126 citations
TL;DR: This paper employed a qualitative critical race analysis that utilizes counter-storytelling as method to elucidate the experiences of the 13 African American faculty participants in their study, highlighting the racial profiling that often shapes their experiences.
Abstract: African American faculty have historically been underrepresented within predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and deal with academic isolation, marginalization of their scholarship, and racial hostility. Little is known about the experiences of African American faculty who teach in student affairs graduate programs. The purpose of this study was to focus on their experiences through examination and utilization of their personal counter‐narratives. This paper highlights the racial profiling that often shapes their experiences. We employ a qualitative critical race analysis that utilizes counterstorytelling as method to elucidate the experiences of the 13 African American faculty participants in our study.
109 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Sartre's image of intentionality is used to describe what it was like for me to bridle my pre-understandings and developing understandings as I studied moments middle grades teachers recognize and respond when students do not understand something during instruction.
Abstract: In this theoretical manuscript, I use Sartre’s image of intentionality as a ‘bursting forth toward’ to describe what it was like for me to bridle my pre‐understandings and developing understandings as I studied moments middle grades teachers recognize and respond when students do not understand something during instruction. In doing so, I suggest that throughout the study I consistently found myself in resistance to a giving‐finding meaning dualism that divides the two primary approaches to conducting phenomenological research – interpretive (from Heidegger) and descriptive (from Husserl). To this end, I theorize that validity in phenomenological research might best be described through intentionality, because the validity will always move with and through the researcher’s intentional relationship with the phenomenon – not simply in the researcher, in the participants, in the text, in their power positions, but in the dynamic intentional relationships that tie participants, the researcher, the produced te...
93 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the use of participatory video in finding solutions to challenges faced by schools and communities in the contexts of poverty and the AIDS pandemic in one rural community in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Abstract: This article explores the use of participatory video in finding solutions to challenges faced by schools and communities in the contexts of poverty and the AIDS pandemic in one rural community in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. Locating the analysis within the study of feminist visual culture and the notion of the female gaze, the article focuses on a close reading of the production of a three‐minute video produced by women participating in a project involving teachers, learners, community healthcare workers, and parents. We use textual analysis to look at three levels of textuality: the primary text, the production text, and audience text. Working with video offers a critical way to engage more broadly with texts within qualitative research in education, to engage women in examining their everyday lives, and to make visible new possibilities for addressing the problems of AIDS and poverty.
66 citations
TL;DR: The desire to be and to be known as a good White person stems from the recognition that Whiteness is problematic, recognition that many White liberals try to escape by being demonstrably different from other, racist Whites as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The White liberal is a person who finds themselves defined as White, as an oppressor, in short, and retreats in horror from that designation. The desire to be and to be known as a good White person stems from the recognition that Whiteness is problematic, recognition that many White liberals try to escape by being demonstrably different from other, racist Whites. When good White liberals exhibit certain behaviors the expectation becomes a good White people's medal; through the use of a counternarrative, our attempt is to problematize the good White person's identity and subsequent reward that many expect because of some deed or some political stance they made.
60 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the relations between participatory action research and feminist research, through an examination of the metaphor of "voice" and its possible replacement with the idea of "knowledge".
Abstract: This article discusses the relations between participatory action research and feminist research, through an examination of the metaphor of ‘voice’ and its possible replacement with the idea of ‘knowledge.’ The article describes in detail a participatory action research project undertaken in Israel, which was aimed at forging an inclusive debate through collaboration between people living in poverty, academics, policy‐makers, social practitioners, and social activists. Drawing on this example the article explores the possibilities and challenges for furthering social change through participatory action research.
60 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the viability and effectiveness of conducting research about the "sexual cultures" of schools in New Zealand using photo-diaries and photo-elicitation.
Abstract: Visual methods are often marginalised in educational research and have not been employed to collect information about sexuality at school. This paper examines the viability and effectiveness of conducting research about the ‘sexual cultures’ of schools in New Zealand using photo‐diaries and photo‐elicitation. ‘Effectiveness’ is judged by what the visual methodologies literature purports are the benefits of these methods. These advantages include providing participants with greater autonomy over what and how data is collected. The paper argues it is feasible to employ visual methods to research sexuality in schools. Such methods offer participants alternative means of recounting their stories, can help illuminate an esoteric object of investigation like ‘sexual cultures’ and engage participants less likely to volunteer for sexuality research. The use of visual methods is not without challenges however. Securing ethics approval and school participation along with problems with camera retrieval and protectin...
TL;DR: In this article, the identity work of Lao American urban, immigrant students is discussed, highlighting ambivalent identities that do not fit into notions of bicultural or binary identities, and exploring the ways that immigrant youth identities are continuously shaped by dominant discourses and responses that modify, resist or echo these discourses.
Abstract: In this article, the author elucidates the identity work of Lao American urban, immigrant students, highlighting ambivalent identities that do not fit into notions of bicultural or binary identities. It examines the various discourses and practices that inform and shape the experiences and identities of urban, Lao American high school students. It explores the ways that immigrant youth identities are continuously shaped by dominant discourses while at the same time are responses that modify, resist or echo these discourses. It shows that youth are creating incomplete, contradictory – ambivalent – urban, immigrant identities and are changing what it means to be ‘urban’ and ‘immigrant’ youth. By highlighting the ambivalent nature of immigrant identities, this article complicates binary notions of urban, immigrant identities as good/bad and unsettles the ancestral country/United States oppositional framing of the experiences of immigrant students.
TL;DR: This article examined the ways African American educators experience themselves as raced individuals in their school settings and explored their perceptions of racial discrimination, subordination, and isolation, concluding that those most directly positioned to bring about necessary, concrete change aimed at addressing racial discrimination and prejudice in schools are building level administrators.
Abstract: This article examines the ways African American educators experience themselves as raced individuals in their school settings and explores their perceptions of racial discrimination, subordination, and isolation. For this study, five African American educators participated in in‐depth phenomenological interviews. Qualitative data analysis of their stories revealed seven major thematic experiences: (1) hyper‐visibility/invisibility; (2) intersecting identities; (3) challenging assumptions; (4) challenges to authority; (5) pigeonholing; (6) presumptions of failure, and (7) coping fatigue. The study confirms several tenets of critical race theory including the assertion that racism is not aberrant, but endemic and permanent in American society, and routinely exists in public schools. The study further suggests that those most directly positioned to bring about necessary, concrete change aimed at addressing racial discrimination and prejudice in schools are building‐level administrators.
TL;DR: The authors argue that disability appears to us as a trouble and, as such, cultural practices steeped in a medical paradigm are invoked as a way to rid ourselves of the trouble of disability, which is transformed into the cultural requirement of making disability disappear into the normative order through conceiving of disability as a conditional feature of human life.
Abstract: This paper engages the appearance of disability in contemporary Western culture. Rather than taking disability for granted as a biomedical condition, I interrogate how disability is made to appear in our culture, including its appearance as a biomedical condition. Fundamentally, disability appears to us as a trouble and, as such, cultural practices steeped in a medical paradigm are invoked as a way to rid ourselves of the trouble of disability. This trouble is transformed into the cultural requirement of making disability disappear into the normative order through conceiving of disability as a conditional feature of human life. This paper concludes by theorizing disability as excess, as too much and not enough. I demonstrate how such a conception of disability permits its normalization while disallowing any engagement with it as having anything to teach us about the social process of norming.
TL;DR: Bloom and Sawin this paper argue that treating feminist methodologists' models as inflexible rules reinscribes patriarchal ethics and argue that it is both more effective for social change and more feminist to negotiate research commitments with our researc...
Abstract: For those who seek to conduct qualitative research that makes a positive difference in the lives of women in poverty, feminist research methodologies offer the most productive guide. Researchers must partner with those we study and foreground participants’ own perceptions of their challenges, while analyzing structural discrimination and identifying ‘sites of possibilities’ to leverage social and policy change. Attempting to follow all the recommendations of feminist methodologists can, however, overwhelm researchers with desirable but difficult ethical demands. Bloom and Sawin examine their ethnographic projects relative to the recommendations of key feminist methodologists, identifying patterns of success and failure. We then draw on Walker’s feminist model of ‘nongeneric accountability’ to argue that treating feminist methodologists’ models as inflexible rules reinscribes patriarchal ethics. It is both more effective for social change and more feminist to negotiate research commitments with our researc...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the emotional abuse inflicted on many students of color by their teachers and the possible sequelae of these injuries may have deleterious effects on the future academic, emotional and physical health of the students.
Abstract: Illuminating and understanding the emotional abuse inflicted on many students of color is a necessity in creating conditions for their school success. However, this topic is rarely discussed among educators and those preparing educators. However, from the author’s recent experiences conducting research in racially diverse schools as well as her nearly 30 years working in such schools, it is apparent that some teachers, consciously or unconsciously, act in ways toward their students that constitute abuse, i.e. the infliction of narcissistic injuries. The possible sequelae of these injuries may have deleterious effects on the future academic, emotional and physical health of the students.
TL;DR: This paper highlight a theoretical framework by an inclusive reading of Critical Race Theory as "ordinary theology" to explore how Black female principals interrogate gendered and raced practices and promote social justice in schools.
Abstract: William Tate proposed that critical race scholars in education look to moral and spiritual texts to unpack and interrogate the workings of race and other forms of marginalization in schools. While Tate did not offer the ways in which this vision is manifest, the participants in this study situated themselves within a religio‐spiritual worldview through which they sought social justice in schools. The authors in this paper highlight a theoretical framework by an inclusive reading of Critical Race Theory as ‘ordinary theology’ to explore how Black female principals interrogate gendered and raced practices and promote social justice in schools.
TL;DR: This paper examined a counter narrative of entry into the teaching profession showing how the construction of one teacher's identity is presented as a biographical narrative that he assumes to be at odds with an 'orthodox' narrative of becoming a teacher.
Abstract: Narratives are important to us not only or even primarily because they tell about our past lives, but because they enable us to make sense of the present. We attempt to create coherence and give meaning to our lives by learning to read time backwards. This paper examines a counter narrative of entry into the teaching profession showing how the construction of one teacher’s identity is presented as a biographical narrative that he assumes to be at odds with an ‘orthodox’ narrative of becoming a teacher. The paper offers an interpretation of the personal narrative, told as counter to an assumed ‘orthodox’ story of entry into teaching. It also examines the relationship between the personal narrative and the contested site of the master narrative and its counter as the point at which the individual both positions themselves and is positioned within the discourse of teaching.
TL;DR: The authors unearths the unexplored dimensions of medicalized colonialism in the first critical shift from a minimal juridical state in which magistrates and judges determined the processes of commitment to one in which medical authorities as colonial adm...
Abstract: This article asks: How have disability, indigenous arts and cultural praxis transformed and challenged the historical sociological archival research into relationships among asylum‐making, medicalized colonialism and eugenics in the Woodlands School, formerly the Victoria Lunatic Asylum, the Provincial Asylum for the Insane in Victoria, BC 1859–72 and the Public Hospital for the Insane, (herein, PHI) and most recently, the Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia (1878–1996)? How can the experiences of ‘patients’ often silenced or suppressed in archival historical sociology and in official institutional records be re‐claimed through the textual analysis of official documents, the arts, oral history, and community engagement? The article unearths the unexplored dimensions of medicalized colonialism in the first critical shift – from 1859–97 – from a minimal juridical state in which magistrates and judges determined the processes of commitment to one in which medical authorities as colonial adm...
TL;DR: A fully realized disability studies (DS) of music is interdisciplinary, qualitative and accessible through common discourse, without jargon, disciplinary codes, or numerology as discussed by the authors, where the most critical issues in music DS are in education, beyond music-specific concerns, and best expressed qualitatively as individual and group narratives.
Abstract: A fully realized disability studies (DS) of music is interdisciplinary, qualitative and accessible through common discourse, without jargon, disciplinary codes, or numerology. It embraces DS’s social model theory, where ‘disability’ is the social construction of ‘impairment,’ analogous to the relationship between ‘gender’ and ‘sex.’ The interdisciplinary transcendence of forms and norms of individual fields is a scholarly/political stance consistent with liberatory DS goals. The recent emergence of music DS, with few precedents from traditional musicology/theory, has mandated greater interdisciplinarity, employing the full range of social and somatic scholarship, as well as popular culture references. The most critical issues in music DS are in education, beyond music‐specific concerns, and best expressed qualitatively as individual and group narratives. The often covertly quantitative nature of music theory is outed as oppressive to people with disabilities and contrasted with the liberatory power of sha...
TL;DR: In this article, the power of images of disability as a way to examine how such images can be read as reproducing normality is examined, and the necessary art of theorizing the connection between image of disability and the reproduction of normality.
Abstract: This paper addresses the power of images of disability as a way to examine how such images can be read as reproducing normality. By image of disability, I mean any appearance of disability made through the social act of interpretation. In this paper, I conduct an interpretive sociological analysis of common and even mundane everyday images of disability, including the universal icon for access. I aim to demonstrate the necessary ‘art’ of theorizing the connection between images of disability and the reproduction of normality. I call this pursuit an art since through theorizing how and why disability appears as it does in everyday life we can create a livelier, provocative, and perhaps deliberately different image of disability. This paper, then, makes normality something to wonder about by theorizing familiar disability images that are already part of Western collective existence.
TL;DR: The authors discuss the work of a teacher educator who espouses critical race feminism (CRF) as a means of fighting against a curriculum of oppression in teacher education and the need to fight against such oppression in the development of new teachers from a critical race feminist perspective.
Abstract: Teacher education programs have established gatekeepers, especially for women of color. For these women, finding an ally in their endeavor to become educators is paramount. This paper will discuss the work of a teacher educator who espouses critical race feminism (CRF) as a means of fighting against a curriculum of oppression in teacher education. The paper will begin with a description of CRF and its connections to currere. This will be followed with background information regarding the pre‐service teacher and her relationship with the teacher educator. A brief description of the student's field experience will follow. The paper will conclude with an analysis of the power of language and dialect, a form of curriculum oppression, in teacher education with the need to fight against such oppression in the development of new teachers from a critical race feminist perspective.
TL;DR: In this article, the experiences of adult heritage Spanish speakers in programs designed for monolingual English speakers were analyzed. But the authors focused on the educational, social, and individual challenges faced by the adult heritage speaker in their quest to improve literacy skills in their native language.
Abstract: For heritage speakers, the Spanish classroom is not the first point of contact with their native language. Though such learners would benefit from an educational philosophy that affirms the heritage language as a springboard for learning and increased self‐awareness, there has been little support for non‐dominant language research in the USA. This inattention breeds negative consequences not only for heritage speakers themselves, but also for national economic concerns as well. This study takes a phenomenographic approach to reveal the experiences of adult heritage Spanish speakers in programs designed for monolingual English speakers. The data gleaned from this research sheds light on the educational, social, and individual challenges faced by the adult heritage speaker in their quest to improve literacy skills in their native language.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on five "student mothers" who have persisted in fulfilling their dreams of a college education with the aid of Beyond Welfare, a community-based organization that helps soften the hardships of juggling family, college, and work while in poverty.
Abstract: Access to post‐secondary education for welfare recipients has been profoundly curtailed by social and welfare policies. However, many low‐income mothers know that post‐secondary education is the best means to escape poverty. This article focuses on five ‘student mothers’ who have persisted in fulfilling their dreams of a college education with the aid of Beyond Welfare, a community‐based organization (CBO) that helps soften the hardships of juggling family, college, and work while in poverty. Based on interviews with five Beyond Welfare participants, this article explores the organization’s role in supporting the student mothers’ personal and academic success. This article illustrates how important it is for student mothers to have a supportive community, education focused on the structural barriers to leaving poverty, and encouragement for academic success. To conclude, the article reflects on why educators need to become involved in activism and research on behalf of low‐income families.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors contribute to the dialogue on race and education, and raise a few thought-provoking questions regarding ways of seeing and thinking about critical race theory as both a theoretical and practical tool when focused on issues of race, structural racism, and education.
Abstract: This article is a commentary on several issues relevant to critical race theory (CRT), education, and race‐related discourse In this article, we hope to contribute to the dialogue on race and education, and raise a few thought‐provoking questions regarding ways of seeing and thinking about CRT as both a theoretical and practical tool when focused on issues of race, structural racism, and education
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ critical race theory to analyze two aspects of liberalism that are especially pervasive among US educators: first, formal equality, and second, the notion that change is either unneeded or, at best, should be incremental.
Abstract: Drawing on data from an ethnographic study in an urban district in the state of Utah, this article highlights how liberalism shapes educational policy and practice in particular ways that ultimately reproduce and legitimate the status quo of whiteness. I employ critical race theory to analyze two aspects of liberalism that are especially pervasive among US educators: first, formal equality, and second, the notion that change is either unneeded or, at best, should be incremental. Both of these liberal tenets result in racialized patterns within schools that become common sense despite their destructive nature.
TL;DR: This article examined the salience of collective "memory" and "remembering" among a group of students in HipHop Lit, a hip-hop centered English literature course that I co-taught at 'Howard High School,’ an urban high school in the Northeastern United States.
Abstract: This article examines the salience of collective ‘memory’ and ‘remembering’ among a group of students in Hip‐Hop Lit, a hip‐hop centered English literature course that I co‐taught at ‘Howard High School,’ an urban high school in the Northeastern United States. Specifically, this article examines the memory work that occurred within Hip‐Hop Lit in response to the students’ interactions with one of the course texts, Things Done Changed by rapper Notorious B.I.G. From this and other classroom texts, students were able to construct, contest, and reinscribe memories about the past. Through these memories, students were able to reaffirm and challenge particular social identities that informed and reflected their lived experiences.
TL;DR: In this article, the role of Indigenous knowledges in the context of rural Japanese women is discussed, and the authors employ autoethnography as the central methodology of their work.
Abstract: Rural Japanese women have been overlooked or misrepresented in the academic and nationalist discourses on Japanese women. Using an anti‐colonial feminist framework, I advocate that centring discussions on Indigenous knowledges will help fill this gap based on the belief that Indigenous‐knowledge framework is a tool to show the agency of the ‘colonized’. In this paper, I attempt to answer the following question: What is the role of Indigenous knowledges in the context of rural Japanese women? I first discuss my epistemological approach by exploring the notion of Indigenous knowledges and my location within it. This process led me to employ autoethnography as the central methodology of this paper. Second, in order to better situate rural Japanese women, I look at Japanese history, especially the Meiji period (1868–1912) when Westernization began to exert a major influence on the Japanese nationalist movement via its control over knowledges carried by rural Japanese women. Third, in order for me to reclaim t...
TL;DR: By Anna Hickey-Moody and Peta Malins, Houndmills, 2007, 270 pp., £53.00 (hardback), ISBN13 978'0'230'50692'3, ISBN10 0'230•50692•5 by Stephanie Springgay, New York, Peter Lang,...
Abstract: by Anna Hickey‐Moody and Peta Malins, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 270 pp., £53.00 (hardback), ISBN13 978‐0‐230‐50692‐3, ISBN10 0‐230‐50692‐5 by Stephanie Springgay, New York, Peter Lang, ...
TL;DR: In this paper, a participatory ethnography with post-secondary students enrolled in a large West Coast University in British Columbia who had previously been identified as learning disabled and thus, the recipients of special educational policy interventions is presented.
Abstract: This article reveals the findings of a participatory ethnography with post‐secondary students enrolled in a large West Coast University in British Columbia who had previously been identified as ‘learning disabled’ and thus, the ‘recipients’ of special educational policy interventions. Instead of starting from the official meanings of the special education policy discourses, this study puts front and centre the meanings and experiences of the students themselves. It uncovers the performative work the students engage as they negotiate the contradictory ideologies of meritocracy and equal opportunity while living with the label and realities of various ‘learning disabilities’. The students’ discourses are read in relation to and against the dominant common‐sense ideologies of special education. The study takes into account the students readings in light of their positionalities as racialized, classed, gendered, in addition to living with the label of learning disability. Contrary to the claim that meritocrac...