Showing papers in "International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education in 2014"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the connections between macro-level power inequities and micro-level interactional positionings and established Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA), which unifies CDA and narrative analysis in a mutually beneficial partnership.
Abstract: In this article, I question the micro–macro separation in discourse analysis, the separation of personal and institutional discourses. I apply a mostly macroanalytic perspective (critical discourse analysis [CDA]) to inform a predominantly microanalytic perspective (analysis of conversational narratives) and vice versa. In the combination of these two analytic approaches to data analysis, I explore the connections between macro-level power inequities and micro-level interactional positionings, thereby establishing critical narrative analysis (CNA). I examine the focus of CDA on institutional discourses and problematize the definition of power discourses by looking closely at the intertextual recycling of institutional discourses in everyday narratives and at the adoption of everyday narratives in institutional discourses. Ultimately, I propose that CNA unites CDA and narrative analysis in a mutually beneficial partnership that addresses both theoretical and methodological dilemmas in discourse analysis.
197 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a qualitative exploration of the critical policy analysis approach to educational policy studies, and develop an understanding of the importance of critical approach to policy studies and its appeal among critical education policy scholars, and the rationales driving its use.
Abstract: What counts as critical policy analysis in education? Over the past 30 years, a tightening of national educational policies can be seen in the USA and across the globe. Over this same period of time, a growing number of educational policy scholars, dissatisfied with traditional frameworks, have used critical frameworks in their analyses. Their critical educational policy work has contributed to a unique intellectual landscape within education: critical policy analysis. This article presents a qualitative exploration of the critical policy analysis approach to educational policy studies. Participants included scholars known to utilize critical theoretical frameworks and methods in their research. Through a historical approach that makes use of oral history interviews with educational policy, we developed an understanding of the critical approach to policy studies, its appeal among critical education policy scholars, and the rationales driving its use.
181 citations
138 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a qualitative research project followed one group of female undergraduate students as they moved through the first year of study, focusing on the conceptual lens of "turning points".
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to explore how one group of students reflect upon their transition into the higher education environment. This qualitative research project followed one group of female undergraduate students as they moved through the first year of study. All of the participants were the first in their family to consider further education and each participated in four semi-structured interviews over one year. Drawing on the conceptual lens of ‘turning points’, the intent is to provide a ‘close-up’ analysis of the complex process of identity formation within the university landscape. By revisiting the students at various points over time, richly descriptive detail about what this undertaking means for those involved can be presented and the significance of these turning points explored in terms of their wider political implications.
85 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that white male college students at two universities tend to be apathetic while those attending the academically selective and more racially diverse campus tended to be angry, and that men frequently frame emotions as facts which can also support racial stratification.
Abstract: Most analyses of racism focus on what people think about issues of race and how this relates to racial stratification. This research applies Feagin’s white racial frame to analyze how White male college students at two universities feel about racism. Students at the academically non-selective and less diverse university tended to be apathetic while those attending the academically selective and more racially diverse campus tended to be angry. This study highlights the interconnectedness of affective and cognitive responses to race: two areas integral to both the maintenance and dismantling of systemic racism. It also highlights how men frequently frame emotions as facts, which can also support racial stratification.
76 citations
TL;DR: The authors report on a research study which drew attention to the constitutive nature of the everyday world in young people's subjectivities and practices of citizenship, and re-examine some of the ‘everyday’ data generated by two research methods which were initially discounted as rambling or divergent.
Abstract: This paper reports on a research study which drew attention to the constitutive nature of the everyday world in young people’s subjectivities and practices of citizenship. Central to the aim of this research was a need for alignment between the focus of the research (‘everyday’ citizenship), with methods which could illuminate the day-to-day experiences of being a citizen. In this paper, I re-examine some of the ‘everyday’ data generated by two research methods which were initially discounted as rambling or divergent. This data characteristically had frequent interjections, incomplete sentences, questions and queries, or a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty. Through a re-analysis of this data, I consider the potential it offers to contribute conceptual and theoretical insights into young people’s citizenship dispositions and practices. The research revealed the diverse, complex and contested understandings of citizenship that young people were forming in the context of day-to-day social and spatial intera...
68 citations
TL;DR: The authors employ composite counter-storytelling to narrate the experiences of black male faculty on traditionally white campuses, and reflect on how their daily experiences incite racial battle fatigue, feed into imposter syndrome, and circumvent an inclusive campus community.
Abstract: Driven by critical race theory, this essay employs composite counterstorytelling to narrate the experiences of black male faculty on traditionally white campuses. Situated at the intersections of race and gender, our composite counterstory is richly informed by 11 interviews with black male faculty alongside critical race scholarship that documents the omnipresence of black misandric ideology. Through our protagonist Dr Timesnow, a black male Assistant Professor, we reflect on how his daily experiences incite racial battle fatigue, feed into imposter syndrome, and circumvent an inclusive campus community.
64 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that critical race theory does not aim to tell a "truer" account of reality, but a more honest one, and therefore critical race scholars need not ask permission or seek forgiveness for their counter-stories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.
Abstract: This paper utilizes tools of critical race theory to interrogate the racial politics of the everyday. The authors contend that this type of critical policy analysis can yield understandings of/about the world that are too often silenced or ignored altogether. This paper argues that critical race theory does not aim to tell a “truer” account of reality, but a more honest one. Therefore, critical race scholars need not ask permission – nor seek forgiveness – for their counterstories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.
58 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an extended perspective based on Charles Sanders Peirce's concepts of abduction, deduction and induction, which can be used for interpretative case studies exemplified by classroom research.
Abstract: Within the area of interpretative case studies, there appears to be a vast amount of literature about theoretical interpretations as the main analytical strategy. In light of this theoretically based strategy in case studies, this article presents an extended perspective based on Charles Sanders Peirce’s concepts of abduction, deduction and induction. I intend to show some of the integral relationships between these concepts which can be relevant for interpretative case studies exemplified by classroom research. The connections between these concepts and interpretative field research result in two interpretative strategies, illuminated by syllogisms, and named abduction–deduction–induction (A–D–I) and deduction–induction–abduction (D–I–A). These strategies will be discussed.
58 citations
TL;DR: The authors conducted a critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse College Appropriate Attire Policy and discussed how issues of race, gender, and sexuality converge to reveal both overt and hidden meanings embedded in the policy.
Abstract: In this paper, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse College Appropriate Attire Policy and discuss how issues of race, gender, and sexuality converge to reveal both overt and hidden meanings embedded in the policy. I also consider how power is used towards “other” black college men who neither fit neatly into prescribed gender norms, nor foster representations of “good” black men. I situate this critical policy analysis in the context of two ideas: bipolar masculinity and the politics of respectability, and offer implications for the use of intersectional frames in scholarship and research on men and institutional policies.
57 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that research endeavours to understand infants’ experiences in non-parental care should be seen as sites of ethical rather than epistemological practice.
Abstract: Increasingly, researchers are trying to understand what daily life is like for infants in non-parental care from the perspectives of the infants themselves. In this article, we argue that it is profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to know how infants experience their worlds with any certainty and, indeed, whether they do or do not possess well-worked out ‘perspectives’ on their experiences. Three key difficulties are discussed: firstly, the difficulty of interpreting non-verbal expressions and behaviour; secondly, the difficulty of knowing whether researchers’ constructions of the ‘infant’s perspective’ align with the infant’s experiences of their world; and, thirdly, the difficulty of providing opportunities for infants to disrupt researchers’ predetermined categories of understanding, meanings and expectations. Because of these difficulties, we argue that research endeavours to understand infants’ experiences in non-parental care should be seen as sites of ethical rather than epistemological practice.
TL;DR: This paper found that a large portion of Black male participants in this study indicated that academic disengagement served to negatively affect their achievement in the community college, and they identified academic engagement as a reluctance to fully engage as active agents in their own academic development through necessary interactions.
Abstract: This study presents selected findings drawn from a larger investigation of Black male students in the community college. In the larger study, qualitative interviews were conducted with 28 Black males attending a public two-year college in the southwestern United States. The focus of the larger study was on identifying factors which, from the perspectives of students, affected their academic success. Academic success referred primarily to students’ grade point averages or achievement and secondarily to continuation towards students’ self-proclaimed collegiate goals. A large portion of Black male participants in this study indicated that academic disengagement served to negatively affect their achievement in the community college. Students discussed academic disengagement as a reluctance to fully engage as active agents in their own academic development through necessary interactions.
TL;DR: The authors explored the race representations of the "Muslim Other" and how these representations engaged the lived realities and found footing in how Muslim youth understood their identities, and examined student talk addressing the construction of the Muslim in public discourse.
Abstract: This article explores the raced representations of the “Muslim Other” and how these representations engaged the lived realities and found footing in how Muslim youth understood their identities. Utilizing qualitative life history interviews with 24 Muslim undergraduates, I examine student talk addressing the construction of the Muslim in public discourse.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss employing QT and QLT for critical policy analysis as applied to education and highlight how both QTs and QTs can empower analyses to look beyond the identity politics of a particular time period or space and toward potential reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and institutional supports for students, teachers, and staff.
Abstract: This paper discusses employing queer theory (QT) and queer legal theory (QLT) for critical policy analysis as applied to education. In doing so, the authors will highlight how both QT and QLT can empower analyses to look beyond the identity politics of a particular time period or space and toward potential reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and institutional supports for students, teachers, and staff. A central point is that understanding the institutional and cultural practices that frame orientation, class, race, and sex/gender can lead to policy changes that benefit all students, teachers, and staff. The paper concludes with a discussion of venues in need of both QT and QLT-informed research.
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic investigation of a multiethnic, multilingual classroom examines the ways in which immigrant students' goals for community and belonging were mediated by their vibrant cultural and linguistic practices.
Abstract: This ethnographic investigation of a multiethnic, multilingual classroom examines the ways in which immigrant students’ goals for community and belonging were mediated by their vibrant cultural and linguistic practices. Findings demonstrate how youth formed a community of practice through brokering acts, resource pooling, and linguistic play across national, cultural, and linguistic differences. As such, immigrant students were agentive transcultural navigators whose practices broach new understandings of social life and learning, and present a pedagogy of possibility. It is argued that immigrant classrooms in contact zones must be reenvisioned – from reductive spaces where educational goals are to acculturate the immigrant into a fading US homogeneous mainstream – to cutting edge spaces of twenty-first-century learning.
TL;DR: The authors explored how Latino male collegians with a cumulative grade point average (GPA) above 3.75 employed linguistic, resistant, and navigational capital to enhance their academic and social experiences during college.
Abstract: Latino males are grossly underrepresented at four-year postsecondary institutions in the United States. This phenomenological study seeks to address this emergent educational crisis by focusing on the experiences of two Latino male achievers at predominantly White research universities. Community Cultural Wealth is used to explore how Latino male collegians with a cumulative grade point average (GPA) above 3.75 employed linguistic, resistant, and navigational capital to enhance their academic and social experiences during college. The reports offered by participants in this study are intended to advance knowledge regarding the experiences of Latino male collegians as well as to enhance research, policies, and practices that increase the educational attainment of Latina/o students within higher education.
TL;DR: Two different procedures for incorporating translation in education qualitative research are compared to provide a clear depiction of the complexities involved in translating qualitative data and the strengths and weaknesses of each procedure.
Abstract: Cross-language qualitative research in education continues to increase. However, there has been inadequate discussion in the literature concerning the translation process that ensures research trustworthiness applicable for bilingual researchers. Informed by the literature on evaluation criteria for qualitative data translation, this paper compares two different procedures for incorporating translation in education qualitative research to provide a clear depiction of the complexities involved in translating qualitative data and the strengths and weaknesses of each procedure. To maintain the trustworthiness of the qualitative research, it is necessary to minimise translation errors, provide detailed accounts of the translation process, involve more than one translator and remain open to scrutiny from those seeking to access the translation process. Taking into account the resource constraints often faced by novice qualitative researchers, this paper provides some strategies that can be employed in similar ...
TL;DR: The authors argue that the nature of the current discourse is misleading at worst and incomplete at best and show who is fueling the crisis discourse and who stands to win or lose as a result.
Abstract: STEM education has received significant attention in the USA and is largely fueled by rhetoric suggesting the USA is losing its global competitive edge and that there is a lack of qualified workers available to fill growing STEM jobs. However, a counter discourse is emerging that questions the legitimacy of these claims. In response, we employed feminist critical policy analysis as both a theory and a method to further critique the STEM crisis discourse. We argue that the nature of the current discourse is misleading at worst and incomplete at best and show who is fueling the crisis discourse and who stands to win or lose as a result. We reveal how the crisis discourse draws attention away from the multi-layered complexity of the issue and surface what is missing in the discourse to re-center public attention on protracted problems that still need dismantling.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors document the practices and challenges associated with the program based on data collected from interviews with the main stakeholders involved (students and parents, teachers, school principals, and program coordinators) and from classroom observations.
Abstract: Over the past 15 years, many state governments in Mexico have initiated local programs to introduce English at the primary school level. In 2009, the Mexican Ministry of Education formalized the Programa Nacional de Ingles en Educacion Basica (PNIEB) as part of the national curriculum, based on the argument that increasing the number of English speakers in Mexico is necessary for the country to be globally competitive and to follow the trend in other developing economies of augmenting English instruction in public education. This paper focuses on the implementation of PNIEB and the state programs that preceded it. The authors document the practices and challenges associated with the program based on data collected from interviews with the main stakeholders involved (students and parents, teachers, school principals, and program coordinators) and from classroom observations. The total data-set consisted of over 200 interviews and classroom observations spread over several years from 2008 to 2012. Several c...
TL;DR: This article examined the intersection of professional socialization and agency among tenured Black female faculty at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and found that a three-prong model of engagement, enacting, discarding, and transforming institutional norms, comprised the participants' socialization process.
Abstract: Through an analysis informed by critical race feminism, this paper examines the intersection of professional socialization and agency among tenured Black female faculty at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) Professional socialization entails the transmission and reproduction of professional norms However, within PWIs, professional socialization emanates from a legacy of race and gender exclusion Thus, normative conceptualizations of professional development may not adequately address how Black women negotiate institutional cues to define their professorial role The findings show that a three-prong model of engagement: enacting, discarding, and transforming institutional norms, comprised the participants’ socialization process; agency played an important role in their career success Implications for facilitating agency among Black female faculty and similarly situated groups are discussed
TL;DR: The authors argue that using such methodologies allows critical policy analysts to practice a form of historicizing that explicitly adheres to an epistemological stance that emphasizes the social construction of knowledge through power relationships.
Abstract: The practice of critical policy analysis often emphasizes the importance of historicizing the present. However, there is very little guidance for critical policy analysts on the methodical production of histories. In this paper, I meet this need by arguing for the use of methodologies embedded in the production of both cultural histories and microhistories. I show how the historical narratives that are produced by critical policy analysts must be able to reveal patterns of long-term social interactions and domination, while simultaneously showing how people on a smaller temporal scale still disrupt and bend these social structures to their needs. Most importantly, I argue that using such methodologies allows critical policy analysts to practice a form of historicizing that explicitly adheres to an epistemological stance that emphasizes the social construction of knowledge through power relationships.
TL;DR: In this article, a richly contextualized synthesis of ethnographic observations and interviews with district, state, and national data sets is presented, where the author patiently distills and decants over a decade of resea...
Abstract: In this richly contextualized synthesis of ethnographic observations and interviews with district, state, and national data-sets, Karolyn Tyson patiently distills and decants over a decade of resea...
TL;DR: In this paper, a new analytical tool is introduced; a critical performative analysis of emotion (CPAE) that draws upon three theoretical perspectives: emotions as situated, as embodied, and as fissured.
Abstract: An emerging theoretical perspective is that emotions are a verb or something we do in relation to others. Studies that demonstrate ways to analyze emotions from a performative stance are scarce. In this article, a new analytical tool is introduced; a critical performative analysis of emotion (CPAE) that draws upon three theoretical perspectives: emotions as situated, as embodied, and as fissured. These three theoretical perspectives (i.e. critical sociocultural, narrative, and rhizomatic) allow researchers to think with theory. Data from teaching children with a critical inquiry curriculum demonstrates a CPAE. Educators are encouraged to continue to embrace the malleability of theories, to push educational research forward by finding new ways to research inquiries, and to adapt CPAE for further research interests.
TL;DR: This article propose a new move in the methodological practice of collective biography, by provoking a shift beyond any remnant attachment to the speaking/writing subject towards her dispersal and displacement via textual interventions that stress multivocality.
Abstract: This paper proposes a new move in the methodological practice of collective biography, by provoking a shift beyond any remnant attachment to the speaking/ writing subject towards her dispersal and displacement via textual interventions that stress multivocality. These include the use of photographs, drama, and various genres of writing. Using a story selected from a collective biography workshop on sexuality and schooling, we document how we work across and among texts, thereby widening and shifting interpretive and subjective spaces of inquiry. We also consider how Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of territorialization/deterritorialization and the nomadic subject might be useful in theorizing such methodological moves in collective biography and our own investments in them.
TL;DR: This article investigated the ways in which Cambodian male youth were problematized in school through Discourses that presented them as apathetic students and/or gang members at one California high school.
Abstract: In response to a literature that has paid limited attention to the complex representations of Cambodian students, this article investigated the ways in which Cambodian male youth were problematized in school through Discourses that presented them as apathetic students and/or gang members at one California high school. In this study, the ways in which race, gender, and class collided in the school experiences of Cambodian boys manifested themselves in troubling representations that deflected attention away from the school’s failure to teach these young men. For these negative representations to work, it was necessary to position Cambodian boys in contrast to more positive depictions of other students’ racial (whites and “East Asians”), class (non-“ghetto”), and gender (good Cambodian girls) categories. Overall, this study contributes an important dimension for understanding the education of Asian American urban male students, particularly Cambodian youth.
TL;DR: This paper conducted a qualitative study of productive masculinities and behaviors among 50 undergraduate fraternities from 44 chapters across the US and Canada, finding that participants' steadfast commitments to the fraternity's espoused values; their acceptance and appreciation of members from a range of diverse backgrounds; strategies they employed to address bad behaviors (including sexism, racism, and homophobia) among chapter brothers; and the conditions that enabled them to behave in ways that contradict stereotypes concerning men in collegiate fraternity.
Abstract: Research on fraternity men focuses almost exclusively on problematic behaviors such as homophobia and sexism, alcohol abuse, violence against women, sexual promiscuity, and the overrepresentation of members among campus judicial offenders. Consequently, little is known about those who perform masculinities in healthy and productive ways. Presented in this article are findings from a qualitative study of productive masculinities and behaviors among 50 undergraduate fraternity men from 44 chapters across the US and Canada. Findings offer insights into participants’ steadfast commitments to the fraternity’s espoused values; their acceptance and appreciation of members from a range of diverse backgrounds; strategies they employed to address bad behaviors (including sexism, racism, and homophobia) among chapter brothers; and the conditions that enabled them to behave in ways that contradict stereotypes concerning men in collegiate fraternities.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate how history informs how policy meanings are constructed and the rhetorical strategies used to convince others to accept these meanings and demonstrate the utility of constructing cultural and microhistories in critical policy analysis.
Abstract: In this paper, we demonstrate how history informs how policy meanings are constructed and the rhetorical strategies used to convince others to accept these meanings. We have two goals: (a) to show how a group of non-governmental actors, People for Education, became part of Ontario, Canada’s policy discursive network; and (b) to demonstrate the utility of constructing cultural and microhistories in critical policy analysis. This article is important because it describes resistance from a critical perspective and offers a methodology for producing histories of struggles over meaning-making in educational politics.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the methodology of a study that asked what factors English mothers of very young babies consider when making employment decisions and childcare choices, and sought their views on the idea of carers in day care settings "loving" their children.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the methodology of a study that asked what factors English mothers of very young babies consider when making employment decisions and childcare choices, and sought their views on the idea of carers in day care settings ‘loving’ their children. After a characterisation of life historical study, a four-staged process of analysis demonstrates how meaning was made from data created with six mothers. The discussion ‘voices’ their stories through excerpts from their expressions of emotion. The conclusion acknowledges insights generated into the dilemmas of mothers’ choices, but importantly points up how the careful listening and critical attending required by life historical study themselves generate stories that ‘go awry’ to reveal something of personal and of social importance. The paper concludes that using life story methods is a difficult process which may create discomfort for researcher and ‘researched’ long after the study is finished.
TL;DR: The authors argue that there is a critical need to conscientiously include Indigenous knowledge in education processes from the school to the community; particularly, when formal systems exclude Indigenous cultures and languages.
Abstract: In this article, we propose to approach Indigenous education beyond the formal/non-formal dichotomy. We argue that there is a critical need to conscientiously include Indigenous knowledge in education processes from the school to the community; particularly, when formal systems exclude Indigenous cultures and languages. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Quechua schools and communities, our examination of policy and teachers in the formal setting reveals overall contradictions towards practice, where the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge, language, and community participation remains largely symbolic, despite genuine efforts from those who support Indigenous revitalization. Further, an exploration of Wanka Quechua community educational practices focused on local ecology demonstrates that community education exhibits a structure that is culturally inclusive, intergenerational and values-driven, and rigorous and complex.
TL;DR: This article examined the meanings and practices of drinking and casual sex for a group of class and race-diverse fraternities in the US, and found that for these men, partying presents both opportunities and dilemmas and taps into tensions inherent in being upwardly mobile college men.
Abstract: Studies of collegiate party and hookup culture tend to overlook variation along social class and racial/ethnic lines. Drawing on interview data at a “party school” in the Midwest, I examine the meanings and practices of drinking and casual sex for a group of class and race-diverse fraternity men. While more privileged men draw on ideas of age and gender to construct college as a time to let loose, indulge, and explore, men from disadvantaged backgrounds express greater ambivalence toward partying. For these men, partying presents both opportunities and dilemmas and taps into tensions inherent in being upwardly mobile college men. For some, symbolic abstention from extreme party behavior addresses some of these tensions and validates their place on campus. Men’s talk of collegiate partying reveals the dynamic and relational construction of intersectional identities on campus.