Last night I returned from a two day conference in Beer Sheva at the Ben Gurion University. The conference, The 6th Israeli Conference on Qualitative Research was organized by the Israeli Centre for Qualitative Research.

This was the third time I have been to the conference and the second time I have participated. The conference is different from other conferences I have been to as it has a much more local feeling to it. All presentations are in Hebrew and apart from one guest speaker from overseas (Professor Juliet Corbin), all lecturers were Israeli.

Four years ago, when I went to this conference for the first time, I didn’t know anybody. I spent most of the time time wondering what a conference on methodology really means and I felt an outsider. Last time I participated I felt more involved, I also knew some people through my doctoral writing group and the interest groups I participate in at Mofet. This time I felt part of a community, a vibrant learning community in which I definitely have a place. It is fascinating to hear about the work of others and to try to locate my own research in relation to that of my peers.

One of the highlights for me was to hear top quality researchers present their work and to have the opportunity to enter into a dialogue with them. One spectacular session dealt with the boundaries of qualitative research. Each of the panel members explained how she views the limitations – what is included and what isn’t and how we define the requirements of research under this title. Much of the discussion was about testing the boundaries. Professor Einat Peled summed up by saying that we have to be aware that experienced and recognized scholars can allow themselves to test those boundaries far further than doctoral students. We watched a fascinating video – an autoethnographic movie made in a Masters program – part 1 and part 2 (we saw part 2). Made me think!

My paper dealt with translation in qualitative research and presented my own experiences translating in my PhD study.

The Hebrew abstract:

התרגום במחקר האיכותני: דילמות לשוניות, תרבותיות ומתודולוגיות

לעתים מתייחסים לתרגום נתונים כתהליך ניטרלי ואובייקטיבי, עניין טכני של העברת חומרים משפה אחת למשנה. חוקרים אחרים, רואים את השפה כחלון לזהותו של האדם, מחשבותיו ודעותיו. המכירים בתפקיד הפרשני של התרגום, מבינים ששפה היא יותר מהמשמעות הבסיסית של כל מילה ומילה וטוענים שתהליך התרגום משפיע על  טיב המחקר. לפי גישה זו, מתרגמים הם שותפים פעילים בהפקת ידע במחקר.

בזמן עריכת מחקר פעולה נרטיבי על למידה של מורים בישראל, התעוררו בי שאלות הקשורות למקום התרגום במחקר האיכותני. העיסוק בתרגום מעלה שאלות לשוניות, תרבותיות ומתודולוגיות. כדוקטורנטית באוניברסיטה באוסטרליה, החוקרת את עבודתה החינוכית בישראל, מחקרי נערך בעברית ויוצג באנגלית, שפת אמי.

בהרצאה זו אדון בדילמות המתודולוגיות הקשורות לתרגום במחקר. שאלות אלו מתייחסות לשלב שבו נכון לתרגם, איזה חלק מהנתונים יש לתרגם וכיצד מתמודדים עם ההבדלים בין השפות, הבדלים לשוניים ותרבותיים. בנוסף אתייחס לשאלות האפיסטמולוגיות הקשורות למי מתרגם טקסטים במהלך המחקר והשפעת הרקע השפתי והתרבותי של המתרגם. אדגים את המורכבות הטמונה בניתוח נתונים מחקריים שנוצרו בשפה אחת ומועדים לפרסום בשפה אחרת. דוגמא לדילמה שמלווה את עבודתי היא הקושי לחזור למשתתפים על מנת לשמוע כיצד הם מגיבים לפרשנותי, אם אינם שולטים בשפה האנגלית.

בהרצאה זו אביא דוגמאות מהמחקר שלי המציגות את תפקידי כחוקרת דו-לשונית. אציג את ההחלטה לתרגם את הנתונים בעצמי כחלק אינטגרלי של תהליך הניתוח. שפה אינה ניטרלית, היא משקפת את ההקשר בו נוצרה. הבחירות הלשוניות של האדם מייצגות את תהליכי החשיבה הייחודיות שלו. אדגיש את הצורך בהצגת מעשה התרגום באופן גלוי במחקר על מנת  לאפשר דיאלוג פתוח סביב הבחירות השפתיות של המשתתפים.

It was an enormous honour for me to present in a session chaired by Professor Amia Lieblich, one of the scholars I admire most. As expected, there were many people in the audience, despite the fact that it was the last session of the conference. Amia spoke about her recent book, Arak for Breakfast, a non fiction book (for the general audience) based on her research into a group of older residents of Tel Aviv who meet daily on the beach at a coffee shop, early in the morning. She told that Oxford Uni Press has invited her to translate the book and transform it into an “academic” text. She described this process which is far different from any other academic writing I have encountered. As this is participatory research (Amia is part of the breakfast community), it will be extremely interesting to see how the text is transformed. I was interested to hear that the final chapter, that which Amia described as autoethnographic has been replaced.

I feel that my session was well received, questions were asked and I had a real opportunity to discuss my work. Although my experience with translating research data and doing research in one country and presenting it for examination in another is fairly rare, in Israel, all academics have to deal with translation issues when preparing their work for publication in English journals and presentation at international conferences.

Other relevant and interesting sessions I attended dealt with analysing data, narrative in real life situations, narrative inquiry, ethics in qualitative research, and action research.

As always, when I return from a conference, I have a burning desire to get on with my thesis!

The school holidays are here! After completing the preparation and delivery of my conference paper for the 6th International conference on teacher education, I can say that the holiday is definitely starting. I will of course be going in to school a few days a week but it will be at my own pace and there will be a lot of peace and quiet there.

I wish to write about the conference this morning. Unfortunately I was only able to attend the second and third days. I really enjoyed being part of the conference in which the atmosphere was positive and dynamic. The organization of the conference was amazing – everybody made a real effort to adhere to the timetable and everything went according to plan. During the breaks, the food and coffee were delicious. The program was clear and helpful and there were very few speaker and venue changes.

Wednesday, the second day of the conference, was held at the David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem. When I arrived at the gateway, I was overtaken by an enormous sense of excitement. I studied teaching (in a one year changeover course for BA graduates) here in 1987 or 1988. When I studied here I was a very new immigrant, hardly knowing how to get by in Hebrew, determined on being a homeroom teacher in Israeli primary schools, and not “just an English teacher” (as I thought then. I don’t know how much I understood here in the theory or didactics classes, but I learnt from my relationships with the people and from my wonderful 10 hours a week practical experience in two Jerusalem schools. It was fascinating to remember myself walking down the corridors, to be aware of how the college itself has been transformed and how I, myself, have moved on from being a new immigrant enthusiastic to join the world of education, to being a presenter at an international conference, reporting on my practice as a teacher, teacher educator and researcher. I hadn’t been back to David Yellin since I completed my year there, well over 20 years ago and I was indeed happy to have the opportunity to revisit.

I will write about my own paper in the next post, here I want to record some of the highlights for me.

I think the highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity of hearing some of the ‘big names” in research on education and teacher education, some of the most important figures in qualitative methodologies.

Yesterday I attended a keynote by Professor Jack Whitehead from Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom. Professor Whitehead, whose respected work on Action research I know well, presented in an enthusiastic and extremely clear manner. In my mind, two of the most interesting points in the talk were when Professor Whitehead urged us to be “true to ourselves” and to start using visual media and not just written text in our research. He went on to remind that description is simply not enough. We must be committed to analysis in order to explain the nature of our influence in our professional contexts. We are obliged to make our knowledge public in an explanatory sense well beyond descriptive text.

Professor Whitehead referred to the conference program and remarked that only 2-3 papers contained the word “I” in their title and focus. He expressed his hope that by the next conference, many more participants will present what they themselves are doing to improve their practice.

I will certainly revisit Whitehead’s web site Action.Research.net, a resource I have used before. The speaker used his site to illustrate his point that this kind of research is now acceptable (there are over 34 PhDs supervised by him and shared openly with readers on the site). The honest sharing of knowledge and materials, together with the passion expressed verbally and non-verbally by the speaker, were extremely inspiring.

I attended a fascinating round table chaired by Dr Shoshana Keiny of Ben Gurion University in which a discourse group was presented. This is a large group of teacher educators / researchers, who have been gathering regularly for the past 12 years. There is no set goal for the group or its meetings and it is not chaired or facilitated by any one individual. The group does, however, research its activity and discourse and tries to learn from the interaction among participants and from the way in which participation in the community influences the practice of members, each in his or her own professional field and context. I can’t say that I reached full understanding of the way the group was established or the way it functions, but the idea of collaboration, sharing and just simply “being” together certainly caught my attention. I was reminded of Mary Kooy’s book clubs, but there she had clear goals and an agenda. There is clearly something extraordinary in the group as it has been maintained over such a long period and members drive extremely long distances to participate. Food for thought!

Other highlights for me were hearing Professor Miriam Ben Peretz, Professor Sharon Feiman-Nemser, and of course Professor Michael Connelly (who I will write about later).

I have been working for several days on my paper for the ALEA conference and am constantly feeling that I am going around in circles and not getting anywhere. I usually prepare my papers together with the visuals in the Powerpoint and it usually works well because the division into a progression of slides gives me the structure of my talk. Here it isn’t working, there is no progression as I am jumping backwards and forwards, getting lost in way too may slides.

My problem is now clear to me – I am simply trying to say too much in too many directions. I will have my audience’s attention for 15-20 minutes and I have to make the most of that short time.
What is the most important thing I want to say? What will interest them most?
I imagine that the audience will mainly be made up of teachers and teacher educators. They will probably be more interested in my practice than in my research or in the literature on professional learning. As I have chosen the research strand in the conference, I will need to balance describing the narrative study I am involved in while presenting the professional learning I facilitate.
If this is the case, the heart of this talk should be these lines from my paper abstract:
“Drawing on my narrative inquiry, this paper explores my own efforts to adopt characteristics of relational teacher education and narrative writing with Israeli primary school teachers struggling to enrich the writing of their pupils. Narratives, letters and other authentic texts are presented as I describe my experiences of powerful in-service professional learning, mediated by writing, in supportive learning groups… Suggestions about how writing might be used in school-based and external professional learning and in faculty renewal are offered.”
If I am talking to teachers, I should stress that the activities I do in my courses can be performed collaboratively in schools by groups of teachers. It is important that the positive outcomes of these courses aren’t seen as a one-off event, relevant to one particular context. I believe that the principles on which I have built these courses are relevant for all literacy teachers (all teachers?) whether they are in a formal learning framework or not.
If I am talking to teacher educators, I would like them to examine their own practice through mine. Hearing about my work in Israel may give them new ideas to incorporate in their own environments and may reinforce what they are doing. I would love to develop a dialogue with some of these people. I am interested to hear about similar work and about other ways teachers who are interested in improving their writing pedagogy work. If I am talking to teacher educators, my own role as leader of professional learning should not be omitted, it is definitely central to the dynamics of the course.
I must remember that as I am describing a context far removed from Australia, I will need to spend a good few minutes describing the learning environment in question.
I could start my paper by giving the audience 3 minutes to write down why they chose to come to my session. That would give them a taste of the atmosphere in my sessions; teachers sitting together and being given the opportunity to stop and think on paper. That idea would not work of course if I am placed on the program with other speakers.

As usual, thinking in writing has helped me clear the fog. I’m off to rework my presentation…