thesisthoughts

One of the books GP introduced me to while I was in Melbourne was:

Private readings in public : schooling the literary imagination by Dennis Sumara.

I want to start with some short quotes in which Sumara describes the research process. I found this first chapter of the book very reassuring – I will attempt to explore the reasons why.

“This is also what it means to include research into one’s life. Like the reading of literary fictions, inquiry into lived experiences means deciding that the research will not simply be reduced to a series of “data gathering” tasks. Rather, it means that the researcher will dedicate her or his life to “learning to see” differently… the researcher must live a life that allows for this shift in perception, a life that includes a particular “focal practice”… (p. 9).

I believe that my decision to continue on with my study journey, beyond my Masters degree is strongly connected to this change in focus described by Sumara. I have honestly begun to learn to see the world in general and my work as an educator, in particular, differently.  I admit that this learning will probably be life long and that reflection and inquiry  will  be be developed slowly over time. I feel that every professional conversation, every text read and every new project which arises is somehow new material to be explored.

“During the course of my investigations into the schooling of shared reading there were many times when I felt a bit lost, unsure, confused and wished for the “good old” pre-determined research plan. In retrospect, I am pleased that I chose to put up with the ambiguity of it all, for although many deliberate decicisions were made that changed the course of the research path, as many unanticipated things occured that dramatically altered the course of my own understanding” (p. 11-12).

Each time I read another researcher openly admitting to the insecurities encounted on the road to success, I am relieved and grateful for their honesty. I imagine that my path will be crowded with questions, problems, dilemmas, dissatisfaction and doubt. The more I am convinced that this is natural and normal, the easier it will be to cope.

When I finished my Masters thesis and reflected on the process, I, like Sumara, was “pleased that I chose to put up with the ambiguity of it all”. I would never have reached my goal without it. Even now, I have no idea how the parts of the puzzle fit together, it certainly wasn’t planned ahead.

“I describe my inquiries as “post modern” because I am not claiming (or aiming) to present a unified, fixed or complete theory of reading or of shared reading in schools. I acknowledge that my inquiries evolved from a particular set of historical, cultural, and political situations that shaped not only my research method but my interpretations of the data that was gathered and the life that I lived around those inquiries and interpretations” (p. 12).

This quotation is brilliant and it seems I should read it aloud to myself at each intersection in my work. One of my goals is to look at how my interpretations are developing and how my life experience and my particular cultural context are influencing my work.

“There is a deep understanding that there is no word, no phrase, no theory, no narrative, that can ever capture the fullness of human thought and experience” (p. 14).

Another sentence that should be hung up above the desk. Experience and narrative are not the same thing. I should be exploring the relationship between them more.

Lather wrote this article in an attempt to understand the US government push for “evidence-based” scientific research in education. In this move, “the reductionisms of positivism, empiricism, and objectivism are assumed” (p. 16).

The author sees the return to the mandate of scientific research to be a reaction to the growth of alternative research methods and their use by women and political and cultural minorities.

Lather  explains that this is not the first time that scientific method as a solitary research path has been critiqued. She admits that she believed that there was a chance for policy to be shaped by non-traditional research.

Addressing this restricting connection between government policy and scientific research , Cochran-Smith (2002) wrote that in order to be financially supported “educational research must be evaluated “using experimental or quasi-experimental designs… with a preference for random-assignment experiments (Cochran-Smith , 2002, as cited in Lather, 2004, p. 18).

Lather reminds us that “The shift to qualitative methods in the 1970s was related to the difficulties of measuring what is educationally significant and th limits of causal models given the preponderance of interaction effects” (p. 20).

Which organizations are running after research money?

Which studies are encouraged and for what purposes?

Who pays for research grants and why?

Lather calls for educational researchers to refrain from following the natural sciences. She encourages researchers to ask complex questions, those that do not have single dimensional answers and in doing so, to “foster understanding, reflection, and action instead of a narrow translation of research into practice” (p. 23).

Lather sets out to disrupt the dominance of the white, male, academic voice in the production of educational knowledge.

Lather argues that although non-traditional research cannot be judged on “objectivity and systematicity” (p. 24), it is no less capable of valid knowledge production.

Lather optimistically remarks that “A rich production of counter-narratives is alive and kicking” (p. 26).

I believe I am part of this movement, making an effort to make other, more diverse voices heard in the production of educational knowledge.

Lather explains “… there is virtually no agreement … as to what constitutes science except, increasingly, the view that science is, like all human endeavor, a cultural practice and practice of culture” (p. 28).

Lather, P. (2004). This IS your father’s paradigm: Government intrusion and the case of qualitative research in education. Qualitative Inquiry,10(1), 15-34. doi:10:10.1177/1077800403256154