AARE SYMPOSIUM

Abstracts | Alphabetical index AARE SYMPOSIUM

(University of Sydney, December, 2000)

Passion and responsibility in qualitative research: a dispassionate reflection and a deliberative reconstruction

PRESENTERS:

Ian Macpherson, Ross Brooker and Tania Aspland

School of Professional Studies (Macpherson and Aspland); School of Human Movement Studies (Brooker)

Queensland University of Technology

DISCUSSANT:

Associate Professor Erica McWilliam

School of Cultural and Language Studies in Education

Queensland University of Technology

Monday, 1:45 - 4 p.m.

NOTE: The material which follows should be considered as a draft. It should not be used in this form without the knowledge and permission of the symposium presenters. A further draft of the paper will be prepared after the symposium. An acknowledgement of those contributing to the small group discussions and of the discussant will appear in this further draft which will be circulated electronically to those symposium participants who wish to remain in contact with us.

A SUGGESTED PLAN FOR THE SYMPOSIUM

A broad overview of the symposium is as follows:

1:45 An introduction to our "position" and to the Discussant (Ian, with Erica - about 10-15 minutes)

2:00 Three brief presentations by Tania, Ross and Ian (15-20 minutes)

2:15 Small Group discussions (until 2:45 when there is a 15 minutes break; and then from 3 until 3:15 approximately, with Ross facilitating)

3:15 A brief reporting from each small group (with Ross chairing)

3:30 A response from the discussant (with Tania chairing)

3:45 A synthesis (led by Tania)

A BRIEF PREAMBLE
This symposium is firstly an invitation, and secondly an opportunity to join us in a reflection of our work and yours in the area of qualitative research. Our reflections were prompted in 1997 by the phrase which John Smith (University of Northern Iowa) used in an AERA symposium on the paradigm wars. He referred to much of what happens in qualitative forms of research as the "hermeneutics of self-indulgence". We want to maintain the passion, but in a responsible way - so this symposium is an opportunity for us to begin a collective discovery of a "credible pathway" for maintaining BOTH passion AND responsibility in qualitative research efforts.

Let's enjoy the pleasure of engaging in and reflecting upon our qualitative research efforts; and at the same time developing a responsible way of advocating for and authenticating our continuing efforts.

A BACKGROUND PAPER FOR THE SYMPOSIUM

An introduction to our "position"

This symposium steps back from the subjective passion often associated with qualitative research efforts; and seeks to provide a more dispassionate reflection of these efforts. Matters of purpose, process and product in qualitative research efforts are discussed with respect to what might be termed research responsibilities within the context of WHAT we know and HOW we know it as we move towards an optimistic future in educational research. This symposium, then, addresses the questions of Both/And and Either/Or with respect to passion and responsibility in qualitative research; and it develops (and advocates for) a position of BOTH passion AND responsibility in qualitative research efforts.

Framing our "Position"

The research responsibilities referred to above are framed as follows:

Disclosures about ontological positions and political agendas underlying the qualitative research effort assist in clarifying and advocating for the PURPOSE of the research.

Discussions about ways of conducting the research which are ontologically consonant, methodologically transparent and ethically defensible articulate a dispassionate reflection of the PROCESS of the research

Deliberations about how to communicate the research experiences and outcomes in ways that are critical and credible on the one hand and compassionate and constructive on the other form the basis for a deliberative reconstruction of the PRODUCT (or outcomes) of the research.

We have theorised our perspectives about passion and responsibility within the framing above and with reference to an ongoing and reflexive consideration of:

our own experience in a range of qualitative research efforts in recent years (much of which has been presented/published at conferences, in book chapters & journal articles, which include, for example, a symposium at AARE in Brisbane in 1997, a paper presentation at AERA in 1999 on action research in local and global contexts, an article in Educational Action Research in 1999 on communicating the outcomes of practitioner research, and an article in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology in 2000 on case study in the contemporary world of research);
a number of sessions at AERA Annual Meetings in recent years (for example a symposium led by Robert Donmoyer on the paradigm wars at Chicago in 1997; a symposium led by D.C. Phillips on interpretation in qualitative research at Chicago in 1997; sessions relating to matters of authenticity, diversity, insider/outsider perspectives and collaboration at San Diego in 1998; sessions on ethics and making interpretations visible at Montreal in 1999; a symposium, again led by Robert Donmoyer on paradigm talk revisited at New Orleans in 2000; a panel discussion led by Claudia Mitchell on the question (relating to transparency) "Is the method the message?" at New Orleans in 2000; a symposium led by Ana M. Martinez Aleman on the implications of mixed method research in Education at New Orleans in 2000; a symposium led by Patti Lather on educational research and advocacy at New Orleans in 2000; and
the growing body of literature on qualitative research (for example, the second edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Denzin and Lincoln (2000).

Investigating our "Position"- a dispassionate reflection

Using brief narrative vignettes, each of us addresses notions of passion and responsibility with reference to three specific qualitative research projects in which we have been involved. Each vignette has two components - a descriptive component and a component which focuses on a dispassionate reflection of purpose, process and product.

It is worth noting before presenting these vignettes that, however hard we might try, nothing can logically be a dispassionate reflection; and it would be totally dishonest of us to characterise our stories and reflections as absolutely dispassionate. Ontologically, that would be an impossibility for us. However, such a position does not relieve us from the responsibility to conduct and report our qualitative research efforts in ways which are transparent in every way (ontologically, methodologically and ethically).

Ian uses his experience in a pilot research project in 1999 and 2000 with teachers, parents and students at three school sites. A university team of researchers invited teachers, parents and students to provide data about their perceptions of their engagement in curriculum decision-making through narrative and conversation; to engage collaboratively through conversation in analysing and interpreting these data at each school site; and to share emerging insights across groups and across sites as a basis for ongoing action. The data from which this vignette is drawn are documented in a research report and in already-presented conference papers (AERA, 1999, 2000).

Descriptive Account

Curriculum leadership for effective teaching and learning is a phenomenon in which people are central. In particular, we see that teachers, parents and students are engaged in curriculum leadership which is about curriculum decision-making to enhance learning experiences and outcomes. If people are central in curriculum leadership, then their lifeworld perspectives about how they see themselves positioned in curriculum decision-making are crucial for how they might be better supported and sustained in having a place and readiness to engage in it. Teachers, parents and students all have a stake in the learning experiences and outcomes; they have particular views (as groups, and as individuals within groups) about how they are placed in the decision-making processes associated with learning; and so we see that an understanding by all three groups of their respective views and of their complementary contributions is a significant basis for working together (collaboratively) in these decision-making processes about learning.

We have found that people are quite passionate about what they have experienced and what they believe should be the foci in learning programs, processes and outcomes; and that there is a significant diversity of opinion across the three groups and (even within groups) as well as from school to school. A way of understanding and mapping such diversity is to think about the factors which impinge upon curriculum decision-making processes within a school site. Discussions about how the school (as a unique site) views education in general and learning in particular, what organisational factors within the school exist to support decision-making processes, what the social dynamics are within and across groups, and what the personal factors are that encourage (or militate against) an involvement in curriculum decision-making contribute to an enhanced understanding about how people engage in curriculum leadership. But however enhanced the understanding might become, it is still coloured by the subjective emotion and passion which constructs people's perspectives!

Reflection

Our underlying ontological position about how people engage in curriculum leadership is most significant in understanding our research purpose. We want to discover how people see the processes of curriculum decision-making from their particular perspectives. Of course, these perspectives will be coloured by emotion and passion as they are informed by personal first-hand experiences! If people are very obviously excluded from processes, for example, there will be feelings of anger, frustration and low self-worth. How can we advocate for a greater degree of recognition of all three groups and moves towards authentic collaboration in curriculum decision-making without communicating such emotion and passion? The emotion and passion alone, however, will not be enough. All research participants have to work together in a critique of the "what is" as a basis for moving towards a viable reconstruction of "what might be". It is process of "critique and reconstruct" which, although, not puristically neutral, provides the balance between "unbridled passion" on the one hand, and intellectual and professional responsibility on the other.

Ross draws from the work completed at a secondary school site with reference to the social construction of a multidisciplinary curriculum in Health and Physical Education. The data were gathered over a twelve month period. Teachers in two school subject departments were interviewed to map their views and their changing views both within and between departments during the implementation process. Field notes were gathered from subject department meetings. Administrative staff were interviewed to ascertain the school context for the introduction of the new curriculum. The data from which this vignette is drawn are part of an almost-completed doctoral study.

Descriptive Account

In the Queensland school context, there had been no change to the official Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum for the compulsory years of schooling (1-10), for a long period of time. For example, the most recent syllabus for years 8-10 was published in 1987. Following the national curriculum initiatives which lead to the development of statements and profiles for 8 key learning areas, a trial health and physical education key learning area (KLA) syllabus was prepared and accepted for trial in the second half of 1997 in a limited number of schools. The KLA syllabus presented a different (from the previous syllabus) conception of HPE in terms of the knowledge base, the emphasis on outcomes, and the focus on the processes of learning. For schools (secondary in particular), the syllabus presented particular challenges in terms of how a syllabus which drew upon a number of traditional subject areas could be implemented into a subject-based structure. For strongly bounded subject departments in secondary schools with well-established staff allegiances, the dilemma has been how to work with other departments on the one hand while protecting subject allegiances on the other. For teachers, the challenge has been to their existing conceptions of HPE and to their pedagogical practices.

One of the significant findings of the year long study confirmed that the compartmentalisation of discipline knowledge into subjects has proved to be a "successful principle" for the organisation of the secondary school curriculum (Goodson, 1992) and that teachers and administrators were committed to the maintenance of existing subject boundaries. Despite the potential of the key learning area syllabus to challenge schools to adopt more innovative curriculum practices, the study has shown that balkanisation remains a dominant feature on the secondary school curriculum landscape (Hargreaves, 1994). Teachers in the study demonstrated a strong commitment to the "well entrenched pedagogical paradigms" (Ball & Bowe, 1992) in their respective subject areas and a reluctance to engage in meaningful dialogue about pedagogic practices based on a more integrated code (Bernstein, 1996).

Reflection

As a researcher reflecting on their conduct in this study, one of the issues that emerges was the valuing of the knowledge held by the participants at the research site (local knowledge) and the positioning of oneself to gain access to that local knowledge. It was a tension between a desire to engage with the project in which the participants were involved (passion) so as to develop their trust and confidence and the responsibility to engage in such a way that respected and valued their knowledge and their knowledge growth processes. The tension was heightened in this study as the researcher was perceived by the participants to have some expertise in relation to the project that was the focus of the study. "I thought Ross knew more about the syllabus and stuff like that... I was looking for him to lead us somewhere and he wasn't doing it and I'm saying what the hell are you doing, and you'd sort of ask him a question and he'd answer you back with a question and you'd go what are you doing." My outworking of this ongoing tension necessarily engaged me in a constant evaluation around the themes of purpose, process and product.

Tania recalls her experience in working with overseas women who were being supervised in their higher degree studies by Australian academics in an Australian University. The data from which this vignette are drawn are documented in a completed doctoral thesis.

Descriptive account

The study was designed to investigate the academic experiences of overseas students with a view to better understand and illuminate the diverse nature of teaching, learning and supervision experienced by a relatively new student cohort enrolled in Australian universities. The purpose of the study was to report on the experiences of one such group. The group was a diverse group of six women students from overseas countries enrolled in doctoral programs in Australian universities. They were all women. Higher education research (Luke and Gore, 1992; Luke, 1994; Aspland and Brooker, 1998) clearly indicates that women as speakers have no authority within universities. My own work in the field (Aspland and O'Donoghue, 1994) suggests further that overseas students lack any proper title (Smith, 1987) to the construction of supervisory relations. Thus, it seemed desirable and highly significant to grasp this chance to examine the confluence of race and gender within the politics of supervision. In so doing I wanted to offer to each of the women, as a speaking subject, the opportunity to more fully investigate the lived experiences of PhD supervision for overseas women. The study focused specifically on the manifestations of how supervisory relations are realised for overseas women. More importantly it highlighted how the gendered, cultural, and political relations of supervision are constructed within supervisory partnerships and under what conditions these are mediated for a specific cohort of women. It became my intent to generate a new discourse that investigated each woman's positioning within the gendered and cultural relations of cross-cultural supervision in some Australian universities.

Reflection

Throughout the study I have explored my own intellectual and emotional positioning as researcher. At the outset I knew in my heart that self-reflective narrative is antithetical to positivist research but this was a concept that I struggled with and felt passionate about throughout the investigation. It was not until the last year of the study that I was able to clearly see my way free of the rationalist research dogma that had been so much a part of my academic history. While it was always my desire to expose and problematise my presence within the study and in relation to the subjects of my inquiry, I did not have the cultural tools, not the emotional certainty to do so until well into the study. My concern as to whether an Angle-Celtic, middle-class, Australian academic such as myself could ethically represent the interests and experiences of a group of women who were historically and culturally positioned differently from me, nagged away at me throughout the investigation. I expressed feelings of frustration and anger but was driven by a passion to reveal in the study that which has remained unspoken for too long. Issues of race, postionality and power were constructs to be foregrounded in the study if authenticity and the politics of representation were to be considered conceptually important, and yet, initially, I did not have the courage or the confidence to do so. I was continually haunted by the images created by feminist writers that questioned my positioning within research of this kind. I was trapped within my own historical and cultural positioning yet I was desperately committed to investigating the cultural politics of cross-cultural supervision and to the women to whom I felt a great obligation.

The three vignettes, then, present three research stories in written form. The reflective components of the three stories (with an emphasis on purpose, process and product) were then used to elicit emerging themes; and to articulate further our "position(s)" about a focus on BOTH passion and AND responsibility (rather than EITHER/OR) in qualitative research efforts. The emerging themes and the position(s) are couched in terms of WHAT we have come to know about qualitative research and HOW we have come to know it. An iterative series of conversations involving the three of us was used to elicit the themes and to articulate our "position(s)" - a position which is by no means final! The evidentiary warrant for this emerging material is found in the several "checking" iterations through which it passed. The emerging themes and positions are to be further scrutinized in this symposium; and it is our hope that in the small group discussions which follow, you will become involved in the research conversation with us. Your ideas, along with ours, are then to be open to comment and critique by our symposium discussant, following which there will be a synthesis of our collective thinking and discussion during the symposium. A further hope that we have, then, is that this synthesis will be a platform for continuing our individual reflections and collective conversations about passion and responsibility in qualitative research.

Some emerging themes as a basis for articulating our "Position' further - a deliberative reconstruction

This section of the paper seeks to bring together our dispassionate reflection and our deliberative reconstruction. The material which follows is at best tentative; yet, it provides a platform for us to proceed to discussion in small groups. Broadly, our position is more aligned with BOTH passion AND responsibility than with EITHER passion OR responsibility.

We propose, then, in striving for a balance between passion and responsibility, that the following deserve our ongoing attention and action:

In terms of PURPOSE,

contextualising the qualitative research effort;

positioning the various people doing it and clarifiying their purpose for engaging in it; and

becoming confident and competent in advocating purpose and position within the relevant context(s) of the qualitative research effort.

In terms of PROCESS,

sensitising the qualitative research effort to matters of ethics, authenticity, accountability and applicability; and

making public and overt the links between matters of purpose and ontological position on the one hand and methodological decisions on the other.

In terms of PRODUCT,

networking critically and iteratively in analysing, communicating and advocating for the outcomes of the qualitative research effort; and

maintaining a sense of ongoingness in qualitative research efforts, so that there is a continuing space for and celebration of both passion and responsibility in our professional work and in our reflections and reconstructions of it.

Small Group Discussions

The matrix which follows provides a basis for nominal small groups to take our emerging position(s) and themes and to consider them in terms of what resonates (or does not resonate) with their qualitative research experiences).

EACH SMALL GROUP WILL HAVE A COPY OF THE FOLLOWING TWO PAGES AS OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCIES SO THAT THEY CAN RECORD THEIR DISCUSSION FOR REPORTING TO THE WHOLE SYMPOSIUM GROUP

*Our emerging position(s) and themes*	What resonates (or does not resonate) with your experiences?	Your suggestions in terms of affirming, qualifying, elaborating our emerging position(s) and themes
Emerging Position(s) We argue for BOTH passion and RESPONSIBILITY in qualitative research efforts; and maintain that a balance may be achieved by paying attention to matters of PURPOSE, PROCESS and PRODUCT (See page 2)
Emerging Themes In terms of PURPOSE, contextualising the qualitative research effort; positioning the various people doing it and clarifiying their purpose for engaging in it; becoming confident and competent in advocating purpose and position within the relevant context(s). In terms of PROCESS, sensitising the qualitative research effort to matters of ethics, authenticity, accountability and applicability; publicizing the link between matters of purpose and ontological position on the one hand and methodological decisions on the other. In terms of PRODUCT, networking critically and iteratively in analysing, communicating and advocating for the outcomes of the qualitative research effort; maintaining a sense of ongoingness in research efforts, so that there is a continuing space for and celebration of both passion and responsibility in our professional work and in our reflections and reconstructions of it.

Your summary of feedback from the small group discussions

Your summary of the Discussant's Comments

Your summary of Tania's Synthesis

So why have we done this Symposium?

The significance of this symposium in the fact that the three of us have spent a considerable amount of time not only engaging in qualitative research efforts; but also reflecting upon our research practice as a basis for theorising our methodological position regarding qualitative research. The public sharing of both our engagement in, and reflection upon qualitative research efforts is a further step in our iterative series of conversations among ourselves and with colleagues in forums such as this symposium - a step which demonstrates a willingness, on our part, to share the WHAT and HOW of our emergent knowledge about qualitative research. It is the story of our struggle to balance BOTH passion AND responsibility in thinking about and doing qualitative research in academic and professional environments where vestiges of suspicion about, if not antagonism to qualitative research, remain clearly evident.

The symposium is not so much a "call to arms" to maintain the paradigm wars; as it is an opportunity for us as a community of qualitative researchers to celebrate the centrality of balancing passion and responsibility in discovering a credible pathway for our qualitative research efforts. We hope that the symposium will now become the beginning of an enlarged and ongoing conversation.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR BUSINESS CARD WITH CONTACT DETAILS IF YOU WISH TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS ONGOING CONVERSATION

REFERENCES

A list of references will be provided in a further draft of this paper which will be circulated electronically to those symposium participants who wish to remain in contact with us.