Qualitative inquiry

Critical duoethnography, as a research methodology, can be used in innovative ways to assist educational researchers engaged in social justice research projects. This chapter offers four responses to the question of how critical duoethnography, as a form of qualitative inquiry, can be used by educational researchers to further social justice initiatives. First, critical duoethnography will be described as a tool for reflexivity; second, as an engaged form of collaborative reading and deciphering; third, as an interactive feminist approach to interviewing; and fourth, as a research methods pedagogy.

"By inviting educators from diverse backgrounds to participate in creative conversations I had hoped to reflect on experiences that had helped construct our theories of environmental education, and inform practice. I sought consistency across the espoused ethics of co-participants, namely critical perspectives grounded in environmental justice. However, this quest was interrupted by a growing awareness of the interference of power dynamics between myself and the other participants, and of my own commitment to respect the stories being told. This narrative describes my “dance” of meaning making.
The community dance examining privilege, identity and meaning is a study of how I may be contributing to the same oppressive situations I passionately strive to work against. Concepts of knowledge, power, and identity ebbed and flowed within stories drawn from the mountains of Tanzania to the hills of Colombia, and from the frozen shores of Kirkland Lake to the trout filled streams of Karman, Iran. Making meaning is itself an act of power and privilege, so I danced to make room for multiple understandings of these stories, of environmental education, and of research. This work offers an experience of disruption that raises questions and broadens the inclusion of people, ideas and other life into “accepted” research and pedagogical practices.
Conventions embedded within research and education were disrupted throughout this reflexive process. As the author of this text, I was uncomfortable with the role of being the dominant voice, and consciously chose not to impose my interpretation on the stories shared by co-participants. The struggle to resist the very privilege in which my own education practice and this research process are so deeply steeped revealed normative forces that often threaten to undermine attempts by educators and researchers to act according to critical theories and environmental justice ethics. To accept the invitation to dance with the text is to step into the rhythmic intricacies of a collaborative process of reflexion. Circling hand-in-hand and giving weight to fellow dancers’ movements shifts individuals from being carriers of truths to being community members sharing in the collaborative process of dancing the world into existence."

Planning for a Baby:  https://youtu.be/2iwLh6XCnq8

Pregnancy with IBD: https://youtu.be/br0kciD8xJk

Motherhood with IBD: https://youtu.be/TQjt8pnMv4I


Our aim is to provide an understanding of the experience of women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who have made the transition to motherhood. A total of 22 mothers with IBD were recruited from around the United Kingdom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. The central concept—Blurred Lines—offers a novel frame for understanding the transition to motherhood with IBD through identifying parallels between having IBD and becoming, and being, a mother. Parallels clustered into three main themes: Need for Readiness, Lifestyle Changes, and Monitoring Personal and Physical Development. Hence, women with IBD are in some ways well prepared for the challenges of motherhood even though, as a group, they tend to restrict their reproductive choices. We recommend health professionals initiate conversations about reproduction early and provide a multidisciplinary approach to pregnancy and IBD in which women have confidence that their ongoing treatment will be integrated successfully with their maternity care.

"My inquiry will focus on an attempt to locate an ethos of music education. Because I acknowledge that the ethos of a society must logically precede a study of ethics (Ryan, 1972, p. 291, Miller, 1974, p. 309), and given the dramatic changes over the past 30 years in the ways that we create, record, store, access, and perform music, much of my exploration will be positioned in an examination of music and new digital media in the 21st century and how it is used by countless adolescents. Thus, in the development of my line of rhetoric I will (1) begin with basic Aristotelian (1984, 1999) notions of art making, artistic activity, and ethos, (2) discuss the relationship between téchne and technology, and (3) téchne and logo, (4) briefly describe the phenomenon of music making in the digitally enriched 21st century, (5) attempt to discover an ethos of music and music education in the 21st century, and (6) based on the possible discovery of an ethos, determine the ethical outcomes regarding curriculum and pedagogy in music education.

I argue that that the profession has not been responsible in the ways that we have constructed an ethos—any notion of ethos—over the past 80 years, in music education textbooks, music curricula, research, and position documents, and in the ways that we (re)present reasons for why music belongs in the schools. Our profession seems to be grasping at straws in our advocacy for ‘justification’ and ‘academic positioning,’ while we may merely need to identify the individuals and communities of people whose lives have been changed by their experiences with music and enlist them to help us (re)define and refine our role not only in education but in society. At best, we may have an ethos that is antiquated and not related to 21st century youth, and most catastrophically, no sensibility regarding the music identity of the majority of youth in digitally enabled nations. It seems that we possess no center, no unified voice, no sense of music of the 21st century, and no sense of “knowing our market” (see Rideout et al, 2010). We need to (re)elaborate what is perceived as ‘music activity,’ in and out of schools and in structured and unstructured learning situations (Gouzouasis & Bakan, 2011). Moreover, we are not speaking to the very people who can understand the need for music education in the schools—the youth of today, who will become the creators and consumers of music and policy makers of tomorrow. Thus, this paper questions how we can create an ethos of music education for our profession without including the individuals who are being ‘educated’ by our notions of music education—our youth themselves.
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The article introduces discourse analysis as a fruitful approach to psychotherapy change-process research. Extracts are presented from a successfully resolved, client-specified, problematic theme that was selected from a successful 8-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The study offers a heuristic demonstrating (a) how resolution of the client's problem evolved from implications raised by the client's own description of her predicament and involved the therapist's legitimation of a morally defensible account of the client's actions and (b) how cultural meanings can be brought into the consulting room as intimately personal problems. The implications of studying therapeutic change as a discursive activity comprising the use and negotiation of sociocultural meanings are discussed.

In chapter 10, Linday Finlay writes with Anna Madill , to describe and explain some different ways to analyse data. Four contrasting types of analysis are outlined with practical exemplars: narrative, thematic, discursive and creative. Each type of analysis highlights different aspects and so enables different insights. As such, qualitative analysis is always tentative, partial and emergent....

An Inquiry-Based Mathematics Activities Module (IBMAM) consisting of integrated and child-centered activities was developed. IBMAM provides preschoolers 60-72 months of age with the opportunity to develop mathematical and inquiry skills and use them actively to construct their own learning. The present study aims to investigate the effects of IBMAM on preschoolers. Teachers' and parents' views were obtained, and long-term observations (16 weeks) were performed. Phenomenology, which is a qualitative research design, was used in this study. The study sample consisted of a preschool teacher of a kindergarten (Sincan, Ankara) and her children's parents in the academic year of 2016-2017. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teacher to assess the post-IBMAM process, changes in their views of math and math education, the effects of IBMAM on preschoolers' math skills and changes in the classroom. Preschoolers' parents' were also interviewed to evaluate changes in preschoolers at home. To support the results of the interviews, unattended and structured classroom observation was conducted twice a week for four months on certain dates. Instant field notes were taken during each observation, which was also videotaped. Data were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results showed that IBMAM contributed to all areas of development by providing a fun and educational setting that increased preschoolers' motivation. In the observations, it was understood that the applied module gave preschool children different perspectives, encouraged active participation, enabled learning to continue, and help enabled preschool children to use their scientific process skills more frequently. Moreover, parents noticed positive changes in their children, and therefore, were optimistic about the future.

In his later works, John Dewey questioned some of the traditional assumptions about the nature and function of the qualitative in inquiry. Dewey foresaw what recent scientific accounts of human thinking are confirming: it is more complex, less linear, more emotional, affective, bodily-based, non-reflective, non-linguistic, non-conscious than philosophers have assumed. Commentators on Dewey have emphasized how inquiry is social, instrumental, and experimental, but for the most part have neglected the qualitative dimension of inquiry. The first section of this essay outlines the different forms that the neglect of the qualitative has taken in Dewey scholarship. The second addresses what Dewey means by the qualitative. The third presents nine specific functions the qualitative has on thinking (inquiry). The essay concludes in the fourth section with some implications of the view presented on the norma-tive dimension of Dewey's philosophy, and suggests which promising future inquiries remain open regarding the function of the qualitative in inquiry.

Although this is a simple message, the time for community and kindness is now. Competing with other inquirers can yield individual rewards, but such moves risk sacrificing our collective futures for both immediate and rapidly diminishing gains. A commitment to inclusive and welcoming qualitative communities, however, opens different paths. As such, this conceptual article suggests that collaboration and cooperation are not simply collegial matters: they are necessary in these troubled times. Differences over whose approaches are “right,” “best,” or “most appropriate” can be not only unproductive but also counterproductive in sustaining futures that include us all. When threats to democratic inquiry seek to divide us, there is no need to divide ourselves and forgo the joyful work that can be found in qualitative inquiry.

Therapy can be confusing: two people converse in a private room, one in distress, the other described as a helpful expert. At least one of the two is likely to express thoughts and feelings usually kept secret. In other circumstances, the exchange of such intimacies may herald a more physical relationship. For therapists, however, the professional relationship explicitly precludes such contact. The BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy,1 for example, requires that practitioners must not abuse their client’s trust in order to gain sexual, emotional, financial, or any other kind of personal advantage. Sexual relations with clients are prohibited, along with sexualised behaviour.

While psychotherapists and counsellors generally acknowledge that sexual attraction is a common and often ordinary human response to another, they also recognise that acting on such feelings in therapy will quickly become problematic. The early psychoanalytic community had to confront and respond to such instances as Jung’s relationship with Sabina Spielrein.2 Rosie Alexander’s3 description of the times she sat on her therapist’s knee and felt his erection, elicits a mixture of emotions in the reader, not least shock, and the narrative is saturated with a sense of betrayal.

There have been several types of research investigating boundary breaches and sexual boundary violations.4 In spite of these, however, there is little certainty about how common sexual boundary violations are, as the sources of information about them (confession, client reporting, complaints to organisations, and knowledge of colleagues’ conduct) are all vulnerable to error. Further studies have attempted to identify characteristics of transgressing therapists and the factors that contribute to such events (see Moggi et al5 for an example), and to understand the effects on clients who have experienced therapist-client sex.6 If sexual feelings are ubiquitous and sexual attraction a real possibility in the context of the therapy relationship, how are these managed in therapy? Complaints about sexual boundary violations form a small proportion of complaints about therapists and health professionals.4, 7, 8 Is it the prospect of opprobrium from colleagues or the threat of sanctions from regulatory agencies that contains the relationship within professional boundaries? Do reported violations represent only a small proportion of actual sexual boundary violations? .......

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.

When doing research on topics that are sensitive and involve core dimensions of the researcher’s identities and subjectivities, the process of inquiry is likely to generate significant emotions, attachments, and reactions that transgress traditional forms of data and research positions. If embraced and addressed, the researcher’s emotional reactions can be an important source of reflexivity and data as well as creativity, motivation, and engagement. This relational aspect of the research parallels psychotherapists’ experience of reacting to their clients’ concerns and narrations. This process—called countertransference (CT)—may leave the researcher open to vulnerability and the need to account for the necessary presence of personal biographies and identities in qualitative inquiry. From my research with refugees, I provide examples of my CT reactions and interpretations and the ways in which they became crucial assets to the study.

As the use of qualitative inquiry increases within the field of social work, researchers must consider the issue of establishing rigor in qualitative research. This article presents research procedures used in a study of autoethnographies that were written regarding the experience of being Jewish. In this project, the researchers utilized reflexivity, audit trail, triangulation by observer, peer debriefing, member check and prolonged engagement in order to manage the threats to trustworthiness as discussed by Padgett (1998). Implications of the project suggest that research procedures utilized by qualitative researchers to establish rigor are an important way to increase our confidence that the voice of the participants is heard, therefore fitting the mission of the social work profession.

This book offers an account of contemplative reflection in qualitative social research. Focusing on the experiences of the researcher-including sensory and emotional experiences-and the work of the mind in the investigative process, it considers the means by which the researcher's basic assumptions can be analyzed and bracketed, so as to shed light on the process by which knowledge is produced. Through an exploration of the methods of meditation, auto-observation and self-reports, epoché, "contemplative memoing," and the contemplative diary, the author explores the essential role of subjectivity in qualitative research, providing inspiration for more mindful research. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and geography with interests in phenomenology, research methods, and the role of the mind in the research process.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

In this text we respond and elaborate on the four comments addressing our original article. In that piece we define qualitative research as an "iterative process in which improved understanding to the scientific community is achieved by making new significant distinctions resulting from getting closer to the phenomenon studied." In light of the comments, we identify three positions in relation to our contribution: (1) to not define qualitative research; (2) to work with one definition for each study or approach of "qualitative research" which is predominantly left implicit; (3) to systematically define qualitative research. This article elaborates on these positions and argues that a definition is a point of departure for researchers, including those reflecting on, or researching, the fields of qualitative and quantitative research. The proposed definition can be used both as a standard of evaluation as well as a catalyst for discussions on how to evaluate and innovate different styles of work.

In this article, the author discusses friendship as a method of qualitative inquiry. After
defining friendship and positing it as a kind of fieldwork, the methodological foundations
of friendship as method are established. Next, it is proposed that friendship as method
involves researching with the practices, at the pace, in the natural contexts, and with an
ethic of friendship. Finally, the author describes this method’s strengths and considerations for both researcher and participants.

Menurut Massialas dan Cox inquiry sosial merupakan pendekatan yang bisa digunakan untuk pendidikan ilmu-ilmu sosial. Perhatian mereka tertuju pada perbaikan terhadap masyarakat dengan memberikan solusi terhadap masalah-masalah sosial. Pandangan mereka dilatar belakangi oleh kondisi umum dari budaya mereka, yang paling penting adalah tujuan utama dari pendidikan adalah perenungan tentang nilai-nilai dan isu-isu yang sedang berkembang saat ini.