I am almost through reading William Foote Whyte's "Street Corner Society."
I was very impressed by the idea of a young man being motivated to take on a project like this. I sense his real desire to find a way to improve conditions, but on the terms that made sense for his co-researchers/participants rather than based on someone else's ideas of a 'good way to live.' By the way, this is the first on a list of classic works in social science that I plan to work my way through. Despite the age of this work (the observations took place mostly in the late 1930s), I was struck by the insight in some of his observations about group dynamics, among other things. I know that I am working backward in a way, but I would like to become more grounded in social science. This is in many ways what I would describe as ethnography. I am left with what may be a long lasting distrust of big city police. I have to wonder (and confess that I do now know my law enforcement history at all) if at some point after the activities in this book if the police force of Eastern City (Boston) was completely revamped to weed out the corruption. Hard to imagine - the scenarios Whyte described read as too possible; too true to life to me, even now in 2013. I was also struck by some comments in a later article that Whyte wrote - you can view the newest animation on page 3 of QNG to get a little sense of that information.
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We could stretch our legs if we had half a mind, but don't disturb us if you hear us trying to instigate the structure of another line or two Cause writing's lighting up and I like life enough to see if through from "Writing" by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, 1975 Big Pig Music Writing - tedious (mostly) difficult (often) enjoyable (seldom) rewarding (temporarily, when something is finally finished)
For me the time consuming part is often the 'mulling over,' hours and hours and days of half thinking about something, so it is just at the edge of my mind, ready to emerge when I sense a reminder and jot down a note on whatever I can find (these moments happen with too much regularity while I am driving a car, which I do not do very often). I actually by that time often do not even need to make the note; the thought has already been absorbed by and incorporated into the idea-as-a-whole. Sort of like the game blob tag, if you know what that is. When I discovered or rather, was introduced to the process of qualitative memo writing, I found it immediately identifiable and comfortable. These thoughts often come far before the project/paper/findings have any structure, so there is no 'whole' yet to hold them. In fact, the memos seem to conspire to form the initial bits of the whole, such that it is at that early point. The lyrics above are from "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy," the album that, if not actually, then symbolically marked the end of The Elton John Band, and those days of glam and glitter and high high heels (think of the Pinball Wizard shoes from Tommy) - Elton's music, for me, was never the same after that album (for a lot of people, unfortunately, I think the glitter was beginning to sparkle less even before that although "Someone saved my life tonight" was a huge hit). If I learned anything from following music and musicians during my earlier years, it was 'reinvent or die.' And the fans often dislike the reinvented image, but if they don't like one, they might like the next. It worked for Bowie for years (still does, I would say) but Elton John instead ended up working with various (not as special) lyricists and having hits that just seemed to lack the heart and honesty of the early to mid period John/Taupin works (although eventually he seemed to do very well scoring Disney films). But the point of this is that after weeks of mulling, something I wanted to (actually need to) write just started pouring out. It still needs/will need a lot of work and I ache a little imagining the fine-tuning-word-by-word that needs to follow. But it is a start, and a direction, in a place where I fumbled and fizzled and didmore than a couple of times I have been trying to learn how to navigate a project in Dedoose; here is a short video that shows some of the basics of coding. If you do not want to bother to watch this (I completely understand!) and have used other CAQDAS, let me make it simple: to code as you go, highlight and hit the space bar for the 'quick code' dialog box. If this is how you work - with minimal instructions - you can probably work out the other details you need by hovering over some of the icons. You may need to look at the Quick Start part of the manual to figure out how to make a project and import data: http://wiki.dedoose.com/index.php/Main_Page I am writing a proposal for a case study project for a class I am currently taking. This project will assess students' experiences learning to conduct qualitative inquiry through use of arts-based techniques. The students will be conducting research although this research is not about their research but rather their impressions of doing research.
I puzzled a lot through the analysis for a (multiple) case study. There will be two cases- students who do and students who do not use arts-based techniques in their own research. There will be multiple types of data collected: interview/focus groups, online discussion data (maybe), the arts themselves, students' research journals. I finally drew a picture that I hope helps me understand the analysis: This is the participant or co-researcher monster that will represent issues relating to recruitment of individuals for my dissertation research. I decided that the multiple arms might symbolize multiple participants who are all connected to the project. This component is going well. Thanks to the quick and helpful cooperation of the university HR department, I now have a list of contact information for individuals who meet my recruitment criteria. My first step will be to survey these individuals to get some information about time/day preferences for the intervention part of my planned research. Whether or not individuals will be interested is another matter, but this is a major first step. Happy, happy monster! This was the title of a solicitation I saw earlier today. Seems like despite the fact that the style guides I have (APA; AMA) specify that participant is preferred to subject, I still see (and hear) subjects on a regular basis. However, the IRB applications I have seen refer to 'human subjects research'. Maybe that is why this term continues to be used so often. Still, I cringe every time I read or see it. After all, I realize that co-researcher is not likely to catch on for use other than by some qualitative researchers, but I do not understand why so many people have so much difficulty with the term participants. It also seems a little more welcoming, not to mention respectful. What do you think? Would you be more involved to volunteer to be a research subject or a research participant? Better yet, how about co-researcher? I recently re-read the Levin and Greenwood chapter in the Sage handbook of qualitative research ( 4th ed., 2011, Ed by Denzin & Lincoln). The newest QNG animation touches on some of the issues. Note that QNG is now onto the 3rd page.
Levin and Greenwood came to my mind again during a recent discussion with a person in a faculty position about the subject of service learning. I sense that in some universities, there are few opportunities for undergrads to get out of the classrooms. I also sense a great deal of disconnect between how undergrads view and understand 'research' and the actual aims of or reasons for various types of inquiry. (At least the aims as I interpret and understand them.) I like the idea of the type of action research that Levin and Greenwood discussed for the reasons they suggest. I an attracted to idea of having a sense of connection between universities and communities. In some communities, the educational institutions (universities, community colleges, K -12 facilities) have the best resources not just for education but also for information as well as for recreation. Some of these resources are very underutilized and sometimes people in communities are lacking in just the type of services that educational facilities could provide. I also think that the research process - the process of exploration and inquiry - will make a lot more sense and be more inspiring to students when presented in context. On the other hand, if students in social sciences are only shown research that can be done without actually going outside (maybe without even leaving one's office), it may be that that students who find unsociable social research appealing are not the best students to recruit into graduate programs that train them to research and train others. I am reading an older edition of Yin ("Case study research design and methods, 2nd ed.", Sage) and Stake's "The art of case study research" (1995; Sage) for the research proposal for my qualitative research design class.
There are similarities and differences in the approaches. I hope to eventually get a newer edition of the Yin book (5th just came out so there are used copies of the 4th around) to see if there are substantive changes. The forward to the edition of Yin I have was written by the late Donald T. Campbell, although it dates from Campbell's more 'qualitative friendly' period (see my prior post about Campbell from earlier this year). Based on this edition, Yin's approach to design is a little more of a theory testing/hypothetico-deductive approach than Stake whereas Stake seems to be a little more flexible in the design but prescribes a fairly specific analysis method (for multiple case studies at least, in his 2006 book) that seems to place a good deal of emphasis on use of frequency to identify (and even order) salient findings. But, I like how Stake (1995) described qualitative researchers as: "existential (nondeterminist) and constructivist" (p. 43). I had not seen existential set up in contrast with determinism before although I have minimal exposure to the literature on either. On subjectivity, Stake noted: "Often, the researcher's aim is not veridical representation so much as stimulation of further reflection, optimizing readers' opportunity to learn" (p. 42). This makes me think again about Eco's model reader. Who is is that qualitative researchers are writing for? (Who is any researcher writing for?) People usually use purpose statements in reports of research but those can tend to be generic (it is probably sometimes the case that purpose statement was written for the editor or some anonymous reviewer and not the researcher's idea of the actual model reader of the work.) Or, is the editor/reviewer the model reader that most academic authors have in mind? If I think of a paper as a discussion, who do I imagine myself speaking with? Another nice thing from this same section of Stake (1995) is his quotation of Erickson that suggests that qualitative research may result in assertions rather than findings. This obviously influenced Stake because in his later book on multiple case studies, he uses the term assertions in the context of analysis. I am reading Umberto Eco's "Six walks in the fictional woods" (1994, Harvard University) based on a series of lectures. In the first lecture, Eco brings up a lot of interesting thoughts about 'model readers' and 'model authors.' The 'model reader' seems to be the general reader things are written for. I know that whenever I write a paper, a blog post, or anything that is not a personal communication, there is something in my mind that tells me what kind of 'voice' to use. For a paper, that is not so difficult, but for something like a blog - what type of 'model reader' am I directing things to? I have chosen this 'monster' to represent problems with my dissertation committee. If you saw the earlier post, you may know that I have 7 'monsters,' each of which will represent a type of challenge I face over the course of my dissertation. I hope that I do not end up with 7 different types of challenge!
I have chosen the many-eyed creature above to represent committee issues - since all of those folks need to read this document (and, for the most part, have already read the proposal). Click on the 'read more' link to see the history (so far) of my committee: |
AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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