We will be using this text as a methodological guide in the design and conduct of an interview in this first Block. Required.
This is an excellent presentation of the view that an interview must be considered a dialogue about a topic and not a question-answer sequence where information is obtained. Mishler discusses the issues of the changes that transcribing an interview introduces, and he raises the question of how an interview, understood this way, must be analyzed In this book he doesn't really answer his own question, but he reviews several interesting alternatives. Recommended.
Gordon, R. (1980). Interviewing strategy, techniques and tactics. New York: Dorsey.
This book is the basis for the "Outline of Interview Strategies, Techniques and Tactics" in the coursepack. You may wish to refer to it for more detailed information. Resource.
Popkewitz, T. S. (1984). Paradigms in educational science: Different meanings and purpose of theory. Ch 2. in Paradigm and ideology in educational research: The social functions of the intellectual. London: Falmer Press.
Thomas Popkewitz reflects on the "particular way of thinking and reasoning about social science" that emphasizes a detachment from matters of value, assumes the social world is a system of empirical variables, and seeks explanation by way of formal laws and propositions. This way has been dominant in the English-speaking world for about a half century. But Popkewitz points out it is just one of three traditions of thinking about the social world; one of three "paradigms." Along with this "empirical-analytic" paradigm we should consider those of "symbolic or linguistic inquiry," and "critical inquiry."Popkewitz first explains what he means by a paradigm, and then summarizes the assumptions that define each of the three ways of thinking about the social world, and the proper manner of investigating it. The interpretive research we will be doing in this course is located in what Popkewitz calls the "symbolic sciences." In fact the first example Popkewitz picks of a kind of analysis that recognizes that the social world is "created and sustained through symbolic interactions and patterns of conduct" is the work of Hugh (Bud) Mehan, who we shall meet again in Block 2. Reading this chapter will introduce you to a framework very similar to the one organizing this course. Required.
Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986). The natural scientific view of educational theory and practice. Ch. 2 in Becoming critical: Education, knowledge and action research. London: Falmer Press.
Like Popkewitz, this chapter addresses the empirical-analytic or "positivist" approach to educational research, tracing it back to Comte, J. S. Mill, and Thomas Nagel and Carl Hempel. It provides a brief summary of the history whereby educational research came to be almost entirely research of this kind. And it introduces the challenge presented to the positivist model of science by Thomas Kuhn's highly influential 1970 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (It is from Kuhn of course that the term paradigm has been handed along.)
Read this chapter if you want to become a little clearer about empirical-analytic research, which is the approach you will be taught in most of your other methods classes here at the School of Education. Recommended.Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. (1986). The interpretive view of educational theory and practice. Ch. 3 in Becoming critical: Education, knowledge and action research. London: Falmer Press.
This chapter will give you a brief overview of the "interpretive view of educational research," the second of Popkewitz's three paradigms. Carr & Kemmis trace the recent roots of interpretive inquiry in education to the social phenomenological work of Alfred Schutz, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (authors of the influential The social construction of reality) and "ethnomethodologist" Aaron Cicourel. Each of these writers emphasized the importance of studying how people define the world in which they find themselves.
Interpretation also has connections with a long tradition of biblical exegesis, with the "linguistic turn" in analytical philosophy since the work of Austrian eccentric Ludwig Wittgenstein (popularized by Peter Winch), and the 'verstehen' sociology of Max Weber and Wilhelm Dilthey. The interpretation of action must make reference to the interpretations of the actor, their motives and intentions, and the social context of rules and "forms of life" in which the action is located.
Where empirical-analytic inquiry is directed towards instrumental ends of prediction and technical control, interpretive inquiry, argue Carr & Kemmis, can foster communication and change the way people understand themselves and their situation. In a real sense, then, interpretive inquiry "aims to educate: to deepen insight and to enliven commitment" (p. 93). Required.
Bruner, J. (1986). Two modes of thought. Ch. 2 in Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.
Jerome Bruner has played a role in many of the dramas of academic psychology. A card-carrying founding member of the cognitive revolution, an attempt to bring mind and consciousness back into a psychology made barren by behaviorism, Bruner has since written (in Acts of meaning) of the subversion of the original impetus to see the search for meaning as central to human activity by notions of computation, information processing, and by the computational notion that the syntax of a language could be seperated from its semantics. Here Bruner explores the notion that "logical thought is not the only or even the most ubiquitous mode of thought." An alternative mode of thinking involves "the constructing not of logical or inductive arguments but of stories or narratives." (I quote from "Life as narrative," a 1984 article.) Please read this chapter as preparation for our analysis of interview transcripts. Required.
Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., Janik, A. (1974). Introduction to An introduction to reasoning. New York: Macmillan.
Stephen Toulmin has written consistently fascinating philosophical analyses for years, ranging from The place of reason in ethics (1950) to Cosmopolis (1991). Well worth exploring! In The uses of argument (1958) he argued that academics have taken syllogistic logic (Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Socrates is mortal) far too seriously as a model for human reasoning. In its place Toulmin proposes a model of reasoning based on law: jurisprudence. (The syllogism turns out to be a special case.) This short chapter is taken from his less technical book on the topic, and here he lays out the vocabulary and pattern of analysis "for identifying and describing the strengths and weakness of arguments." You'll need to be familiar with this in order to engage in the second kind of analysis we shall be applying to interview transcripts: argument analysis. Required.
Carter, C. (1993). The place of story in the study of teaching and teacher education. Educational Researcher, 22, 5-12, 18.
This article is a recent publication in Educational Researcher, included here as an example of current educational research on narrative. Recommended.
Ochs, E. (1979). Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs & B. B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 43-72). New York: Academic Press.
Elinor Ochs is a cultural anthropologist who has worked with Dell Hymes and Irvin Goffman. Here she suggests that the process of transcription needs to be "foregrounded," because "transcription is a selective process reflecting theoretical goals and definitions" (p. 44). Such issues as page layout, placement of verbal and non-verbal behavior, and choice of transcription conventions reflect theoretical issues such as the identity of the unit of analysis: is it the sentence, the utterance, the propositional unit, or the conversational unit? Ochs own work has been in the area of child development and especially child language. But many of the same issues must be faced in educational research and in the analysis of adults' interviews and interactions. Required.
Richardson-Koehler, V. (1987). Editor's statement for Special Section: Qualitative methodology. AERJ, 24(2), 171.
A nugget of history. In its summer 1987 issue AERJ (the American Educational Research Journal, the premier organ of the American Educational Research Association - AERA) published a "special section" on qualitative research in education. Virginia Richardson-Koehler, the journal editor, wrote this statement explaining the move to "broaden the methodological and disciplinary ranges of the published articles" in AERJ, which had for a long time accepted only reports of empirical-analytic research. Richardson-Koehler wishes to "encourage those of you who may have felt that your manuscripts were inappropriate for AERJ to reconsider your judgments and submit them forthwith." Required.
Smith, M. L. (1987). Publishing qualitative research. AERJ, 24(2), 173-183.
The special session of AERJ introduced by Richardson-Koehler (above) contained this article by Mary Less Smith, dealing with the "relevance and scholarly merit" of qualitative research manuscripts. Smith acknowledges the plurality of approaches to qualitative research, suggest that AERJ must welcome them all, "find appropriate referees, and employ criteria relevant to the particular approach." But all these approaches, suggests Smith, are empirical (as distinct from being either 'empiricist' or 'empirical-analytic'); deal with meaning before quantity; is sensitive to context; involves human relationships; and de-emphasizes standardized procedure.
Smith provides capsule overviews of Fred Erickson's "interpretive approach" (somewhat different from the interpretive research of this course); Eliott Eisner's "artistic approach" - connoiseurship (Eisner is 1993-94 president of AERA); "systematic approaches" (an odd choice of label) such as those of LeCompte and Goetz, Miles and Huberman; and "theory-driven approaches" of structural-functionalism and conflict theory. I must confess that I find Smith's taxonomy rather awkward and her depiction of these different research approaches is often askew. This last section of her article is not the best or most useful. But this is a historical document, right? Recommended.
Urban, W. J. (1990). Statement of purpose, & The social and institutional analysis section: Context and content. [Editorial.] AERJ, 27(1), 1-8.
In its Spring 1990 issue AERJ introduced a new section on "social and institutional analysis," edited by Wayne Urban. First planned in 1987 and the result of a "long and somewhat frustrating history" (p. 6) of efforts to change AERJ's narrow focus on psychological research, experimental or quasi-experimental design, and statistical analysis, this section accepts manuscripts in the style of the Chicago Manual of Style rather than the traditional American Psychological Association (APA) style manual and seeks "to become a forum for scholars from several disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and dare I say even -- occasionally -- antidisciplinary traditions" (p. 7). Its purpose is to "explore the broader contexts within which educational theory, practice, and the study of these phenomena occur" (p. v), through "historical, rhetorical, interpretive, narrative, comparative, legal, and critical approaches." It has, however, "no prohibition against quantitative methods"! Required.
Taylor, C. (1971/1979). Interpretation and the science of man. [reprinted from The Review of Metaphysics (51)]. In P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan (Eds.), Interpretive social science: A reader (pp. 25-72). Berkeley: University of California Press.
This is a classic paper, frequently reprinted, and one of the first statements of the interpretive approach for an English-speaking audience. Taylor emphasizes the importance of examining the "intersubjective" background of human activity, attitudes and choices in any scientific study of these. His examples are drawn from the political realm of opinion polls and studies of voting behavior, but his arguments are equally valid for educational phenomena. At times his prose seems a little murky, compared with more recent explications of the interpretive approach, but Taylor was opening fresh territory. (His 1964 The explanation of behavior and his 1989 Sources of the self well repay examination too.) Recommended.
Kvale, S. (1986). Interpretation of the qualitative research interview. Transformations, 2, 32-42.
Steiner Kvale is director of the Center for Qualitative Studies at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Here he entertainingly describes five characteristic phases of an interpretive interview investigation, and replies to three common objections to such investigations. These replies are based upon a hermeneutic conception of interview analysis, that emphasizes the way interpretation depends on the kind and level of question posed by the interpreter.
This paper provides a fitting transition from Block 2 to Block 2. In this Block we have postponed any consideration of the researcher's involvement or interest in the phenomenon studied. In doing this we are open to the criticism of qualitative research mentioned by Carr & Kemmis: that it can perpetuate the positivist myth of the detached and objective researcher. Kvale draws our attention to the way that the researcher's attitude, frame of interpretation, and questions "co-constitute the answers given by the text" (p. 21). Required.
Smith, J. K., & Heshusius, L. (1986). Closing down the conversation: The end of the quantitative-qualitative debate among educational inquirers. Educational Researcher, 15, 4-12.
| Lab |
Introduction to interpretive research |
Week 1: Introduction to Interpretive Inquiry
| Readings |
(Carr & Kemmis, Ch. 2, in coursepack) Carr & Kemmis, Ch. 3, in coursepack |
| Lecture/ Discussion |
Overview of the Block Project |
| Homework |
Pick a research topic & begin a literature search |
| Lab (in library) |
|
Week 2: Analysis of an Interview Transcript
| Readings |
Toulmin, in coursepack (Carter, in coursepack) McCracken, pp. 9-34 |
| Lecture/ Discussion |
|
| Homework |
Select an interview topic as a group (Stages 1 & 2 in McCracken: Review of Analytic Categories, and Review of Cultural Categories) Identify an interviewee |
| Lab |
|
Week 3: Planning & Conducting an Interview
| Readings |
Outline of Interview strategies..., in coursepack (Mishler's book, in IRIS) |
| Lecture/ Discussion |
Interview techniques, strategies & tactics Informed consent |
| Homework |
|
| Lab |
|
Week 4: Transcribing an Interview;
Publishing Interpretive Research
| Readings |
Richardson-Koehler, in coursepack (Smith, in coursepack) Urban, in coursepack |
| Lecture/ Discussion |
Transcribing an interview Case study genres |
| Homework |
Transcribe selections from your interview and begin your analysis |
| Lab |
Transcription conventions & format Review of narrative & argument analysis Elements of the case study |
Week 5: Interpretation and the Researcher
| Readings |
(Taylor, in coursepack) Kvale, in coursepack |
| Lecture/ Discussion |
What is phenomenology? |
| Homework |
|
| Lab |
|
Block 2 Project Report due
| Report for Block Project 2 | Please include:
(a) the interview schedule & discussion of your actual questions |
© Martin Packer 1999