Understanding the Complexities of Self-Image in an EFL Rural Setting

Bertha Ramos Holguín, Jahir Aguirre Morales, Adrián Mauricio Pita Pabón

• Publisher: Editorial de la Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia - UPTC
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789586604758
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In this book, we looked at self-image from a humanistic perspective. We see it as a dynamic and complex process that compromises self-respect and self-confidence. The protagonists of this story come from a rural area. They were a group of eleventh graders from a high school in Samacá, one of the 123 towns in the state of Boyacá, Colombia. As narrators of the story, we wanted to explore, analyze, and interpret how these adolescents perceived their self-image through their life stories under a narrative inquiry method. By telling their narratives, the students could reconstruct and re-signify their reality, while showing us who they are in relation to other people and their contexts. Therefore, life stories offered us the possibility to explore students' inner and social worlds. This research study helped us increase our sensitivity to how the adolescents saw themselves as part of their rural contexts, as well as how this might affect their futures.ResumenEn este libro comprendimos la auto-imagen desde una perspectiva humana. Es decir, como un proceso dinámico y complejo que se relaciona con el auto-respeto y la auto-confianza. Los protagonistas de esta historia provienen de una zona rural. Ellos son un grupo de estudiantes de grado once de un colegio localizado en Samacá, uno de los 123 municipios que conforman el departamento de Boyacá en Colombia. Como narradores de esta historia, quisimos explorar, analizar e interpretar como estos adolescentes percibían su auto-imagen a través de sus historias de vida, enmarcadas en un método narrativo. Al narrar sus historias, los estudiantes reconstruyeron y resignificaron su realidad mientras nos mostraban su relación con otras personas y su propio contexto. Estas historias de vida nos dieron la posibilidad de explorar su mundo interno y social. Incrementamos nuestra sensibilidad como investigadores y entendimos como los adolescentes se percibían en un contexto rural y las implicaciones que esto tiene para sus vidas futuras.

THE EXPERIENCES WE ENCOUNTERED IN OUR JOURNEY

When retelling the participants’ stories, we tried to use their own words and analyzed them in meaningful ways by linking key components of their stories with different events. As soon as participants handed in each one of their narratives, their stories were transcribed. Then, we analyzed them, following a qualitative analysis, in the search for key emergent issues of any given event or particular idea (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002). To build trustworthiness in this study, the participants were asked to double check the content to ensure the precision of the data presented.

Dey (1993) claimed that “qualitative analysis data is a process of resolving data into its constituent components, to reveal its characteristic elements and structure” (p. 31). In other words, we gathered the data and divided it into small chunks of information to see the commonalities between the information. Analyzing smaller chunks of data allowed us to notice patterns that would become themes for this study.

Using a qualitative data analysis approach meant that,

the whole phenomenon under study is understood as a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts, focus on complex independencies and system dynamics that cannot meaningfully be reduced to a few discrete variables and linear, cause effect relationships. (Patton, 2002, p. 41)

As the students’ teachers, we had been in touch with their language learning complexities, reflections, and social backgrounds. Collecting and analyzing the data they provided was complex because they are human beings with reactions and emotions. Each participant brought his or her own set of experiences. However, the data also showed that similarities exist between the participants. As we have mentioned before, the focus of this study was to understand the student from a holistic perspective, which provided a rich set of data to analyze.

As a final thought, Patton (2002) described qualitative data research as reflective because the researcher has the opportunity to reflect on the realities o...