Research Methods for Social Justice and Equity in Education

Kamden K. Strunk, Leslie Ann Locke, Kamden K. Strunk, Leslie Ann Locke

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030059002
• Thema: Education
• Thema: Research in Education

This textbook presents an integrative approach to thinking about research methods for social justice. In today's education landscape, there is a growing interest in scholar-activism and ways of doing research that advances educational equity. This text provides a foundational overview of important theoretical and philosophical issues specific to this kind of work in Section I. In Section II, readers engage with various ways of thinking about, collecting, and analyzing data, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Finally, in Section III, through case studies and research narratives, readers will learn about real scholars and their work. This book takes a wide-ranging approach to ways that various modalities and practices of research can contribute to an equity mission.

Part ITheoretical and Philosophical Issues

© The Author(s) 2019

Kamden K. Strunk and Leslie Ann Locke (eds.)Research Methods for Social Justice and Equity in Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05900-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. Re-positioning Power and Re-imagining Reflexivity: Examining Positionality and Building Validity Through Reconstructive Horizon Analysis

Meagan Call-Cummings¹ and Karen Ross²

(1)

George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

(2)

University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

Meagan Call-Cummings (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Karen Ross

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore how researchers might engage in reflexivity. Reflexivity is closely related to the concept of positionality, which refers to the way we as researchers view our position in the world in relation to others, especially those who are involved in or may read our research. Often reflexivity is issued as a call—an important step to take to establish the validity, rigor, or ethical nature of the research being done. Here we engage in reconstructive horizon analysis (RHA), which is an approach for examining taken-for-granted claims made by ourselves and our research participants. We find that by engaging in RHA, we build moments for dialogue and communication into the research process that allow assumptions, structures, and roles to be made explicit.

Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript.

End Abstract

Over the past 20 years, much discussion and debate in methodological literature has revolved around reflexivity: what it means, what it looks and feels like, and how it is best “done.” Linda Finlay and Gough, in her (2008) edited volume, Reflexivity: A Practical Guide for Researchers in Health and Social Sciences, defines reflexivity as “thoughtful, self-aware analysis of the intersubjective dynamics between researcher and the researched” (p. ix), acknowledging that “reflexivity both challenges treasured research traditions and is challenging to apply in practice” (p. ix).

In this chapter, we explore these issues by focusing on how we as researchers can engage in reflexivity, a concept we define as purposeful, often challenging reflection about ourselves, how we identify, and what we take for granted as true or right. Reflexivity is closely related to the concept of positionality, which refers to the way we as researchers view our position in the world in relation to others, especially those who are involved in or may read our research. In particular, positionality requires us to think about how our background and experiences play a role in our relationships with participants and in how we carry out research: for instance, how might one’s gender/race/class/religion or other aspect of one’s identity affect the choices one makes about what questions to ask an interview participant or how one interacts with participants of similar or different backgrounds during the interview? Being explicit about our positionality is important as a way of helping readers understand how the lens through which we see the world is reflected in our research.

As our opening paragraph suggests, there is agreement among many (though not all) methodologists about the importance of exploring positionality and reflexivity, especially in order to be transparent about how our backgrounds shape both the process and results of our research. However, there is much less agreement about how to engage in reflexivity in productive ways. Scholars have illuminated challenges to doing so through discussions of reflexive practice as well as through what scholars have learned from engaging reflexively. Most often, reflexivity is issued as a call—an important step to take to establish the validity, rigor, or ethical nature of the research being done, especially for scholars who are determined to engage in knowledge production that is critical, participatory, emancipatory, and democratized. Often these calls relate to concerns about the representation of participants. For example, Milner (2007) charges researchers to engage in the process of cultural and racial introspection in their research in order to avoid some of the potential dangers of (mis)representation that can occur in varying research contexts. He argues that researchers in the process of conducting research “pose racially and culturally grounded questions about themselves,” and that attention to these questions can “bring the researcher awareness and consciousness of known (seen), unknown (unseen), and unanticipated (unforeseen) issues, perspective, epistemologies, and positions” (p. 395). By researching the self in relation to others, Milner (2007) maintains, researchers can better understand issues of power and self-interest, which can overshadow the interests of participants. This kind of “engaged reflection and representation” (p. 396) can allow researchers and participants to explore together what is happening in that particular research community, allowing the research findings to become products of shared interpretation and perspective.

Pillow (2003) calls for researchers to work toward an uncomfortable reflexivity—a reflexive practice that seeks to “know while at the same time situate this knowing as tenuous” (p. 188). Her work highlights the often vulnerable and personally challenging aspect of reflexivity, and she urges researchers to understand reflexivity as a “methodological tool interruptive of practices of gathering data” to produce what she acknowledges are likely uncomfortable “tellings” (p. 192). She suggests that reflexivity is about more than just an accounting of researchers’ struggles with representation but should also attend to accountability to that representation.

Guillemin and Gillam (2004) advocate for a kind of reflexivity that they connect to the concept of “ethics in practice” (p. 262). They suggest that ethical engagement in the research process requires a constant monitoring of the ethical implications of one’s choices as a researcher. This practice of continuous scrutiny—of relationships between researcher and participant, research context, and the purposes of research, in addition to methods—is, in Guillemin and Gillam’s view, a form of reflexivity.

This idea expands the role of reflexivity beyond the examination of epistemological aspects of research, to its use as a conceptual tool for understanding how researchers might exercise ethical practice in research. Guillemin and Gillam (2004) say that researchers should develop ways to address and respond to ethical issues that arise in the research process. By so doing, researchers can prepare for potential problems and even prevent them. Framing reflexivity as a skill in this way—the ability to recognize and effectively navigate ethically important moments—is exciting, but still begs the question: how? How can researchers examine and account for their positionalities in research that works toward equity and social justice? And when? Is reflexivity only called for upon completion of a study? Or, like Milner (2007) and Pillow (2003) seem to suggest, is there something about the role of reflexivity that demands its use throughout the process of knowledge production? Lastly, we ask, with whom? Finlay and Gough (2008) is explicit that reflexivity allows intersubjective understandings and dynamics between and among the researcher and the researched to emerge. Yet the literature on reflexivity as a whole emphasizes internal introspection focused on oneself, thus leaving it unclear how self-reflection might occur in a way that opens up possibilities for position-taking and deeper intersubjective understanding of meaning.

Reconstructive Horizon Analysis: An Introduction

Carspecken’s (1996) reconstructive horizon analysis (RHA) is a methodological tool that can help researchers in this quest to “do” reflexivity in a way that is meaningful. In particular, RHA is a tool that requires individuals to position-take, that is, to explicitly take the position or perspective of other actors (such as research participants) in a way that is conscious and explicit rather than in the tacit, implicit manner that is characteristic of most interactions (Carspecken, 1996). Moreover, as Dennis (2017) states, “when we listen to the claims of others, our interpretations involve position-taking, which intrinsically require our self-commitments and positionings within the interpretations” (p. 112). As a tool used to deepen understanding of a participant’s speech acts, RHA can be understood as a form of “listening” to the claims of others, wherein the attempt is made to hear those claims more clearly. As such, it requires position-taking from the perspective of the participant as well as from one’s position—this inherently creates a dialogic approach to reflexivity, wherein a researcher is moving through multiple positions in attempting to bring tacit claims into explicit discourse.

According to Carspecken (1996), who bases his work in Habermas’ (1984, 1985) Theory of Communicative Action, the implicit reasons behind an action or communicative claim fall into one of four categories of validity claims: objective (based on the principle of multiple access), subjective (based on the principle of unique access by the communicator), normative-evaluative (relating to norms by which we operate in a given society or culture), or identity claims (references by the communicator to who that person is in the world); these reaso...