The reading this week was about how a
researchers situate themselves in the environment they plan to research. This involves
a very complex awareness of surroundings before the research even begins. The researcher
must situate the location, specifically the school as this is educational
research, in terms of the state, district, neighborhood, and even the location
of the one classroom in relation to the rest of the school. Even the location
of the restrooms matter as the author pointed out, in terms of gendered and
management language. That is something I probably would not have thought of on
my own, even though that as I look back at my previous job at a childcare
facility, it makes so much sense. Restrooms were a very big part of management,
and child management was certainly a gendered issue. When the kids sat down to
have a snack, I had to manage the seating to make sure the gender ratio was
appropriate (one girl would cry if she had to only sit with boys). It was even
a policy that as a punishment, a boy would only have to sit with girls if he couldn’t
behave (keep his voice down) with his male friends. When I had the job, it was
just policy, but now that I look back, I wonder if that management of gendered
and language management could lead to a research question. It seems that as I think
about it, this kind of observing and noticing issues is what the authors meant
by seeing what kinds of questions a site can bring up and what types of
situations might be available to observe.
The second chapter in the reading material
focused on the researcher getting more specific about developing a research question
and beginning to do more research. The authors brought up a point about the
researchers knowing themselves as humans who come to the site with preconceived
notions and biases. That balances a previous point about how the participants
in the study are also individuals who have their own motivations and reactions
to situations that cannot necessarily be compared to others’ reactions in
future sites. This is the complicated part about qualitative research in the humanities.
It was recognized in the book that a lot of education management at the state
or district level wants more quantifiable data or “scientific” research. In some
ways, this discounts the uniqueness and humanness of the researcher, participants,
and even the readers of the research who will probably make their own judgments
based on their own biases no matter whether the data is “scientific” or not. By
wanting quantifiable data, are they not simply asserting their own biases on
what qualifies good research?
I find it very interesting that children were punished by being forced to sit with children of the opposite sex and wonder about the effects that such punishment might have on future gender relations among those children. "Gross, I have to sit with the girls?!"
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your assertion that in some way all researchers are biased and therefore so is their research. The presumed superiority of quantitative research by some does appear to be a bias in and of itself, and the questions asked by such researchers to study the problem or issue are selected with the end goal in mind, so that seems to create another bias. Also, numbers can be manipulated to prove whatever the researcher sets out to prove, so the biases of the researcher would appear to play a tremendous role in interpretation of the data. So to say that one type of research is scientific and the other not seems prejudiced at best. Good response, I couldn't agree more!