According to Polkinghorne (1995, p.5) Bruner distinguishes between paradigmatic and narrative modes of thought. This distinction identifies two types of narrative inquiry, which Polkinghorne (1995, p. 5- 6) describes as:
a) analysis of narratives, that is, studies whose data consist of narratives or stories, but whose analysis produce paradigmatic typologies or categories and
b) narrative analysis, that is, studies whose data consist of actions, events, and happenings, but whose analysis produces stories (e.g. biographies, histories, case studies).
In my study I did what Polkinghorne (1995, p. 5) refers to as the “analysis of narratives” because the data I collected were narratives that I analysed initially by finding code words and common themes. In the paradigmatic analysis of narratives, common themes or concepts are located within the stories that are collected as data, and most often this approach requires several stories rather than a single story (Polkinghorne, 1995). This study had nine participants and each participant told her own story, therefore, I had multiple stories to work with. The common concepts and themes were inductively derived from the data. Lincoln and Guba (1985, p. 205) state that the theory or explanation must fit the situation that is being researched, thus, my findings emerged from the data, rather than me predefining and testing a hypothesis. I analysed the data that consisted of interviews, the unsent letters to the role models and mentors, and the reflective journals, by searching for code words and common themes. While reading and rereading each data set, I tried to identify the merging patterns and themes in the data (Cohen et al., 2011, p. 428). Squire (2008, p. 50) contends that the theories selected should be able to give a “predictive explanation” of the data.
In analysing the data, in the form of written texts, such as the interview transcripts, the journal entries and the unsent letters, I first read through these texts several times, to get a holistic impression of the overall data content. As I analysed my data, I moved backwards and forwards between the data and theory, until I found the best fit
between the data and the theory. In my data the common theme of affiliation emerged which is a human functional capability in Nussbaum‟s (2000a) list of capabilities. I
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searched for code words within this theme and words such as relationship, interaction, friendship, discrimination, respect and violence emerged from the data. Within the theme of affiliation various forms of relationships were identified between the participants and the people with whom they interacted either in their personal or professional lives. I moved between my data and the capability approach and transformational leadership theory to understand how these relationships developed the capabilities of the women middle managers and how these informed their middle management practice and enabled their transformational leadership functioning.
Using the example of affiliation from Nussbaum‟s (2000a) list of central human functional capabilities and the professional capabilities devised by Walker et al.
(2010), I searched for how the capability of affiliation was developed in the women middle managers from early childhood, during their teaching years and as HoDs. This involved searching for the types of relations the women middle managers formed with the people with whom they interacted, either in their private or professional lives.
Thereafter, I searched the data on their practice as middle managers to understand how the affiliation capability helped the women middle managers to function in their role.
This pointed to the relationships and interactions that were formed between the women middle managers and their colleagues while they managed their departments.
The transformational leadership theory was used to understand how the women middle managers guided the people in their departments and the type of support they offered their departmental members.
In the first phase of their lives from early childhood years, within the broad theme of affiliations, a sub-theme of family relations was common and frequent. This was evident in the narratives about the personal and social interactions with family
members. Some of the categories that emerged from the theme of family relationships were close bonds, broken bonds, single parents and influential mothers. Under this theme of family relations, the participants had told stories of how they either faced barriers or were encouraged in their emotional and social development. The theory that best explained the emotional and social development of the participants was the capability approach, as it highlighted the development of capabilities in people to function in particular ways. The transformational leadership theory helped me understand how the women middle managers were able to practise as middle
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managers after having acquired their management capabilities to function in a transforming educational context.
In order to understand how the female HoDs developed capabilities for a management position, I explored their narratives about early childhood and adulthood within different contexts that were affected by race, class, and gender. According to Reinharz and Chase (2001, p. 230) social scientists believe that “a person‟s social location shapes his or her identity, experiences, and perspectives”. The theory that best explained the management function of the woman middle manager in a changing educational and social context was the transformational leadership theory as it was able to describe how the middle manager could function in her role after having developed particular capabilities that enable management functioning.
The next step involved the sorting of the information from the themes that were identified into time, place and the type of interaction that was involved. I coded the data into the three dimensional inquiry space suggested by Clandinin and Connelly (2000) which is continuity (time), situation (place) and interaction (personal and social). I used the three dimensional inquiry space as a sorting device through which I sorted the data into time frames. These were the early life experiences, tertiary
education, early teaching practice years and the current years of the woman middle manager. I then situated the data into place that constituted the family setting
(personal, social) and the school context (educational). The data was then sorted into the type of interactions that were involved, whether these were of a personal or social nature or whether they involved family or professional interactions. The following coding in the data reflected the three-dimensional space in the inquiry:
Code Three-dimensional Inquiry Space
T Time
P Place
I Interaction
The theme of affiliation spanned from the participant‟s early childhood to her current role as HoD. Therefore, the relationships and interactions that she experienced were both in her personal and professional domains. The social and educational contexts within which the participants experienced their formative and adult years is important, because this helped shape who the participants are as middle managers through the
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development of their management capabilities. The participants‟ experiences are considered within the context of the cultural, familial, political and educational spheres (Cole & Knowles, 2001).
Once I identified the themes in the life history interviews, I wrote biographies for each participant to describe their critical experiences that pointed to the development of capabilities (see Appendix O). This level of analysis allowed for a deeper
understanding of how and why the participants function as they do in their middle management roles. This led to the next step of analysis, which identified the
capabilities of the women middle managers, such as having developed the capability of affiliation, emotion, practical reason, assurance and integrity and other relevant observations. In my analysis the freedom and agency aspects of the women middle managers were regarded integral to the development of capabilities and how this enables transformational leadership functioning.
Although I analysed the reflective journals and the unsent letters by open coding and categorising of the data, as I did with the interviews, the themes in the study were largely developed from the interviews that covered the participants‟ reflection on their early educational and social experiences, their tertiary education through their
teaching years and finally to their present status as middle managers. The participants‟
journal entries supported their narratives when they spoke of how they functioned in their role as middle managers. For example, if they spoke of the long teaching hours of HoDs, their journal entries reflected the number of teaching periods they had. The unsent letters offered rich and detailed data about the participants‟ role models and mentors, and the letters moved back and forth in time and place, to the participants‟
childhood, to their teaching practice and to their present roles as HoDs. Their
interactions within a personal, social and professional context were also highlighted in their letters.