CHAPTER FOUR: MAPPING THE METHODOLOGICAL ROUTE- PROCESS, PARADIGM AND PROCEDURE
4.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a discussion and justification of the methodology and methods that I employed in this study to collect the data in pursuit of the following critical research question:
How do history teachers construct their identities within the context of curriculum change?
The critical question has its origins in the following sub-questions:
• How are history teachers framing their identities in relation to many contextual, personal and biographical issues?
• How history teachers interpret their identities in the context of the changing curriculum policies?
• Does the history curriculum policy "images" or "expectations" have any (if any) influence on history teachers' construction of their pedagogical roles and responsibilities?
With these sub-questions as background, my thesis is simple: Does contextual, personal and biographical issues only frame history teachers' identities or that 'policy images' of teachers make demands that conflict with their 'personal identities' as practitioners or whether both issues of the puzzle shape history teachers' identities, or is it either or perhaps other possibilities that exist?
I begin this chapter by outlining the broad methodological approach. This area of research begs many questions about research relations and methodological issues, such as how to access the invisible, i.e., teachers' minds, especially if it includes issues that are considered private? (Reddy, 2003). These issues have been the focus of much life history
approach. My methodological considerations included the choice of a methodology that 'constructs a grand narrative, either intellectual or political, that will give us ultimate truth and will lead us to our freedom has been shattered in many ways' (Lather, 1991:vii).
What does this mean for social research in the postmodern world? The only way to an accurate view and confident knowledge of the world is,in the words of Marcus & Fischer (1986: 15 in Cray, 1999) 'through a sophisticated epistemology that takes full account of intractable contradiction, paradox, irony and uncertainty in the explanation of human activities'. Furthermore, the development of a trusting relationship between researcher and researched and the goal of using social research to further the interests of the participants have been the aim of many life history research studies. Using a qualitative method of data collection within the tradition of life history research method was the most appropriate in this study.
As advocated by Lather (1986), I have attempted to operationalise an emancipatory research method, which emphasizes collaboration,reciprocity and reflexivity. For Lather (1986), reciprocity implies give and take, a mutual negotiation of meaning and power. It has long been recognized as a valuable aspect of fieldwork, in creating the conditions that yield rich data because the researcher moves from the status of strangers to friend and this is able to gather personal knowledge from subjects more easily (Lather, 1991). The goal of emancipatory research is to encourage self-reflection and deeper understanding on the part of the researched at least as much as it is to generate empirically grounded theoretical knowledge. To achieve this, interviews were conducted in an interactive, dialogic manner that required self-disclosure on the part of researcher to encourage reciprocity. This goal was achieved by privileging teacher voices (narratives) throughout the study.
The study of teachers' narratives is increasingly being seen as central to the study of teachers' thinking, culture and behaviour. There are those who argue (see Kagan, 1990;
Thomas, 1990; Clandinin & Connelly, 1990 and Elbaz, 1991) that it is crucial to understand these aspects of teachers' lives if current efforts at improvements and reforms of a number of educational systems around the world are to be effective. Any real change
in the curriculum is not likely to be effective or is not likely to be carried through unless teachers' perceptions and experiences are taken into account. Among these advocates is Louden (1995:86):
'The teacher is the ultimate key to educational change and school improvement. Teachers don't merely deliver the curriculum. They develop it; define it and reinterpret it too. It is what teachers think, what teachers believe and what teachers do at the level of the classroom that ultimately shapes the kind ofleaming that young people get.'
To improve educational systems, curriculum reforms and classroom practice, we need to know more about teachers' perspectives. We need to know how teachers themselves see their situation, what their experience is like, what they believe and how they think. In short, we need to know more about teachers' culture, from the inside. This is an important area of education which until recently has received little attention from researchers. Hence, this chapter proposes that the analysis of teachers' narratives can be used as an innovative methodology to study such questions of teachers' identities, cultures, experiences and beliefs.
This chapter provides the landscape to understand the issues related to doing life history research. I presented an argument for the use of a qualitative method of data collection within the tradition of life history as the most appropriate method to addressing the critical questions raised inthis study. In doing so I am able to go beyond having access to 'a life' as told, to the exploration of 'a life' as experienced. This shift was crucial for my exploration of teachers' practices as well as to understand that the structures of identity and the positions that teachers take up in the present educational context of continued shifts and constantly changing images are complex and contradictory. I also highlighted the limitations of life history research and how I resolved these different dilemmas, which presented itself in the study. In the following section, I discuss the rationale for a qualitative methodology.