The objective of this chapter is to describe and discuss the research methodology applied in this research. This chapter consists of six sections. In the first section, I describe the research design, explain the research approach and research paradigm that guided the study, and critically analyse shortcomings in these. The second section deals with the methodology, namely critical discourse analysis (CDA), which utilises the principles of feminist CDA.
Fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional model of CDA and Machin and Mayr’s (2012) representational framework will be utilised to examine the representation of gender in the four textbooks to uncover the ideology behind this. In the third section, I describe the sample of the research, explaining how purposive sampling was used to select the textbooks. In the fourth section, I discuss issues of trustworthiness, and in the fifth, I discuss the ethical issues considered before, during and after data production. In the sixth and last section, I discuss limitations experienced with the method of data production.
4.2 Research design
In this section, I explain the approach of the study, which is qualitative in nature. I then discuss the research paradigm used. While I have chosen to draw on principles of critical theory to guide this study, I am aware of the critique levelled against critical research. I engage with this critique to explain how the principles of critical theory were managed in the current study.
4.2.1 Qualitative approach
I chose to carry out a qualitative study because this would allow me to examine how gender ideologies are formed through the social experience of the writers. The way I framed my research questions could best be answered by qualitative research. This allowed a rich description of data that could have many possible meanings, and also allowed me to give an in-depth description of authors’ interpretations as to how and why gender is represented in a particular way in the four SADC Business Studies textbooks (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002;
Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011; Henning, Van Rensburg, & Smit, 2009). In this way, a deeper and more thorough understanding of gender representation in the four SADC textbooks was sought. The qualitative study also allowed me greater flexibility in exploration of ideologies in the chapters I chose to examine.
83 4.2.2 Critique of qualitative analysis
Post-positivist researchers argue that scientific research underpinned by the quantitative approach produces precise, verifiable, systematic and theoretical answers to the research question, which are neutral and can be universalised to all historical and cultural contexts. In contrast, Bryman and Bell (2007) argue that in the qualitative approach precise, systematic and theoretical answers to complex human problems are not possible. They assert that every cultural and historical situation is different and unique and requires analyses of the uniquely defined, particular contexts. The specific social, political, economic and cultural histories of writers and the cultures in which they produce text mean findings cannot be generalised;
however, they do bring us greater clarity on how people make meaning of a phenomenon in a specific context, thus aiding greater understanding of the human condition (Neill, 2007). Using a qualitative approach in this study allows me greater flexibility in exploring gender ideologies in the texts I chose to examine.
4.2.3 The critical paradigm
The paradigm that guides this study is the critical paradigm, developed from critical theory.
Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose and provide help to combat societal problems, particularly oppression and capitalism (Mahlomaholo, 2009, p. 5). The critical paradigm believes that reality is constructed or shaped by political, cultural, economic and social forces in society (Nieuwenhuis, 2007). For this reason, what can be known about the world is always subjective, as it is influenced by the values and social positioning of the dominant groups in society (Blanche & Durrheim, 1999). From this positioning, I viewed the Business Studies textbooks under study to be subjective, as there is no knowledge that is neutral (as explained in Chapter two). As a researcher working in the critical paradigm, I approached analysis of the Business Studies textbooks with “a suspicious and politicised epistemological stance” (Blanche &
Durrheim, 1999, p. 6).
Critical theory continues to open up eclectic ways of knowing about how gender is represented.
For critical theorists, school textbooks and the messages they portray as well as their production, distribution and use express the unequal social and economic relations and agendas of the wider society they are located in (Apple, 1979, 1986). The paradigm argues that sometimes the way power operates in society is so structural that it is not easily noticed. The critical paradigm therefore critiques excesses of power as the outcome of hegemonic and
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repressive factors that operate over another group’s freedom (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2009). This paradigm also identifies forces or interests that place a social group in a position of relative powerlessness (or power), and questions the legitimacy of that position. For this reason, I had to consider appropriate methods that would assist in my analysis of the textbooks, to expose any injustices (overt or latent) within them.
This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA), which has its roots in critical linguistics, which, besides describing a discourse, analyses why and how a discourse is produced. Through critiquing and encouraging critique of discursive practices and reflecting upon their role in production of the social world, the researcher provides ‘explanatory critique’ and raises ‘critical language awareness’. Consequently, researchers within CDA do not strive for political neutrality or ‘objectivity’ in a traditional sense. Rather, they openly take the side of oppressed social groups and declare a commitment to social change (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2008, pp. 63- 64; Walsh, 2001, p. 29).
It is for these reasons that CDA is the most appropriate and useful approach for my purposes, as it is these very ‘unequal power relations’, mediated through texts, that this study seeks to uncover and interrogate. CDA can reveal how certain ideologies are dispersed through discourses of the education system at the micro-level of Business Studies textbooks and the macro-level of a social agenda or political intervention. I use CDA to explore the existence of covert ideological assumptions in the selected textbooks.
I also draw from the principles of critical theory to debate, ask questions and raise awareness of factors that contribute to gender-related issues in textbooks. Critical theory scholars recognise the way that discursive practices are ideological, and “help produce and reproduce unequal power relations” (Fairclough, 2011, p. 358); their focus is on the implications of social practices for status, distribution or attribution of social goods and power, and whose interests are served or subjugated (Gee, 2011). Critical theorists therefore argue that some relationships in the world are more powerful than others are (Henning, 2007).
In my study, I hope to understand and reveal the ways in which gender is represented in four SADC Business Studies textbooks. Critical theory is used in my research as a means of exposing underlying assumptions and ideologies that serve to conceal power relations via the
‘representations’ in the textbooks. In this way, awareness of gender equality in textbooks can be raised to address possible gender issues in learning of Business Studies.
85 4.2.3.1 Limitations of critical theory
Critical theory has been criticised for its elitism, in that by assuming that everyone needs to be emancipated, critical theorists assume that they themselves have been emancipated and are better equipped to analyse society and transform it (Fay, 1987, p. 23). There is also a lack of evidence of what happens when one becomes emancipated and gains a critical consciousness.
Fay (1987, p. 61) argues that there is no evidence to show that once someone attains a critical consciousness, he/she stops perpetuating the inequalities that subtly oppress people. Positivists criticise critical researchers for their deliberate political agenda and the fact that they eschew the objectivity and neutrality required of a researcher (Alvesson, 2001).
Despite the criticism, researchers who position their research under this paradigm are unapologetic, maintaining that no research method is objective (Bloch, 1992). In almost all research, politics and inquiry are inseparable (Creswell, 2009). For this study, I used various methods to ensure trustworthiness, including member validation, open coding and an audit trail to overcome possible political or personal bias. I drew on aspects of the critical paradigm to unearth discourse in action within textbooks. This research does not strive to be universal in its claims as it is undertaken in a particular context at a particular period in time, providing an analysis of gender representation in four SADC school textbooks.
Although not action research, this study will seek to create awareness through future publication of its findings. This awareness could inform education stakeholders on gender issues, enabling them to develop assessments to identify gender stereotypes in textbooks and hence a more gender-inclusive curriculum with men and women equally represented in all areas of Business Education.