Mapping the study: Some guiding Principles
5.2 Research paradigm
5.2.1 Methodology
It is important to distinguish research methodology from research methods from the outset for purposes of this study. The term „methodology‟ is employed here to denote an approach to data production or analysis whilst the term „method‟ is used to denote a way or technique of data production or analysis (Best & Khan, 1993; Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison, 2000; Swann & Pratt, 2003). There is, therefore, a marked difference between
methodology as an approach and method as a technique or way of doing something.
However, as observed by Swann and Pratt (2003), more recently the term methodology is sometimes, and rather confusingly, used in place of method. I have maintained the difference and used the term methodology for approach and method for technique for purposes of this study.
A phenomenological narrative design was employed in this study (Clandinin &
Connelly, 2000; Creswell, 2003). I label my methodology as phenomenological narrative because of “phenomenology‟s emphasis on understanding lived experience and perceptions of experience” (Patton, 2002, p. 115). This phenomenological influence has been used to drive the narrative inquiry in relation to the “experience of interest”
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 124), which is the teaching of sexuality education in rural Lesotho schools. Using phenomenology to explore the narrated lived experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools was one possible approach to overcoming the tendency of dealing with lived experiences in a banal way. However, van Manen (1997) points out that this has not been the case in all phenomenological inquiries. His critique is that thematic dimensions tend to dominate the expressive dimensions of inquiry, and he argues for a balance between the two. My hope was to counter van Manen‟s critique by engaging aspects of phenomenology and narrative in this study.
According to van Manen (1997, p. 353), bringing experience vividly into presence and phenomenologically reflecting on it is evocation. He continues by saying that a “text that creates evocation of meaning brings to immediate presence images and sensibilities that are so crisp and real that they in turn evoke reflective responses such as wondering, questioning, or understanding” (p. 354). To attain an evocative effect, the women teachers‟ storied experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools have been used diligently as data in the original voices of the participants.
Narrative researchers such as Bruner (1990, 1996), Clandinin and Connelly (1994, 2000), Conle (2000a) and Elliott (2005) assert that sharing stories of experience actually create psychological and social realities in people‟s lives. In narrative educational research,
story is used to bring the texture, depth, and complexity of contextualised, lived experiences of teachers, learners and researchers into view. The purpose is to discern significant narrative tensions and patterns that occur “along temporal dimensions, personal-social dimensions, and within place” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, pp. 128- 129).
Narrative inquirers, often in collaboration with their research participants (see for example, Beattie, 1995; Clandinin, Pushor & Orr, 2007; Phillion, 2002), generate possibilities for new stories of action and development at the individual and social levels (Bruner, 1996; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Coles, 1989; Ritchie & Wilson, 2000).
Narrative accounts of research also tend to explore the contextual and temporal dimensions of the research process (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, Clandinin et al., 2007;
Conle, 2000a).
Connelly and Clandinin (1990, p. 2) argue that narrative studies are used in educational research because of the claim that “humans are story-telling organisms who, individually and socially lead storied lives.” At the same time, Lodico, Spaulding and Voegtle (2006, p. 270) posit that “phenomenological research is mainly interested in an individual‟s interpretation of her experiences.” Thus they argue that a phenomenologist attempts to understand the meaning of an experience through the eyes and voice of the participant.
My interest in this study was in both the meanings that the participants made of their experiences of teaching sexuality education and how they experienced their teaching worlds. I was also interested in the stories they tell of their lives as women teachers. Thus I found that drawing from phenomenology and narrative was a suitable endeavour.
The phenomenological perspective has been used to capture the research participants‟
understandings and experiences of teaching sexuality education as a social phenomenon.
Phenomenology helps to illuminate how research participants perceive a social phenomenon, how they “describe it, feel about it, remember it, make sense of it, and talk about it with others” (Patton, 2002, p. 104).
People as social actors express meaning about the events in their social world in order to make sense of their world (Creswell, 1998; Haralambos & Holborn, 1991). They distinguish between different types of events, actions, objects, and people through language. This study has explored women teachers‟ experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools, their understandings and choices regarding their pedagogic practice, and the meanings they make of their experiences. As observed by Lodico et al., (2006, p. 271):
Wanting to understand the human experience and how experiences are interpreted differently by different people would certainly be an appropriate reason to conduct a phenomenological study.
The process of interpreting the world is subjective since it depends on the opinions of the observer. Therefore, the most that can be done through a phenomenological study is gaining an understanding of the meanings individuals give to particular phenomena.
Haralambos and Holborn (1991, p. 20) argue that understanding the meanings employed by members of the society in their every day lives is the end product of phenomenological research. Thus my conviction that people tell their stories in words as they reflect upon life and explain themselves to others and live their stories in an ongoing text (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Day, 1993) prompted me to have a narrative dimension to the inquiry and analysis adopted in this study, so that the study could go beyond simply understanding the meanings the women teachers made of their experiences but to also understand how they experienced their world. It is for this reason that a phenomenological narrative methodology has been employed in exploring the understandings and experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural Lesotho schools.
The intention was to explore how and why women teachers understand, practice and experience the teaching of sexuality education in rural school in the age of HIV and AIDS.