4.2 Critical Realism
4.2.1 Ontological assumptions
CR proposes an ontology that assumes that there is a reality out there, independent of observers’
knowledge of it (Bhaskar, 1989; Fletcher, 2017). Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price (2017)note that critical realists assume that something has happened, that something is there, and has an existentially intransitive reality. On one hand, by intransitive, CR argues that reality exists whether or not humans are aware of its existence. Therefore, intransitive reality is not socially constructed. On the other hand, the transitive dimension consists of theories and discourses (Danermark, 2002). The differentiation between intransitive and transitive dimension means that how we experience our world should not be conflated with what it is. Critical Realists do not reserve ‘real’ to refer to the material things that can be seen, rather they include anything that has an effect or makes a difference (Fleetwood & Ackroyd, 2004). According to Bhaskar (2008), CR is anchored on the principle that perception gives us access to things and experimental activity access to structures that exist independently of us. This is the case for all other social systems of the society because they are made up of people. The people in these social systems have powers of creativity and the ability to act intentionally.
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CR works well with studies that are mainly exploratory such as the current study on VET curriculum responsiveness to the learning needs of A1 farmers in post-2000 Zimbabwe. This is because CR seeks to identify, discover, uncover and test the limits of structure, (causes and particular sequences of human actions) (Edwards et al., 2014). CR focuses on explanations: how people deepen their explanations so that we really understand what is happening in management, organisations … in terms of underlying causal mechanisms (Teehankee, 2017).
Reality is, however, difficult to access especially in complex open systems such as vocational training centres. An open system does not allow precision such as is possible in laboratory experiments of the natural sciences but it does well in providing explanations of social phenomena. An open system refers to the parts of the universe (or entities), which ultimately interact to cause the events we observe and which cannot be studied or understood in isolation from their environment especially in stratified open systems(Price, 2014). Open systems take inputs from the environment for processing and often do not produce similar results from time to time and place to place. Open systems differ from ‘closed’ laboratories, in that they contain complex and unpredictable feedback loops that prevent history being conceived as determined or predictable (Edwards et al., 2014).
Another important ontological assumption is that the world is differentiated and stratified consisting not only of events but objects, including real social structures which have powers and liabilities capable of generating events (Bhaskar, 2008). Another critical ontological assumption of CR is that although social phenomena such as actions, texts and institutions are concept dependent, our interpretation of these does not make them exist, rather, they will still exist regardless of researchers’ interpretation of them (Easton, 2010; Fletcher, 2017). CR investigates events or outcomes; these are the visible behaviour of people, systems and things as they occur.
These events are investigated as they occur. However, non-occurrence of an event that has been expected to occur provides important insights to the researcher (Bhaskar, 2008; Fletcher, 2017).
In this study, for example, the lack of VET curriculum responsiveness to the learning needs of A1 farmers could be of interest to the researcher as to why this has been the case. Researchers in CR also investigate the structure of entities and organisations which are made up of departments, resources and people all of which affect each other. In this study, both colleges under study are
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made up of different departments that affect each other and influence the process of VET curriculum responsiveness.
CR ontology is best illustrated using the iceberg metaphor which explains the stratified nature of reality using an ‘iceberg’ of reality which is an illustration that reality is stratified in three layers of the same reality (Elder-Vass, 2005; Fletcher, 2017). The first level of reality is the ‘empirical’
which comprises the observed and experienced events usually explained using ‘common sense’
but always influenced by people’s interpretation and experience with the events. The second level is the ‘actual’, where human experience has no part. Events at this level occur whether or not people observe them or not. The third level is the ‘real’ where causal structures or mechanisms exist that influence what people observe at the empirical level (Bhaskar, 2008;
Fletcher, 2017). However, the three domains are not always in synchrony. For example, people’s perceptions of the events might not match the actual event due to other factors that influence the empirical and the actual domains. According to Mukute (2010a)critical realism assumes that the surface appearance of experience (empirical) is potentially misleading and insists on getting beyond or behind surface appearances.
The picture of the real is thus one of a complex interaction between dynamic open, stratified systems, both material and non-material where particular structures give rise to causal powers (generative mechanisms) which are properties of an object that cause it to behave in a certain manner (Danermark, Ekstrom, & Jacobsen, 2002). For example, in this study, at college X, what are the generative mechanisms which facilitate or hinder curriculum responsiveness? Figure 4 below illustrates the iceberg metaphor on critical realist ontology.
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Figure 2:An Iceberg Metaphor for Critical Realism ontology Source: Fletcher (2017, p. 183)