One way of ensuring coherence in any given study is by identifying and stating the paradigm within which the research was conducted. Not all researchers do so, but stating one’s paradigm can only strengthen the rigour of the research rather than weaken it. This is because, according to Mouton (2011), all research should unambiguously demonstrate a link between the three worlds of metascience, science and everyday life. Applying this logic to my study, the world of metascience is where I engage with issues of paradigmatic positioning. The world of science concerns theory and research methodologies. Finally, the world of everyday life in my study is concerned the discourses related to Africa and Africanness and the context within which this study is rooted. Mouton’s (2011) framework is helpful because certain research designs might be acceptable in one paradigm while they are thought to be questionable in another. Therefore I found it necessary to elucidate my paradigmatic positioning.
Nevertheless, I have to first clarify what I mean by a paradigm for the sake of this study, since its meaning is contestable. For example, scholars such as de Vos (2010) and Babbie and Mouton (2008) use the words paradigms and approaches interchangeably. Simultaneously, they view the qualitative/quantitative dichotomy as a paradigm war. This demonstrates the flux nature of the paradigm as a social construct. It is usually agreed that a paradigm represents at a broader and philosophical level of how a researcher views the world (Wellington et al., 2007).
Therefore, an acknowledgement of paradigms is, in itself, an acceptance of the view that the
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research process is subjective and therefore is always informed by the beliefs and assumptions of the researcher in relation to the issue under study.
I situated my study in the social constructionist paradigm. This is not to be confused with social constructivism which is a theory (Thomas, n.d.). This paradigm created a golden thread in my study in that it has a focus on meaning and how meaning is socially constructed. To make sense of this, I explained in Chapter 3 how Africa, Africanness, and African consciousness are all socially constructed. In Chapter 3, I also explained how textbooks are a social construct which in turn can be used by societal hegemony to create further social constructs. The contentions on postcolonialism that I engaged with in Chapter 4 also serve to confirm the role of society in the construction of meaning. My adoption of discursive postcolonialism as a lens for my research augurs well with a social constructionist worldview since it claims that issues related to postcolonialism can be understood through an understanding of underlying discourses. It is for this reason that I analysed text since it – through discourses – constructs the meaning of Africa and Africanness. This is how History textbooks that are used in South Africa construct particular forms of African consciousness for their users.
Adopting a social constructionist ontology meant that I adopted a largely relativist view of the nature and essence of things. To use the words of Wellington et al. (2007, p. 100), I viewed social reality “as socially constructed, subjectively experienced and the result of human thought as expressed through language.” This statement explains why I viewed the key concepts of this study to be socially constructed through discourses. Therefore, I will view reality from a relativist point of view (Terre Blanch & Durrheim, 1999). It should be acknowledged that paradigms cannot be likened to tools which can be picked from a toolbox for a particular purpose and be used with perfect fit. To explain, a key problem with a social constructionist ontological position is what I touched on in Chapter 4 regarding relativism and essentialism.
Whilst I had a relativist worldview to this study, I cannot claim to have escaped essentialism completely. The fact that I identified myself within a particular paradigm means that I was, in fact, being essentialist in a particular way. Howarth, et al. (2000) lucidly explain a way around this paradox by giving an example of a forest. They explain how a forest might be viewed,
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depending on the observer, as an obstacle at one extreme and as an environmental marvel at the other. Viewing the forest differently does not necessarily mean that its existence is being questioned; rather its essence is debated.
Furthermore, according to Thomas (n.d.) social constructionists do not dispute the meanings of some concepts such as meaning and power. This is in addition to the argument that in social research, humans and society are sometimes considered real (Wellington, et al., 2007).
However, I did not take these weaknesses to be obstacles since, as I previously explained, the research process is not a neat endeavour. Since the issues of ontological assumptions are related to the nature versus nurture debate, I maintain that when it comes to meaning-making nurture contributes much more than nature.
My paradigm also corresponds with my epistemological assumptions. This means that my view concerning knowledge is that it is also socially constructed. This epistemological assumption implies that I, as a knower, am not divorced from knowledge. As part of society I am thus an active participant in the construction of knowledge. For instance, I constructed meanings of Africa and Africanness based on my understanding of the discourses that I was exposed to through literature and my context. Furthermore, knowledge is also “experiential, personal and subjective” (Wellington et al., 2007, p. 101). In this way, context and time are some of the key factors that alter the nature of knowledge and this explains why I declared who I am in the introductory chapter. This epistemological assumption creates an infinite nature of knowledge in that we can never know everything about phenomena, which is why we need to keep conducting research, even on issues that may seem to have been concluded. As with the issues of ontology, meaning and power are two constructs that social constructionists can really claim to know about (Thomas, n.d.). This study was therefore based on the acknowledgement that people who hold power in society create a hegemony that constructs what society might eventually accept as truth and knowledge through textbooks.
The final paradigmatic assumption that I considered is regarding human nature and agency.
Here the social constructionist view implies that I take humans to be responsible for the construction of knowledge and reality (Wellington et al., 2007). To explain this, I refer to the
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arguments in Chapter 3 whereby a number of stakeholders influence textbook production in different countries. I also showed how power dynamics amongst the said stakeholders may sometimes mean that the textbook authors experience limited agency in terms of ideological positioning and crucial contentions within the content. I further argue that the textbook users are not always passive agents in the construction of knowledge. A social constructionist position acknowledges the role of the textbook user in the user’s mental construction of African consciousness. This social constructionist view tallies with the argument by Kalmus (2005, p.
471) that while textbooks are indeed socialisers, the role of the textbook users as “as active, resistant, and sometimes cynical readers” should not be ignored. Whatever amount of power the textbook user wields in society ultimately contributes to (or limits) their agency in the construction of African consciousness. This can be explained through an example – citizens who are disempowered through dictatorial politics tend to lose their agency and thus become victims of propaganda. Since I positioned myself as a social constructionist, I also acknowledge that I practiced my own agency as I analysed the way textbooks construct African consciousness. This role that I took is explained later in this chapter in the methodology section, but as I noted in Chapter 1, my experiences and worldview had a huge influence on my analysis.
My adoption of the social constructionist paradigm was not merely informed by my ontological and epistemological assumptions. It is also advised within the field of textbook research that textbooks should be viewed as social constructions and thus should be analysed from a social constructionist point of view. In Crawford’s (2003) words:
Exploring the social construction of textbooks provides an important context from within which to investigate critically the dynamics underlying the cultural politics of education and the social movements that form it and which are formed by it (p. 6).
Therefore if textbooks are sites of construction and contestation of knowledge and ideology it makes sense to situate this study within a social constructionist worldview. This paradigm informed the rest of my research design and methodology explained below.
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