CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPING THE TOOLS AS A MASTER CARVER
3.2 PARADIGMS: POSITIONING MY STUDY
According to Creswell (2007, p. 19), paradigms are a set of assumptions or beliefs about fundamental aspects of reality which give rise to a particular world view. Paradigms express underlying assumptions taken on faith, such as beliefs about the nature of reality (ontology), the relationship between the knower and known (epistemology) and assumptions about methodologies. Paradigms function as lenses or organising principles through which reality is interpreted. They offer us the means to tell a coherent story by depicting a world that is meaningful and functional, but culturally subjective (Schwartz
& Ogilvy, 1979).
As a researcher, my ontological (way of being) assumption was, therefore, based on my experiences as a teacher, which have taught me a few things about the role of the teacher and myself as a teacher. In Chapter One, I offered a brief rundown of my experience as a teacher at a Q4 school in the heart of the impoverished township of Chatsworth. My narrative recount highlighted what I have learned about myself as a teacher and the challenges — both personal and professional — that I grappled with. I now wanted to turn my gaze to other teachers. I wanted as a researcher to understand other teachers and their personal-professional identities in the dilemmatic context of different school quintiles.
I was troubled as a researcher about how I was going to present teachers’ lived experiences within the context of different school quintiles in a manner that captivated the attention of my intended audience. I needed to explore, understand and make sense of the social world of other teachers, and how their past histories and background influenced the choices they made in life. I had to focus on their meanings and interpretations of their subjective experiences within particular school quintiles. I also needed to understand my initial fixed mentality as a teacher, and how my evolving thinking as a scholar and researcher had opened up my ways of being and doing. I was able to achieve my aims through examining the stories that the teachers told about their lived experiences. The teachers’ stories helped me expand my scholarly understanding and possibilities for thinking about teachers’ personal-professional experiences within school quintiling.
I also needed to understand how apartheid, racial segregation, inequality, gender discrimination, class differences, and language differences had structured the life
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experiences of the participants. In addition, I knew that I wanted to explore the individual actions and experiences of my participants within their socio-cultural, economic and historical backgrounds. These aspects could not be ignored since it was these spaces that had been instrumental in shaping the teachers’ experiences. These multiple experiences had to be considered to understand better what it means to be a teacher within the South African context, and especially within the particular school quintile that defines the teachers’ environment. One way to accomplish this was through the stories they told of their lived experiences. My aim was, therefore, to utilise multiple data-generation approaches to bring to the teachers’ lived experiences to the fore within their unique individual contexts. I knew that the research design that I chose had to allow me to bring to the fore the unique multiple, multi-layered experiences of my participants, and needed to allow for a conversational space to be created within this research. I therefore chose to conduct my research within a qualitative research paradigm. I adopted a narrative inquiry approach using in-depth interviews, collage inquiry, photovoice, and poetic inquiry.
3.2.1 The qualitative research design
Qualitative research design refers to “research that elicits participants’ accounts of meaning, experience or perception” (De Vos, 2002, p. 79). This understanding is corroborated by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011), who indicated that a qualitative approach allows for a deeper, richer understanding of the event or occurrence being explored, and the meanings and construction of reality attached by participants to situations. Mohajan (2018) also found that qualitative methods are in the main more successful at providing a framework and background for identity construction, allowing the participant to narrate themes of self in relation to the historical and social events from which these themes stem and are played out. The rationale for my research was that the self is not an isolated being but mediates itself in relation to the broader social and cultural context. Teachers as social beings draw from the experiences gleaned from their interaction and socialisation within their families and communities to negotiate the various challenges they confront in the context of school quintiling.
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To accomplish my aim of investigating and understanding the multi-layered, complex intertwined personal-professional lives of my participants, I once again took on the role of the master carver of this research, leaning on the Jadeite Cabbage metaphor for inspiration and insight. I now shift my attention to the steps or stages a master carver engages in before a masterpiece can be created (Oriental Jade Jewelry, n.d.). As the master carver of this research, I had to follow several steps to create my masterpiece.
These included finding the “right” piece of jade to carve, which translated into finding the most “appropriate” participants for my study. In addition to the theoretical framework I had created, I also needed other tools to assist with my carving. These needed to be the appropriate tools for the task, as, for example, devices used to carve wood cannot be used to cut a piece of precious jade. This translated into selecting the “tools” that would be required, and the methodology and methods that would be employed to bring the carving (this research) to life. For example, decisions had to be made on the space in which the sculpture would be created, which translated into ensuring that the venue selected for my interviews was conducive to getting the best possible results. What was also important is that carving a piece of jade is considered to be an intensely painstaking and exacting art form. Carvers must value the rarity and worth of the jade (Mountain Jade, n.d.), and must take care not to waste any part of it. Those carvers who act in haste and without extreme care run the risk of misusing the precious jade. This care and caution spoke to my relationship with my participants, and the steps I had to take as a researcher to ensure that their integrity and value were appreciated (Sax, Michaelson & Meeks, 2004). The cabbage metaphor also provided a visual reminder of the multiple layers that constitute teachers’ lives, and that reflect the influence of personal, social, political and economic structures. It offered an understanding of how these structures, like the leaves of the cabbage, not only envelop the heart (the teacher) but also overlap and embrace it.
3.2.2 The interpretivist approach
According to Lather (1986), research paradigms fundamentally mirror our beliefs about the world we live in and want to live in. After thoughtful deliberation, and after a close look at my topic, my critical questions, my research problem and the aims of this research, I decided that an interpretivist approach would be most appropriate. The interpretivist perspective is based on the assumption that social life is a distinctively human product. It
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also acknowledges that the human mind is the purposive source of origin and meaning (Nieuwenhuis, 2010), the habitus of the person (Bourdieu, 1986). The interpretive paradigm is focused on understanding the world as it is from the subjective experiences of individuals (Reeves & Hedberg, 2003).
My aim for this study was to obtain an in-depth understanding (Cohen, Manion &
Morrison, 2011) of the inner lives of my participants. Interpretivism suggests that “reality is socially constructed” (Mertens, 2005, p. 12), and adopting an interpretivist approach therefore allowed me to understand the multiple fluid lives of my participants, both in the context of the different school quintiles and also in the various settings that reflected their socio-cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Interpretivism also focuses on understanding complex human behaviour (De Villiers, 2005), and the researcher does not stand above or outside but is an observer who attempts to understand the meanings of actions as they are communicated within specific social contexts (Mutch, 2005). As a researcher, I wanted an insider view of the phenomenon, and therefore deemed the interpretivist approach to be appropriate.