97 understanding the terms democracy and citizenship, are the subject of this study (discussed in Chapters Five and Six). The next section discusses the design and the methodology that are used in the study.
98 processes of research, whereas quantitative research uses a more rigid and controlled process for quantifying or ascertaining the magnitude of the variation, which was not applicable in this study.
Qualitative research is based on a constructivist philosophy that assumes that reality is an interactive, shared social experience, which is interpreted by individuals (MacMillan &
Schumacher, 2006). This means that reality is a social construction; and individuals and groups of people derive from or ascribe meanings to certain events, processes or objects. In this manner, people form constructions or reorganize them (constructions) as viewpoints, perceptions or belief systems in order to make sense of their world. In other words, peoples’ perceptions are what they consider real and they, therefore, direct their actions, thoughts and feelings accordingly (MacMillan & Schumacher, 2006)
Qualitative research design serves as a guideline that connects the paradigms used, for this study both critical and interpretive paradigms, and the strategies for making investigations and the methods of collecting data, in the this case, how community leaders, civic educators and ordinary citizens understand the concepts of democracy and citizenship. In the two contexts of this study: urban and rural, similar participants were used in both districts – leaders, educators and citizens – and their narratives collected via individual or group interviews. The data that emanated from the participants were supplemented by documents from institutions that provide civic education in Lesotho, and in one case, an observation of a civic education class in action.
Initially, I had planned to use a comparative case study in the two different contexts, rural (Qacha’sNek) and urban (Maseru), because of the differing tendencies of the people who live in those two different areas. However, since there was fluidity in the movements of the proposed research participants, that is, there were no confined boundaries for the rural and urban ‘case’ contexts, the participants could not be geographically linked to only one place.
The study was therefore conceived of as a small scale qualitative study, involving two contexts and using the participants’ narratives rather than comparative case studies as the main design focus. Nevertheless, although the participants did move around geographically, there was sufficient difference in their daily lifestyle and educational exposure to enable a comparative element between people, who most of their time lives in urban or rural
99 contexts. Since the initial plan was to use a case study the next paragraphs explore some of the characteristics of case study design in order to clarify why the requirements of this study ultimately did not fit that description.
4.3.1 Case Study Design
Rule and John (2011) describe a case study as a means of eliciting information about a specific issue in order to gain more knowledge. In a case study (Bryman, 2004; Chilisa &
Preece, 2005; Cohen et al., 2009; Creswell, 1994; MacMillan & Schumacher, 2006) a single person, programme, event, process, institution, social group or phenomenon is investigated within a specified timeframe, using a combination of appropriate data collection devices. A case study, in the words of Punch (1998, p. 34), is “a study of a phenomenon of some sort occurring in a bounded context.” In this circumstance, the phenomena under study were the concepts of democracy, citizenship and civic education, which were investigated in the two different contexts of Lesotho, one, rural (Qacha’s Nek) and the other, urban (Maseru).
However, this study did not fit the bounded nature of case studies because it could not be guaranteed that the views of the participants would be contextually confined to a particular place. Their perceptions and understandings have been derived over time as well as place, though the nature and range of the influences they have been subjected to are likely to have been different for those who live primarily in the urban district of Maseru compared with those who live primarily in a remote village in the mountainous region of Qacha’s Nek.
Therefore the study is described as a small scale qualitative design, which used the participants' narratives in order to obtain rich, thick descriptions of values and
understandings related to citizenship and democracy learnt over time. Narrative research is discussed in the next section.
4.3.2 Narrative Research
Trahar (2006) outlines narrative research as a particular form of qualitative research, where the focus is on the experiences of the participants and how they make meaning of those experiences. Narrative research expects thick, rich data, stories and examples of how meaning has been constructed. This is relevant to the critical and interpretive paradigms used in this study because the citizens, leaders and civic educators constructed their
meanings of how they understood the concepts of democracy and citizenship at the time of
100 their interviews and focus groups. The importance of narrative research is postulated by Trahar (2006, p. 28) as follows:
• It focuses on participant’s experiences and meanings given by them to that experience.
• It is concerned with representation and voice.
• It observes the personal human qualities of participants and researchers.
• It allows for the exploration of the research activity itself as a story.
According to MacMillan and Schumacher (2006), qualitative researchers emphasize the studying of participants’ perspectives using interactive strategies such as in-depth
interviews, collection and analysis of artefacts, and focus groups, all of which were used in this study. These research strategies are flexible and use various combinations of techniques to obtain valid data (ibid). As a researcher I managed to make adjustments to decisions about data collection strategies during the study in the field (see data collection section below). The use of multiple research strategies allows for triangulation of the participants’
assertions about the nature of democracy and citizenship in Lesotho; this enables the recommendation of some strategies for use in civic education for adults, which are drawn from the implications of the findings (refer to the next three findings chapters). The next section discusses sampling and the study sample that comprises the participants who engaged in the study.