The Sub-Sample for Life History Interviews

CHAPTER FOUR: MAPPING THE METHODOLOGICAL ROUTE- PROCESS, PARADIGM AND PROCEDURE

4.6 Research Process

4.6.2 Research Participants

4.6.2.8 The Sub-Sample for Life History Interviews

I realized that this issue of sample size is highly complex given the above distribution. I decided to choose a sub-sample for the life history interview that best depicts and is truly representative of the main sample. I used stratified sampling to arrive at my selected sub- sample for interviews.

Cohen & Manion (1995:87) defined stratified sampling as 'dividing the population into homogeneous groups, each containing subjects with similar characteristics'. Stoker (1983) states that the basic reason for using stratification is that the same precision of

estimates can be obtained with a much smaller sample by using stratified sampling.

Stratified sampling enabled the researcher to break up the population into various sub- groups or strata represented by:

• Gender

• Different categories of ages of the teachers

• Race of the teachers

There were 7 participants in 21-30 age groups; 8 participants in the 31-40 age group and 6 participants in the 41-50 age group. I examined each age category and separated each participant into race, that is, Indians, Africans, Coloureds and Whites. Thereafter,within each race category I further separated the participants into gender, that is, males and females. This amounted to eight sets of participants within each age category namely:

Indian Male, Indian Female, African Male, African Female, Coloured Male, Coloured Female, White Male and White Female. This gave me a comprehensive picture of my sample for my interview. A proportionate number of the participants to be consulted for each age, gender and race variables were guided by the sample size.

Taking into account the fact that stratification is a 'very powerful tool in determining a representative sample' (Stoker, 1983:35) and that a large sample would not necessarily yield profoundly different findings in survey research, it was decided to choose 12% of 21 history educators from Kwasanti circuit to arrive at my sub-sample for the life history interviews. This resulted in 6 interviewees to be included as part of my data collection. I then worked out the proportionate percentages in relation to each age category.

In the first step 6 interviewees were proportionately distributed to the various age groups according to the calculations below:

• Age Category: 21-30 -;-.7 -;-. 21 x 6= 1,9= 2 interviewees required.

• Age Category: 31-40 -;-. 8 -;-. 21 x 6

=

2,2

=

2 interviewees required

• Age Category: 41-50^-i- 6 -;-. 21 x 6= 1,7= 2 interviewees required

In the second step the interviewees were selected within each age category. Taking the age category "31-40" having the highest interviewees required as an example. The 8 participants were separated into four sets namely 1 Indian Male, I Indian Female, 1 African Male, 2 African Females, I Coloured Female and

°

Coloured Male, 2 White Females and

°

White Male. The proportionate number of interviewees for each was calculated as follows:

Indian Male

• 1 -;- 8 x 2 = 0,25

zero participants required.

Indian Female

• 1 -;- 8 x 2 = 0,25

• zero participant required

African Male

• 1 -;- 8 x 2 = 0,25

• zero participant required

African Female

• 2 -;- 8 x 2 = 0,50

• 1 participant required

Coloured Male

• 0-;-8x2=0

• zero participant required

Coloured Female

• 1 -;- 8 x 2 = 0,25

• zero participant required

White Male

• 0+-8x2=0

• zero participant required

White Female

• 2^-i- 8 x 2 = 0,50

• 1 participant required

Likewise this was done for each of other age categories and the number of interviewees required for the research study is outlined in table 4.7.

B S C

S

D

S

E

S

F

S

G

S

H

S T

sm

21-30 0 0 2 ,57 1 ,28 2 ,57 1 ,28 0 0 1 ,28 0 0 7 2

31-40 1 ,25 1 ,25 1 ,25 2 ,50 0 0 1 ,25 0 0 2 ,50 8 2

41-50 1 ,33 1 ,33 0 0 2 ,67 0 0 2 ,67 0 0 0 0 6 2

Table 4.7: The description of the interviewees

Key:

A= Number of Indian Male participants B= Number ofIndian Famale participants C= Number of African Male participants D= Number of African Female participants E= Number of Coloured Male participants F = Number of Coloured Female participants G ⁼ Number of White Male participants H = Number of White Female participants

S=Denotes sample required.

T = Total participants SIR= Sample required.

The following conditions and criteria were used to determine the choice of the educators:

• Participants must be teaching history in both General Education and Training (GET)6Band and Further Education and Training (FET)7Band. Currently,Grades 1 to 9 (GET Band) are implementing Curriculum 2005. Grades 10 and 11 are implementing the curriculum under NATED 550.These participants were able to compare history been taught in Grade 9 (Social Science learning area) and history taught in Grade 10,11 and 12.

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•

•

•

These educators were at an advantageous position to cite their personal experiences and how these experiences shaped their identity. This criterion was necessary in my study because it allowed me to explore how history teachers interpret their identities in the context of the changing curriculum policies.

Participants must be articulate and be good informers. Good participants for a research project are those who are articulate,able to tell a story and have a grasp of a particular cultural world. It is important that the story illuminates the issue being studied. This could mean that the stories of the most disempowered, which do not feel confident to articulate their experiences or reflect upon their experiences,might never get told.Participants were required to speak English as a language for functional communication. I felt that it was important to engage personally with participants as a novice researcher I did not want to complicate a delicate and sensitive process by working via an interpreter.

Teachers were chosen at different points of their teaching experiences. The history teachers selected provided a good sample for comparison since each

General Education and Training phase: this includes Grades 8 and 9.

Further Education and Training phase: this includes Grades 10,II and 12.

teacher taught history for a different length of time and encountered different 'lived' experiences. These teachers were selected according to the number of years that they taught history. The participants fell into three distinct time periods, i.e., a novice teacher (1-5 years of history teaching experience); a middle-career teacher (15-20 years of history teaching experience); and the veteran teacher (25 years and over of history teaching experience). My interest rested in understanding and interpreting the social processes that informed the teachers' 'lived' experiences and therefore the choice to employ time periodization was most appropriate. In this case the history teachers were selected according to their level of teaching experience in order to determine how each one of them experienced the history curriculum during their teaching years and to understand how history teachers interpret their identities in the context of the changing curriculum policies.

• Accessibility of the participants to conduct interviews. Participants were required to be willing informants who were able to sustain a prolonged period of engagement. In life history research the open-ended nature of asking teachers to

'tell about their life' means that the time devoted to an interview can run on indefinitely. Life history interviewing can mean more than one interview with a respondent and intensive life history interviews with a single respondent can stretch over many sessions. Some respondents may simply be unwilling or unable to commit the time. The study was largely dependent on lengthy interviews (3 - 4 hours long) with the teachers and this determined partly the small number of teachers that I was able to include in this study.

• Race, gender and age of the teachers were also considered in the selection of the participants. South Africa has a well-known history of racial segregation. I felt it would be important to engage with participants from all race backgrounds. I wanted the teachers to be representative of the teacher population in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Choosing teachers of the different race, gender and age groupings allowed me to understand teachers who actually inhabit different

locations within the social structures, but also as a way of mapping out within these differences a place of commonality,a connection and concern in their lives and practices as teachers of history. The intention is to explore issues of identity and difference in all its forms but to also find a commonality in the experience of difference (Pillay,2003).

I limited my study by defining certain categories that were relevant and useful to my study. These included teachers from different learning sites (geographical location) who taught in different phases of schooling and different teaching experience as teachers of history. These categories, including the six different participants were selected to participate in the project. It is necessary at this point to provide a more detailed description of the teachers. Of the six participants three are classified as Africans; one Indian'';one White^lOand one as Coloured^ll•The racial label I used in my description of the teachers in this study refers to the historical apartheid racial classification. The use of the labels (African,Indian,White and Coloured) in this study is used to provide the racial and class fragmentation of the educational experiences under the apartheid system from 1948 to 1994.

Prior to 1996, five race-based education departments functioned in the province ofKZN.

The Department of Education and Training (DET) and KwaZulu Education Department (KZED) catered for the needs of African pupils and teachers,House of Delegates (HOD) catered for the needs of Indian pupils and teachers, House of Representatives (HOR) catered for the needs of Coloured pupils and teachers and Natal Education Department (NED) catered for the needs of White pupils and teachers. In the interest of diversity I invited participants of varied educational backgrounds.Although it was my intention to invite teachers of diverse educational backgrounds, participants of this research studied either at a university or a college of education.Four had history majors at undergraduate level and two had history honours. However, the specific contexts of their primary,

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African: generally referred to South Africans with an African origin.

Indian: generally referred to"diasporic" South Africans who traced their origins to India.

White: generally referred to South Africans with European origins.

Coloured: generally referred to South Africans with mixed racial origins.

secondary and tertiary education varied. This group lived, schooled and trained as teachers in a society that was politically, economically, socially and educationally unequal during the apartheid years from 1948 to 1994. My primary interest was in their life experience.Itwas difficult to gauge the socio-economiccircumstances of participants especially because this changed over their life courses.

I guaranteed that all participants will remain anonymous and that I would not disclose any information that would identify the school in which the study was carried out.

Pseudonyms were chosen to reflect the names of history teacher and the institutions. The description of the sample of history teachers and biographical profiles are indicated in table 4.8 below:

Mars Coloured Female Ex HOR Urban

Secondary

Earth African Female Ex KZED Peri-urban Second

Jupiter African Secondary

Mercury Indian Secondary

Venus White

Secondary

Neptune African Secondary

Female Ex DET Female Ex HOD

Female Ex NED Female Ex DET

Peri-urban Urban

Urban Urban

Table 4.8: Description of sample of history teachers and biographical profiles