20th Annual Conference on Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies
1994 Conference Proceedings
Abstracts and Key Words
C. Ashton-Stensrud
Gender Issues In Teacher Education: Exploring Feminist Students' Experiences Through Multiple Research Methods
Key Words: feminist, experiences
Abstract: If gender issues are inadequately addressed in teacher education, intending teachers may reproduce sexism in their own teaching. The use of multiple research methods has been a useful means of exploring feminist students' experiences in teacher education to examine whether gender issues are adequately addressed in teacher education courses at the University of Saskatchewan.
P. Augustine
Students' Perceptions of the Educational Experience at a Women's College: A Comparative Case Study
Key Words: women students
Abstract: In a comparative case study, the educational experience at a private, comprehensive college for women in the southeastern United States is explored with traditional-age resident students, traditional-age commuter students and re-entry students. Research finding from interviews with 30 women (Caucasian and African-American) examine how differences among students affect individual perceptions of the college experience.
J. Benton
F. Hensley
D. Waite
R. Zath
Participants' Voices in Co-Reform
Key Words: teacher education, co-reform
Abstract: The researchers examined how the collaborative partnership between university faculty, cooperating teachers, and teacher interns in U.G.A.'s Alternative Teacher Education Program led to a transformation of their traditional roles. The redefinition of roles and redistribution of power occurred as teacher interns and cooperating teachers gained more voice in the process of teacher education.
R. Chenail
J. Gale
Practicing Research
Key Words: teaching, exercises
Abstract: In this workshop participants will learn a number of exercises designed to aid beginning and advanced students master important qualitative research concepts and practices. These exercises and activities are organized to help researchers learn ways of organizing research projects, generating researchable questions, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting research results by practicing exercises designed for graduate research classes.
C. Clark
S. Gaston
Becoming A Feminist: Tracking The Development Of Identity
Key Words: feminist, identity
Abstract: This study suggests that feminist identity development may follow two patterns. The first is a process of transformation, where the woman experiences a change in personal perspective on both herself and the world. The second is characterized by continuity in self-understanding but where the woman comes to recognize that her personal values are congruent with those of feminism.
S. Davis
On My Own: Paradox Of A Paired Student Teaching Experience
Key Words: cooperation, communication
Abstract: Interviews of supervising teachers and student teachers are the source of the data. Student teachers were assigned to one supervising teacher with a partner, as a pair. The themes which emerged from the data show what appear to be inconsistencies of the reality - a paradox. The dominant themes were: 1) The match; the dynamics of pairing 2) Description of the experience: a rotation 3) On my own, and 4) Learning opportunity of the paired experience.
B. Dinoff
H. Herzog
Animal Rights Talk: Public Controversies, Electronic Mail, and Qualitative Research
Key Words: animal rights
Abstract: We monitored AR-Talk, an electronic mail bulletin board promoting discussion of issues related to animal treatment. Approximately 300 messages were subjected to qualitative analysis along the dimensions of type, tone, and topic. Issues discussed included moral consistency, species concerns, uses of animals, and over-riding philosophical considerations. We argue that electronic mail systems are potentially valuable sources of qualitative data.
M. Enriquez-Olmos
Educational Concerns of Foreign and Immigrant Parents
Key Words: parents' educational concerns, immigrants
Abstract: Educational concerns of immigrant and temporary alien parents of school age children were studied. In-depth interviews were used as qualitative research method to explore parents' perceptions of problems in educating their children in an alien society. Several recurring themes were identified as common concerns of foreign parents.
W. Fisher, Jr.
The Qualitative Fundamentals of Mathematical Thinking
Key Words: quality/quantity, mathematical thinking
Abstract: Heidegger (1967) showed Kant's assertion that research is scientific to the extent that it is mathematical to the extent that it is quantitative. This means that "a study can be quantitative without being mathematical," as well as vice versa (Thurstone, 1959, pp. 9-10), a point with extensive implications for educational research.
B. Hensley
From a Peach in the Orchard to a Rediscovered Treasure: One Woman's Story of Playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Key Words: women's development, collaborative research
Abstract: This study presents a case study of a woman who chose a nontraditional, non-gender stereotyped career in her young adulthood as a member of the All American Girls' Professional Baseball League. The study investigated influencing factors and effects this nontraditional choice had on subsequent career roles, identity, and self-esteem throughout her life. The development of a collaborative research relationship between the participant and researcher was also a significant facet of this study. Some preliminary conclusions are discussed related to the development of women's self-esteem. Recommendations for further research are proposed to expand this study and continue investigating a unique group of women who, until recently, have been practically invisible and unstudied.
P. Jenlink
Developing The School And University: Context, Collaboration, And Commitment
Key Words: collaboration, dialogic research
Abstract: Practitioner development is a complex process whose success depends upon a favorable context for learning as well as practical, engaging, collaborative activities. This success also depends, to a great degree, upon the mediation of disparity between the context of practitioner preparation/development and that context in which the practitioner will practice their craft. Creating meaning and understanding of our contexts requires finding, hearing, and honoring the collective voices of the university, schools, and teachers. This paper explores the use of dialogic research in focus group interview method to construct a context for collaboration and professional development.
M. Kibler
Raising High School Graduates in Public Housing Projects; Perceptions of Mothers and the Graduates
Key Words: African-American mothers, low income families and school
Abstract: This paper reports an interview study that examined the perceptions of African-American mothers and young adult graduates about what, especially in their home life and home-school relations, fostered high school graduation. The voices of the participants will describe their views. One major theme which evolved is a strong mother who monitored the students' progress and treatment in school.
K. Kinnucan-Welsch
Interdisciplinary Teams In The Elementary School: A Portrait Of Collaboration
Key Words: interdisciplinary collaboration
Abstract: Interdisciplinary collaboration among teams of professionals from diverse disciplines is one response to changing contexts in which learning occurs. This paper presents initial findings of an exploration of interdisciplinary collaboration in two elementary schools. Comments related to the evolving role of the researcher during the course of the inquiry are also included.
S. Marendiuk-Obianwa
Developing A Cross-Cultural Research Process: Exploring Nigerian Women's Educational Experiences
Key Words: cross-cultural, research
Abstract: This essay traces the journey of a graduate student through some of the complexities inherent in the process of doing cross-cultural feminist research. The issues of working across differences in ethnicity, culture and social values are examined as they affect the research process and the dynamics between researcher and participants. After detailing the initiation into the research, textual findings and methodological considerations, various cross-cultural suggestions are offered.
D. Martin
D. Fuqua
M. Rettig
K. Santos
C. Watson
A Support Group for Qualitative Researchers: One University's Story
Key Words: support group
Abstract: This presentation will focus on a teaching university faculty's experiences of organizing themselves into a qualitative research support group and on the contributions made and benefits received through participation in the group. Using their research projects as the context, the panel members will present how the group has contributed to their own research efforts. The research examples range from individual dissertations to larger funded projects involving multiple researchers. The group participants benefitted through informal consultation, the sharing of materials, assistance with design and analysis, and critique of writing.
V. Mott
The Challenge of Phenomenological Research: From Philosophical Ideals to Practice
Key Words: phenomenology, philosophy
Abstract: Phenomenology is both a philosophy & a unique research strategy. As a qualitative research methodology which specifically strives to portray phenomena from the personal & contextual perspective of those who live it, the very philosophical roots of phenomenology pose specific challenges for researchers seeking to explain how people function and make sense of their world.
P. Munro
The Multiple Voices Of Feminist Life History Research
Key Words: life history research, feminist methodology
Abstract: In light of the postmodern and feminist critique of positivist notions of subjectivity, knowledge, and representation, this paper examines issues of self-representation in the life history narratives of three women educators born at the turn of the century. Specifically, this paper focuses on how conflicting conceptions of self in these women's narratives simultaneously disrupts and reinscribes notions of what constitutes truth as well as attunes us to the multiple ways women construct, resist, and negotiate a gendered self. The authors provide a reflexive account of their on-going struggles with issues of interpretation.
K. Rhoades
Confessions of a Collaborator: Analyzing Reciprocal Meaning-Making in Feminist Fieldwork
Key Words: feminist qualitative research practices/gender and higher education
Abstract: Feminist researchers have questioned extensively the possibilities and limits residing at the intersection of feminist research goals and ethnographic practices. Grounding this paper within the framework of these methodological and theoretical arguments, particularly as they inform notions of collaboration between research and researched, I will describe and analyze how I designed and conducted a "feminist" ethnography with a diverse group of women's studies' undergraduate students attending a large, midwestern, public university.
S. Schumacher
Caring Research Role Relationships: Clarifying or Confusing Critical Ethnography
Key Words: research role relationship, qualitative strategies
Abstract: The concept of caring as a research role relationship defined and illustrated in a 27 month field study of six mothers and 59 families of adults (ages 18-32) with severe traumatic brain injury. The study resulted in both individual and collective power based on moral authority to address national policy reform.
S. Stebbins
Working Class Girls
Key Words: schoolworking, class
Abstract: Attention has been given to the prospect that children experience school differently because of race and/or gender. But little attention has been paid, in the United States, to class-differences and their impact on educational experiences and attitudes. The paper is an ethnographic investigation of the school experiences and attitudes of a group of working-class girls. While the girls suffer from the low expectations of their schools, they also participate in behaviors which limit the quality of their educational experiences.
J. Suoranta
Some Problems Concerning The Use Of Qualitative Research Methods
Key Words: teaching of research methods, qualitative methodology
Abstract: Students have often difficulties in completing their master thesis. The purpose of this paper is to examine what kind of problems students meet in using different research methods in general and qualitative methods in particular. It seems to be so that qualitative researchers have to convince the mainstream consumers of educational research that qualitative research is a meaningful endeavor. Students (mainly female) were asked to think and with what kind of concrete problems they have in using difference research methods in their research. Data were gathered through a qualitative research method called MEBS (method of empathy based stories). Student were asked to picture themselves in a certain situation (they have just finished their research). Two elements were systemically varied in the descriptions: What kind of research methods were used (quantitative\qualitative) and how the research project proceeded and ended (success\failure).
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