Colloquium - Dr. James H. Sanders III

Queer Theory                                                                                                       
Dr. James H. Sanders III

Can we talk about (queer) sex in schools?

Forthcoming book from the NAEA Press...
...is a multi-methodological exploration of perspectives in our field concerning sexuality subjects (largely an empirical study, NOT a queer theoretical tome)
- a review of published literature in education and art education
     - historical overview of NAEA published research addressing LGBT subjects
- arts-based research with students exploring sexuality through their art
     - covers from Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education (JGLIE) and LGBT Youth
- longitudinal examination of the 50 largest US cities' school systems' policies addressing LGBTQ concerns based on documents published between 2001 and 2013     - personnel policies
    - student handbooks and codes of conduct
- autobiographical research (revisiting career in nonprofits and in schools)
- exploration of LGBTQ subjects (not) being addressed in the museum
     - essays reprinted from Culture Works with update and notes on Hide/Seek
- Narrative Result
     - interviews of faculty and peers conducted by Latino graduate students
     - examination of media representations of LGBTQ subjects in film and art

Research on Sexual Deviance Issues is Expanding...
Kenny Gardner Honeychurch (1995) notes the number of books in print dealing with lesbian and gay issues... increased from fewer than 500 titles in 1969 to more than 90000 titles in 1989, not (via WorldCAT) up to 57,000

Have art educators' interest in LGBTQ subjects declined in the last decade?
Or have they?
- many early writings were letters to journal editors denying any need for talk about an artist's sexuality
- much of the first writings looking at HIV/AIDS challenges seemingly unneeded after combination drug therapies rendered the pandemic a manageable disease
- many art educators concerned with LGBT issues turned to journals that were committed to exploring intersections of race, class, gender, (dis)ability, and sexuality

NAEA to date has published no more than 100 articles that even mention LGBTQ issues

Develop students' deep art reading skills

Museums historically (failed to) explicitly address LGBTQ subjects in exhibits


Journal of LGBT Youth: an international quarterly devoted to research, policy, theory, and practice
Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education: an international quarterly devoted to research, policy, and practice

Research Methods - Theorist Bootcamp

How do you figure out which theory camp you're in?                   

- Who do you read that really clicks with you?

- "Friends of your mind" (The Color Purple)

We need theorist bootcamp!

READ MORE THEORY                                                                                            

- Who else has written about these questions? These hunches?

- Be careful about who you're reading... a lot of times they are secondary sources - check back several generations to get to the original meat & bones of the theory rather than rehashed, "telephone" mutations of the original theory

- Find pivotal sources to provide the seeds that your research will grow from; your research should fill the gap in the body of literature that it fits into

Research Methods - Carl Sagan

"Above all be skeptical but open to new ideas."

- Carl Sagan

Research Methods: Grounded Theory

Cutting to the Methodological Chase on Grounded Theory As a Methodoloogy

  

1)  Grounded theory:

--begins with data, not a formal hypothesis, or an initial assumption

--works toward theory (overarching concepts, models, formal theory)---you collect/create data (yes, plural) that might add up to theorizing

--works toward insights, hypotheses, questions which call for more data

--deals with social phenomena, those experiences, occurrences that qualitative researchers are interested in

--working method or method of data analysis is called constant comparison,  that is, it is systematic, purposeful

            --this means searching for similarities (themes) and differences

--from qualitative data gained from interviews, observed actions and events, documents

--when similarities and differences are discovered among the data, they are coded (codes can be original or prompted by seemingly related theory or even from prior studies working with similar questions and data); the codes become categories which the researcher labels; then the various data are placed within these categories

--researcher goes to the literature (research and theorizing that have already been established—out there in the journals, documents, etc.); and goes back in an iterative process through the data collected, to double check on  and sharpen the categorization of the data (are the initial codes that have been established as accurate as possible? Should they be modified or additional codes/categories developed?)

--after the data have been exhaustively reviewed and codes checked and re-checked, theories or overarching concepts are formed

2) Grounded theorists work with theoretical sampling or purposive sampling, wherein research participants or cases are chosen, not because they are necessarily representative of what you are researching, but because they are relevant to the phenomenon you are investigating. What these research participants have experienced or what they have to say and/or what apparently goes on in a given organization, school, etc. promises (already) to provide you with the kinds of information/insights that you need in investigation. [This research site and the data that it might offer have a good chance of providing you with the insights/understandings that you are researching.] You might choose 2 cases, for example, of what you think (theoretically or though prior acquaintance) will provide you with similar qualities or you might intentionally choose contrasting cases.

--make certain that you define carefully why you chose the sample (the case, participants, organizations, etc.). This holds for all samples. Why did you choose to do your research on this sample--organizations, students, families, events, etc.

3) theoretical saturation: as you continue to code and comb through your data, back and forth, after a while you will not find anything new or revealing. When this happens you have likely done enough analysis. You have reached theoretical saturation.  

In the big picture in qualitative research, we are all working from the ground up.

--I have a question.

--I seek answers via data collection.

--I ask: So what does this data add up to in the end? [understanding, concepts, theories that need more investigation, questions] 

Reflection

I thought that it was very interesting to hear from three different students with similar (but not the same) research interests and academic pursuits rather than from one source. I am interested in the hands-on nature of participatory action research (PAR) and think that if I were to expand my work with Fort Hayes into more of a look at the impact of the program itself on the students that it would be very helpful for me. I was thrilled to get some personal experience feedback from Kate, Melissa, and Ruth! It is always nice to hear testimonials that help reinforce that even though you don’t have a clue about what you’re doing, you’re not necessarily doing it wrong. And that you’re not alone! Their tips and explanations were really helpful in clarifying some questions I had regarding the basics of methodological approaches and in addressing challenges that I might expect to face.

Research Methods: Narrative Inquiry

Narrative inquiry or narrative analysis emerged as a discipline from within the broader field of qualitative research in the early 20th century. Narrative inquiry uses field texts, such as stories, autobiography, journals, field notes, letters, conversations, interviews, family stories, photos (and other artifacts), and life experience, as the units of analysis to research and understand the way people create meaning in their lives as narratives.

1. Develop a research question

• A Qualitative study seeks to learn why or how, so the writer’s research must be directed at determining the why and how of the research topic. Therefore, when crafting a Research Question for a Qualitative study, the writer will need to ask a why or how question about the topic.

• The raw data tend to be interview transcriptions, but can also be the result of field notes compiled during participant observation or from other forms of data collection that can be used to produce a narrative.

• According to Polkinghorne, the goal of organizing data is to home in on the research question and separate irrelevant or redundant information from that which will be eventually analyzed, sometimes referred to as "narrative smoothing."

• Some approaches to organizing data are as follows:

(When choosing a method of organization, one should choose the approach best suited to the research question and the goal of the project. For instance, Gee's method of organization would be best if studying the role language plays in narrative construction whereas Labov's method would more ideal for examining a certain event and its effect on an individual's experiences)

• Labov's: Thematic organization or Synchronic Organization.

This method is considered useful for understanding major events in the narrative and the effect those events have on the individual constructing the narrative. The approach utilizes an "evaluation model" that organizes the data into an abstract (What was this about?), an orientation (Who? What? When? Where?), a complication (Then what happened?), an evaluation (So what?), a result (What finally happened?), and a coda (the finished narrative). Said narrative elements may not occur in a constant order; multiple or reoccurring elements may exist within a single narrative.

• Polkinghorne's: Chronological Organization or Diachronic Organization also related to the sociology of stories approach that focuses on the contexts in which narratives are constructed. This approach attends to the "embodied nature" of the person telling the narrative, the context from which the narrative is created, the relationships between the narrative teller and others within the narrative, historical continuity, and the chronological organization of events. A story with a clear beginning, middle, and end is constructed from the narrative data. Polkinghorne makes the distinction between narrative analysis and analysis of narratives. Narrative analysis utilizes "narrative reasoning" by shaping data in a narrative form and doing an in-depth analysis of each narrative on its own, whereas analysis of narratives utilizes paradigmatic reasoning and analyzes themes across data that take the form of narratives.

• Bruner's functional approach focuses on what roles narratives serve for different individuals. In this approach, narratives are viewed as the way in which individuals construct and make sense of reality as well as the ways in which meanings are created and shared. This is considered a functional approach to narrative analysis because the emphasis of the analysis is focused on the work that the narrative serves in helping individual's make sense of their lives, particularly through shaping random and chaotic events into a coherent narrative that makes the events easier to handle by giving them meaning. The focus of this form of analysis is on the interpretations of events related in the narratives by the individual telling the story.

• Gee's approach of structural analysis focuses on the ways in which the narrative is conveyed by the speaker with particular emphasis given to the interaction between speaker and listener. In this form of analysis, the language that the speaker uses, the pauses in speech, discourse markers, and other similar structural aspects of speech are the focus. In this approach, the narrative is divided into stanzas and each stanza is analyzed by itself and also in the way in which it connects to the other pieces of the narrative.

• There are a multitude of ways of organizing narrative data that fall under narrative analysis; different types of research questions lend themselves to different approaches. Regardless of the approach, qualitative researchers organize their data into groups based on various common traits.

• Some paradigms/theories that can be used to interpret data:

Paradigm or theory	Criteria	Form of theory	Type of narration
Positivist/postpositivist	Internal, external validity	Logical-deductive grounded	Scientific report
Constructivist	Trustworthiness, credibility, transferability, confirmability	Substantive	Interpretive case studies, ethnographic fiction
Feminist	Afrocentric, lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gender, reflexivity, praxis, emotion, concrete grounding	Critical, standpoint	Essays, stories, experimental writing
Ethnic	Afrocentric, lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gender	Standpoint, critical, historical	Essays, fables, dramas
Marxism	Emancipatory theory, falsifiability dialogical, race, class, gender	Critical, historical, economic	Historical, economic, sociocultural analyses
Cultural studies	Cultural practices, praxis, social texts, subjectivities	Social criticism	Cultural theory as criticism
Queer theory	Reflexivity, deconstruction	Social criticism, historical analysis	Theory as criticism, autobiography

• While interpreting qualitative data, researchers suggest looking for patterns, themes, and regularities as well as contrasts, paradoxes, and irregularities.

(The research question may have to change at this stage if the data does not offer insight to the inquiry)

• The interpretation is seen in some approaches as co-created by not only the interviewer but also with help from the interviewee, as the researcher uses the interpretation given by the interviewee while also constructing their own meaning from the narrative.

With these approaches, the researcher should draw upon their own knowledge and the research to label the narrative.

• According to some qualitative researchers, the goal of data interpretation is to facilitate the interviewee's experience of the story through a narrative form.
• Narrative forms are produced by constructing a coherent story from the data and looking at the data from the perspective of one's research question.

2. Select or produce raw data

3. Organize data

4. Interpret data