Important changes have taken place in the field of educational technology over the last few decades due to leaps in informatics, the explosive growth of the use of computers in schools, and the popularization of the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning. This scenario demands a broader understanding of the educational potential of new resources and didactic materials available to schools and innovative modes of individual and collective action in an increasingly digital society. Such changes have been faster since the start of the 21st century, which saw increased interest in educational technologies and many researchers orienting their studies to the modus operandi of the process of teaching and learning mediated by various types of digital technologies, be they presential, non-presential, hybrid, mobile, collaborative, cooperative, interactive, individualized, assistive, active, ubiquitous, and so on. With this, research in the field of educational technology has been consolidated and has begun to adopt methods of qualitative research that take account of this diversity of objects. This article seeks to point out the contributions of qualitative research methodologies in the formatting of this field of knowledge in Latin America. This is based on an examination of the most widely used scientific journals in the region, drawing on almost 100 articles published between 2016 and 2017. The analysis indicates that educational technology is evolving in Latin America, mainly due to the continuous and accelerated advance of digital information, communication, and expression technologies (DICETs). At the same time, there remains a great lack of scientific journals in the area, an issue that must be addressed given the strategic importance of this field of knowledge for the universalization of education in Latin America. Peer-reviewed journals have prioritized studies based on research and development (R&D) methods that emphasize media engineering for education and have a predominance of case studies. But they also present research problems related to qualitative issues that arise from the use of DICETs in specific teaching and learning situations. The scenario under analysis shows that research in this area has gradually evolved from a strongly technical perspective to a humanist one through qualitative analyses focusing on the limits and possibilities of DICETs. Thus, they raise important clues for future research, such as the challenges of adopting collaborative and interdisciplinary research approaches aimed at better understanding the processes and educational relations mediated by technologies; the new possibilities of hybrid education that can be addressed in different school contexts; and the question of teacher training for this new scenario. Such developments are crucial for advancing knowledge about educational technology in Latin America.
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Article
Qualitative Research on Educational Technology in Latin America
Vani Moreira Kenski and Gilberto Lacerda Santos
Article
A History of Qualitative Research in Education in China
Manli Li
Since the early 2000s, qualitative research (QR) emerged as an interpretive approach and has gained increasing interest in education in China, while it is deeply rooted in Chinese intellectual history. Indigenously, the concept of QR methodology sought to explore the richness, depth, and complexity of phenomena, which was a way to gain insights through discovering meanings by improving the comprehension of the whole overall.
In the 1920s, pioneering intellectuals promoted Western education or new education in the New Culture Movement (around the time of the May 4 Movement in 1919), led by Hu Shih, Chen Tuhsiu, Li Tachao, and others. They actively advocated democracy and science. The May 4th Campaign dealt a heavy blow to the traditional rituals that ruled China for more than 2,000 years. It has inspired people’s democratic consciousness and promoted the development of modern science in China.
Quantitative research, like statistical methods, was introduced in the field of education. With the development of theories and methods of probabilistic statistics for studying randomness, small sample theory, statistical estimation, and statistical tests were widely introduced in the 1940s. In the upcoming decades, for many, quantitative research evoked a strong allegiance in academia, particularly in education, since it was considered to be based on a belief in science, perhaps more so than what many considered qualitative research in China. Actually, the relationship between qualitative and quantitative research in education has been fraught with misunderstanding, confusion, and tension in China.
After the 1990s, QR, which has been primarily advocated by Western researchers, has also grown in importance in educational and cultural studies in China as a methodological approach to research that aligns in important ways with quantitative research. Thus, internal tensions within the field of education have also emerged. Yet, though both approaches vary and have distinct genealogies and commitments, QR may be seen as a broad methodological genre in which open-ended interviews, participatory and non-participation observation, literature analysis, case studies, and other methods of social phenomena engage in long-term, in-depth, and meticulous studies. Such critically oriented QR has important implications for educational research.
Article
Qualitative Research in the Field of Popular Education
Alfonso Torres Carrillo
Popular Education (PE) is an educational movement and pedagogical current that emerged in Latin America in the seventies. It was a result of Paulo Freire’s pedagogical proposals in a context of radicalization of popular struggle and cultural and intellectual movements. During the past five decades, hundreds of groups, practices and projects have identified themselves as part of the PE movement. As a pedagogical current, PE is understood as an educational perspective and practice, which is critical of institutionalized education and identifies with emancipatory political perspectives. Its purpose is to help populations that experience oppression or discrimination to strengthen their capacity to change their conditions, relationships, practices and ways of thinking and feeling by means of cultural, educational, dialogical, participatory, interactive and expressive practices. With respect to the history of PE in Latin America, its social contexts and educational practices, four stages can be identified:
1. The liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire at the end of the sixties.
2. The foundational stage PE in the seventies.
3. The re-foundation and expansion of the PE in the eighties and nineties.
4. The reactivation of the EP in the current context.
During these periods, a constant interest in PE has been producing knowledge from and about its contexts, themes and practices. From its origins, it has created and incorporated qualitative research strategies in coherence with its political and epistemological options.
As evidenced in each historical phase of the PE, the use of a qualitative methodology predominated: thematic research in Freire’s pedagogical proposal; participatory action research (PAR) in its foundational stage; collective reconstruction of the history and critical ethnography in its expansion phase; systematization of practices since the 1990s; and the emergence of innovative and aesthetic strategies at the present century. A set of methodological principles derive from this historical path of qualitative research in PE:
1. Maintaining a critical distance from institutionalized research modes in the scientific world, acknowledging their subordination to hegemonic powers.
2. Assuming PE to be both critical and emancipatory. This option is identified with values, willpower, and projects that involve new meanings of the organization of collective life.
3. Recognizing the place of the cultural and the intersubjective, both in social phenomena and in social research processes.
4. Linking it to emancipatory organizational processes and collective actions.
5. Not subordinating it to the institutional logic of disciplinary research.
6. Promoting group and organization participation in research process decisions.
7. Ensuring that it promotes formation of knowledge collectives.
8. Maintaining a critical and creative use of the theory.
9. Recognizing the plurality of subjects and promoting a “dialogue of knowledge.”
10. Incorporating diverse cultural practices within communities in order to produce and communicate their knowledge.
11. Assuming methodology to be a flexible practice.
12. Assuming research within PE is a permanent practice of critical reflection.
Article
Interviewing Elites in the Educational Field
Maria Luísa Quaresma and Cristóbal Villalobos
Elites can be understood as a group of people in possession of the highest levels of economic, social, cultural, and political capital. For this reason, these groups are considered key actors in understanding social inequality, the configuration of social structures, and the distribution of power within societies.
In the field of education, elites tend to concentrate in a small, select group of schools and universities, forming a social context that is key to understanding processes of (social) mobility and the reproduction of social positions.
The indisputable relevance of education in both the formation and consecration of elites make it almost impossible not to focus in the educational system when one is called to problematize the power of elites.
Through a literature review surveying the available literature within the field as well as examples of previous research, principle epistemological, conceptual, and empirical frameworks necessary to address interviews with elites in the educational sphere can be observed. The chapter review three critical dimensions of the interview process: (a) design, analyzing aspects such as the potentialities and limitations of the different types of interviews, the issue of validity and, the question about the distance between interviewer and interviewee (b) contact and consent to participate, studding the identification, contact and pre-meeting stage and (c) the interview process, analyzing aspects such as the place of the interview, the cultural aspects involved in any interview, the objective and purpose of the interview, the knowledge and skills that the interviewer must display, and the dispute over the power and status that is displayed in this type of interaction. Researchers who study education and/or elite social classes and who want to deepen their understanding of a group of people might refer to this qualitative research process of studying elites in the educational field.
Article
Teacher Participation and Pedagogical Research in the Educational Sphere
Daniel Hugo Suárez
Narrative documentation of pedagogical experiences is an alternative and emergent focus of educational research that promotes teacher participation in the processes of research-training-action in the educational field and seeks to make the relationships it configures between power and knowledge more horizontal. Theoretical, methodological, and epistemic-political criteria inform the rules of composition and the validation of constructed pedagogical knowledge, and this methodological framework organizes narrative and autobiographical practices so that educators can reflect on and rename the pedagogical environments they inhabit. Additionally, educators can engage in a series of peer-critique reading-writing exercises that are focused on revising different versions of recounting pedagogical experiences. Moreover, the pedagogical field has a democratizing potential due to the public nature and specialized circulation of these narrative documents.
Article
Critical Perspectives on Evaluative Research on Educational Technology Policies in Latin America
Inés Dussel
In the past decade, ambitious plans for digital inclusion have been developed in Latin America. These plans included a strategy of massive and universal distribution of equipment at a 1:1 ratio to students at different levels of the education system (i.e., a computer for each student). The programs were accompanied by both policy analyses and independent studies hoping to account for the program’s successes and achievements. These studies can facilitate analysis of the orientations and dimensions of these investigations, considering them as practices of knowledge production that imply the construction of a perspective, as well as indicators and problems that make visible certain some aspects of policy and mask others. They constitute forms of problematizing the social, that is to say, the construction of themes or topics that return to a problem that requires attention, which many times are taken as a reflection of reality and not as the product of an predetermined evaluative perspective. It is also significant that among these evaluative studies, a number were conducted through qualitative perspectives, which facilitate more complex and plural approaches to the processes of technological integration and digital inclusion within the classroom. In these qualitative studies, the construction of categories was part of the research and covered a multiplicity of meanings that the policies took for the actors involved, thus opening a richer and potentially more democratic perspective on the construction of knowledge about educational policy in the region.
Article
Complexity Theory as a Guide to Qualitative Methodology in Teacher Education
Fiona Ell, Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Mary Hill, Mavis Haigh, Lexie Grudnoff, and Larry Ludlow
Qualitative teacher education research is concerned with understanding the processes and outcomes of teacher preparation in ways that are useful for practitioners, policymakers, and the teaching profession. Complexity theory has its origin in the biological and physical sciences, where it applies to phenomena that are more than the sum of their parts—where the “higher order” form cannot be created by just putting together the pieces that it is made from. Complexity theory has moved to social science, and to education, because many social phenomena also seem to have this property. These phenomena are termed “complex systems.” Complexity theory is also a theory of learning and change, so it is concerned with how complex systems are learning and changing. This means that methods to investigate complex systems must be able to identify changes in the system, termed “emergence,” and must also account for change over time and the history of the complex system. Longitudinal designs that involve the collection of rich data from multiple sources can support understanding of how a complex system, such as teacher education, is learning and changing. Comparative analysis, narrative analysis, extended case studies, mapping of networks and interactions, and practitioner research studies have all been used to try to bring complexity theory to empirical work in teacher education. Adopting a complexity theory approach to research in teacher education is difficult because it calls into question many taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of research and what is possible to find. Linear, process-product thinking cannot be sustained in a complexity framework, and ideas like “cause,” “outcome,” “change,” and “intervention” all have to be re-thought. A growing body of work uses complexity thinking to inform research in teacher education.
Article
Qualitative Data Analysis and the Use of Theory
Carol Grbich
The role of theory in qualitative data analysis is continually shifting and offers researchers many choices. The dynamic and inclusive nature of qualitative research has encouraged the entry of a number of interested disciplines into the field. These discipline groups have introduced new theoretical practices that have influenced and diversified methodological approaches. To add to these, broader shifts in chronological theoretical orientations in qualitative research can be seen in the four waves of paradigmatic change; the first wave showed a developing concern with the limitations of researcher objectivity, and empirical observation of evidence based data, leading to the second wave with its focus on realities - mutually constructed by researcher and researched, participant subjectivity, and the remedying of societal inequalities and mal-distributed power. The third wave was prompted by the advent of Postmodernism and Post- structuralism with their emphasis on chaos, complexity, intertextuality and multiple realities; and most recently the fourth wave brought a focus on visual images, performance, both an active researcher and an interactive audience, and the crossing of the theoretical divide between social science and classical physics. The methods and methodological changes, which have evolved from these paradigm shifts, can be seen to have followed a similar pattern of change. The researcher now has multiple paradigms, co-methodologies, diverse methods and a variety of theoretical choices, to consider. This continuum of change has shifted the field of qualitative research dramatically from limited choices to multiple options, requiring clarification of researcher decisions and transparency of process. However, there still remains the difficult question of the role that theory will now play in such a high level of complex design and critical researcher reflexivity.
Article
Qualitative Design Research Methods
Michael Domínguez
Emerging in the learning sciences field in the early 1990s, qualitative design-based research (DBR) is a relatively new methodological approach to social science and education research. As its name implies, DBR is focused on the design of educational innovations, and the testing of these innovations in the complex and interconnected venue of naturalistic settings. As such, DBR is an explicitly interventionist approach to conducting research, situating the researcher as a part of the complex ecology in which learning and educational innovation takes place.
With this in mind, DBR is distinct from more traditional methodologies, including laboratory experiments, ethnographic research, and large-scale implementation. Rather, the goal of DBR is not to prove the merits of any particular intervention, or to reflect passively on a context in which learning occurs, but to examine the practical application of theories of learning themselves in specific, situated contexts. By designing purposeful, naturalistic, and sustainable educational ecologies, researchers can test, extend, or modify their theories and innovations based on their pragmatic viability. This process offers the prospect of generating theory-developing, contextualized knowledge claims that can complement the claims produced by other forms of research.
Because of this interventionist, naturalistic stance, DBR has also been the subject of ongoing debate concerning the rigor of its methodology. In many ways, these debates obscure the varied ways DBR has been practiced, the varied types of questions being asked, and the theoretical breadth of researchers who practice DBR. With this in mind, DBR research may involve a diverse range of methods as researchers from a variety of intellectual traditions within the learning sciences and education research design pragmatic innovations based on their theories of learning, and document these complex ecologies using the methodologies and tools most applicable to their questions, focuses, and academic communities.
DBR has gained increasing interest in recent years. While it remains a popular methodology for developmental and cognitive learning scientists seeking to explore theory in naturalistic settings, it has also grown in importance to cultural psychology and cultural studies researchers as a methodological approach that aligns in important ways with the participatory commitments of liberatory research. As such, internal tension within the DBR field has also emerged. Yet, though approaches vary, and have distinct genealogies and commitments, DBR might be seen as the broad methodological genre in which Change Laboratory, design-based implementation research (DBIR), social design-based experiments (SDBE), participatory design research (PDR), and research-practice partnerships might be categorized. These critically oriented iterations of DBR have important implications for educational research and educational innovation in historically marginalized settings and the Global South.
Article
Black Feminist Thought and Qualitative Research in Education
Kristal Moore Clemons
Black feminist thought and qualitative research in education is guided by a particular understanding of the learning strategies informed by Black women’s historical experiences with race, gender, and class. Scholars of Black feminist thought remind us of a Black feminist pedagogy that fosters a mindset of intellectual inclusion. Black feminist thought challenges Western intellectual traditions of exclusivity and chauvinism. This article presents a synopsis of the nature and scope of Black feminist thought and qualitative research in education. Further, this article highlights the work of scholars who describe the importance of an Afrocentric methodological approach in the field of education because it offers scholars and practitioners a methodological opportunity to promote equality and multiple perspectives.
Article
Implications of Queer Theory for Qualitative Research
Boni Wozolek
Queer theory is a tool that can be used to reconsider sociopolitical, historical, and cultural norms and values. Similarly, in qualitative research, queer theory tends to analyze the narratives of LGBTQ+ people and groups in ways that seek to queer everyday experiences. Both the theoretical framework and the narratives collected and analyzed in qualitative research are significant to unpacking business-as-usual in and across sociocultural contexts. This is especially true for systems of schooling, whereby LGBTQ+ people and groups are marginalized through schooling and schools, a process of exclusion that is detrimental to queer youth who are learning in spaces and places specifically designed against their ways of being and knowing. The significance of qualitative research as it meets the framework of queer theory is that it offers a practically and institutionally queered set of voices, perspectives, and understandings with which to think about the everyday in schools. This becomes increasingly important as schooling has historically been a place in which LGBTQ+ students and groups have resided at an intersection, where the sociopolitical and cultural marginalization that keeps the status quo in place crosses with contemporary values that both interrupt and reify such histories.
Article
Listening to Students in Schools
Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza and Silvia Helena Vieira Cruz
Access to education has generally been recognized as a human right. There is a consensus among the various sectors of civil society and government regarding the importance of schooling from the earliest years of life. But only recently have the fields of humanities and education begun to consider the importance of children’s perceptions, representations, and meanings attributed to the school and the educational institutions offered to them. Listening to children at school has drawn the attention of researchers when the right to a democratic school has been extended to more children, aiming at assuring them access to the knowledge socially constructed by mankind as well as access to social and cultural activities. Knowing what children think and feel during the process of schooling and in educational practices is today an important aspect of educational research. The qualitative approach has been shown to be fundamental in listening to very young children on various aspects of their school experience, thus promoting the expansion of knowledge about differing school contexts. However, this listening process presents several challenges for research, including the development of strategies that favor a child’s multiple ways of communicating and the search for solutions related to potential ethical issues. Researching children’s perspectives can provide a basic foundation for better pedagogical practices and public policies with regard to children.
Article
Digital Culture and Qualitative Methodologies in Education
Eliane Schlemmer
From a digital culture perspective, this article has as main objective to assess two contemporary qualitative research methods in the field of education with distinct theoretical orientations: the cartographic method as a way of tracing trajectories in research-intervention with a theoretical basis in the biology of knowledge, enactive cognition and inventive cognition; and the cartographic method as a means of identifying and mapping the controversies linked to the different associations between human and non-human actors with a theoretical basis in actor-network theory (ANT). With their own specificities, both methods have been fruitful in the development of qualitative research in the field of education, in the context of digital culture, and more recently, in the hybrid culture of atopic habitation, mainly because they also relate to equally consistent theories and aspects of human cognition, making it possible to detect traces and clues in the fluid associations between actors enhanced by different digital technologies (DT), including data mining and learning analytics. From the Brazilian perspective on the topic, this article approaches the experience of the cartographic method of research intervention as well as the cartography of controversies as tools for developing qualitative research in education. These different forms of the cartographic method have inspired the construction of didactic-pedagogical experiences based on theoretical approaches linked to cognition, producing inventive methodologies and interventionist pedagogical practices. These methodologies and practices, which will be discussed at length in this article, have been developed and validated by the Research Group in Digital Education at Unisinos University at different levels and in varied educational settings.
Article
Sonic Ethnography in Theory and Practice
Walter S. Gershon
As its name suggests, sonic ethnography sits at the intersection of studies of sound and ethnographic methodologies. This methodological category can be applied to interpretive studies of sound, ethnographic studies that foreground sound theoretically and metaphorically, and studies that utilize sound practices similar to those found in forms of audio recording and sound art, for example. Just as using ocular metaphors or video practices does not make an ethnographic study any more truthful, the use of sonic metaphors or audio recording practices still requires the painstaking, ethical, reflexivity, time, thought, analysis, and care that are hallmarks for strong ethnographies across academic fields and disciplines. Similarly, the purpose of sonic ethnography is not to suggest that sound is any more real or important than other sensuous understandings but is instead to underscore the power and potential of the sonic for qualitative researchers within and outside of education. A move to the sonic is theoretically, methodologically, and practically significant for a variety of reasons, not least of which are (a) its ability to interrupt ocular pathways for conceptualizing and conducting qualitative research; (b) for providing a mode for more actively listening to local educational ecologies and the wide variety of things, processes, and understandings of which they are comprised; (c) ethical and more transparent means for expressing findings; and (d) a complex and deep tool for gathering, analyzing, and expressing ethnographic information. In sum, sonic ethnography opens a world of sound possibilities for educational researchers that at once deepen and provide alternate pathways for understanding everyday educational interactions and the sociocultural contexts that help render those ways of being, doing, and knowing sensible.
Article
Critical Qualitative Research and Educational Policy
Madeline Good and Sarah Diem
Critical qualitative research is full of possibilities and explorations that can assist in transforming systems for social change and the public good. It is an approach to research that at its core is concerned with the role of power; how it manifests in systems, structures, policies, and practice; and how contexts can contribute to and reify power and its deleterious effects. The use of critical qualitative methods and methodologies within the field of education has grown significantly since the 1990s. This is a large area of work that encompasses studies throughout the spectrum of educational topics, from early childhood learning to higher education and beyond. In the area of educational policy, while scholars use a multitude of critical qualitative methodologies and methods, critical policy analysis (CPA) has continued to grow in popularity. CPA provides opportunities for researchers to question policy in general––how it is formed, implemented, and evaluated, as well as its assumed impact. It is appealing because it gives space for scholars to not only critique educational policy issues but also offer new perspectives, approaches, and alternatives to the policy process. Critical inquiry, however, does not occur within a vacuum, so the dynamics of conducting critical qualitative research within a hyperpolarized sociopolitical context must also be considered. Contentious times make it increasingly important for critical qualitative scholars to (re)commit to the work of transforming education with the goal of creating a more just society. There are a multitude of hopes and opportunities for this burgeoning area of critical research, challenging us all to not only look toward creative approaches when studying issues of educational policy but also to persistently interrogate how our own positionalities and relations impact the work we do.
Article
Feminist Theory and Its Use in Qualitative Research in Education
Emily Freeman
Feminist theory rose in prominence in educational research during the 1980s and experienced a resurgence in popularity during the late 1990s−2010s. Standpoint epistemologies, intersectionality, and feminist poststructuralism are the most prevalent theories, but feminist researchers often work across feminist theoretical thought. Feminist qualitative research in education encompasses a myriad of methods and methodologies, but projects share a commitment to feminist ethics and theories. Among the commitments are the understanding that knowledge is situated in the subjectivities and lived experiences of both researcher and participants and research is deeply reflexive. Feminist theory informs both research questions and the methodology of a project in addition to serving as a foundation for analysis. The goals of feminist educational research include dismantling systems of oppression, highlighting gender-based disparities, and seeking new ways of constructing knowledge.
Article
Oral History Approaches in Education in Brazil
Zeila Demartini
This article analyzes the relationship between oral history and education in Brazil. First, it addresses changes in theoretical and methodological approaches in some disciplinary fields, a move that increasingly questions production based mainly on quantitative research and favors a renewal of qualitative research. In this context, qualitative research incorporated discussions of life histories and the subjects’ narratives as methods of collecting data. At the same time that shifts in sociology and history drew both disciplines together in research that used the biographical approach and oral reports, qualitative research on educational issues was becoming stronger in the field of education. Questioning routine forms of research in these various fields ended up addressing common themes of interest to all of them. Such an approach allowed for the introduction and development of oral history in Brazil as an interdisciplinary field in which questions flowed from one discipline to another, in which sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and educators took part. Oral history is understood as a methodological approach to research in which the researcher commits to the object of study, approaching it based on the oral reports of the subjects involved along with other written, iconographic, and material sources in order to understand the different representations of the subjects. Oral history brought fundamental changes in education: subjects were incorporated into the production of knowledge about the history of education, social relations in the educational field, the way of looking at the formative processes of educators, discussions regarding curricula aimed at diverse social groups, group cultures, among other aspects; the educational field was no longer analyzed mainly from an educational, pedagogical-methodological approach, but one based on the centrality of the subjects and their demands. This change in perspective, no longer only on the part of the State or supporting institutions, provided a link between school and non-school education, as well as in the processes of participation of social groups. It also encouraged the incorporation of diverse data sources and their preservation. New research topics were also taken up, which has had a strong influence on the process of training historians and educators. Educational issues have been at the fore from the first incursions of oral history in Brazil and, precisely because of the exchange being built, new research paths are now being developed.
Article
Designing Research for Meaningful Results in Educational Leadership
Karen Moran Jackson and Ric Brown
Making appropriate methodological and analytic decisions in educational research requires a thorough grounding in the literature and a thorough understanding of the chosen methodology. Detailed preplanning is important for all method types and includes an understanding of the assumptions, limitations, and delimitations of the study. For quantitative research, researchers should be cautious with data analysis decisions that give preference to statistically significant results, noting that quantitative research can proceed with intents other than confirmatory hypothesis testing. Decisions and procedures that are used to search for low p values, rather than answer the driving research question, are especially problematic. Presentation of quantitative results should include components that clarify and account for analytic choices, that report all relevant statistical results, and that provide sufficient information to replicate the study. Consideration should also be given to joining recent initiatives for more transparency in research with the use of preregistered studies and open data repositories. For qualitative research, researchers should be thoughtful about choosing a specific method for their project that appropriately matches the method’s framework and analytic procedures with the research aim and anticipated sample. Qualitative researchers should also strive for transparency in their method description by allowing for a view of the analytic process that drove the data collection and iterative dives into the data. Presentation of qualitative results requires a balance between providing a compelling narrative that establishes the trustworthiness of results with the judicious use of participant voices. Mixed methods research also requires appropriate integration of different data types.
Article
Teacher Identity Research and Development
Zoe Martínez-de-la-Hidalga and Lourdes Villardón-Gallego
Many studies and publications have been devoted to the analysis and development of teacher identity from different points of view, using diverse instruments and methodologies and analyzing different dimensions of identity. Despite the scrutiny, it is still a challenge to understand and define an issue as complex as professional identity.
Although there is no clear unanimity on the concept of identity itself, several characteristics have been identified from different approaches. Thus, aspects such as personal unity, stability over time, and across situations and contexts contrast with such features as multiplicity, discontinuity, and a social nature. Faced with this dichotomy, the dialogic perspective explains the complexity of the construct by proposing that the aforementioned features are linked respectively and dialectically. In other words, the various dimensions of identity, along with their variability through time and the influence exerted by social and contextual aspects, are combined with personal unity, with stability over time, and across situations and contexts. This can, occasionally, lead to conflict and contradictions that the individual strives to manage through self-dialogue.
Focusing in the dialogic conceptualization, several implications for research are identified. Firstly, it disallows static categorizations of teachers and places the focus on grasping the self-dialogue that allows teachers to maintain a certain degree of stability and coherence in their identity over time. Secondly, it showcases the effect that dialogue and participation-focused research can have on professional development. Additionally, the study of identity in all its complexity and mutability advocates the integrated study of two levels of analysis: On the one hand, there is the position and actions of teachers in different contexts and situations; and, on the other, there is their professional story, past, present and future, along with the sociocultural factors that have impacted it.
According to this dialogic approach, both the research on the professional identity and the teacher training should incorporate strategies that promote dialogue on actual performance and on professional careers. To this effect, longitudinal designs help capture the dialogue between stability and change. Still, transversal studies can be undeniably useful to identify current conflicts that might arise between personal and professional roles, as well as how such conflicts are managed. Furthermore, qualitative methodologies have a great potential to generate self-dialogues that provide insight into how teachers live, perceive, and manage such conflicts. Finally, research should be participative in nature so that teachers abandon their role as objects of research and become, instead, its subjects, in collaboration with researchers. In this manner, research on identity leads to changes in the professional identity of participants, in addition to furthering the knowledge available on the subject. Action research follows these guidelines, and it is therefore especially suited to this endeavor.
Based on this characterization of the research on professional identity, some techniques are suggested for the collection of information because they foster reflection and consequently also promote development of identity. Some of these techniques are: life stories, narrative of teaching, diaries, case studies, critical events analysis, professional dilemmas, teacher or teaching metaphors, and inquiry-based learning.
Article
Music Education Research
Koji Matsunobu and Liora Bresler
From rites of passage to closer community bonding, the practice, enjoyment, exchange, and transmission of music—regardless of the setting—is an integral element of the history of human civilization. While the field of music education research has long focused on school music and institutional teaching, it is increasingly reaching out to the wider community, in the process involving people at different life stages who are operating in a variety of societal contexts. Consequently, research in music education explores a broad spectrum of musical engagements (including composition and improvisation, in addition to singing, playing, and listening) and a wide-ranging repertoire (including jazz, popular music, folk, and world music), together with diverse pedagogies both inspired by and borrowed from these genres. This process reveals how these forms of musical transmission can, on the one hand, create new meanings and experiences at individual levels, and, on the other, shape collective identity formation through the facilitation of cultural sustainability and transformation. By means of quantitative, qualitative, historical, and philosophical methods, and typically drawing on the fields of—among others—psychology, sociology, and anthropology, music education researchers have addressed social, cultural, pedagogical, and ethical issues of music teaching and learning.
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