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After our sixth session

Posted 4 years ago, 7 comments

Having started the conversation about action research tonight, we're going to continue on with action research next session, looking at concerns regarding validity with an example.

Please post your questions/comments/reactions to the readings by 3pm on Thursday.

If you are planning to write a paper (expected with for-credit participants), please email so we can set up a time to meet before the session next Monday.

The readings are available on the Schedule page.

Submitted by wakeupsilver on February 26, 2009 - 3:31pm.

woops, sorry late...

LATHER

What does it mean to have closed ideology? Does it mean that we don't know our own ideology? Does it mean that we know it, but choose not to disclose it because we don't think it's relevant by some convention of relevancy? Does it mean we know our ideology but choose to hide it because we are embarrassed or otherwise prefer it to be a secret?

What do we, as a class, think about the idea that is the basis for the first premise of the paper: "interest-free knowledge is logically impossible"?

Here she uses the word "praxis" (page 64). Why does that word come up every time an author is trying to empower people? (or does it?)

Who is it that thinks they're being so objective and neutral? Is it the researcher? And if so, how was the research direction chosen? By the researcher or by someone else? If by someone else, is that person neutral? Is the funder or department head neutral? What does it mean to be neutral? (I am not neutral)

What is emancipatory theory building?

I'm interested in the paper she references next to "mirror-image relationship between schools and the needs of corporate capitalism was the first to be produced" (page 64)

I don't understand her "central argument": "new paradigm researchers must begin to be more systematic about establishing the trustworthiness of data." Why is she so worried about establishing trustworthiness? Or more importantly, if that's what she's worried about, why is she using language like "establish" and "trustworthy" which I don't think matches the tone of the other parts of her paper?

She says "reliability... often stands alone in experimental... research" (page 66). To me this means that experimental research can't ground itself absolutely, but only within a certain frame of assumptions.

Catalytic validity is the most exciting to me. Can someone elucidate it?

Under which conditions are particpants' self-determination enhanced in the struggle toward social justice?

How can the researcher play a role as a catalyst in any given research situation?

What do we think about "vivification"?

How can one do research on people if it's not the case that "the issues are of central importance to the participants?"

Do we think "experimental" ways of engaging with issues are the same as engaging with issues with "an open mind?

She asks "Is the method the message?" I constantly find that the message is in motion or in way of being not in the content.

Who are the "disposessed"?

Why does transformative social praxis need theory to explain lived experience?

What does she mean by "the researcher's self-actualization through engagement in personal and interpersonal development (page 77)? I'm interested in that

FLICKER

Why do they keep saying that health promotion through PAR "is not always an easy task"? I agree it's not easy, but what is? What is it about their research that makes them want to say this?

I think these are terrible examples of spanning the space of unhealthy behaviors "binge drinking, sexual risk taking, violent bullying." While definitely complicated and important, there are so many other dimensions to health.

Why do they think it's important to use technology?

What is with their diagram? It's so generic. I am having a problem with the language in this paper (except for the concrete examples). It doesn't compel me.

I don't think the examples in these stories live up to Freire's minimal expectations (they claim Freire's work heavily influenced them). Maybe because the issues taken up seem to be issues that are dictated by the dominant social powers in the blabosphere.

At the end of their paper, they go gaga over "the possibilities [being] truly endless" after talking about facebook and youtube. Are they just super excited about technology or what?

Submitted by eric on February 26, 2009 - 3:25pm.

I don't really understand what construct validity is.

Submitted by eric on February 26, 2009 - 3:06pm.

How might we use "member checks" with children? Are others doing that?

Submitted by sajid on February 25, 2009 - 3:56pm.

Lather, Issues of validity in openly ideological research:

  • caveat for my comments: I am not a positivist in that I don't support neutrality or objectivity in the absolute sense. However, I believe that there is a conflation in play in that the suggested counterposition is more specific than the claims made here.
  • Isn't it between a rock and nuclear weapon as far as participation goes? when is ideology not "my way or the highway"? After all, trains can go anywhere... as long as they stay on the rails...
  • If everyone isn't on the same page, can they talk? what is the postpositivist idea of collaboration?
  • I categorically disagree with "to a much lesser degree, methodological issues". Research is systematic. Systems have methods. Unsystematic research is at best journalism.
  • Is objectivity orthogonal to transformation?
  • Does positivism presume having the answer before having the question? (Really?)
  • It seems the author also categorically disagrees about the importance of methodology... on page 3
  • Doesn't the presumtion of validity and the reification of published materials reach well beyond positivism?
  • an a researcher ever fully confirm the validity of thier thoughts? (Is there ever a substitute for critical external reading?)
  • In tossing the objectivity baby out with the positivist bathwater, isn't the author making the same mistakes with female-centric research that exists in male-centric research? Shouldn't we ask how male- and female-based constructs need to be reformulated in copresence?
  • There seems to be some generalizations in this paper that set my hair on fire. They're always pulled back later, but it leaves a bad taste.
  • Is catalytic validity the primary differentiator of AR validity vs. general ethnographic validity?
  • One community's freedom fighter is another community's terrorist. How does "emancipation" get defined? Who's fighting? For whom and what? Who decides the normative background? How do you know when you're damanging rather than helping?
  • If positivism is a set of blinders, and (I feel) it's also an ideologoy, then isn't every other ideology a similar set of blinders set to different parameters?
  • Ideology and "righteous belief" are pretty close to synonymity. Isn't it contradictory to say from that vantage that PAR with ideological underpinnings are not elitist? Aren't the "people who know the way" elite?
  • General criticality is tied into all of this somehow, but how?
  • To reject the mainstream is not the same as to have an answer. What's the proposed actual answer? Is recognizing ideology a step? If so, how is it not covered in worldview?
  • Is the conclusion that PAR must at least be good ethnography? What more is it (I am of the thesis that it is more, but that's also a presumption)?
  • Validity was shaky all along. Does removing rules make it more or less so? How can we tell?
Submitted by sajid on February 25, 2009 - 2:42pm.

Flicker, e-Par:

  • how does the empowerment of the youth interact with the fact that ePAR is meant for organizations ultimately run by adults?
  • the terminology "given", "provided", "appropriate amount" (p 289 (6)) don't seem to me to be the language of a system of equals.
  • to what extent is guiding different from "governing"?
  • regarding above questions, to what extent does the researcher end up using the teminology of academy? if the role of the researcher is peripheral rather than central to control, how does that get expressed?
  • if you are paid to participate, how does this allow for a peer community? where are the organic factors in this?
  • if your action causes community action, who is the actor? who is the researcher? what are the roles of the various actors?
  • who funds what? why?
  • when is action activism?
  • it's interesting that "relational praxis" is thought of as an eval criteria, particularly since the next logical step would be poesis, or thoughtful application. It brings up the question of replicability as it applies to action research guidelines, and how it is possible (or not) to identify what contextual elements are critical. Praxis is the second part of an Aristotelian theory of basic human action, loosely translated into "theorize, apply, produce". Of course, they might be meaning it in the Marxist sense of revolutionary change, but then I don't see the difference better PAR and activism.
  • is PAR the ethnographical account of other people doing research at your behest?
  • at some point in the eval process, they stop talking about the youth and start talking about themselves. What's up?
  • is the evaluation criteria surmised as "if you build it and they come, it is good"?
  • I might have missed this, but how is ePAR's model different from the generalized model of participatory community work?
Submitted by Stephanie on February 25, 2009 - 1:59pm.

Issue of Validity in Opendly Ideological Research
Patti Luther

Again, (as with ethnographic research) it seems like validity is something to strive for but possibly never fully attain.
"We must formulate self-corrective techniques that will check the credibility of our data and minimize the distorting effects of personal bias upon the logic of evidence?"
Logic of evidence? Is that implicit?

She emphasized searching for counterpatterns within one's data. Is this typical of other types of research? The attempt to disprove (so to speak) one's findings?

Her comment on Willis's research on working class kids and how they were unable to fathom his paper raised an interesting question about action research. Is the final product (paper, presentation, proposed law) also supposed to be decided upon by the participants?

Submitted by Stephanie on February 24, 2009 - 5:28pm.

e-Par: Using technology and participatory action research to engage youth in health promotion

I wondered how the youth decided which venues to present their work in or if they were largely guided in this.
That some youth participated for reasons other than to affect change (the wanted to learn music software) revealed interesting possibilities for motivations.
"Power relations do not simply evaporate in participatory research projects." Well said. With youth, the power dynamics seem especially crystalline.