Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion and Analysis 1119452023, 9781119452027

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Qualitative Research in Practice

Qualitative Research in Practice Examples for Discussion and Analysis Second Edition Sharan B. Merriam Robin S. Grenier

Copyright © 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Brand 535 Mission St, 14th Floor; San Francisco CA 94105-3253—www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport. wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available: ISBN 9781119452027 (paperback) ISBN 9781119452270 (ePDF) ISBN 9781119452638 (epub) Cover Design: Wiley Cover Image: © Bluemoon 1981 / Shutterstock Printed in the United States of America second edition PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Prefaceix About the Editors xiii

Part One: The Nature of Qualitative Inquiry 1 2

Introduction to Qualitative Research Assessing and Evaluating Qualitative Research

1 3 19

Part Two: Examples of Qualitative Research for Discussion and Analysis

33

Interpretive Qualitative Research 

33

3

 oles Traditional Healers Play in Cancer Treatment in R Malaysia: Implications for Health Promotion and Education How Context Shapes the Design and Implementation of a Qualitative Study

Sharan B. Merriam 4



 he Influence of Mentorship and Role Models on T University Women Leaders’ Career Paths to University Presidency Mutual Reflections on Conceptual Frameworks in Qualitative Research

Lilian H. Hill Celeste A. Wheat

Phenomenology 5

 iking Leisure: Generating a Different Existence Within H Everyday Life Hiking the Phenomenological Psychological Method

Rob Bongaardt Børge Baklien Idun Røseth

37 54

57 84

87 91 109

v

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6

 eing In-Between: The Lived Experience of Becoming B a Prosthesis User Following the Loss of a Leg Caught Up Between Ethics and Methodology: Reflections Addressing the Unintended Presence of a Participant’s Partner During a Phenomenological Interview

Annelise Norlyk

Ethnography 7

 oxing Culture and Serious Leisure Among North B American Youth: An Embodied Ethnography Embodied Ethnography as a Research Approach: Further Reflections and Insights on Boxing as Serious Leisure

Nuno F. Ribeiro 8



 Sojourn Experience in the Land of Fire and Ice: A Examining Cultural Competence and Employee Well-Being Through an Autoethnographic Exploration Managing the Burden and Blessing of Autoethnography

Robin S. Grenier

Grounded Theory 9

 Grounded Theory of Professional Learning in an A Authentic Online Professional Development Program Navigating the Sea of Data With Grounded Theory

Hanna Teräs

10 O  penness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education Why Constructivist Grounded Theory? . . . and the Importance of Researcher Reflexivity

Catherine Cronin

Narrative Inquiry

113

131

135 139 158

161 182

185 189 212

215 235

239

11 C  handra’s Story: An Adult Education Student Journeys From Fear to Gratitude Narrative Inquiry: Good Things Take Time

243 255

12 Y  ouths’ and Adults’ Stories Related to the Background for ADHD Assessment Reflections on a Narrative Approach to Autobiographical Stories

259 280

Robin L. Danzak

Bjørg Mari Hannås

Contents  vii

Arts-Based Research 13 D  rama, Performance Ethnography, and Self-Esteem: Listening to Youngsters With Dyslexia and Their Parents When Participants Become Researchers

Ruth Falzon Dione Mifsud

14 V  oices From the Field: Preparing Teachers for High Need Schools Dramatizing Data, Creating Art, and Finding Community: Ethnodrama/Arts-Based Research

Tabitha Dell’Angelo

Qualitative Action Research

283 287 313

317 331

335

15 A  ction Research by Practitioners: A Case Study of a High School’s Attempt to Create Transformational Change Reflecting on Taking Action: Three Suggestions

339 361

16 C  ollective Voices: Engagement of Hartford Community Residents Through Participatory Action Research Trust the Process: Reflections on Participatory Action Research

365 382

Jeffrey Glanz

Karen Brown McLean Kenneth Williamson

Mixed Methods 17 C  ollege Students and Yik Yak: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study The Best of Both Worlds: Mixed Methodologies

Cathlin V. Clark-Gordon

18 “ Talk to Me”: A Mixed-Methods Study on Preferred Physician Behaviors During End-of-Life Communication from the Patient Perspective The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts: Using Mixed Methods to Answer a Complex Healthcare Question

Amane Abdul-Razzak Name Index Subject Index

385 389 409

413 431 435 451

Preface Qualitative research is a powerful tool for learning more about our lives and the sociohistorical context in which we live. The roots of qualitative research can be traced back more than a century to anthropology and sociology, and now qualitative research is embraced by all the social sciences and applied fields of practice. There are numerous journals, web-based resources, conferences, books, and academic courses devoted to this form of inquiry. The variety of topics, journals, and disciplines from which selections for this book were drawn attests to the popularity of qualitative research in fields as diverse as counseling, health, tourism, management, and all levels of education. The myriad of resources available to novice researchers to learn about qualitative research is both affirming, in that there is help available, and daunting, because there is so much help out there. Fortunately, many graduate programs in the social sciences, whether at the masters or doctoral level, include exposure to qualitative research in addition to the usual array of research design and statistics courses. Students are introduced to the philosophical foundations underlying qualitative research, as well as how to design and implement a qualitative study. However, there are still scholars and practitioners in many fields who have had no training in this method but who would like to improve their knowledge of, or have questions about, how their practice can be best approached from a qualitative, rather than quantitative, perspective. Understanding a phenomenon, whether related to one’s work, one’s family, or one’s community, requires accessing participants’ perspectives, most often through interviews, observing the phenomenon of interest, and accessing relevant documents or artifacts. This book, Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion and Analysis, has been compiled for students and practitioners, who wish to learn more about qualitative research through reading and studying a variety of examples of qualitative research designs and topics. Before reviewing the contents of this book, we would like to draw attention to two of the book’s aspects. First, as this book is about qualitative research, we are working from the assumption that meaning is socially constructed by individuals in interaction with their world. It is thus the goal of a qualitative research study to uncover and understand the experience of the phenomenon from the participants’ perspectives. Although there are different qualitative designs represented in this collection, all have the discovery and portrayal of participants’ perspectives and understandings as their underlying goal. A second feature is that it is not meant to be by itself a textbook on qualitative research; rather, it

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is designed for use along with standard texts in the field. It is primarily a collection of articles exemplifying different types of qualitative research. A unique feature of the book is that each article is followed by a short reflection piece by the article’s author(s) commenting on some aspect of their experience engaging in this type of research. Some of these reflections are written by novice researchers who describe how they made their way through the study, learning as they went; others are written by more seasoned researchers who have some very insightful things to share about conducting a qualitative study. Readers will be able to resonate with the trial-and-error and discovery nature of doing qualitative research regardless of whether one has had years of experience or is new to the methodology. This book is intended for all those interested in qualitative research regardless of discipline or experience with this kind of study. Although researchers in fields such as education, nursing, social work, or urban studies may ask different questions of their practice, the process of qualitative inquiry remains the same. First, the question needs to be shaped in a manner congruent with the philosophical underpinnings of this form of research; a particular qualitative design is then decided upon, followed by selecting a purposive sample, data collection, and analysis. Finally, the interpretation of the data (the findings) is presented in a format compatible with the particular qualitative design. The introductory chapters of this volume present the “basics” of doing qualitative research, the different types of qualitative inquiry, and how to evaluate and assess studies conducted in this paradigm. Readers can then approach the 16 examples knowing what to look for. We hope this book will be a particularly useful resource for understanding the variety of qualitative research designs and for comparing and contrasting the approaches.

Overview of Contents This second edition of Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion and Analysis reflects both the enduring nature of this form of research, as well as the infusion of new and creative procedures and presentations. Part One presents two updated overview chapters; Part Two offers 16 articles – each exemplifying a particular type of qualitative research – along with the authors’ reflections. Chapter 1, “Introduction to Qualitative Research,” explains what qualitative research is and how it differs from more familiar positivist research. This general introduction to qualitative research is followed by a section briefly describing different types of qualitative research designs. The last section of the chapter is a brief overview of the process of conducting a qualitative study. We retained from the first edition of Qualitative Research in Practice the following designs: interpretive (called “basic interpretive” in the first edition), phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, and narrative inquiry (called “narrative analysis” in the first edition). In a reflection of the dynamic and changing landscape of qualitative research, we have added examples of qualitative research

Preface  xi

often loosely categorized as “arts-based,” “qualitative action research,” and “mixed methods,” wherein a substantial component of the methodology is qualitative. We considered retaining “qualitative case study” from the first edition, but reasoned that a case study, which is an intensive description of a bounded, integrated system (the “case”), was more of a format or structure for focusing an investigation, as well as conveying the findings of an investigation; indeed, one can have an “ethnographic case study,” or a “phenomenological case study,” and so on. Further, we reasoned that “critical qualitative research” and “postmodern research” from the first edition represented epistemological orientations that can inform the design of any qualitative study in terms of how the “problem” of the study is framed, the questions asked, what literature is reviewed, and generally the implementation and reporting of the study’s findings. Such is the case with many of the articles presented in Qualitative Research in Practice. However, as we point out in the first chapter, there is a wide range of opinion by writers and methodologists in qualitative research as to how many “types” or “designs” there are. Other editors may have selected different formats. Nonetheless, all adhere to the basic interpretive/constructivist philosophical orientation underlying all qualitative research. Chapter  2 focuses on assessing and evaluating qualitative research. Determining the “quality” and “trustworthiness” of this type of research involves consideration of what qualitative research is designed to do, and what criteria are appropriate for assessing its validity and reliability – criteria that are congruent with the philosophical assumptions underlying this paradigm. Chapter 2 contains two tables, the first being a general checklist of points to be considered when reading the articles in this volume to assess the “quality” of qualitative research, and the second being a table of strategies researchers might employ to assess trustworthiness and rigor. The 16 articles in Part Two are organized into eight sections, each representing a particular qualitative research design (or a design with a major qualitative component). Each article is typeset for this text, but the format and the content of the original publications were not altered. There are two examples each of interpretive, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, arts-based, qualitative action research, and mixed methods designs. Each of the 16 articles is immediately followed by an author reflection, which we hope will further engage our readers in thinking about designing and implementing a qualitative study of their own.

Acknowledgments First to be acknowledged are the authors of the articles included in this volume. You were wonderfully responsive to having your article included and to writing your reflections on conducting a qualitative research study. Sharing your thoughts, your “ups and downs,” your apprehensions and mishaps, your insights and “aha” moments, reveals just how engaging, and at times frustrating and yet

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rewarding conducting a qualitative study can be! Your contribution will be appreciated by students, novices, and experienced researchers alike. We would also like to thank Kristi Kaeppel. We could not have completed this book without your invaluable assistance in identifying articles and providing administrative support. Finally, we want to thank Pete Gaughan, editor at JosseyBass, for your helpful and always timely assistance in many of the details of bringing this project to fruition. Sharan B. Merriam Athens, Georgia Robin S. Grenier Storrs, Connecticut

About the Editors Sharan B. Merriam is a professor emerita of adult and continuing education and qualitative research at the University of Georgia in Athens, where her respon­ sibilities included teaching graduate courses in adult education and qualitative research methods and supervising graduate student research. She received her BA degree in English literature from Drew University, her MEd degree in English education from Ohio University, and her EdD degree in adult education from Rutgers University. Before coming to the University of Georgia, she served on the faculties of Northern Illinois University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Merriam’s research and writing activities have focused on the foundations of adult education, adult development and learning, and qualitative research methods. She has served on steering committees for the annual North Ameri­ can Adult Education Research Conference and the Commission of Professors of Adult Education. For five years, she was coeditor of Adult Education Quarterly, the major research and theory journal in adult education. She has won the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education for four different books. Her most recent books include A Guide to Research for Educators and Trainers of Adults (with Patricia Cranton, 2015), Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (with Elizabeth J. Tisdell, 2016), Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice (with Laura Bierema, 2014), Contemporary Issues in Adult Education (with Andre Grace, 2011), and Non-Western Perspectives on Learning and Knowing (2007), Based on her widespread contributions to the field of adult education, Merriam has been inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame and was the first to receive the American Association of Adult and Continu­ ing Education’s Career Achievement award. She regularly conducts workshops and seminars on adult learning and qualitative research methods throughout North America and overseas. She has been a senior Fulbright scholar to Malaysia and a distinguished visiting scholar to universities in Thailand, South Korea, and South Africa. Robin S. Grenier is an associate professor of adult learning at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, where her responsibilities include directing the graduate certificate in college instruction, teaching courses in qualitative research meth­ ods and adult learning, and advising graduate student research. She received her BS degree (1995) in English education from Florida State University, her MA degree (2001) in adult education from the University of South Florida, and

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About the Editors

her PhD in adult education and certificate in qualitative inquiry (2005) from the University of Georgia. Grenier’s work focuses on informal learning across the lifespan, with a par­ ticular interest in learning in museums and other cultural institutions. She has taught qualitative research courses at the graduate level for over 14 years, as well as presenting, consulting, and writing about qualitative inquiry in education and human resource development. She has served two terms on the Board of Directors for the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD), was a founder of the AHRD qualitative SIG, and serves as a Fulbright U.S. Student Program’s National Screening Committee Member for Scandinavia. In 2014, she was a Fulbright scholar to the University of Iceland, where she taught courses in museum studies and conducted research on adult learning in museums. Grenier is also a mom to Catherine and spouse to Paul. The three live in Mansfield Center, Connecticut, and spend their time together traveling, watching hockey, and doing all things geeky.

Qualitative Research in Practice

Part One

The Nature of Qualitative Inquiry

Chapter One

Introduction to Qualitative Research Drawing from a long tradition in anthropology and sociology, qualitative research has achieved a status and visibility in the social sciences and applied fields of practice equal to quantitative designs such as surveys and experiments. Reports of qualitative research studies can be found in journals in social work, nursing, counseling, family relations, administration, health, community services, management, all subfields of education, and even medicine. Some disciplines have their own qualitative research journal, as do education (International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education), social work (Qualitative Social Work), health (Qualitative Health Research), and management (Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal). In addition, there are journals devoted to qualitative research itself such as Qualitative Inquiry, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, The Qualitative Report, and Qualitative Research. There is also an endless selection of methodological texts on qualitative research generally, specific types of qualitative research, or some aspect of qualitative data collection or analysis. What is the nature of qualitative inquiry that has captured the attention of so many? The purpose of this chapter is to explain what qualitative research is, how it differs from positivist or quantitative research, what variations exist within the qualitative paradigm, and how one goes about conducting a qualitative study. This chapter and the following chapter on evaluating and assessing qualitative research offer the backdrop for exploring the collection of qualitative studies and author commentaries that follows.

The Nature of Qualitative Research The key to understanding qualitative research lies with the idea that meaning is socially constructed by individuals interacting with their world. The world, or reality, is not the fixed, single, agreed upon, or measurable phenomenon that it is assumed to be in positivist, quantitative research. For example, a qualitative researcher might be interested in identifying reasons adults drop out of a

3

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community-based adult literacy program before achieving their goals. Any number of factors might emerge in interviews with participants, including some that hadn’t been identified in previous studies or that hadn’t occurred to the researcher. This qualitative approach contrasts with a quantitative approach wherein the researcher identifies the factors ahead of time and then seeks to measure the prevalence and strength of each factor. Qualitative researchers are interested in knowing how people understand and experience their world at a particular point in time and in a particular context. Exploring how individuals experience and interact with their social world, and the meaning it has for them, is based on an interpretive (or constructivist) perspective embedded in qualitative approach. There are two other philosophical perspectives that largely inform the design of qualitative research. Drawing from critical social theory, you might investigate how the social and political aspects of the context shape how people see or understand the situation; that is, how larger contextual factors affect the ways in which individuals construct reality. This would be a critical qualitative approach. Using the same example of dropouts from an adult literacy program from a critical qualitative perspective, you would be interested in how the literacy program is structured such that the interests of some members and classes of society are served and perpetuated at the expense of others. Perhaps the program is offered at a location that is difficult to get to via public transportation, or at hours incompatible with parents’ childcare responsibilities, or the program is offered at a site that low-literate adults find intimidating such as a college campus. Whose interests does this program serve? How do power, privilege, and oppression play out? Critical social science research has its own variations. Much of feminist research draws from critical theory, as does participatory or participatory action research, a form of research that involves participants in the design and implementation of a study. Some critical research incorporates a strong emancipatory agenda along with critique; that is, in the process of conducting the investigation the overall objective is to empower participants to not only question, but also to change their situation. Cranton (2015) summarizes this perspective as follows: Emancipatory knowledge is gained through a process of critically questioning ourselves and the social systems within which we live. . . . If we do not question current scientific and social theories and accepted truths, we may never realize how we are constrained by their inevitable distortions and errors. (p. 315)

The third, and somewhat less common than an interpretive/constructivist or critical perspective in designing a qualitative study, is a philosophy called postmodern. Here researchers question all aspects of the construction of reality, what it is and what it is not, how it is organized, and so on. “Postmodern researchers view reality and knowledge as fragmented, multiple situated, and multi-faced. On these premises, reality is thought to be nearly impossible to know or represent” (Tracy, 2013, p. 44). Tracy goes on to write that “in stark contrast to positivists, who view good research as mirroring reality, postmodernists would note that mirrors

Introduction to Qualitative Research 

5

are warped, fractured, and reflect back onto the scene (and therefore affect it). . . . The best a postmodern researcher can do, then, is to choose a shard of a shattered mirror and realize that it only reflects one sliver of the world” (p.  45). A postmodern inquiry would question and “disrupt” the dichotomies inherent in the literacy program above; for example, the dichotomies of “completers versus noncompleters,” or “successful versus unsuccessful,” or “graduates versus dropouts” might be challenged. Lather (2006) lays out these three overarching theoretical perspectives in terms of understanding (interpretive), emancipation (critical and feminist are included here), and deconstruction (postmodern). As a qualitative researcher, you can approach an investigation from any of these perspectives. Your particular perspective will determine the specific research design that you employ for actually carrying out your study. If your primary interest is in understanding a phenomenon, you have many design options, the most common being interpretive, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, and narrative. Critical, feminist, postmodern, and participatory studies all have goals that include understanding, but go further in the purpose or inquiry. Several key characteristics cut across the various qualitative research designs (also called forms, types, methodologies, or genres by various authors). The first characteristic is that researchers strive to understand the meaning people have constructed about their world and their experiences; that is, how do people make sense of their experience? As Patton (2015) explains: “What makes us different from other animals is our capacity to assign meaning to things. The essence of being human is integrating and making sense of experience (Loevinger, 1976). Qualitative research inquires into, documents, and interprets the meaning-­making process” (p. 3). As qualitative researchers, we want to understand how people make sense of their lives and how they understand the world around them. We find out how people make meaning of their experiences by asking them in interviews, and/or observing the phenomenon of interest, and/or analyzing relevant ­documents/artifacts. A second characteristic of all forms of qualitative research designs is that the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and data analysis. In contrast to a survey or an experiment, the human instrument can immediately respond and adapt. Questions that don’t “work” in an interview can be changed, as can sites for observations and fieldwork. Other advantages are that the researchers can expand their understanding through nonverbal as well as verbal communication, process information (data) immediately, clarify and summarize material, check with respondents for accuracy of interpretation, and explore unusual or unanticipated responses. Further, because the human instrument can simultaneously analyze data as the data are being collected, adjustments in data collection can be made that may yield a more robust analysis and understanding of the phenomenon. When the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis, it is wise to be aware of one’s shortcomings and biases that might impact the study. Rather than trying to eliminate these biases or “subjectivities,” it is

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important to identify them and monitor them as to how they may be shaping the collection and interpretation of data. Peshkin (1988) goes so far as to make the case that one’s subjectivities “can be seen as virtuous, for it is the basis of researchers making a distinctive contribution, one that results from the unique configuration of their personal qualities joined to the data they have collected” (p. 18). Qualitative researchers are interested in how people understand and make meaning of their world. Often there is no convincing explanation, or an existing theory fails to adequately illuminate the phenomenon of interest. Therefore, another important characteristic of qualitative research is that the process is inductive; rather than deductively deriving hypotheses to be tested (as in positivist research), researchers gather data to build concepts, hypotheses, or theory. In attempting to understand the meaning a phenomenon has for those involved, qualitative researchers build toward theory from observations and intuitive understandings gleaned from being in the field. Typically, findings inductively derived from the data in a qualitative study are in the form of themes, categories, typologies, concepts, tentative hypotheses, or even a substantive theory, that is, one that addresses a specific real-world situation. Finally, because qualitative research is designed to understand a phenomenon from the participants’ perspectives, the product of a qualitative inquiry is richly descriptive. Rather than relying on numbers, words and sometimes pictures are used to convey what the researcher has learned about the topic of the study. In order to convey this understanding, the write-up of a qualitative study usually includes descriptions of the context, the participants involved, and the activities of interest. The “findings” of a qualitative study are supported by quotations from participant interviews, selections from documents or the researcher’s field notes, descriptions of artifacts, excerpts from videotapes, photos, and so on. A reader can think of these data as “evidence” for the findings of the study. In summary, qualitative research attempts to understand and make sense of phenomena from the participant’s viewpoint. The researcher can approach the phenomena from an interpretive, critical, or postmodern perspective. All qualitative research is characterized by the search for meaning and understanding, the researcher as the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, an inductive investigative strategy, and a richly descriptive end product.

Distinguishing Among Types of Qualitative Research Design From education to anthropology to management science, researchers, students, and practitioners are conducting qualitative studies. It is not surprising, then, that different disciplines and fields ask different questions and have evolved somewhat different strategies and procedures. Writers of qualitative texts have organized the diversity of forms of qualitative research in various ways. Patton (2015), for example, presents sixteen orientations to qualitative research according to the different kinds of questions researchers from different disciplines might ask.

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Creswell (2013) has identified five “traditions” – narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. Denzin and ­Lincoln (2011) identify several “strategies of inquiry” including case study, ethnography, mixed methods, grounded theory, and participatory action research. They write that qualitative research, while used in “many separate disciplines, . . . does not belong to a single discipline. Nor does qualitative research have a distinct set of methods that are entirely its own.” Rather, it is “a set of complex interpretive practices” (p. 6). Given the variety of qualitative research approaches, we have chosen to organize this resource book around eight designs that center on or include a substantial component of qualitative methods. Of the eight, five are exclusively qualitative in the design and conduct of the study: interpretive, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, and narrative inquiry. Three more recent designs incorporate a significant component of qualitative data – arts-based research, qualitative action research, and mixed methods. These and other types of qualitative research do have some attributes in common that result in their falling under the umbrella concept of “qualitative.” However, they each have a somewhat different focus, resulting in variations in how the research question might be asked, how the sample is selected, how data are collected and analyzed, and how findings are presented. The following is a short description of each of the eight designs. More thorough discussions of each, along with examples and author commentaries, can be found in Part Two.

Interpretive An interpretive and descriptive qualitative study exemplifies all the characteristics of qualitative research discussed above; that is, the researcher is first and foremost interested in understanding how participants make meaning of a situation or phenomenon. This meaning is mediated through the researcher as instrument, data analysis is inductive, and the outcome is descriptive. In conducting an interpretive qualitative study, you seek to discover and understand a phenomenon, a process, the perspectives and worldviews of the people involved, or a combination of these. Data are collected through interviews, observations, and/or documents/artifacts. These data are inductively analyzed to identify the recurring patterns or common themes that cut across the data. A rich, descriptive account of the findings is presented and discussed, using references to the literature that framed the study in the first place. Exactly what questions are asked will depend upon one’s discipline and the literature one is using to frame the study. For example, in Roulston, Jutras, and Kim’s (2015) study of adults’ perceptions and experiences of learning musical instruments, the researchers interviewed 15 adults in the southeastern United States who were learning to play instruments to understand the participants’ prior experiences in music, their motivations for learning to play instruments, and their learning goals, learning strategies they employ, the benefits that they attribute to their engagement in musical activities, and the challenges faced.

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Often researchers are hesitant to use what some label a generic or basic design and feel they must name or categorize the type of qualitative research they are conducting using terms such as “case study,” “grounded theory,” or “phenomenology” when in fact they are employing a well-used design: interpretive. The majority of qualitative research studies in education and other fields of practice fall under this design and are labeled simply as “a qualitative study.”

Phenomenology Because phenomenology as a school of philosophical thought underpins all qualitative research, some assume that all qualitative research is phenomenological, and certainly in one sense it is. However, even though the phenomenological notions of experience and understanding run through all qualitative research, one could also engage in a phenomenological study using its own “tools” or inquiry techniques that differentiate it from other qualitative designs. In the same way that ethnography focuses on culture, a phenomenological study focuses on the essence or structure of an experience. Phenomenologists are interested in showing how complex meanings are built out of simple units of direct experience. This form of inquiry is an attempt to deal with inner experiences unexamined in everyday life. According to Patton (2015), this type of qualitative research design is based on the assumption that there is an essence or essences to shared experience. . . . The experiences of different people are bracketed, analyzed, and compared to identify the essences of the phenomenon, for example, the essence of loneliness, the essence of being a mother, or the essence of being a participant in a particular program. (p. 116, emphasis in original)

In order to understand the essence or structure of an experience, the researcher temporarily puts aside, or “brackets,” personal attitudes or beliefs about the phenomenon. With belief temporarily suspended, consciousness itself becomes heightened, allowing the researcher to intuit or see the essence of the phenomenon. Topics well suited to a phenomenological approach often have to do with emotions and inner feelings such as a study of children’s spirituality (Natsis, 2017), career anxiety among college students (Pisarik, Rowell, & ­Thompson, 2017), or Ruth-Sahd and Tisdell’s (2007) exploration of how intuitive knowing influences the practice of novice nurses.

Ethnography This form of qualitative research design has a long tradition in the field of anthropology. It was developed by anthropologists specifically to study human society and culture. Although culture has been variously defined, it usually refers to the beliefs, values, and attitudes that shape the behavior of a particular group of people. D’Andrade (1992) writes that culture is something behaviorally and

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cognitively shared by an identifiable group of people and that it has “the potential of being passed on to new group members, to exist with some permanency through time and across space” (p. 230). Confusion results when the term “ethnography” is used interchangeably with fieldwork, participant observation, case study, and so on. For a qualitative study to be termed “ethnography,” it must present a sociocultural interpretation of the data. Therefore, ethnography is not defined by how data are collected, although doing an ethnographic study almost always includes spending time on site with a particular sociocultural group, but rather by the lens through which the data are interpreted. An ethnographic study “re-creates for the reader the shared beliefs, practices, artifacts, folk knowledge, and behaviors of some group of people” (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993, pp. 2–3). Most people are familiar with ethnographies of foreign and exotic cultures, such as Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (1973). But as Patton (2015) points out, today ethnographic studies are also about some aspect of contemporary society such as “Information Age culture, the culture of poverty, school culture, the culture of addiction, intercultural marriages, youth culture” and so on (p. 100). There are also numerous variations of ethnographies, such as autoethnography, performance ethnography, and critical ethnography. Hammersley (2017) underscores this proliferation of terms in his discussion of the definitions and multiple variations of ethnography ranging from corporate ethnography to feminist ethnography to virtual ethnography to autoethnography and so on. However, at the heart of any type of ethnographic research is the focus on a particular group’s shared culture.

Grounded Theory Glaser and Strauss’s 1967 book The Discovery of Grounded Theory launched, or at least was key in the development of qualitative research as a viable research paradigm. The goal of this type of qualitative study is to derive inductively from data a theory that is “grounded” in the data – hence, grounded theory. Grounded theory research emphasizes discovery, with description and verification as secondary concerns. Researchers in this mode build substantive theory, which is distinguished from grand or formal theory. Substantive theory is localized, dealing with particular real-world situations such as how adults manage school, family, and work life, what constitutes an effective counseling program for teen mothers, or how a community allocates its resources. Data gathered for a grounded theory study are analyzed via the constant comparative method of data analysis, which involves continually comparing one unit of data with another in order to derive conceptual elements of the theory. Many researchers using other qualitative designs have adopted this method, even though they may not be developing theory. This has resulted in claims by some researchers that they are doing a grounded theory study when in fact there is no substantive theory as an outcome of the inquiry. A grounded theory consists of categories, properties, and hypotheses that state relationships among categories

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and properties. Unlike hypotheses in experimental studies, grounded theory hypotheses are tentative and suggestive rather than tested.

Narrative Inquiry The key to this design is the use of stories as data, and more specifically, firstperson accounts of experience told in story form. “Stories organize and shape our experiences and also tell others about our lives, relationships, journeys, decisions, successes, and failures” (Patton, 2015, p. 128). Manning and Cullum-Swan (1994) write that narrative inquiry “typically takes the perspective of the teller, rather than that of the society” (p. 465). Context is important, however, for “if one defines narrative as a story with a beginning, middle, and end that reveals someone’s experiences, narratives take many forms, are told in many settings, before many audiences, and with various degrees of connection to actual events or persons” (p. 465). Central to narrative inquiry is the process of analyzing people’s stories. There are several strategies one can use to do the actual analysis of narratives or people’s stories. The three most common are psychological, biographical, and discourse analysis. In the psychological approach, the story is analyzed in terms of internal thoughts and motivations. A more biographical approach attends to the person in relation to society and takes into account the influences of gender, class, race, and family beginnings (Denzin, 2014). Discourse analysis examines the written text of the story for its component parts or assesses the spoken words by looking for intonation, pitch, and pauses as lenses to the meaning of the text (Gee, 2014). For a discussion of issues involved in analyzing narratives in a longitudinal narrative study of adults living with serious illnesses, see Bruce, Beuthin, Shields, Molzahn, and Schick-Makaroff (2016). Whatever the approach to analyzing the data, the central defining feature of this type of qualitative research is that the data are in the form of a story.

Arts-Based Research The various designs of qualitative research discussed above have been well defined and understood for decades if not longer (as in the case of ethnography, which originated with anthropologists). More recently, several newer approaches to qualitative research have emerged. One such approach, known as arts-based research, is capturing the attention of qualitative researchers looking for creative means of gathering data as well as presenting the findings of a qualitative study. Lawrence (2015) defines arts-based research as “research using any form of art (visual art, music, poetry, dance, etc.) in the data collection, analysis, and/or reporting of research” (p. 142). Examples of the diversity of applications of artsbased research include: digital bricolage with doctoral students to create digital representations of their professional identities (Armstrong,  2018); Alexander’s (2016) exploration of songwriting as a form of research; and an essay presented as a series of poems that fictionalize professors’ and students’ experiences and

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narratives of sexual harassment in the academy through the use of the cartoon character Hello Kitty (Faulkner, Calafell, & Grimes, 2009). Because qualitative research aims to uncover the meaning people make of their experiences and their lives in general, artistic forms of expression merely extend the researcher’s means of understanding a phenomenon. Drama, painting, literature, and so on are expressions of the human condition. As Merriam and Tisdell (2016) note: The point of incorporating art into research is partly in recognition of the fact that people make meaning and express it in different ways. . . . As artists and many teachers know, people also often make meaning in new and even deeper ways when asked to express something through symbol, photography, visual art, music, metaphor, dance, poetry, or other forms of creative expression. (p. 65)

Moreover, a case can be made that the artistic presentation of research findings, such as through drama, dance, musical performance, or an artistic display, can reach a much larger audience than does a publication in an academic journal. Further, arts-based research can be used “for raising awareness and mobilizing for change” (Lawrence, 2015, p. 144).

Qualitative Action Research Action research is conducted by those who want to address some problem or issue in their workplace or community and take action based on the findings. For example, a health practitioner might want to know what incentives patients need to take their medication as directed. They will collect and analyze the data, then implement the incentive plan and collect further data to understand the outcomes. Or a teacher might wonder whether sending students to sights in their community might more actively engage students in learning about the town’s history. The teacher might work with the students to design the study, collect and analyze data, and address the findings in their school. Action research involves participants in both designing and carrying out the study. The participants, like the patients and students in the above examples, actively help design the study, engage in data collection and analysis, and in some cases present the findings.

Mixed Methods We have included mixed-methods research design in this book on qualitative research because it is a research methodology that always includes a component of qualitative inquiry along with more quantitative components. Creswell (2015) defines the growing use of mixed-methods research in the social sciences as “an approach to research  .  .  .  in which the investigator gathers both quantitative (closed-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data, integrates the two and then draws interpretations based on the combined strengths of both sets of data to understand research problems” (p. 2).

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There are at least three possible ways of structuring a mixed-method study. One can simultaneously collect both qualitative and quantitative data to address the research question. For example, in a study of how prospective students make decisions as to which colleges to apply to, a large sample might be administered a survey and at the same time a sample of students could be interviewed for more in-depth analysis. A second type of mixed-methods design is to first administer a survey instrument to a relevant (often random) sample of participants, then follow up with interviews with those who filled out the survey and/ or others fitting the same profile as survey respondents. The interviews help the researcher understand responses to the survey instrument as well as provide additional insights into the phenomenon of interest. Creswell (2015) calls this an explanatory sequential design, as the qualitative data help explain the quantitative results. A third design, exploratory mixed methods (Creswell, 2015), is just the reverse of the explanatory sequential design because qualitative data are collected first. The analysis of the qualitative data is used in designing a quantitative component, usually a survey instrument. Whatever the order of collecting quantitative and qualitative data, mixed methods always includes a qualitative component that incorporates one of the other design approaches we have addressed in this chapter. To summarize this brief overview of the different qualitative research designs, we see that the eight chosen for review vary widely in form and purpose. Not all qualitative research designs are the same; nor are terms such as “grounded theory,” “ethnography,” “narrative inquiry,” and so on interchangeable. However, because of the underlying view of reality and the focus on understanding and meaning, the qualitative research designs reviewed here have some characteristics in common that allow them to be categorized as “qualitative.”

The Design of a Qualitative Study The design of a qualitative study focused on interpretation includes shaping a problem from the literature, forming a research question, selecting a sample, collecting and analyzing data, and representing the findings. An understanding of this process is important for assessing the rigor and value of individual reports of research (see Chapter Two for more discussion on evaluating and assessing qualitative research). Presented here is a brief overview of the component parts of the process of conducting a qualitative research study. The Research Problem, Research Question, and Sample Selection. A research study begins with you being curious about something, and that “something” is usually related to your work, your family, your community, or yourself. It can also come from social and political issues of the day or from the literature. Often these spheres intersect. For example, perhaps you work for a social service agency that assists the homeless in becoming stabilized in their housing needs. Your work is very much about a pressing social problem. Or you might have observed how comfortable your children are with computers and you wonder how people not brought up with computers are learning to function in this technological age.

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In any case, the place to “look” for a research problem is in your everyday ­experience – make inquiries about it, be curious as to why things are as they are or how they might be better. To develop your initial curiosity more fully, you form a problem statement. In crafting the research problem, you move from general interest, curiosity, or doubt about a situation to a specific statement of the research problem. In effect, you have to translate your general curiosity into a problem that can be addressed through research. The structure of a problem statement moves from the general topic of interest, including key concepts, what has already been studied, and why it’s an important topic, to the specific research question that you will ask. This specific question is most often written first as a purpose statement and addresses some gap in the knowledge base on that topic and a rationale for filling the gap. Using the previous example of addressing the homeless, one purpose statement might read: “The purpose of this study is to understand the experience of being  homeless,” or “The purpose of this study is to identify the process of moving from homelessness to stable housing,” or “The purpose of this study is to uncover how a social service agency both reinforces and challenges the state of homelessness of its clients.” For more on problem formation, see the explanation in Merriam and Tisdell (2016). The problem statement and purpose provide the foundation for your research question. The type of question that you ask is key to doing a qualitative study. Marshall and Rossman (1995) suggest that qualitative research is designed to (a) understand processes, (b) describe poorly understood phenomena, (c)  understand differences between stated and implemented policies or theories, and (d) discover thus far unspecified contextual variables. If you want to understand a phenomenon, uncover the meaning a situation has for those involved, or delineate a process (how things happen), then a qualitative design would be most appropriate. For example, you might ask, what are the experiences of homeless persons or, you might ask, what are the necessary steps or stages in the transition process of moving from homelessness to stable housing. Or, if your purpose seeks to find a solution to homelessness in a particular neighborhood, you might engage the participants themselves in an action research study to explore the kinds of interventions that would be most effective in changing their living situation in that neighborhood. The next step in the design of a qualitative study is to select a sample from which you will collect data. For nearly every study there exist sites that could be visited, people who could be interviewed, and documents/artifacts that could be read and analyzed. How do you select which sites, people, and documents/­ artifacts to include in your study? To begin with, since you are not interested in quantitative questions like “how much” or “how often,” random sampling makes little sense. Instead, since qualitative inquiry seeks to understand the meaning of a phenomenon from the perspectives of the participants, it is important to select a sample from which the most can be learned. This is called a purposive or purposeful sample. Patton (2015) argues that it is important to select information-­ rich cases for study in depth, “those from which one can learn a great deal about

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issues of central importance to the purpose of the research, thus the term purposeful sampling” (p. 53, emphasis in original). To begin purposive sampling, you first determine what criteria are essential in choosing who is to be interviewed or what sites are to be observed. In the study of the experience of homelessness, for example, you would want to consider whether men and women would be included, what age range would be important, the length of homelessness, and so on. Data Collection and Analysis. There are three major sources of data for a qualitative research study – interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts. The data collection strategy used is determined by the question of the study and by determining which source(s) of data will yield the best information to answer the question. Often there is a primary method of collecting data with support from another. Sometimes only one method is used. For example, in studying how a social service agency both reinforces and challenges the status quo of the homeless, you might interview both homeless people and staff of the agency, conduct observations of the daily operation of the agency, and study internal and external agency documents. However, if you were most interested in the experience of homelessness, interviews with those who are or have been homeless would yield the most relevant information. If possible, researchers are encouraged to use more than one method of data collection (triangulation), as multiple methods enhance the validity of the findings. Interviews can be conducted face to face, over the phone, through the Web (such as Skype), in email, or online messaging. Moreover, interviews can be one-on-one, in small groups, or through focus groups and range from highly structured, where specific questions and the order in which they are asked are determined ahead of time, to unstructured, where one has topic areas to explore, but neither the questions nor the order are predetermined. Most interviews fall somewhere in between. These semi-structured interviews contain a mix of more and less structured questions and usually begin with specific information desired from all the participants; this forms the highly structured section of the interview. The largest part of the interview is guided by the encounter with the participants and is based on a list of questions or issues to be explored; neither the exact wording nor the order of these questions is determined ahead of time. Observational data represent a firsthand encounter with the phenomenon of interest rather than a secondhand account obtained in an interview or document. This encounter can happen “live” or in a virtual context with a researcher “observing” online or from recorded interactions. Like the variation in interviewing, observing can range from being a complete observer to being an active participant. A complete observer is unknown to those being observed, such as from behind a one-way mirror or in an open, public place. A very active participant observer might be a member of the group or organization and is participating in the group while observing. When observation is used in conjunction with interviewing, the term fieldwork or field study is sometimes used. Observation is the best technique when an activity, event, or situation can be observed firsthand, when a fresh perspective is desired, or when participants are not able or willing to discuss the phenomenon under study.

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Documents and artifacts are written, oral, visual (such as photographs), or cultural data. Examples include public records, personal documents, and physical material as well as web pages, and papers, illustrations, and games available online. The strength of these data lies with the fact that they already exist in the  situation; they do not intrude upon or alter the setting in ways that the presence of the researcher might. Nor are they dependent upon the whims of human beings whose cooperation is essential for collecting data through interviews and observations. Entire studies can be built around documents or artifacts. For example, in Elliott and Stead’s (2017) study of women’s leadership during the global financial crisis of 2008–2012, newspapers were their sole source of data. In order to capture the media’s representation of women’s leadership during that time, the data were the business pages of three UK newspapers, The Guardian, The Times, and the Daily Mail, published from January 2009 through October 2012. In contrast to documents or artifacts already present in the research, some may be prepared at the request of the researcher after the study has begun. Participants might be asked to keep a diary or a log of their activities relevant to the phenomenon being studied, take pictures, write a life history, and so on. Whether preexisting or researcher-generated, documents and artifacts often contain insights and clues about the phenomenon, and most researchers find them well worth the effort to locate and examine. In qualitative research, data analysis is simultaneous with data collection. That is, one begins analyzing data with the first interview, the first observation, the first document/artifact accessed in the study. Simultaneous data collection and analysis allows the researcher to adjust along the way, even to the point of redirecting data collection, and to “test” emerging concepts, themes, and categories against subsequent data. To wait until all data are collected is to lose the opportunity to gather more reliable and valid data; to wait until the end is also to court disaster, as many qualitative researchers have found themselves facing hundreds of pages of transcripts or field notes without a clue where to begin. With that caveat in mind, qualitative data analysis is essentially an inductive strategy. One begins with a unit of data (any meaningful word, phrase, field note, photograph, etc.) and compares it to another unit of data, and so on, all the while looking for common patterns across the data. These patterns are given names and are refined and adjusted as the analysis proceeds. Although originally used for developing grounded theory, many qualitative researchers use the constant comparative method, whether or not they are seeking to build substantive theory, but today there are researchers employing a variety of methods of analysis from interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to conversation analysis to narrative analysis. Whatever strategy one uses to analyze qualitative data, the process is inductive – moving from the particular to the general and culminating in findings. “Findings” in a qualitative research study are the answers to the research question(s) that drove the study. Representing Qualitative Research. There is no standard format for reporting and representing qualitative research. Rather, as can be seen from a quick glance

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at the reports of qualitative research in Part Two of this book, there is a diversity of styles, some of which are quite creative. With the growth of online platforms that do not limit the presentation of data to simply text, qualitative reports can include recordings of findings represented as drama, dance, and film, or video and audio clips, and photos or scans of original data. In more traditional write-ups of qualitative research, what needs to be considered is the audience for the report. A funding agency or the general public may want an executive summary of the findings and will probably not be interested in how the study was conducted. But colleagues and other researchers will want a detailed description of the methodology in order to assess the study’s contribution to the field. Although the relative emphasis given each section, as well as the overall form of the report, can vary widely, all write-ups of qualitative research contain at the very minimum a discussion of the research problem, the way the investigation was conducted, and the findings, including a discussion of their importance or relevance to theory and practice. Since findings are in the form of words rather than numbers, reports vary widely regarding the ratio of supporting “raw” data included versus interpretation and analysis. The best guideline is whether enough data in the form of quotations from interviews, episodes from field observations, or document/artifact evidence are presented to support adequately and convincingly the study’s findings. In qualitative research, it is the rich, thick descriptions through words (not numbers) that persuade the reader of the trustworthiness of the findings. Nevertheless, in any report, there is tension between having the right amount of supporting data versus analysis and interpretation. Another problem is finding the right voice to present the findings. Write-ups can vary from intimate, first-person accounts to more formal presentations, to creative and artistic presentations.

Summary This chapter presented an introductory overview of qualitative research. Qualitative research is an umbrella term that encompasses several philosophical or theoretical perspectives, as well as numerous designs including: interpretive, phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, artsbased research, qualitative action research, and mixed methods. All qualitative research designs have in common the search for meaning and understanding, the researcher as the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, an inductive analysis process, and a product that is a rich description of the phenomenon. Also reviewed in this chapter are the phases of a qualitative research process. One must first shape a research problem and question that are appropriate for qualitative inquiry. Next, a purposeful sample is chosen, from which data are collected. The three primary sources of data are interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts. As data are being collected, data analysis is ongoing and simultaneous. There are a variety of data analysis strategies that can be employed, depending upon the type of qualitative study. Finally, it is important to present the

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findings of the study in a format appropriate to the audience. It is only through the presentation and dissemination of the study’s findings that a contribution can be made to the knowledge base of a field and to practice.

References Alexander, K. (2016). “A Song for You”/“Killing Me Softly”: Lyrical dialectics of design, desire, and disdain (A performative introduction). Qualitative Inquiry, 22(10), 771–774. Armstrong, P. A. (2018). Scholar practitioner, reflexive professionals, the art of autobiographical professional development. International Journal of Online Graduate Education, 1(1). Bruce, A., Beuthin, R., Shields, L., Molzahn, A. & Schick-Makaroff, K. (2016). Narrative research evolving: Evolving through narrative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, January-December 2016, 1–6. Cranton, P. (2015). Teachers as researchers: Participatory and action research. In V. C. X. Wang (Ed.), Handbook of research on scholarly publishing and research methods (pp. 312–328). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Creswell, J. W. (2015). A concise introduction to mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. D’Andrade, R. G. (1992). Afterword. In R. G. D’Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Denzin, N. K. (2014). Interpretive autoethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Elliott, C., & Stead, V. (2017). Constructing women’s leadership representation in the UK press during a time of financial crisis: Gender capitals and dialectical tensions. Organization Studies, 39(1) 19–45. Faulkner, S., Calafell, B. M. & Grimes, D. (2009). Hello Kitty goes to college: Poems about harassment in the academy. In M. Prendergrast, C. Leggo, & P. Sameshima (Eds.), Poetic inquiry: Vibrant voices in the social sciences (pp. 187–208). Rotterdam, The ­Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (4th ed.). London, UK: Routledge. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Hammersley, M. (2017). What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education, 13(1), 1–17. Lather, P. (2006). Paradigm proliferation as a good thing to think with: Teaching research in education as a wild profusion. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 629–633. Lawrence, R. L. (2015). Dancing with the data: Arts-based qualitative research. In V. C. X. Wang (Ed.), Handbook of research on scholarly publishing and research methods (pp. 141–154). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. LeCompte, M. D., & Preissle, J., with Tesch, R. (1993). Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research (2nd ed.). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

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Manning, P. K., & Cullum-Swan, B. (1994). Narrative, content, and semiotic analysis. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 463–477). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (1995). Designing qualitative research (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mead, M. (1973). Coming of age in Samoa (6th ed.) New York, NY: Morrow Hill. Merriam, S. B. & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Wiley. Natsis, E. (2017). Encountering the “unexpected” in phenomenological research. Faith and beliefs expressions of spirituality in a qualitative study. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 22(3–4), 291–304. Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Peshkin, A. (1988). In search of subjectivity – one’s own. Educational Researcher, 17(7), 17–22. Pisarik, C. T., Rowell, P. Clay, & Thompson, L. K. (2017). A phenomenological study of career anxiety among college students. The Career Development Quarterly, 65(4), 339–352. Roulston, K., Jutras, P., & Kim, S. J. (2015). Adult perspectives of learning musical instruments. International Journal of Music Education, 33(3), 325–335. Ruth-Sahd, L. A. & Tisdell, E. J. (2007). The meaning and use of intuition in novice nurses: A phenomenological study. Adult Education Quarterly, 57(2), 115–140. Tracy, S. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Two

Assessing and Evaluating Qualitative Research Assume for a moment that you are the director of human resource development for your company and you notice that men seem to get promoted more readily than women. Or that you are the principal of a high school with a diverse student body and you have data showing that minority students have a higher dropout rate than their White counterparts. For either of these questions you could turn to research studies to better understand the problem and to get ideas for what you might do to change the situation. However, before you implement any changes based on what you discover in the research, you want to be certain that the changes will help, not exacerbate the situation. How will you know which research findings are trustworthy? Which studies were done well? Which changes to implement? These questions are especially important to professionals in applied fields such as education and training where practitioners intervene in people’s lives. Lincoln, Lynham, and Guba (2018) underscore this point by asking whether a study’s findings are “sufficiently authentic  .  .  .  that I may trust myself in acting on their implications? More to the point, would I feel sufficiently secure about these findings to construct social policy or legislation based on them?” (p. 138). In other words, what constitutes a “good” or “quality” qualitative study, one that can be trusted should we want to make use of the knowledge generated by the study? This chapter outlines what to look for in general terms in evaluating and assessing a qualitative research study. This section is followed by a more specific discussion on assessing the validity and reliability of qualitative research, including how ethical issues are inextricably intertwined with the trustworthiness of the findings.

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What to Look for When Evaluating Qualitative Research “It is impossible to imagine a person leading a life without making judgments or without making discriminations,” write Smith and Deemer (2000, p. 888). They go on to point out that in our roles as inquirers, educators, evaluators, we are always making judgments about papers for publication, presentations, books, dissertations, student papers, and so on. As we approach judgment in any given case, we have in mind or bring to the task a list . . . of characteristics that we use to judge the quality of that production. (p. 888)

Systematically evaluating or critiquing a qualitative study involves considering the overall design of the study, as well as the rigor with which the study was conducted. The following discussion presents factors to consider in evaluating specific studies, emphasizing qualitative studies that are interpretive. It is important to note that not all factors will apply equally to all studies. The first question to ask is whether the problem is appropriate for qualitative inquiry. Recall that this type of research is designed to uncover or discover the meanings people construct about a particular phenomenon. The researcher wants to obtain an in-depth understanding of a phenomenon, an individual, or a situation. Qualitative researchers are not interested in people’s surface opinions as in survey research, or in cause and effect as in experimental research; rather, they want to know how people do things, and what meaning they give to their lives. Questions of meaning, understanding, and process are appropriate for qualitative research. One should look for a clear statement of the purpose of the study. This is often found in the introductory material or in a section identified as the problem statement. The problem of the study also needs to be situated in the literature. What research and theory does this study draw upon? What theoretical framework anchors the topic? What theory or literature does it seek to extend and inform? What do we already know about the phenomenon, and what is the gap in our knowledge? The next basic question one could ask is, how significant is the problem? The author needs to make a case that there is some gap in our knowledge about a particular phenomenon, and it is important to answer the questions raised by the study. This is done by informing the reader of what is known, usually through a review of previous literature and research. Then a case must be made for the importance of this particular research. How will this knowledge make a contribution in the world? Who will benefit and in what ways? There should be some sense of urgency surrounding the issue. The mere fact that this topic has not been previously investigated does not, in and of itself, justify doing the research; maybe there’s no need to know the answers. In applied fields like education and management, for example, research is often undertaken for the expressed purpose of improving practice. How might someone make use of the findings of the study?

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Who in particular would be most interested? Will this research help someone make better decisions, plan programs, teach, develop policies, engage in social action, empower others? In setting up the problem of the study, some authors also identify their particular interest in the topic, along with their assumptions and biases. In qualitative research reports it is accepted practice for the researcher to explain his or her perspective on and relationship to the problem. This is sometimes found as a separate subjectivity statement, embedded in the introduction and problem statement, or sometimes in the methods section. Moving beyond the problem and significance of the study, we can take a close look at the methods section of the report. Does the author identify which type of qualitative research design is being used? Is this an interpretive study? An ethnography? Grounded theory? Narrative inquiry? Each of these designs has its own purpose and strategies. Is this really the type of qualitative study it purports to be and does it align with the study purpose and research question? Qualitative studies are commonly mislabeled in the literature. Some are labeled case studies when in fact they are not really an in-depth investigation of a bounded system; or a study is called grounded theory because the researcher has used the constant comparative method, but does not build theory. Mislabeling signals a superficial understanding of qualitative research. Sample selection should be clearly explained. In qualitative research a sample is selected on purpose to yield the most information about the phenomenon of interest. There are usually criteria specified for selection. For example, included in this volume is a qualitative study of the roles traditional healers play in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in Malaysia (Merriam & Muhamad, 2013). The following criteria were used in selecting a purposive sample: Malay traditional healers (not Chinese or Indian Malay healers), of which there are two major types, although there is considerable overlap between their methods and treatments: Islamic healers who use verses from the Koran and traditional healers known as bomoh who use herbal remedies, ceremonial rites, and so on. The final sample consisted of 14 healers from both urban and rural areas of Malaysia, 10 of whom were men, which is representative of the ratio of male versus female healers. Not only should we know how the sample was selected, and the rationale for various selection criteria, we should be given a description of the final study participants. This description is sometimes placed at the beginning of the findings section. Depending on the number of participants and the research design, the description can be presented in summary form (that is, “10 men and 8 women ranging in age from 18 to 45”), as a summary table, or as short portraits or biographies of each participant. Or in the case of narrative inquiry, each participant’s “story” is quite lengthy and part of the findings. In the methods section we should also be told something about how the data were collected, managed, and analyzed. It might be recalled that the three primary sources of data are interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts. If interviews were used, how were they arranged, where were they held, how long did they take, how many were conducted, and what kind of interview protocol was used? What areas related to the topic did the interviewer probe? Observations also need

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to be described. Where and when were these scheduled? Did the researcher videotape or audiotape as part of the observation? Was a standardized check sheet used? What role did the researcher assume during the observation? With regard to documents and artifacts, we need to know how the researcher accessed them, what types they are (e.g., public/official or private), and the original purpose of the documents or artifacts. In addition to methods of data collection, the system for managing the data, as well as how they were analyzed should be presented in the methods section. If a computer software program such as ATLAS.ti or NVivo was used to manage the data, its use needs to be briefly described, as well as any unique adaptations the author might have designed. It is commonly understood that these software programs manage and may facilitate data analysis, but the researcher’s analytical strategies are still central to deriving categories, themes, or “regularities” across the data set. Just how researchers do this is highly idiosyncratic and intuitive. Nevertheless, some explanation of how the researcher proceeded, with maybe an accompanying example, will be helpful to the reader. Further, different qualitative research designs use different data analysis strategies. For example, in a phenomenological study, the researcher applies the strategies of “bracketing” and “phenomenological reduction”; in grounded theory, there is “theoretical sampling” and a “core category.” Related to evaluating the methodological design of the study, a reader can note whether any of the strategies for enhancing the rigor and trustworthiness of the study were employed (see the next section of this chapter). Do we know anything about the researcher’s assumptions, biases, or connection to the phenomenon or participants of the study? Was there any form of triangulation, if appropriate? Member checks? Peer examination? Do any of the procedures or the conduct of the study raise ethical questions in the mind of the reader? Are these addressed? The explanation of the methods of the study – how the sample was selected, how the data were collected and analyzed, and how rigor and trustworthiness were addressed – constitutes an audit trail. This audit trail or transparency of method is one strategy for enhancing the study’s reliability. How detailed this trail is, how transparent the methodology, is also one basis for assessing the value of the study. Traditional qualitative studies present the findings of the inquiry as a mix of rich, thick description and interpretation. It should be noted that there is growing acceptance of writing up findings from the first person/researcher perspective as well as experimentation and acceptance of innovative and creative representations, a situation that complicates how one assesses the persuasiveness of presentations of qualitative research. Open to discussion are appropriate criteria for evaluating first-person, poetic, fictional, dramatic, musical, artistic, and mixed-media presentations of qualitative research findings. However, traditionally in qualitative research, it is the general practice to present enough data to adequately and convincingly support the findings of the study. Firestone’s (1987) observation over 30 years ago, that the quantitative and qualitative research

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paradigms each employs different “rhetoric” to convince readers of its trustwor­ thiness, still rings true today: “The quantitative study must convince the reader that procedures have been followed faithfully because very little concrete description of what anyone does is provided. The qualitative study provides the reader with a depiction in enough detail to show that the author’s conclusion “makes sense” (p. 19). Further, “the quantitative study portrays a world of variables and static states. . . . By contrast the qualitative study describes people acting in events” (p. 19). Just how much is “enough” detail and description, and how to present it, are open to debate. At the very least, each finding must be supported by the “raw” data from which the finding was derived. These data are in the form of exact quotations from people interviewed, episodes from field observations, and references or images from supporting documents/artifacts. On one hand, a major or unique insight or discovery needs more than one quote from a participant to substantiate its presence in the data. On the other hand, presentations of supporting data should not be so long or so dense that the reader loses interest. Since there are no agreed-upon guidelines as to the right balance between the amount of particular “evidence” from interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts and the researcher’s description and analysis, the reader makes the judgment as to whether there is “enough” data to support the author’s interpretation. The bottom line is whether the reader is persuaded that the findings make sense in light of the data presented. By way of summarizing this section on “what to look for when evaluating qualitative research,” Table 2.1 provides a check sheet of the points discussed. This should be used with caution however, as no single study is likely to meet all the expectations. Further, evaluation forms such as this reflect the author’s orientation to the phenomenon being assessed – in this case, our constructivist and interpretive stance to qualitative research. As Smith and Deemer (2000) point out, “a list of characteristics must be seen as always open-ended, in part unarticulated, and, even when a characteristic is more or less articulated, it is always and ever subject to constant reinterpretation” (p. 888).

Ensuring for “Quality” in Qualitative Research It is not uncommon to hear people ask whether a particular study is a “good” study. “Good” is of course a relative term open to interpretation, but what people usually mean by that question is whether the study was conducted in a rigorous, systematic, and ethical manner, such that the results can be trusted, and applied to practice. Just as positivist research (for example, surveys and experiments) has its own strategies to establish validity and reliability, qualitative research also has strategies based on the different worldview and different questions congruent with the constructivist philosophical assumptions underlying this perspective. Over the years there has been much discussion in the literature and at ­conferences as to how to think about validity and reliability in qualitative research.

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Table 2.1  Assessing the “Quality” of Qualitative Research A. Problem

1. Is the problem appropriate for qualitative inquiry? 2. Is the problem clearly stated? 3. Is the question one of meaning, understanding, or process? 4. Is the problem situated in the literature? That is, is the literature used to put the problem in context? 5. Is the relationship of the problem to previous research made clear? 6. Are the researcher’s perspective and relationship to the problem discussed? Are assumptions and biases revealed? 7. Is a convincing argument explicitly or implicitly made for the importance or significance of this research? Do we know how it will contribute to the knowledge base and practice?

B. Methods

1. Is the particular qualitative research design identified and described (interpretive, grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnography, and so on)? 2. Is sample selection described, including rationale for criteria used in the selection? 3. Are data collection methods described, and are they congruent with the problem being investigated and the type of qualitative design? 4. How were the data managed? 5. Are the analysis methods described, and are they congruent with the problem being investigated and the type of qualitative design? 6. What strategies were used to ensure validity and reliability? (See Table 2.2.) 7. What ethical considerations are discussed?

C. Findings

1. Are the participants of the study described? (This may be in Methods.) 2. Are the findings clearly organized and easy to follow? 3. Are the findings directly responsive to the problem of the study? That is, do they “answer” the question(s) raised by the study? 4. Do the data presented in support of the findings (quotations from interviews, incidents from field notes, material from artifacts, and so on) provide adequate and convincing evidence for the findings?

D. Discussion 1. Are the findings “positioned” and discussed in terms of the literature and previous research? 2. Are the study’s insights and contributions to the larger body of knowledge clearly stated and discussed? 3. Are implications for practice discussed? 4. Do the study’s implications follow from the data? 5. Are there suggestions for future research?

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Much of this discussion centers on the more widely used interpretive/­constructivist notions of validity and reliability, though researchers from postmodern and critical perspectives have also contributed their thinking about trustworthiness. Several writers have traced the evolution of strategies for ensuring trustworthiness, with some favoring the use of familiar terminology from positivist research to others arguing for a new set of terms congruent with a constructivist perspective. Morse (2018) for example posits that terminology proposed by Lincoln and Guba in the 1980s, while still viable, has given way to the development of checklists of criteria for quality, to an overall appraisal of completed research. Creswell (2007) presents a summary table of “perspectives and terms used in qualitative validation” (p. 203) and concludes that “these perspectives are viewing qualitative validation in terms of quantitative equivalents, using qualitative terms that are distinct from quantitative terms, employing postmodern and interpretive perspectives, considering validation as unimportant, combining or synthesizing many perspectives, or visualizing it metaphorically as a crystal” (p. 202). We have actually combined several of these various approaches in our discussion of rigor in qualitative research. We will use both the long-standing and familiar terminology of quantitative approaches in conjunction with Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) alternative terms that many contend are a better fit with qualitative research. We also offer a list of strategies one might use to ensure for rigor in conducting a qualitative study. Finally, most consumers of qualitative research want to be assured that a study was conducted in an ethical manner and that the findings can be believed. As Stake (2000) notes, knowledge gained in an investigation “faces hazardous passage from the writer to reader. The writer needs ways of safeguarding the trip” (p. 443).

Internal Validity or Credibility Internal validity or credibility (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) asks the question: How congruent are one’s findings with reality? In quantitative research this question is usually construed as: Are we observing or measuring what we think we are observing or measuring? The question hinges on what we think constitutes reality. As was discussed in Chapter 1, reality in qualitative inquiry assumes that there are multiple, changing realities and that individuals have their own unique constructions of reality. In fact, no matter which paradigm one is working from, reality is always interpreted through symbolic representations such as numbers and words. In qualitative research, the understanding of reality is really the researcher’s interpretation of participants’ interpretations or understandings of the phenomenon of interest. For example, it is well known that eyewitnesses to a crime can have widely varying accounts of what actually happened. Similar differences occur, of course, when you ask people how they have experienced a particular phenomenon, how they have made meaning of their lives, or how they understand certain processes. In qualitative research, we are not interested in how many or the distribution of predefined variables. Rather, it is important to

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understand the perspectives of those involved, uncover the complexity of human behavior in context, and present a holistic interpretation of what is happening. Because qualitative researchers are the primary instruments for data collection and analysis, interpretations of reality are accessed directly through observations and interviews. We are “closer” to reality than if an instrument with predefined items had been interjected between the researcher and the phenomenon being studied. Most agree that when reality is viewed in this manner – that it is always interpreted – internal validity is considered a strength of qualitative research. There are several strategies that qualitative researchers can employ to shore up the internal validity or credibility of a study. Probably the most well known of these is triangulation. Foreman (1948) first cited this procedure more than 70  years ago. He recommended using independent investigators “to establish validity through pooled judgment” and using outside sources to validate case study materials (p. 413). Denzin (1970) presented an extended discussion of triangulation, identifying four types: multiple investigators, multiple theories, multiple sources of data, or multiple methods to confirm emerging findings. Triangulating multiple theories is rare, but the other three forms, especially using multiple data collection methods, are commonly found in qualitative studies. In this triangulation strategy, the researcher collects data through a combination of interviews, observations, and/or document/artifact analysis. For example, what someone tells you in an interview can be checked against what you observe in a field visit or what you read or see in documents or artifacts relevant to the investigation. The use of multiple researchers also strengthens the internal validity of a study. This notion of multiple researchers has been discussed in other contexts as collaborative or team research. In participatory research, where the goal of the research is political empowerment, the participants along with the researcher collectively define the problem to be addressed, conduct the study, and engage in collective action to bring about change. As an aside, Richardson (2000) points out that triangulation assumes a “‘fixed point’ or ‘object’ that can be triangulated.” But in postmodern research, “we do not triangulate; we crystallize. We recognize that there are far more than three sides from which to approach the world” (p. 934). However, from an interpretive perspective, triangulation remains a principal strategy to ensure for validity and reliability. A second common strategy for ensuring validity in qualitative research is member checks. Here you ask the participants to comment on your interpretation of the data. That is, you take your tentative findings back to some of the participants (from whom you derived the raw data through interviews or observations) and ask whether your interpretation “rings true.” While you may have used different words, participants should be able to recognize their experience in your interpretation or suggest some fine-tuning to better capture their perspectives. Some writers suggest doing member checks throughout the course of the study. Peer review is yet another strategy. In one sense, all graduate students have a peer review process built into their thesis or dissertation – as each committee

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member reads and comments on the findings. Peer review or peer examination can be conducted either by a colleague familiar with the research or by one new to the topic. There are advantages to both, but in any case a thorough peer examination would involve asking a colleague to scan some of the raw data and assess whether the findings are plausible based on the data. The relationship between the researcher and what and who are being studied is another area that can be discussed to shore up the validity of one’s study. Even in journal articles researchers are being called upon to articulate and clarify their subjectivities – assumptions, experiences, worldview, and theoretical orientation to the study. Investigators explain their position vis-à-vis the topic being studied, the basis for selecting participants, the context of the study, and what values or assumptions might affect data collection and analysis. This strategy is sometimes labeled “researcher’s position” or “reflexivity” – “the process of reflecting critically on the self as researcher, the ‘human as instrument’” (Lincoln & Guba, 2000, p. 183). Anderson (2017, p. 129) points out that “the acknowledged subjectivity of qualitative methods and the importance of the researcher’s lens in qualitative research requires a discussion of the researcher’s context, positionality, or standpoint and the possible effect of this on the research process and outcomes (quoting Muir, 2014).” Such a clarification allows the reader to better understand how the individual researcher might have arrived at the particular interpretation of the data. Finally, it is recommended that the researcher be submerged or engaged in the data collection phase over a long enough period to ensure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon to reach saturation. How long one needs to observe or how many people need to be interviewed are always difficult questions to answer ahead of time. The best rule of thumb is that the data and emerging findings must feel saturated; that is, you begin to see or hear the same things over and over again, and no new information surfaces as you collect more data. Adequate time in the field should also be coupled with purposefully looking for variation in the understanding of the phenomenon. Some writers even suggest that you should purposefully seek cases that might disconfirm or challenge your expectations or emerging findings. This strategy has been labeled negative or discrepant case analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

Reliability or Dependability As many have pointed out, there is no point in considering reliability without validity. That is, you could have a highly reliable instrument, a thermometer for instance, that records boiling water at 85 degrees Fahrenheit each and every time it is placed in boiling water, but it is not at all valid. Reliability refers to the extent to which research findings can be replicated. In other words, if the study were repeated would it yield the same results? Reliability is problematic in the social sciences simply because human behavior is never static, nor is what many experience necessarily more reliable than what a single person experiences. Consider the magician who can fool the audience of hundreds, but not the stagehand

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watching from the wings. Replication of a qualitative study will not yield the same results, but this does not discredit the results of any particular study; there can be numerous interpretations of the same data. The more important question for qualitative researchers is whether the results are consistent with the data collected. Lincoln and Guba (1985) were the first to conceptualize reliability in qualitative research as “dependability” or “consistency.” That is, rather than insisting that others get the same results as the original researcher, reliability lies in others’ concurring that given the data collected, the results make sense – they are consistent and dependable. Further, since reliability most often has to do with the instrumentation of the study, and since the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis in qualitative research, the researcher can become more reliable or dependable through training and practice (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Also, the reliability of documents and personal accounts can be assessed through various techniques of analysis and triangulation. Strategies that a qualitative researcher can use to ensure consistency and dependability or reliability are triangulation, peer examination, investigator’s position, and the audit trail. The first three have been discussed above under internal validity. The use of multiple methods of collecting data, for example, can be seen as a strategy for obtaining consistent and dependable data, as well as data that are most congruent with reality as understood by the participants. The audit trail is a method first suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1981). Just as an auditor authenticates the accounts of a business, independent readers can authenticate the findings of a study by following the trail of the researcher. An audit trail in a qualitative study describes in detail how data were collected, how categories were derived, and how decisions were made throughout the inquiry. The audit trail is dependent upon the researcher keeping a research journal or recording memos throughout the conduct of the study. In a book-length or thesis-length report of the research, the audit trail is really a detailed account of how the study was conducted and how the data were analyzed. Due to space limitations, journal articles tend to have a very abbreviated audit trail, if any at all. However, even in an article, the reader wants to “have confidence that there is an audit trail that records and explains all the steps taken and decisions made in the research process” (Anderson, 2017, p. 128).

External Validity/Generalizability or Transferability More than internal validity or reliability, the issue of external validity or generalizability in qualitative research has stimulated substantial discussion and debate. It is also a major challenge for novice qualitative researchers to justify their qualitative inquiry in terms of generalizability. Part of the problem lies with the common perception of generalizability derived from positivist-oriented research wherein one can generalize in a statistical sense from a random sample

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to a population. The basic question for all research is the extent to which the findings of one study can be applied to other situations. But since small, nonrandom samples are selected purposefully in qualitative research, it is not possible to generalize statistically. A small sample is selected precisely because the researcher wishes to understand the particular in depth, not to find out what is generally true of the many. Because qualitative research draws from different assumptions about reality, generalizability needs to be thought of differently from quantitative research. There are a number of understandings of generalizability that are more congruent with the worldview of qualitative research. Some argue that empirical generalizations are too lofty a goal for social science; instead we should think in terms of what Cronbach (1975) calls working hypotheses (i.e., those hypotheses reflecting situation-specific conditions in a particular context). Working hypotheses that take account of local conditions can offer practitioners some guidance in making choices – the results of which can be monitored and evaluated to make better decisions in the future. If one thinks of what can be learned from an in-depth analysis of a particular situation or incident and how that knowledge can be transferred to another situation, generalizability in qualitative research becomes possible. Probably the most common way generalizability has been conceptualized in qualitative research is reader or user generalizability. In this view, readers themselves determine the extent to which findings from a study can be applied to their context. Called case-to-case or user generalizability, this practice is common in law and medicine, where the practitioner decides whether a previous case is applicable to the present situation. This view is also consistent with Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) notion of transferability. To facilitate the reader (not the researcher) transferring findings from a study to their present situation, the researcher must provide enough detail of the study’s context so that comparisons can be made. Providing rich, thick description is a major strategy to ensure for generalizability or transferability in the qualitative sense. This involves providing an adequate database, that is, enough description and information for readers to be able to determine how closely their situations match, and thus whether findings can be transferred. Using multisite designs, or maximizing variation in a purposeselected sample, is another strategy. The logic behind this strategy is that if there is some diversity in the nature of the sites selected (an urban and a rural school, for example), or in participants interviewed, or in times and places of field visits), findings can be applied to a greater range of situations by readers or consumers of the research.

Ethical Issues A “good” qualitative study is one that has been conducted in an ethical manner. To a large extent, the validity and reliability of a study depend upon the ethics of the researcher. Suppose, for example, that you are studying an adult

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literacy program reputed to have an unusually high retention rate. You interview teachers, administrators, and students and begin to identify the factors that might account for the high retention rate. Then you stumble upon some records that appear to have been tampered with, inflating attendance and graduation rates. Your decision as to how to handle this discovery will have a direct impact on the trustworthiness of your entire study. Although some sense of the researchers’ values can be inferred from the statement of their assumptions and biases or from the audit trail, readers of course are likely never to know what ethical dilemmas were confronted and how they were dealt with. It is ultimately up to the individual researcher to proceed in as ethically a manner as possible. In qualitative research, ethical dilemmas are likely to emerge regarding the collection of data and in the dissemination of findings. Overlaying both the collection of data and the dissemination of findings is the researcher-­participant relationship. For example, this relationship and the focus of the research determine how much the researcher reveals about the actual purpose of the study – how informed the consent can actually be – and how much privacy and protection from harm is afforded the participants. Ethical considerations regarding the researcher’s relationship to participants are a major source of discussion in qualitative research, especially with the interest in critical, participatory, feminist, and postmodern research. When the research is highly collaborative, participatory, and/or political, ethical issues become prominent. Although qualitative researchers can turn to guidelines, others’ experiences, and government regulations for dealing with some of the ethical concerns likely to arise, the burden of producing a study that has been conducted and disseminated in an ethical manner lies with the individual investigator. No regulation can tell a researcher when the questioning of a participant becomes an interrogation rather than an interview, when to intervene in unethical or illegal situations, or how to ensure that the study’s findings will not be used to the detriment of those involved. All possibilities cannot be anticipated, nor can one’s reaction. Examining the assumptions one carries into the research ­process – assumptions about the context, participants, data, and the dissemination of knowledge gained through the study – is at least a starting point for conducting an ethical study. In summary, there is no simple answer as to what makes a “good” qualitative study. Researchers and consumers alike want to be able to trust the results of any research study, especially in applied fields where we intervene in human lives. To be trustworthy, a study needs to be valid and reliable and conducted in an ethical manner. There are strategies that researchers can employ that will enhance the trustworthiness of their research, such as triangulation, member checks, use of rich, thick description, and so on. Used in conjunction with an awareness of ethical practice, these strategies can build confidence in the validity and reliability of the study. Table 2.2 summarizes the strategies for enhancing validity and reliability in interpretive qualitative research.

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Table 2.2  Strategies for Promoting Trustworthiness and Rigor Strategy

Description

Triangulation

Using multiple investigators, sources of data, and/or collection methods to confirm emerging findings Member checks Taking data and tentative interpretations back to the people from whom they were derived and asking if they are plausible Peer review/ Discussions with colleagues regarding the process of the study, examination the congruency of emerging findings with the raw data, and tentative interpretations Researcher’s position Critical self-reflection by the researcher regarding assumptions, or reflexivity worldview, biases, theoretical orientation, and relationship to the study that may affect the investigation Adequate time spent collecting data such that the data become Adequate “saturated”; this may involve seeking discrepant or negative engagement in data collection cases of the phenomenon Maximum variation Purposefully seeking variation or diversity in sample selection to allow for a greater range of application of the findings by consumers of the research Audit trail A detailed account of the methods, procedures, and decision points in carrying out the study Rich, thick Providing enough description to contextualize the study such descriptions that readers will be able to determine the extent to which their situation matches the research context, and hence, whether findings can be transferred

Summary This chapter has addressed two basic questions: What should you look for when evaluating qualitative research? What makes a good qualitative study? The two are of course highly interrelated. Evaluating a qualitative study means raising questions about all aspects of the process and write-up, beginning with whether the topic is appropriate for qualitative inquiry and whether it is an important enough question to spend time, money, and other resources on answering. Methodology questions are also important, including sample selection and description, data collection and analysis, validity and reliability safeguards, and presentation and discussion of findings. Table 2.1 provides a check sheet for assessing these points. What makes a good qualitative study is determined by whether it has been ­systematically and ethically carried out and whether the findings are trustworthy. The question of trustworthiness has to do with issues of internal validity/­credibility, reliability/consistency, and external validity or generalizability/transferability. Strategies ensuring for adequate treatment of each of these issues include triangulation, member checks, peer examination, investigator position, audit trail,

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and rich, thick description. The 16 articles in Part Two can be approached using the guidelines summarized in Tables 2.1 and 2.2.

References Anderson, V. (2017). Criteria for evaluating qualitative research. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 28(2), 125–133. Creswell, J. W. (2007). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cronbach, L. J. (1975). Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 30, 116–127. Denzin, N. K. (1970). The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods. ­Chicago: Aldine. Firestone, W. A. (1987). Meaning in method: The rhetoric of quantitative and qualitative research. Educational Researcher, 16(7), 16–21. Foreman, P. B. (1948). The theory of case studies. Social Forces, 26(4), 408–419. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1981). Effective evaluation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 163–188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lincoln, Y. S., Lynham, S. A., & Guba, E. G., (2018). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences revisited. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 138–150). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Merriam, S. B., & Muhamad, M. (2013). Roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment in Malaysia: Implications for health promotion and education. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 14(6), 3593–3601. Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Wiley. Morse, J. (2018). Reframing rigor in qualitative inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 796–817). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Richardson, L. (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 923–948). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, J. K., & Deemer, D. K. (2000). The problem of criteria in the age of relativism. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 877–896). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stake, R. E. (2000). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 435–454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Part Two

Examples of Qualitative Research for Discussion and Analysis Interpretive Qualitative Research As discussed in Chapter 1 of this volume, qualitative research has achieved a level of legitimacy and acceptance in the social sciences and applied fields of practice on par with quantitative methods. Qualitative research is embedded in a worldview that sees meaning constructed by individuals in interaction with their world. The world, or reality, is not the fixed, single, agreed upon, or measurable phenomenon that it is assumed to be in positivist, quantitative research. Instead, there are multiple constructions and interpretations of reality that are in flux and change over time. From a qualitative perspective, the meaning of an experience “is not discovered but constructed. Meaning does not inhere in the object, merely waiting for someone to come upon it. . . . Meanings are constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting” (Crotty, 1998, pp. 42–43). Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding what those interpretations are at a particular point in time and in a particular context. The following characteristics apply to all qualitative research studies: (a)  a goal of understanding the meaning participants make of an experience, (b) the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, and meaning is mediated through the researcher, (c) the process is inductive, and (d) findings are richly descriptive. As Tracy (2013) writes, “qualitative research is about immersing oneself in a scene and trying to make sense of it;” further, thick description is essential as “meaning cannot be divorced from this thick contextual description” (p. 3). Although the above characteristics apply to all qualitative research, there are variations in the design of particular studies, several of which are represented in

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this volume. For example, if one is interested in culture – the shared beliefs, values, and attitudes of a particular group of people – one might conduct a qualitative ethnographic study. Or, if one wants to build a model or theory about some aspect of practice, what is known as a “grounded theory,” qualitative study would be most appropriate. Accessing people’s stories about a phenomenon would be labeled a “narrative inquiry.” However, the most common qualitative design is simply identified as “a qualitative study” or “generic qualitative research,” or what we are calling a “basic” or “interpretive” qualitative study. Each of the two studies included in Part Two is an example of a “basic” or “interpretive” qualitative study. The goal of each is to develop an understanding: first of the roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment in Merriam and Muhamad’s study, and second, of how women made meaning of their academic leadership experiences in Hill and Wheat’s article. While each is an example of conducting and reporting an interpretive qualitative study, we would like to highlight how each is positioned in a different theoretical framework. The theoretical framework, called conceptual framework by some writers, consists of the concepts and/or theories that inform or “frame” your study. This framework is derived from the literature and provides the lenses through which you form your questions as you study the phenomenon of interest. Most studies can be approached from different perspectives. The selection of a particular “frame” is dependent upon several factors, such as your disciplinary perspective, what research has been previously conducted on the topic, and your personal philosophical orientation. For example, educators are likely to ask different questions than social workers or healthcare personnel and so on. In the Merriam and Muhamad (2013) study of Malay traditional healers, the cultural context of Malaysia and specifically what roles traditional healers play in that culture “framed” the study. More specifically, the researchers wanted to know how traditional healers diagnose and treat cancer, why patients seek treatment by them, and how the healers viewed working with the Western medical system. These specific research questions were derived from reviewing the literature on traditional healers in general. The literature revealed that traditional healers exist in all cultures, yet little is known about how they diagnose and treat chronic diseases such as cancer. While the context of the study was in an Asian country, there was no extended stay at the research site, nor was “culture” itself a framework for the study, nor was there a full sociocultural interpretation of the data as would be common in an ethnography. Rather, the researchers were interested in the motivations or reasons why cancer patients would visit healers when there is no evidence of their ability to affect a cure. As is true of any study, the motivations and behaviors of participants are to some extent embedded in the context/­culture, but the focus of this study was to simply identify the roles traditional healers play in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Thus, this study is more accurately labeled an interpretive qualitative study. The second study, by Hill and Wheat (2017), about the mentoring of women leaders in high level university administrative positions, asked how women in key-line administrative positions to the presidency as well as to university women

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presidents themselves understood the influence of mentoring relationships and role models in their career paths to leadership. The authors deliberately selected a postmodern feminist theoretical framework. A postmodern perspective assumes there are many truths and all generalizations are contested or challenged. This orientation combined with a critical feminist perspective leads to interpretations of a phenomenon that questions, critiques, and interprets the societal, historical, and cultural assumptions about women that have resulted in their marginal status compared to men. While a postmodern feminist orientation constituted the study’s theoretical framework, it is still an interpretive qualitative study in terms of its structure; that is, the structure of the study followed the basic steps of a qualitative study of defining the problem, selecting a purposive sample, collecting and analyzing the data, and reporting the findings. In summary, all qualitative research is interested in how meaning is constructed, how people make sense of their lives and their worlds. The primary goal of a basic, interpretive study is to uncover and interpret these meanings. The inquiry is always framed by some disciplinary-based concepts, model, or theory that is the theoretical framework of the study. While the theoretical framework differed in the two examples of interpretive qualitative studies in this section, the structure and implementation of each study is the same.

References Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tracy, S. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Three

Roles Traditional Healers Play in Cancer Treatment in Malaysia Implications for Health Promotion and Education Introduction Traditional healers exist in all cultures, and their widespread presence in developing countries is well documented (WHO, 2002). In fact it’s been estimated that “80% of the world’s population continues to use their own traditional systems of medicine despite the increasing presence of allopathic medicine” (Tovey et al., 2007). Western allopathic medicine views disease as chemically and physiologically based, whereas traditional systems attribute illness to social, spiritual and psychological disturbances, and treatment consists of natural and spiritual remedies that restore harmony to the system. A traditional healer is “a local non-biomedical health practitioner who has inherited, trained in, or created methods that utilize botanical, animal, and mineral products, perhaps symbolic methods and ingredients as well, and is sought out to treat physical, mental and social diseases, and conflicts in his or her community” (McMillen, 2004). Traditional healers are so embedded in the culture that they are sometimes the first and only source of treatment for ailments ranging from minor infections to bone fractures to chronic diseases, to emotional, spiritual and social distress. Visiting healers is a practice engaged in by people from all socioeconomic and educational strata (Ross, 2008). Recognition that dual systems of medical care exist throughout the developing world is a first step in tackling some of the pressing health issues in these countries. For example, 80% of deaths related to chronic diseases occur in developing countries (WHO, 2005). We also need a solid understanding of the roles and practices of traditional healers so that health practitioners in both systems Merriam, S., & Muhamad, M. (2013). Roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment in Malaysia: implications for health promotion and education. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 14(6), 3593–3601

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can better address patient healthcare, especially with regard to life-threatening chronic diseases. However, despite the widespread presence of traditional healers in Malaysia, little is known about the roles they play in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases such as cancer. Knowing what benefits patients derive from these healers would be helpful in informing both educational outreach and policy development. Malaysia is a country of 26 million people in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia is bordered on the north by Thailand and on the south by Singapore. The two states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo constitute what is known as East Malaysia. It is a multicultural society consisting of approximately 60% Malays, 30% Chinese and 10% Indian. While it is difficult to get an accurate assessment of the prevalence and morbidity rates of cancer in Malaysia, it is widely considered to be on the rise. The National Cancer Registry (NCR) has been in existence only since 2002 and reports are based on sometimes erratic hospital epidemiology data (Yip, 2008). Breast cancer is particularly virulent as it occurs in younger women in MY, tumor mass at presentation is larger (Parsa et al., 2006), and “30-40% present with late breast cancer (Stage 3-4) compared to Western countries where more than 80% of women present with early stages” (Yip, 2008). Because of the late detection and inadequate access to care, survival of women with breast cancer in Asia is lower than in western countries (Yip, 2009; Taib et al., 2011a). These statistics are congruent with other limited-resource countries where breast cancer fatality rates are high “due to the advanced stage of disease at initial presentation combined with inadequate resources to provide standard cancer therapy” (Anderson et al., 2006). Cancer awareness, diagnosis and treatment in MY are hindered by the lack of resources and trained personnel. For example, “the total number of oncologists in Malaysia is 35, resulting in an “oncologist: population ratio of 1:650,000” (the UK ratio is 1:250,000) (Yip, 2008). Twelve of the 35 are located in or around the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Lack of cancer treatment facilities, radiotherapy machines and so on result in restricted access to treatment and if access is facilitated, there is often an extended waiting time for treatment (Yip, 2008; Yip and Samiei, 2012). Mammographic screening is usually opportunistic and early detection programs are often hampered by logistical and financial problems, lack of knowledge about symptom recognition to detect early staged breast cancer (Taib et al., 2011b) as well as socio-cultural barriers, despite improved public educational efforts (Yip and Cazap, 2011). Further, in this majority Muslim country, some believe that cancer is a test of one’s faith and can thus be treated through greater spiritual and religious attention and with the help of spiritually-oriented healers. With regard to breast cancer in particular, women in Asian countries are at risk due to issues of modesty, a fatalistic perspective, fear of screening tests, their results, and recommended treatment, “inability to act without husband’s permission, fear of casting stigma on one’s daughters, fear of being ostracized, fear of contagion, reticence, language barriers, and preference for traditional healers” (Parsa et al., 2006; Smith, et al., 2006). Even Hmong immigrants in California “seek the first course of treatment from traditional healers” for cervical cancer resulting in late diagnosis and “mortality rates three and four times higher than Asian/Pacific Islander and non-Hispanic white women, respectively” (Mill and Rioran, 2004).

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Not only are traditional healers often more accessible in health-resource challenged developing countries, they are perceived as meeting social and psychological needs of their patients in addition to addressing physical concerns. “Traditional healers tend to offer patients and their families a more personal and intimate relationship than most Western-trained doctors and hospital staff can offer. Relatives may be enlisted in healing ceremonies and allegiances reaffirmed in a social catharsis. Sickness is made to signify the presence of underlying social disorder” (Lau,  1989). Further, “healers usually take the socio-economic background of individual patients into consideration in their diagnoses. Therefore, the healers deal with not only the patient’s illness but also his social reality”. Traditional healers thus play a number of roles in addition to treating the actual physical problem. Ross (2008) reports that healers “occupy an esteemed position within South African culture as they are consulted for a wide range of physical, social, and emotional problems and are often expected to assume the roles of medicine healer, priest, psychiatrist, advisor, diviner, and herbalist (Erasmus, 1992)”. Recent research on traditional healers in developing countries has focused on understanding the scope of their practice and how the dual medical systems in these countries can work together to maximize patient healthcare. In Nepal, 70% of the people visit traditional healers before seeking modern medical services, “as they were easily available, conveniently located, did not request cash for treatment and properly identified the cause of illness—whether an evil spirit was involved or not” (Shimobiraki and Jimba,  2002). And for well over 20 years, traditional healers have been interacting with the biomedical system in African countries for help in “addressing the deficits of primary health care” (McMillen, 2003; Stekelenbury et al., 2005; Nelms and Gorski, 2006). The HIV/AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa has been a major impetus for this growing interaction between healers and biomedical practitioners. The UNAIDS (2000) report on traditional healers and HIV/ AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa points out that among other pluses for collaborating with traditional healers, “traditional healers often outnumber doctors by 100 to 1,” are accessible and inexpensive, “provide client-centered, personalized health care that is culturally appropriate, holistic and tailored to meet the needs and expectations of the patient,” and “traditional healers often see their patients in the presence of other family members, which sheds light on the traditional healers’ role in promoting social stability and family counseling”. Despite the prevalence of traditional healers in the developing world, only a few studies could be found that investigated traditional healers and cancer diagnosis and treatment. The most extensive research appears to have been conducted in Pakistan by Tovey and colleagues (Tovey et al., 2005a; 2005b; 2007; Broom and Tovey, 2007). They surveyed 362 cancer patients and interviewed 46 patients as to patients’ experiences with both indigenous traditional medicine and Western allopathic medicine. They found that “only 16% of those surveyed reported not using traditional medicine” (Tovey et al., 2005a). Further, satisfaction with use of TM was high, with 70.4% using Islamic spiritual healers at some point during their cancer journey. Malik et al. (2000) speculate as to why cancer patients in particular, might seek out traditional healers: “Cancer patients are particularly afraid of pain, mutilation, incapacitation, altered body image, altered interpersonal relationships and death. Side-effects associated with

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cancer therapy are also generally severe and believed by many to be worse than the disease itself. Furthermore, use of research protocols in cancer therapy may result in an indifferent and impersonal attitude of the physicians which results in reduced attention given to the patients. Under these circumstances, patients may feel loss of control over their disease, its therapy and life as a whole. This increases the likelihood that cancer patients may more frequently seek alternative methods of therapy”. While the prevalence of traditional healers in Malaysian health care is acknowledged, there is little actual research on the topic. Razali and Najib (2000) found 69% of psychiatric patients had visited traditional healers before seeing psychiatrists. In a later study of psychotic and epileptic patients, Razali and Yassin (2008) found 61.7% of psychotic and 26.7% of epileptic patients had consulted traditional healers and that such “consultation was uniformly spread across all levels of education and social status”. Deuraseh (2009) surveyed Malay-Moslems in two conservative and heavily Muslim states in Malaysia and found that “in spite of the significant contribution made by modern medicine into many aspects of life of Malay-Muslim society in Malaysia, many Malaysians still use many forms of traditional health care” (p. 450). In particular, 62% of Muslims in these states “believe that diseases may be caused by Jinn [evil spirits] and devil” (p. 454) thus leading them to consult Islamic or Quranic healers. In an earlier study, Heggenhougen (1980b) interviewed 100 patients who had visited the same traditional healer. He found that “the people who consult traditional Malay healers also use cosmopolitan health services. The longer an ailment persists, the higher the probability that people will attribute it to a supernatural cause, and thus make a bomoh the most appropriate healer to consult” (p.43). Further, interviews revealed that the cosmopolitan health system was perceived as neglecting the socio-psychological and spiritual aspects of healing. Patients stated that the bomoh was particularly adept at making people ‘feel better’. As recently as October, 2010, an article in a Malaysian newspaper noted that “the people in [the state of] Kelantan prefer to go to traditional medicine practitioners or bomoh for cancer treatment than to doctors at government hospitals.” A Health Ministry official was quoted as saying that because of visiting a bomoh, “the condition of cancer patients worsened” (Relying on bomoh for cancer treatment, p. 11). There is little doubt that the majority of Malaysians access traditional healers in dealing with cancer and that this practice appears to be a contributing factor to the cancer burden in Malaysia. A recent study of knowledge of cancer among 25 Malay, Chinese Malay and Indian Malay traditional healers found that these healers knew little about ‘the basics of diseases’ and were therefore unable to treat patients in an appropriate and professional manner (Al-Naggar, et al., 2012). Not much is known about Malay Moslem traditional healers compared to those in the Chinese and Indian Malaysian communities. These communities have practices documented through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) or Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM), or in the case of the Indian community, Ayurvedic medicine. This study focused on Malay traditional healers of which there are several general types including the following: (i) Islamic healers

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who draw on Islamic religious beliefs and use verses from the Quran as the major component of their treatment; (ii) traditional healers who know the folklore of disease causation, treatment and prevention and are known by the term ‘bomoh’. Bomoh use a variety of handed-down, traditional methods in diagnosing and treating patients including “herbal remedies, ceremonial rites, incantation, exorcism and sorcery” (Razali and Najib, 2000); and (iii) “bomoh patah” which loosely translates to bone doctors or bone-setters (Heggenhougen, 1980a). There is some overlap among these types, however. A Quranic healer may also use herbs and other traditional methods, and a traditional bomoh may use some Islamic prayers, and may also treat bone fractures. The majority of traditional healers are men. Ages vary, but most are middle age and older. These three types of healers can be found throughout Malaysia.

Materials and Methods A qualitative research methodology was deemed most appropriate for identifying the roles healers play in cancer diagnosis and treatment (Patton, 2002; Denzin and Lincoln, 2003; Merriam, 2009).

Sample and data collection We reasoned that a particularly rich portrait of traditional healer roles could be best obtained by interviewing those most closely involved in this practice–­ traditional healers themselves, cancer survivors, and medical cancer specialists. For each group we sought a mix of participants from both urban and rural peninsular Malaysia.The number of participants interviewed in each group was determined by saturation—that is, the point at which no new information was forthcoming (Merriam, 2009). The 39 participants consist of 14 traditional healers, 13 patients, and 12 cancer specialists.

Traditional healers Traditional healers known for treating cancer among other diseases were identified through reputation, word of mouth, and by referrals from cancer patients themselves. Ten of the 14 are men, age ranges from 43 to 80, and years in practice are from 11 years to 48 years. One is a homeopathic healer, three call themselves Quranic or Islamic healers, one is an herbalist, and nine identify as “traditional healers” or “bomoh” using a variety of spiritual/religious methods, herbs, flowers, fruits, and roots. Most interviews were held in healers’ homes where they see patients; three were held in the office of the healer’s “day” job, and two were held at the healers’ clinics. Interviews lasted from one to three hours and often included tea and other refreshments. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Eleven interviews were conducted in Bahasa Malaysia with occasional use of English and three were conducted primarily in English. Bahasa

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transcriptions were sent to a professional translation association for translation into English.

Cancer survivors We sought cancer survivors who had accessed both the Western medical system and traditional healers in the course of their diagnosis and treatment. Referrals were obtained from cancer support groups and from friends and relatives of cancer patients. Of the 13 survivors, 12 are women, age range is 34-75 years, and level of education varied from 6th grade to PhD. Interviews were conducted at a place of the survivor’s choosing and included their homes and cancer support centers, and in one case, a fast food restaurant. Four of the 13 interviews were conducted in English; the interviews in Bahasa Malaysia were translated into English by bilingual graduate students.

Medical doctors Cancer specialists were identified through patients’ recommendations, health clinics, hospitals, and cancer support groups. Of the 12 doctors, five are from the Kuala Lumpur area and seven are from rural areas. Oncologists, radiologists and surgeons comprise the sample. Two of the participants are women (both surgeons). All twelve interviews were held in the hospital or clinic where the doctor has his or her practice. All interviews were conducted in English. Years in practice ranged from 9 to 29 years. Formal ethical approval for the study was obtained from the university in Malaysia where both researchers were employed. Informed consent was explained to all participants (healers, survivors, and medical doctors) and written consent forms were obtained before conducting the interview. All participants were assured of anonymity. A certificate of appreciation (signed by the researchers) for participation in the study was given to each participant along with cancer education materials from the university’s Cancer Education and Resource Center.

Data analysis Verbatim transcriptions of the interviews formed the data base for analysis. The interview data were analyzed using the constant comparative method of data analysis (Corbin and Strauss, 2007; Merriam, 2009). This method consisted of first open coding each interview transcript for relevant data responsive to the study’s research questions. These coded segments were then combined through axial coding into themes/categories that are explanatory of the phenomenon. The same process is undertaken with the transcript of the second interview. Themes/ categories from the second transcript are compared with the first transcript and one set of themes/categories is derived from the two interviews. This process continues through subsequent interviews. The final sets of themes/categories are

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the findings of the study. These findings are in turn supported by quotes from the participants, each of whom was given a pseudonym.

Results Analysis of the interview data from traditional healers, cancer survivors and medical doctors resulted in our identifying four roles Malay traditional healers play in cancer treatment: medicinal healer, emotional comforter, spiritual guide, and palliative caregiver.

Medicinal healer Patients go to traditional healers with the expectation that the healer will treat their physical ailment. Some patients know or suspect they have cancer, and others may have painful physical symptoms causing distress, but have not yet been diagnosed with cancer. These healers use a mix of herbs which include plant roots and spiritual incantations, most often blessing drinking water. Wan, a village bomoh, uses “white pepper and pure natural honey” which he called “the king of medicine.” He also said that for breast cancer it was a 10-day treatment period and that he “cannot treat if too serious.” Ecah uses a paste made of betel leaf, gambir, lime and “a little bit of sugar.” She says this paste if used for three days, can cure “if the lump size is small.” Kamal, an Islamic healer who uses herbs says that for cancer “we will use a leaf (from a plant) which sticks to a tree, the money plant, or we use the root of white hibiscus plant and mix it with wasp’s nest together with shallots. Mix all together and paste on the affected area.” For breast cancer he prepares a drink: “We use wild kung, we pound and paste button flower leaves and money plant leaves, roots of white hibiscus plant and white turmeric which are boiled for drinking.” Zul who is a bomoh and a bone healer explained how he treats breast cancer: “I’ll ask her where the pain is. She will show me where it hurts. I’ll dip the betel nut leaf in honey. Then I’ll recite some (Quranic) verses. I’ll transfer the pain. I’ll say “you don’t stay there, come here.” I’ll point towards the breast and then touch with my finger. Meaning, the disease don’t stay in the person, it should transfer to my finger”. Abas also ‘transfers’ the disease saying, “When patients have cancer, we transfer the disease to the yam plant. We recite and place the yam plant at the breast or at the womb or at anywhere. We instruct the disease into the yam plant.” The patient then plants the yam plant, does not water it and lets it die. This method only works, he claims, if cancer is early stage. Other healers incorporate specialized practices like Salleh who has been trained in acupuncture. Of a teenager who had cancer, he said, “I used a combination of treatment. I treat using acupuncture, prayer, verses from the Quran and eating some special herbs for cancer. I also use an egg to pull out the disease.” Aziz removes cancerous tumors through invisible ‘surgery’ as does Lena who channels a medical doctor. The homeopathic doctor uses micro dilutions of remedies. When cancer patients come to her, “I will give them remedies to help them overcome the side effects without stopping them to go to chemo. But after they finish their chemo, then I will

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start their specific treatment . . . I will give them the homeopathy remedies to help them with the cancer.” Some patients reported relief from pain after seeing traditional healers. Roziah reported that after drinking water that was blessed by the bomoh, “I feel the pain go away a little bit. The pain gets less.” Nowan found that the herbal remedy helped with her breast tumor: “I see there is a difference. The tumor becomes softer, has shrunk, cold, and this thing, you know, sometimes it’s hot, so it becomes a bit cooler. I could sleep comfortably, not like before.” She went on to say that while the “the bomoh says that these jeluju seeds can make it (the tumor) disappear,” she was not convinced and did follow up with standard treatment. Interestingly, Nowan reported that her doctor said the jeluju seed was being scientifically tested and that it held promise for controlling the spread of cancer. It is no surprise of course that the major role of a healer is to address the physical ailments of cancer patients. As Muslims, the Malay healers rely on faith in Allah, prayers, and their own devotion to assist in their healing. Various herbs, flowers, plant roots and eggs designed to ‘extract’ the disease from the patient were also used. Most of the healers claimed they can “cure” with these treatments, especially if the disease was in the earlier stages.

Emotional comforter The literature on traditional medicine points to the holistic nature of this practice. Interwoven with treating physical ailments is attention to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of dealing with cancer. Dr. Mahmud, a clinical oncologist, stated that “when you treat cancer, you have to treat both sides. You have to treat the physical cancer but you have to treat the emotional, the spiritual side of it to enhance your cancer therapy” and this he felt could be a role for traditional healers. In this study, survivors and doctors actually spoke more about the emotional and spiritual roles, than about the physical treatment. Cancer patients experience a wide range of emotions when dealing with cancer. Many feel a diagnosis is equivalent to a death sentence. And in Malaysia as in other developing countries, lack of knowledge about the disease leads to taboos, myths and fears that results in high levels of anxiety. Breast cancer patients in particular experience great anxiety due to cultural taboos and misinformation. Dr. Ismi, a cancer surgeon in the rural northwest said that “seeing the male doctor is a nightmare because they have to show their breast. . . . Malay is basically Muslim and they are a shy people, they don’t like to share their problems with others especially involving private parts.” Furthermore, as Dr. Salam, a radiologist pointed out, women will do most anything to avoid a mastectomy “and the bomoh will definitely not remove the breast because they just recite something and hope that the cancer disappears . . . . There’s no doubt people will choose that way, rather than surgery.” Traditional healers appear to alleviate some of this anxiety. Sami, a university professor and cancer survivor, said one should consult both medical and traditional healers because “you have to hope.” Aira recalls the bomoh she consulted told her that her cancer could be cured, and she was “very relieved at the time” and

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that “he gave me a positive spirit.” She went on to recall that “he said ‘don’t worry; everything will be cured whether you come to me or the doctor. . . . It can be cured; you are still in a good stage.’” Roziah went to five different traditional healers while waiting for her mastectomy surgery. She said she was “hoping for a miracle,” and some “peace of mind.” The oldest patient in our study, 75-year-old Ria, had stage 4 uterine cancer in 2001 and in 2005 was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer. She regularly sees an Islamic healer whose treatment allows her to “feel peace, so calm and so relaxed.” Latif, a renowned Quranic healer who sees upwards of 1200 patients a month, confirmed Ria’s view, saying that “Quranic healing gives them the motivation . . . the courage to fight the cancer.” Several doctors mentioned the lack of personal treatment and attention in the medical system that often prompts patients to see traditional healers. A rural hospital administrator pointed out that patients are really scared of the hospital: “The hospital is not that friendly, the social part about it. We cut out the patients from the family. You can only come to visit your mother or sister from 1 to 2pm. If you come after 2pm, you will be chased away. If you go to bomoh treatment . . . there’s no disruption with family ties. The family members can come, discuss, talk and everybody’s involved”. Dr. Rosli, an oncologist practicing in the south of Malaysia felt that ignorance about cancer and its treatment drives a majority of his patients to traditional healers where the treatment is “very friendly” with “little side effects” while at the same time “gives psychological comfort that the patient will be cured.” Doctors readily concurred that traditional healers could play a psychological role in cancer treatment. Dr. Rahman said that “we now realize the prevalence of depression, anxiety and all neurotic problems among the cancer patients surprisingly is very high” and that “40 to 50% of patients suffering this kind of neurosis” need attention. This is a role that traditional healers can play and he doesn’t object to them being part of “our team.”

Spiritual guide In addition to attending to the emotional component of dealing with cancer, these Malay traditional healers, especially the Islamic healers, addressed spiritual concerns as well as emotional ones. Latif tells his patients that “God gave you this illness because God wants you to be closer to Him.” He goes on to point out that “if you see the doctor and use Quranic healing that gives a double impact. You heal the person through the modern medicine and tell the patient to recite these verses.” Abas says that the “doctor treats this part, while I treat another part. The doctor basically treats the physical part and I treat for the spiritual part. I say the azan [prayer] seven times and I take a deep breath and the patient can feel a little calm after that.” Doctors also recognized the spiritual guidance role that traditional healers play. Dr. Manan, a surgeon in rural northwest Malaysia and who revealed to us that his father was a famous bomoh, said that “Malay is Muslim” and that traditional healers “use religious Quran verses and try to relate [disease] to God. They know the disease comes from God. This is more spiritual rather than evidence-based” and “Malay people still have that belief.” Interestingly, not only did two of our medical doctor

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participants have a close relative who was a bomoh, ten of the 12 had themselves or had had close family members visit traditional healers. Dr. Mahmud, a prominent oncologist in Kuala Lumpur, said of his family, “we don’t see bomoh, except sometimes when they [family members] get depressed. It’s not for medical, but for non-medical, for spiritual guidance . . . . Sometimes, we ask about the holy water. We ask the ustaz [religious teacher who is a spiritual healer] to make some prayers.” Another doctor said that medicine “is not purely physical.” There’s a psychological component that “can be treated by spiritual only. The spiritual part can treat the psychological” which explained to him why many Malays go to healers. Not surprisingly, cancer survivors themselves spoke quite strongly about the spiritual comfort obtained from traditional healers many of whom are religious leaders/teachers respected in the community. Roziah said she saw a healer “for the blessing. He said don’t worry. You will be successful and you will be fine again . . . . Thanks to God.” Ria said that with her Islamic healer’s help, “I pray to God and [ask Him to] save me from the hell fire. This gives me the peace in my feeling.” Another survivor said that Quranic healers inspire people like her to also seek standard medical treatment: “You must look for the healing. You must look for the treatment. You must not give up because you have the Most Merciful God that loves you and so if you understand who is God, you will not give up”. Rashidah, a shop owner, echoes the other survivors in saying that one should see both a medical doctor and an Islamic healer. She believes in “Islamic medication,” meaning prayers. She thinks “when you believe and you trust and you ask from God, from Allah, definitely you will get what you want. You have to work for it. So, go to see the doctors and at the same time you get Allah to help you.” Clearly, Malay traditional healers have something to offer cancer patients in terms of emotional and spiritual counseling. Unlike the physical healing side of their practice, medical doctors seemed quite receptive to healers treating cancer patients in their role of emotional comforter and spiritual guide.

Palliative caregiver Both traditional healers and medical doctors recognized the potential of traditional healers as palliative caregivers when there is no other treatment possible. Salleh felt that the best he could offer to cancer patients in stage 3 or 4 was “good spiritual motivation.” He says he is sometimes invited to visit patients in the hospital, “to make doa verses [prayers] for people that don’t have any hope. After that, they die.” Salmah who regularly refers patients to medical specialists, says that “I tell them when the specialist cannot do anything else to you, you can come to me.” While the medical doctors in our study had issues with their cancer patients seeing traditional healers while under their care, they saw some value in traditional healers having a role in palliative care. As Dr. Rahman said, palliative care for cancer patients “is a huge area we have to explore. I think this traditional healer plays a role in palliative care.” Another oncologist, Dr. Rasli, says he refers his patients when he has exhausted treatment. “In other words, in the end stage of the illness we allow the TCM.” Dr. Muthu concurs, saying “I recommend patients where I cannot

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provide any treatment like severe pancreatic cancer, and when they [patients] ask us if there is any other hope and I say from our allopathic medicine like chemotherapy, we don’t have anything.” Breast and endocrine surgeon, Dr. Ismi supports visiting traditional healers “if the patients refuse surgery [and ask] ‘is there any other method because I’m too frail, too old and too scared for the surgery, but I will come to follow up.’ If the patients reject everything, [but] come to see me, [then] I recommend.” Finally, Dr. Ching has no issue with palliative care patients visiting a traditional healer: “When nothing else can be done, when Western medicine has nothing else to offer at this very late stage, we have no problem with patients seeking a traditional healer.” She also feels traditional healers are the best ones to deal with the spiritual dimensions of healing in palliative care, calling it “spiritual therapy.”

Discussion From interviews with traditional healers, cancer survivors, and medical specialists, we uncovered four roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment in Malaysia—medicinal healer, emotional comforter, spiritual guide, and palliative caregiver. These roles help explain the powerful draw of traditional healers in Malaysian society. While exact estimates are unavailable, WHO (2002) and a few studies conducted in Malaysia have suggested that some 80% of Malaysians visit traditional healers. With regard to cancer in particular, patients often see healers as a first line of help, thus delaying cancer diagnosis and treatment. The result is late presentation, late stage diagnosis and a higher cancer mortality rate than in Western countries (Yip, 2008; 2009; Yip et al., 2012). The three roles of medicinal healer, emotional comforter, and spiritual guide are certainly congruent with the literature on traditional medicine. Not only are traditional healers more accessible and more affordable especially in poor, rural areas in developing countries, they are very much embedded in the social, cultural and religious fabric of the country. Although the patients in our study clearly accepted Western medicine in treating their cancer, there was a sense that they hoped a traditional healer could cure them, or at least enable them to avoid surgery and/or chemotherapy. Several did experience some relief from their physical symptoms. While most of the healers claimed their medicine could ‘cure’ cancer especially if it was early stage, as yet there is no scientific evidence to support their claims. And in a review of the evidence for 24 complementary and alternative treatments for palliative cancer care, the authors conclude that “for some treatments, the evidence is encouraging but for very few, it is as yet fully convincing” (Ernst et al., 2007). It may also be that due to lack of information or misinformation, fear, cultural taboos and so on, cancer patients in particular are drawn to traditional healers. Malaysian women are hesitant to even be screened for cancer. Wong et al. (2008) found Malaysian women reluctant to get a Pap smear because of lack of knowledge about cervical cancer and its screening, embarrassment, fear of pain, a fatalistic attitude, and viewing their own health as secondary to their family obligations. Speaking of breast cancer screening in particular, Parsa et al. (2006)

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point out that “in Asian traditional culture, women’s bodily experiences are taboo,” there is much shame and humiliation in exposing their breasts, and women fear the test itself, the results of the screening, and the treatment should they have cancer. However, focusing on the actual medical treatment role of traditional healers misses what is most compelling about the attraction for Malaysian cancer patients. For that, we need to turn to their roles as emotional comforter and spiritual guide. More than thirty years ago, Heggenhougen (1980a) explained that traditional healers were attractive to Malaysians because the worldview of Malaysians encompasses more than scientifically-based explanations of disease: “Most Malaysians are quite cognizant of the germ theory of disease, but understanding ‘how’ an illness occurs still does not explain to them ‘why’ this illness should happen to this particular person at this particular time . . . . The question ‘why’ is often as important, or more so, than the question ‘how’. In this light, we may say that Malaysians have dual (or even plural) etiological explanations for the occurrence of any one illness—the cause(s) is (are) seen to be both natural (dealing with the ‘how”) and supernatural (dealing with the ‘why’)” (p. 239). Worldwide, medical doctors “tend to tell their patients what has happened, while the healers tell them why. Healers explain ill health in wider, more familiar cultural terms, involving the social, psychological and spiritual aspects of their patients’ lives” (Helman, 2007). Speaking of traditional medicine and cancer treatment in South Africa, Muller and Steyn (1999) confirm that while Western medicine may correctly explain “the disease processes, . . . the important question ‘Why me?’ is not answered” (p. 145). Further, the holistic nature of traditional healing “targets the mind, body, and soul of patients within their family, community and religious contexts” (Ross, 2008). Lau (1989) points out that the actual diagnosis and treatment “count less than the simple fact that anxiety, fear, and doubt—all of which may contribute to an illness by way of complicating symptoms and reactions—are dispelled. These healers give people hope; they treat the patient as someone who can be cured” (p.94). Patients and medical doctors in our study certainly emphasized the emotional and spiritual benefits derived from traditional healers. Patients reported that their faith was affirmed, anxiety was lessened, and psychological distress reduced, even while recognizing that they would still need to be treated by Western doctors for the cancer itself. Tovey et al.’s (2005b) study of traditional medicine and cancer in Pakistan confirms the importance of the emotional and spiritual components of healing. Patients reported high levels of satisfaction with traditional healers despite strong views on the ineffectiveness of these very practices. The authors go on to say that “it may be that TM (in particular) tends to play a more pivotal role in the patient’s emotional and spiritual well-being than potentially curative options” (p. 247). As in Malaysia, “in Pakistan, for many patients, health and faith (Islam) are inextricably linked . . . . Being effective at treating one’s condition may actually be superseded, in some cases, by a desire for emotional and spiritual well-being” (p. 247-248). Finally, the role of palliative caregiver has the strong support of medical doctors who seem to recognize the comfort that traditional healers can provide, not only through alleviating physical pain with their medications, but also through

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emotional and spiritual comfort. Conventional medical treatment has little to offer patients in terminal stages of cancer (Pal and Mittal,  2004). Traditional healers, however, may enable patients to feel less despair and restore a sense of control in the final days of their lives (Mohamed et al., 2005). Further, there is limited palliative care service in Malaysia (Lim, 2008), and insufficient NGOs to assist the government in this issue. For example, there are only 20 members of the Hospice and Palliative Care Society in Malaysia, and most of these services are located in urban areas (Hospice Malaysia, 2011). With limited facilities, patients seek traditional healers who can be accessed easily and who also often spend more time to comfort and give hope to them. Patients see complementary and alternative medicine as more compatible with their values, worldview, and spiritual philosophy or beliefs regarding the nature and meaning of health and illness (Pal, 2002). A healer’s support is often critical to patients who have nothing else to count on at this stage of the disease. Three of the four roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment in Malaysia can be seen as complementary to the allopathic system. Emotional comforter, spiritual guide and palliative caregiver offer support and assistance to cancer patients that do not interfere with medical treatment. In fact, as several of the medical doctors in this study pointed out, emotional and spiritual dimensions of healing may augment the effectiveness of their biomedical treatment. And when little else can be done, traditional healers may bring symptom relief and psychological and spiritual comfort to terminal patients. Only one role, that of medicinal healer is problematic in alleviating the cancer burden in Malaysia. Doctors in our study pointed out the potentially negative interaction effects of traditional medications with their treatments. Further, there is no evidence that traditional medicine can cure cancer, although most of the healers in our study claimed the ability to cure cancer especially if it was early stage. In health promotion and education, working from the premise that Malaysians will continue to see traditional healers, it seems to us that the cancer burden in Malaysia can be at least partially addressed through educational efforts directed at policy makers, Western doctors, traditional healers and the general public. From a policy perspective, efforts at bringing the two health care systems closer together would seem to be a logical first step. As noted earlier in this article, the World Health Organization (2002) is actively promoting such collaboration, and a number of countries in Asia and Africa have moved in this direction. In Nepal, for example, “international NGOs and UN organizations have begun to train THs in modern medicine” (Shimobiraki and Jimba, 2002). Muller and Steyn’s (1999) analysis of possibilities for cooperation in cancer treatment between the two systems in South Africa found that despite cultural differences in their perceptions of disease causation and treatment, “traditional healers’ knowledge of the beliefs, values and psyche of their patients could inform Western medicine if there were effective interaction between the two systems and patients would benefit from applicable referral in the case of serious illness” (p. 145). A recent report on coordinating care and treatment for cancer patients also underscored the need to “link community, primary care and hospital-led activities” (Yip et al., 2012).

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It seems to us that what is needed for policy makers is not only information as to the widespread use of traditional healers such as provided by this and other studies, but an action plan to move ahead. Razali (2009) has in fact proposed a three-step process for cooperation between the two systems: First, “THs would be formally recognized by the government. The second and third steps of cooperation are more challenging. The second step would be to form a body to register bomohs and supervise their activities. The third step would be to organize discussions between traditional and modern practitioners on their respective roles, expertise and limitations. A short introductory course and training in modern medicine may be beneficial to bomohs in order to encourage mutual referral.” (p. 16). Our interviews with both traditional healers and medical doctors revealed that most healers, especially Islamic or Quranic healers, and most doctors see points of intersection with the Western medical system. Three of the four roles uncovered in this study (emotional comforter, spiritual guide, and palliative caregiver) can certainly be seen as complementary to biomedical treatment. But how to facilitate this complementary status through education? A starting point would be to identify what Gramsci (1971) called ‘organic intellectuals’ – those people ‘on the ground’ who could be called upon to lead and organize first among themselves and then reach out to other constituencies. These leaders would need to come from both the traditional healer community and the medical profession. In many parts of the developing world, for example, traditional healers have organized into informal networks, practitioner organizations and professional associations. “By creating a professional association, they hope to advance their interests and those of their clients, improve standards, raise their prestige and earning power, gain official support and define an area of health care that only they can provide” (Helman, 2007). Health promotion and educational outreach can also be initiated by medical doctors themselves. An intriguing finding in our study was that of the twelve cancer specialists that we interviewed, ten had either themselves or had close family members visit traditional healers. Further, one surgeon told us that his father was a famous bomoh and another said that it was because of his grandfather who was a traditional healer that he went into medicine. All knew that the majority of their patients saw traditional healers and regularly cautioned their patients against taking medications that might interfere with their treatments. Nevertheless, these doctors saw the value in spiritual and emotional support from traditional healers and palliative care support. However, accommodation on a personal level is much less of a problem than changing the organizational culture and thinking of the Western medical system. What it will take will be for well-respected doctors to speak out in support of working with traditional healers to provide emotional, spiritual and palliative support. Given the already stressed medical system in Malaysia, this may be the most challenging suggestion of all. However, it seems to us that with some policy initiatives at the government level and some leadership from traditional healers, there could be enough synergy to engage the medical profession in more formal ways. Finally, our study suggests that there is a dire need for public education campaigns that position traditional healers as complementary to standard Western

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medical treatment. The fact that upwards of 80% of Malays see traditional healers and derive emotional and spiritual comfort from them is testimony to the staying power of this practice. It is clear that if traditional healers are seen as an alternative (rather than complementary) to Western medical treatment, chronic diseases like cancer will continue to devastate countries in the developing world. Health promotion is a task where adult educators, health educators and community development activists can come together through sharing knowledge of program planning, teaching and learning strategies, and research (Daley, 2006). Public education campaigns need to be directed toward validating both traditional and biomedical systems, eradicating the delay and/or interruption in medical treatment, encouraging screening tests, and dispelling myths and fears surrounding various diseases.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the cancer survivors, medical doctors and traditional healers who participated in this study for sharing their time and experiences which enabled us to understand the roles traditional healers play in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

References Al-Naggar RA, Bobryshev YV, Abdulghani MAM, Rammohan S, Al-Jashamy K (2012). Knowledge and perceptions of cancer and cancer prevention among Malaysian traditional healers: a qualitative study. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 13, 3841–50. Anderson BO, Yip CH, Ramsey, SD, et al (2006). Breast cancer in limited-resource countries: health care systems and public policy. Breast J, 12, 54–69. Broom A, Torvey P (2007). Inter-professional conflict and strategic alliance between traditional healers and oncologist in Pakistan. Asian J Social Science, 35, 608–25. Corbin J, Strauss A (2007). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Daley BJ (2006). Aligning health promotion and adult education for healthier communities. In S.B. Merriam, B.C. Courtenay, & R. M. Cervero (eds.), Global Issues and Adult Education (pp. 231–242). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (2003). Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Deuraseh N (2009). Using the verses of the Holy Quran as Ruqyah (Incantation: The perception of Malay-Muslim Society in Kelantan and Terengganu on Ruqyah as an alternative way of healing in Malaysia. Eur J Social Sci, 9, 448–56. Erasmus PC (1992). More about complementary medicine: Traditional healing. Continuing Medical Education, 10, 105–6. Ernst E, Pittler MH, Wider B, Boddy K (2007). Complementary/alternative medicine for supportive cancer care: development of the evidence-base. Support Care Cancer, 15, 565–8. Gramsci A (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. (Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith, trans. and eds.), New York: International. Heggenhougen HK (1980a). Bomohs, doctors and sinsehs—Medical pluralism in Malaysia. Social Sci & Med, 148, 235–44.

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Heggenhougen HK (1980b). The utilization of traditional medicine—A Malaysian Example. Social Sciences and Medicine, 148, 39–44. Helman CG (2007). Culture, Health and Illness (5th ed.). London: Hodder Arnold. Hospice/ palliative care societies in Malaysia. Retrieved from Hospice Malaysia website: www.hospismalaysia.org/ (16 Mar 2011). Kayombo EJ, Uiso FC, Mbwambo ZH, et al (2007). Experience of initiating collaboration of traditional healers in managing HIV and AIDS in Tanzania. J Ethnobiol and Ethnomedicine, 3, 6–16. Lau BWK (1989). Why do patients go to traditional healers? J Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 109, 92–5. Malik IA, Khan NA, Khan W (2000). Use of unconventional methods of therapy by cancer patients in Pakistan. Eur J Epidemiol, 16, 155–60. McMillen H (2004). The adapting healer: pioneering through shifting epidemiological and sociocultural landscapes. Social Sci & Med, 59, 889–902. Merriam SB (2009). Qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley. Mills E, Sing S, Wilson K, et al (2006). The challenges of involving traditional healers in HIV/AIDS care. Int J STD & AIDS, 17, 360–3. Mills PK, Riodan, DG (2004). Cervical cancer among Hmong women in California, 1988 to 2000. Am J Prev Med, 27, 132–8. Mohamed IE, Williams KS, Tamburrino MB, Wyrobeck JM, Carter S (2005). Understanding locally advanced breast cancer: What influences a woman’s decision to delay treatment? Prev Med, 41, 399–405. Nelms LW, Gorski J (2006). The role of the African traditional healer in women’s Health. J Transcultural Nur, 17, 184–9. Omar ZA, Ali MZ, Tamin INS (Eds.) (2006). Malaysian cancer statistics – Data and figures for Peninsular Malaysia, 2006. National Cancer Registry, Ministry of Health, Malaysia. Pal SK, Mittal B (2004). Fight against cancer in countries with limited resources: The postgenomic era scenario. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 5, 328–33. Parsa P, Andiah M, Rahman A, Zulkefli M (2006). Barriers for breast cancer screening among Asian women: A mini literature review. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 7, 509–14. Patton MQ (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Razali SM. (2009). Integrating Malay traditional healers into primary health care services in Malaysia: It is feasible? Int Med J, 16, 13–7. Razli SM, Najib MAM (2000). Help-seeking pathways among Malay psychiatric patients. Int J Social Psychiatry, 46, 281–9. Razali SM, Yassin AM (2008). Complementary treatment of psychotic and epileptic patients in Malaysia. Transcultural Psychiatry, 45, 455–69. Relying on bomoh for cancer treatment. (October 2, 2010). New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, p.11. Ross E (2008). Traditional healing in South Africa: ethical implications for social work. Social Work in Health Care, 46, 15–33. Shimobiraki C, Jimba M (2002). Traditional vs. Modern medicine: Which healthcare options do the rural Nepalese seek? Technology and Development, 15, 47–55. Taib NA, Akmal MN, Mohamaed I, Yip CH (2011). Improvement in survival of breast cancer patients—Trends in survival over two time periods in a single institution in an Asian Pacific country, Malaysia. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 12, 345–9.

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Taib, NA, Yip, CH, Low, WY (2011). Recognising symptoms of breast cancer as a reason for delayed presentation in Asian women – The psycho-socio-cultural model for breast symptom appraisal: Opportunities for intervention. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 12, 1601–8. Tovey P, Broom, AF, Chatwin J, Ahmad S, Hafeez M (2005a). Use of traditional, complementary and allopathic medicines in Pakistan by cancer patients. Rural and Remote Health, 5, 447–56. Tovey P, Broom A, Chatwin J, Hafeez M, Ahmad S (2005b). Patient assessment of effectiveness and satisfaction with traditional medicine, globalized complementary and alternative medicines, and allopathic medicines for cancer in Pakistan. Integrative Cancer Therapies, 4, 242–8. Tovey P, Chatwin J, Broom A (2007). Traditional, complementary and alternative medicine and cancer care: An international analysis of grassroots integration. London: Routledge. UNAIDS, (2000). Collaboration with traditional healers in HIV/AIDS prevention and care in sub-Saharan Africa: A literature review. Geneva, Switzerland: UNAIDS. Wong LP, Wong YL, Low WY, Khoo EM, Shuib R (2008). Cervical cancer screening attitudes and beliefs of Malaysian women who have never had a pap smear: a qualitative study. Int J Behavioral Med, 15, 289–92. World Health Organization (2002). Traditional medicine strategy 2002–2005. Retrieved from WHO website: www.who.int/medicines/publications/traditionalpolicy/en/ World Health Organization (2005). Preventing chronic diseases: A vital investment. Geneva, Switzerland. Retrieved from WHO website: www.who.int/chp/chronic_­ disease_report/contents/en/ Yip CH (2008). Epidemiology of breast cancer in Malaysia. In Hashim, Z., Sharif, Z., & Muhamad, M. Breast cancer in Malaysia: Issues and educational implications. (1–18). Serd, MY: Institute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Yip CH (2009). Breast cancer in Asia. Cancer Epidemiology, 471, 51–64. Yip CH, Cazap E, Anderson BO, et  al (2011). Breast cancer management in middle resource countries (MRCs): Consensus statement from the Breast Health Global Initiative. Breast, 20, 12–9. Yip CH, Samiei M, Cazap E, et al (2012). Coordinating care and treatment for cancer patients. Asia Pac J Cancer Prev, 13, 23–36.

How Context Shapes the Design and Implementation of a Qualitative Study Sharan B. Merriam University of Georgia, Athens, GA [email protected]

While either studying at the graduate level or conducting the research expected in a career, identifying a topic to research is a first and often daunting step in the process. Where do we find topics/issues/problems to be investigated? Then what? How is the issue shaped or the question asked to best guide data collection and analysis? How do we know if the topic is significant enough that the study will make a contribution to one’s field? I address these questions as I “walk through” how I conducted the qualitative study of traditional healers in Malaysia with my colleague Mazanah Muhamad. On a yearlong visiting scholar assignment to a university in Malaysia, I was assigned to a Cancer Research and Education Center. The “work” of the center was to conduct social science (not medical) research on topics of social support and education related to cancer, as well as to hold workshops, organize support groups, and produce educational materials. Since my areas of interest and expertise are adult education and qualitative research methods, for the most part this assignment was a good fit for me. I was also expected to undertake a research project relevant to the center’s mission. I knew almost nothing about the cancer burden in Malaysia, however, so the first month or so was spent learning about cancer in Malaysia through reading reports, talking with center staff, and attending workshops put on by the center and a local hospital. It took a couple of months for me to feel comfortable exploring with my Malaysian colleague possible topics for a research study. But I felt like I was reaching too hard for something/anything to study; I just couldn’t get excited about the possibilities I came up with. Then I happened to read a newspaper article about a traditional healer (called a bomoh) in a rural village who was treating patients for serious conditions such as cancer. I’ve always been fascinated by traditional

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healers and I recall asking my colleague about this article and about the practice of bomoh who treat cancer patients. She explained how embedded traditional healers are in Malay culture, and how their treatment of cancer patients was widespread and controversial, especially with the Western medical system. From that conversation, we designed a study to explore the role of Malay traditional healers in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Just as in any other study, the context gives rise to the question(s) we might ask. In this example, the context was cancer treatment in Malaysia and in particular the role traditional healers play in that treatment. The next step in designing a study is to determine if research has already been conducted on this topic, and if the question is a significant one that, if answered, has the potential to contribute to practice and/or theory. We found that little research had been conducted on traditional healers in Malaysia, and none was found that addressed their role in cancer treatment. A few articles were found on traditional healers and serious medical conditions including cancer in other cultures (see references for Tovey and colleagues in the article’s reference list). We reasoned that since Malays are going to continue seeing traditional healers, it would be helpful to see how healers are treating cancer and possibly how they can be aligned with Western treatments, how policies can be developed at points of intersection between the two systems, and how public education campaigns could position healers as complementary to, rather than substitutes for, standard Western medical treatment. Once we had a question we felt was significant (the role of traditional healers in cancer diagnosis and treatment), our next task was to design the study. Since we knew so little about the phenomenon, we selected a basic qualitative design as the most appropriate because of its focus on discovery and understanding. And since we wanted to obtain a robust picture of this phenomenon, we reasoned we should not only interview bomoh, but also cancer specialists and cancer survivors who had been treated by both traditional healers and medical doctors. Malaysia is a multicultural country with significant populations of Malay, Chinese, and Indian residents, with each group having its own traditional healers. We decided to focus on Malay traditional healers of which there are several types, most commonly bomoh who use herbs, and Islamic healers who use the Quran as a major component of their treatment (there is overlap between the two types). We also reasoned that cancer survivors who had been treated for cancer by both traditional healers and medical doctors would be able to inform our study, as would interviewing some cancer specialists. The context also shaped our data collection in that we traveled to where the healers practiced. This involved visiting some remote villages and their practice site (occasionally a clinic, but more often their homes). This actually proved to be informative to our study in that one of the reasons why people go to healers is that they are in familiar surroundings and family members and friends can accompany the patients to the treatment. Most times, we interviewed the healer as patients sat nearby waiting for their “turn,” but on many occasions we observed the healer treating patients. A medical doctor in our study commented on this very factor – that cancer patients lack personal treatment in the hospital

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and are isolated from the family support they experience with healers. Another interesting factor concerns context: the cancer survivors we interviewed ranged in education from little formal schooling to advanced degrees and in English fluency from very little to highly fluent. This spread is representative of the fact that according to some estimates upwards of 80% of the world’s population visit traditional healers irrespective of income, social class, education, or gender. All interviews were taped, transcribed, and where necessary translated into English. The rich data we collected from healers, patients, and doctors allowed us to explore the phenomenon from several perspectives including why breast cancer patients visit healers; how healers diagnose and treat cancer, and their willingness to work with the Western medical system; and the roles traditional healers play in cancer treatment (the topic of the attached article). As part of relating the research to the context and hopefully having a positive impact on the cancer burden in Malaysia, aspects of our research have been presented at medical and healthcare conferences and workshops, to the Malaysian Health Department, and in mass media outlets. We feel that our study has made a contribution not only to the literature, but also to the context of cancer treatment in Malaysia. In summary, context shapes all qualitative research in that we are trying to understand a phenomenon from the participants’ perspectives. An interpretive qualitative research design is especially appropriate in an unfamiliar context such as I encountered in Malaysia. In addition to identifying a research problem relevant to the Malay context, conducting research in a foreign country also involves understanding and respecting cultural norms that intersect with sample selection, data collection, and presentation of findings. A local co-researcher/ colleague, as I was fortunate to have, can facilitate all phases of the study from framing the problem, to data collection and analysis, to distribution of the findings. However, one does not need to be in a foreign country to be highly sensitive to the context of a study; the purpose of conducting any interpretive qualitative study is to uncover and understand the phenomenon of interest from the participants’ perspectives – perspectives that are formed by and embedded in the study’s context.

Chapter Four

The Influence of Mentorship and Role Models on University Women Leaders’ Career Paths to University Presidency While the literature concerning female administrators in higher education indicates the critical role that mentors and role models play in contributing to women’s professional advancement, the relationship between mentorship and women’s attainment of senior leadership positions including the college presidency remain underexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore how women in key-line administrative positions to the presidency (e.g., academic dean, vice president, chief academic officer) and women presidents understood the role of mentoring relationships and role models in their career paths to leadership. This study employed a postmodern feminist theoretical framework and a feminist qualitative design to give voice to the unique and individualized ways university women in keyline positions to the presidency and women presidents made meaning of the influence of mentors and role models during their careers. Data collection involved 16 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a criterion-based sample of 12 female key-line administrators and four presidents employed at universities located in the southeastern United States. The data analysis revealed four main themes related to: (1) the minimal role of mentors and role models; (2) gender dynamics characterizing participants’ role models and mentoring relationships; (3) mentoring moments with multiple and non-traditional mentors and role models; and (4) the benefits of mentors and/or role models. This study recognizes the participants’ complexity in their multiple identities and demonstrates women’s resourcefulness in seeking career guidance and social support from multiple sources including male and female mentors, role models, colleagues, friends, and family members. Keywords: Mentoring, Gender, Leadership, Higher Education, Women’s Advancement, University Presidency, Feminist Qualitative Research Hill, L. H., & Wheat, C. A. (2017). The Influence of Mentorship and Role Models on University Women Leaders’ Career Paths to University Presidency. The Qualitative Report, 22(8), 2090–2111.

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Scholars have consistently pointed to the crucial role that mentoring and role models play in women’s career path advancement (Brown,  2005; Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011; Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011; Madsen, 2008; Schipani, Dworkin, Kwolek-Folland, & Maurer, 2009). Mentoring is important for women at all levels of the academy—as graduate students, faculty, and administrators—in providing them with (a) career role models, (b) career development and advice, (c) sponsorship and greater visibility, (d) advice for successfully balancing work/family responsibilities, (e) career guidance and support, and (f) strategies for overcoming gendered barriers (Brown, 2005; Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011; Gibson, 2006; Kurtz-Costes, Helmke, & Ulku-Steiner, 2006; Madsen, 2008, 2012). Researchers suggest that women need role models who can show them how to advance despite existing barriers (Kurtz-Costes et al., 2006). There is a critical need to prepare women to form leadership identities, negotiate barriers to women’s advancement, seek mentoring and role models, support one another, and combat stereotyped attitudes toward women’s leadership (Pfafman & McEwan, 2014; Madden, 2011; Salas-Lopez, Deitrick, Mahady, Gertner, & Sabino, 2011). Madsen (2008) explains that the dearth of research concerning university women’s pathways is a result of the small percentage of “women serving as presidents of research and comprehensive institutions” (p. 136). Further, King and Gomez (2008) assert, “there is almost no information on those individuals in the senior campus administrative positions [e.g., academic dean, executive vice presidents, CAO, etc.] that most typically lead to the presidency” (p. iv). As such, the majority of leadership studies in higher education have almost exclusively focused on the experiences of white males—“render[ing] women’s experiences as invisible” (Chliwniak,  1997, p. 19). The lack of published research pertaining to the influence of mentoring and role models on women administrators’ career paths to the university presidency is made more significant when considering the findings from The American College President report, which projected that over the next 10 years there will be a large number of presidential retirements (American Council on Education,  2012). The projected vacancy in presidential positions will present greater opportunities for qualified and talented women to advance to presidencies. However, unless women are prepared to assume these leadership roles, it is likely that the majority of these positions will continue to go to men. Consistent with this idea, Morley (2013) lamented the loss of talent through a lack of mentoring, sponsorship, guidance and support at critical moments in women’s career path and commented that remedial mentoring programs designed to address women’s “inadequacies” in leadership preparation have not alleviated gender disparities in attainment of leadership positions. Bornstein (2009), Madsen (2008,  2012), and Marshall (2009) point to the need for more empirical research relating to the career path and pipeline issues that may serve to motivate or hinder women’s advancement to the presidency in university settings. In general, there is a gap in the empirical literature in higher education pertaining to the career paths of university women in key-line administrative positions to the presidency (e.g., academic dean, vice president,

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chief academic officer) and university women presidents (Arini et al., 2011; King & Gomez,  2008; Madsen,  2008,  2012). Consequently, the relationship between mentoring and women’s advancement to the college presidency remains underexplored (Brown, 2005).

Purpose Statement In seeking to add to the empirical research on the role of mentorship in women’s advancement to university presidencies, our intention was to explore how women in key-line administrative positions to the presidency and university women presidents understood the influence of mentoring relationships and role models in their career paths to leadership. Understanding the unique and individualized ways women experience and view the influence of mentors and role models on their leadership aspirations and advancement to leadership is a factor of critical importance to increasing the representation of women presidents in higher education. Influenced by the literature review and theoretical framework, the broad research questions that framed this study were: (1) How do women leaders experience and define mentoring and role models?, (2) How do women’s relationships with mentors and role models influence their career paths, leadership aspirations, and identities as leaders?, and (3) How do the salient dimensions of women leaders’ lives shape their experiences and view of mentors and role models?

Literature Review Because there is definitional confusion in the literature regarding role modeling and mentoring, some clarification is provided here. In addition to the more traditional terms frequently used in the mentorship literature, Madsen (2007) found that the university women presidents in her study “used a variety of words, often interchangeably, to refer to different people’s influential roles: mentor, role model, coach, advisor, sponsor, encourager, counselor, and supporter” (p. 153, [italics in original]). Primary career mentors are considered more experienced individuals “who provide guidance, assistance and support to help pave the path for mentees in achieving their career goals” (Brown, 2005, p. 659). A role model is defined as “an individual whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others” (Madsen,  2008, p. 157). Mentoring involves a developmental relationship and sustained interaction between the mentor and protégé. A protégé may consider her mentor to also be a role model; alternatively a role model may be an influential individual whom is observed from a distance without the awareness of being a role model (Madsen, 2008). A non-traditional mentor is an individual with informal or unofficial influence such as a friend, peer, or family member who provides guidance (Madsen, 2008). Twenty years of social science research has confirmed that mentoring is helpful to executive women in advancing to leadership positions (Schipani et al., 2009). For a woman possessing attributes such as intelligence, a strong

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work ethic, ability, and ambition, mentoring may make the critical difference in advancement to the highest level within organizations (Scanlon, 1997). Likewise, mentors can serve to build women’s self-confidence by instilling the idea that they are capable of becoming a college president (Brown, 2005). Research also suggests that “a mentor can buffer an individual from overt and covert forms of discrimination, lend legitimacy to a person or position, provide guidance and training in the political operation of the organization, and provide inside information on job-related functions” (Schipani et  al.,  2009, p. 100). While mentoring serves the function of promoting career development, it can also serve as a psychological and social support (Schipani et al., 2009). KurtzCostes et  al. (2006) suggest that individuals need role models who they view as being like themselves with respect to characteristics like gender and race in order to be able to legitimize women in professional roles. Although the topic of mentoring with respect to women’s career advancement has received a great deal of scholarly attention, few current studies have focused on the influence of role models on women’s leadership development (Sealy & Singh, 2010). Further, there is little research that has examined the influence of role models as a separate concept from mentoring (Gibson, 2003, 2004; Ibarra, 1999; Sealy & Singh, 2010). Research on mentoring and female leaders in higher education indicates that most women had a mentor and viewed mentoring as contributing to their career advancement. Dunbar and Kinnersley (2011) found that among the 64% of women in their survey who reported having a mentor, 91% of the mentors held a higher rank than the respondent. In surveying 91 female college presidents, Brown (2005) also found that female college presidents tended to have career mentors who assisted them in advancement through administrative ranks. The majority, or 68%, of the presidents’ mentors were male. Madsen (2008) found that most of the female university presidents she studied emphasized the importance of relationships with others in their development. Many of the women believed that without role models or mentors, career achievement is more difficult (Madsen, 2008). Most female college and university presidents in Steinke’s (2006) study also spoke to the prominent role of mentors in their advancement to the presidency. Nevertheless, mentorship tends to favor males who are offered more developmental experiences while women report difficulties obtaining developmental opportunities, exclusion from informal networks, and lack of fit (Davey, 2008). To be effective, it is important for women to develop a good understanding of organizational culture and become politically savvy (Salas-Lopez, Deitrick, Mahady, Gertner, & Sabino, 2011). Warner and DeFleur (1993) maintained that having a male mentor can be particularly advantageous in helping women navigate the power structures, particularly the “good ol’ boy’ network.” Due to gender disparities in higher education administration, women typically have greater access to male mentors and role models than female mentors and role models (Brown,  2005; Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb,  2011; Madsen,  2008). While there may be difficulties associated with it (Davey, 2008), cross-gender mentoring/protégé

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relationships can have a number of positive benefits in women learning to be more assertive, expect crises, and recover from crisis. Women can benefit from both male and female mentors (Brown,  2005). Dunbar and Kinnersley (2011) reported that the women in their study believed that the mentors’ gender was important to the effectiveness of their interactions and preferred a female mentor. Nevertheless, Salas-Lopez et  al. (2011) suggested that the gender of the mentor is not as important as the match between mentor and mentee, and commented that a male mentor can teach ways to navigate an organizational culture dominated by men. Studies show that multiple mentorships are valuable in helping women advance in their careers and build self-confidence (Brown, 2005; Madsen, 2008). Some women develop a social network of mentors and advisers, and this may include family members, friends, professional colleagues, and superiors (SalasLopez et al., 2011). Research addresses the benefits of women having “multiple mentorships” that encompass different types of mentoring relationships (e.g., faculty mentorships, administrative mentorships (Brown, 2005, p. 661). Over half of the female college presidents in Brown’s (2005) study reported having several mentors. Research also reveals that younger female administrators may have difficulty identifying mentors and role models who balance motherhood with their administrative role (Kuk & Donavan, 2004; Marshall, 2009). For example, Marshall (2009) reported that the women administrators with school-age children who participated in her study “were among the first to negotiate the workfamily dance within the senior administrative ranks in colleges and universities” (p. 213). Family responsibilities are often considered a liability for women in the workplace because of a biased assumption that mothers have primary responsibility for children, yet Salas-Lopez et  al. (2011) found that families, especially spouses, took responsibility, and provided practical and emotional support. It is critical for women to receive guidance and support to advance in their careers in a society that remains largely sexist in its orientation and behavior (Madden, 2011).

Conceptual Framework The literature review and the following conceptual framework contributed to the development of the purpose statement and research questions outlined above. This study used a postmodern feminist theoretical framework to give voice to the unique and individualized ways that university women administrators and presidents made meaning of the influence of mentors and role models on their career path. Rooted in a postmodern paradigm, postmodern feminist theory focuses on “unearthing [women’s] subjugated knowledge” (HesseBiber, 2007, p. 3). Postmodernists reject the use of totalizing schemas to create space for marginalized groups such as women to “articulate their own ‘subjugated’ knowledges” (Merriam & Associates,  2002, p. 375). Postmodern feminism seeks to challenge humanist and essentialist assumptions that all women

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are unified by a prescribed set of “fixed essential qualities” (Weedon,  1987, p. 175). Essentialist views of male and female leadership are based in conceptions of gender characteristics as unchanging and results in (a) ignoring the ways that gender is socially constructed, (b) categorizing leadership behaviors as primarily male, and (c) characterizing women leaders as driven by an ethic of care (Enke, 2014; Fine, 2009; Morley, 2013). Equating leadership with men is associated with valuing socially constructed male traits and behaviors, while devaluing female identities (Fine,  2009). Organizational politics involve the ways that power is enacted in daily social interactions and incorporates gendered roles with men assumed to be active while women serve in supporting roles (Davey, 2008). Postmodern feminists highlight the ways that humanist and essentialist discourses ignore the “multiplicity of cultural, social and political intersections in which the concrete array of ‘women’ are constructed” (Butler, 1990). Subjectivity, a key principle of postmodern feminist analysis, is understood as “the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of an individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world” (Weedon, 1987, p. 32). Postmodern feminists view women’s subjectivity as active, fluid, and transformative (Bloom, 2002). Therefore, postmodernism feminism questions gender categories rooted in modernism and employs postmodern momentum to deconstruct gender ideals. Through recognizing the limitations of essentialist notions of fixed or universal identity, a postmodern feminist perspective presents new opportunities for women to construct their persona and assert agency (Weedon, 1987).

Our Positionality Positionality from a postmodern perspective is constituted within a web of relationships. It is therefore fluid and a process of constant realization (Bettez, 2015). With respect to our positionality as researchers, we are White/Caucasian, middleclass women with Ph.D. degrees who hold faculty positions in schools of education in research university settings. We were motivated to seek information that may be instructive to women in navigating their own path to leadership. Further, we have both experienced transitions in our relationship and careers. The first author is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Canada who remembers “discovering” feminist ideas as a teen and her mother’s response, “But of course, dear.” She has master’s and doctoral degrees in adult education and her publications focus on adult health education and professional development. She has worked at universities in Canada and the U.S. and is now a professor with 25 years of experience. Because she has been the recipient of mentoring by talented women teachers and colleagues throughout her career, she tries to both mentor and form collegial relationships with students and colleagues. She had no intentions of becoming an administrator, however, she was appointed as a department chair shortly after being awarded professor status. While the appointment was welcome, the transition has been challenging due to the need to assume

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responsibility with little preparation and the change in role vis-à-vis long-term colleagues. She has one adult child from a previous marriage and was a long-time single-parent. She has remarried and also become a grandmother. At the time the data were collected, the second author was a doctoral candidate and adjunct professor. After graduation from her doctoral degree, she assumed a tenure-track position with a small university and has recently resigned from part-time director responsibilities for a center for teaching excellence because these administrative responsibilities took time away from preparation for tenure and promotion. She is a native of the southeast and has degrees in English, sociology, and higher education. She is unmarried and has no children. She has sought out mentors and role models during her doctoral studies and subsequent academic appointment. In time, she would like to advance to high level university leadership and currently follows the career of a female mentor who has recently been appointed to a university presidency. Learning about the research participants’ experiences and perspectives has been helpful to both researchers in navigating their own changing responsibilities and identities. We are both interested in women’s experiences in higher education leadership, especially now that we have assumed leadership roles in higher education institutions. This article is based on the second author’s dissertation and the first author was her dissertation chair and mentor. This is the second of several publications derived from the second author’s dissertation. We are alternating first authorship because we feel that our contributions to the work are equivalent now that we have become co-authors and colleagues. We do not always agree about data analysis, however, we have learned to talk issues out and come to consensus. Because we have both experienced the effects of sexism in the workplace, we believed that this topic is pertinent for other women with administrative goals in post-secondary institutions and that our participants’ stories need to be told.

Method This study employed a feminist qualitative design, which was useful in understanding how the university women leaders who participated in this study made meaning of their career experiences with mentors and role models. Feminist inquiry is characterized by a focus on (1) understanding the aspects of women’s lives that have been missing from mainstream research; (2) conducting research that has individual, social, and political implications for creating more equitable opportunities and institutions for women; and (3) acknowledging the influence of the researcher’s positionality (e.g., characteristics, values, and biases) in the research process (Bogdan & Biklen,  2007; Olesen,  2008). Feminist qualitative research honors the “principles of respecting women’s (and other oppressed groups’) unique ways of knowing, destabilizing power relations in the research process, and confronting socially constructed gendered inequalities” (O’Shaughnessy & Krogman, 2012, p. 495). “From a postmodern feminist perspective . . . a researcher shares multiple truths and realities; and acknowledges

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that reality is shaded by social, political, economic values, which change over time” (Pasque, 2013, p. 121). Feminist qualitative research may employ varied data collection and analysis strategies, however, its main focus is on the ways that women’s experiences are structured in society and confronting social inequalities (Olesen,  2008; O’Shaughnessy & Krogman, 2012). Taking a feminist postmodern stance involved the analysis of power as it is situated in historical and material contexts, and giving voice to women’s experiences. We employed criterion-based sampling, in-depth interviews with the research participants, data analysis strategies recommended by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2015), creation of a narrative in which the participants’ experiences are the central focus, and discussion that makes recommendations to redress societal inequities present in higher education.

Participant Criteria Because this article is based on the second author’s dissertation research, she selected the participants based on the following criteria: (1) possessing a minimum of one year of experience in their current administrative role; and (2) being employed at an institution officially designated under the Carnegie Classification System as a type of university (e.g., doctoral/research universities, master’s universities, historically black universities, etc.). In selecting from the population of university women in key-line administrative positions, the participants were required to: (1) occupy a senior-level leadership position at the level of dean or above, (2) report directly to a vice president or president, and (3) have responsibilities that contribute to the overall management of the institution or a subdivision of the institution.

Participant Recruitment Potential participants for this study were identified by the second author who conducted an internet search of websites for universities located in the southeastern region of the United States, regional professional leadership organizations in higher education, and national professional leadership organizations in higher education (e.g., American Council on Education). She identified 40 potential participants: seven university women presidents and 33 university women leaders in key-line positions to the presidency. She contacted interview candidates through a formal letter which invited potential candidates to participate in an interview for this study. The second author also sent a follow-up e-mail to ascertain their willingness to participate in the study.

Sample This study involved a sample of 16 participants serving in key-line positions of university leadership or university presidencies in the United States including four current university women presidents and 11 university women currently

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serving in key-line administrative positions, and one woman who recently retired from a university key-line administrative position. The key-line administrators included three academic deans, three provosts/chief academic officers, and six vice presidents representing the areas of advancement, communications, economic development, research, student affairs, and technology. The majority of participants, including all four of the university presidents and nine of the key-line administrators, were employed at doctoral-granting universities, under the Carnegie Classification System. The participants ranged in age from 39 to 70 with a median age of 62. Although the second author made efforts to obtain a racially diverse sample, 14 of the participants identified as White/­ Caucasian and only two identified as Black/African American. This is reflective of recent demographic data concerning the racial composition of female university senior-level leaders and university presidents on a national basis (American Council on Education,  2012; King & Gomez,  2008). Most women in this study, including all the deans, provosts, and presidents, had over 20 years of full-time experience working in higher education. Fourteen of the participants held an earned doctorate while two of the non-academic key-line administrators held master’s degrees.

Data Collection IRB approval was obtained from The University of Southern Mississippi by the second author before proceeding with data collection. Like much of the research reviewed by O’Shaughnessy and Krogman (2012), the primary source of data involved in-depth, semistructured interviews that were conducted by the second author. Influenced by the key themes from the literature review and theoretical framework, the interview protocol included questions that reflected the key themes from the literature review (Appendix A). Sample questions included: (1) What career path did you take to your current leadership position?, (2) What role have mentors and role models played in helping you to advance to your current leadership position?, (3) Have you had more male or female mentors and role models?, and (4) How has your gender or other life roles (such as family roles) shaped your leadership experiences? The second author collected data via 16 audio-recorded, face-to-face or telephone interviews lasting approximately one hour. She conducted 10 telephone interviews and six face-to-face interviews. She allowed the participants to select the time of the interview and to choose the location of the face-to-face interviews. The second author conducted all of the face-to-face interviews on the participant’s respective university campuses in a quiet setting that ensured privacy, such as a private office. Nine of the ten participants involved in phone interviews chose to conduct the interview in their private campus office and one chose a private setting off campus. The second author observed that being in a space in which the participants were comfortable seemed to contribute to their willingness to provide candid, thoughtful, and detailed responses to the interview questions. Although the in-person interviews allowed the second

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author to observe the participants’ non-verbal communication such as body language and facial expressions, she felt that all participants were articulate and expressive in communicating their thoughts, experiences, and opinions. The second author developed rapport with the women participating in phone and in-person interviews by providing verbal cues that she was attentively listening, responsive, and interested in the participants’ responses. The second author transcribed the interviews for data analysis. In order to maintain participant confidentiality and anonymity, she assigned pseudonyms for each participant.

Data Analysis We aligned our data analysis as closely as possible to the ideas expressed in the introduction, literature review, and conceptual framework; however, we were also prepared for findings that would contradict or expand the meaning of these ideas. Each author began the analysis by individually using first-cycle descriptive coding process that identified all relevant units of data (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña,  2014). Next, we employed a second-cycle coding process in which we consolidated repetitive codes into a modified number of pattern codes that related to our research questions (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). During the initial phase of analysis, we composed a list of codes that reflected the main idea of interview responses or documents (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014). Next, we reduced the number of initial codes by consolidating all redundant codes into a modified list of codes that addressed the research questions. Several sample codes were “women firsts,” “generational differences,” “nontraditional mentors and role models,” “career paths,” “male mentors and role models,” “female mentors and role models,” and “benefits of mentors and role models.” Third, reflecting the definitions outlined in the introduction, we organized and modified the codes into a preliminary category list. In steps four and five, we reviewed the initial list of categories to determine which categories were most important and which categories needed to be modified to eliminate redundancies. In the final stage of analysis, we transitioned from categories to concepts through selecting four key themes that reflect the meaning we derived from the data. We were particularly attentive to ideas resonant with the postmodern feminist conceptual framework regarding our participants’ career paths to leadership, gender expression, leadership identities, as well as aspects of their identities that extended beyond their work.

Trustworthiness We used three strategies to promote credibility and dependability in confirming research findings including peer review, audit trail, and researcher reflexivity (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). In employing the first strategy, we invited peers with expertise in the content area and methodology to review and assess the

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findings’ credibility. The second author maintained an audit trail by keeping a research journal to detail the processes involved with data collection. She used the research journal to clarify her experiences, assumptions, biases, and worldview during the data collection. Together, both authors kept notes about our evolving ideas concerning the coding and categorizing of data during data analysis. We also employed the strategy of reflexivity on the researchers’ positionality vis-à-vis the research participants. Based on the results of the coding process outlined above, we derived four main themes from our study that are described below.

Findings We derived four main themes from the data analysis concerning: (1) the minimal role of mentors and role models; (2) gender dynamics characterizing participants’ role models and mentoring relationships; (3) mentoring moments with multiple and non-traditional mentors and role models; and (4) the benefits of mentors and/or role models. Each of these themes are presented with relevant categories that illustrate patterns informed by the conceptual framework, relationships the participants described, and possible causal explanations. In establishing the context of the findings, it is important to note that the women in this study often used the words mentor, role model, or supervisor interchangeably. Six of the women’s descriptions of the influence of mentors and role models on their career paths revealed how some considered their role models to be mentors, although they did not have a relationship with the individual. In this way, their definitions of role models and mentors differed from the definitions of the terms introduced earlier. For example, Vice President Carter states, I didn’t really have mentors that were women early on, but there were guys here that . . . were my ideals of what you were [supposed to be like] as a faculty member . . . They were absolutely revered by their students, and I just used them as my mentors all along. One of them knew it [and] the other really had no clue until very late in his life. One day I went to see him and tell him—to thank him—and just say, “Hey, I want you to know that you have been my model.” . . . I really realized that those were my mentors, early on, and they had a profound influence about the way I behaved as a faculty member. . . So they really gave me those characteristics of what I think a faculty member’s about.

While six of the participants used the term role model and mentor interchangeably, the remaining 10 did not. In these instances, we used the definitions in the introduction to guide the data analysis process and organize the findings from the data in order to establish a congruency between the ways that mentors and role models are defined in this study. Minimal Role of Mentors and Role Models. The majority of participants reported that they lacked a primary career mentor. Fourteen out of the 16

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participants in this study reported that they did not have a “key” or “primary” career mentor in a more senior-level position of university leadership, male or female, who served to “guide,” “help lay the groundwork,” and/or “sponsor” their progress to their current positions as key-line administrators or university presidents. Consistent with the definition of a primary career mentor used in this study, President Perkins, exemplified the understanding of a primary career mentor shared by the women in this study: When I think of mentors there is no one person that guided my career. I wish to heaven that that person had emerged because I know people who have had . . . [a] Svengali—that person that says, “now go left, now go right, take two steps forward, smile.” I never had that.

Vice President Kennedy also relayed, I can’t really pick out someone that I thought really mentored my career . . . [so] I don’t really have a key mentor that I thought, “okay, they’re going to tell me how to get down this road to this position [that] I have.” I’m kind of just hacking my own way through the forest.

Only two participants in this study, Vice President Owens and President Whitley reported having a primary career mentor with experience as an executive-level university administrator who played an important role in helping to facilitate their career advancement to their current positions of university leadership. Vice President Owens described: I [have] . . . [a] male mentor, [who] had been [the] president of several universities . . . [and] he has really helped me from the ground up. . . I [first] met [him] at a conference several years ago when I was in school, doing my thesis and this gentleman offered to review my thesis when it was finished. When I applied for the position of vice president, he assisted . . . he helped me just review my documents and really has been a true, true mentor. I think that having . . . a mentor is really responsible for a good part of my success.

President Whitley also discussed how her primary career mentor was instrumental in guiding and sponsoring her career pathway to top-level university leadership. She stated, I would say that people talk about this, but it’s very, very, very true that if you are mentored by someone, they look for opportunities for you . . . I know that I would not be where I . . . [am] today if . . . the [university] president of the last institution I was at had not picked me out to mentor and put me into positions. He put me into [interim] positions that I . . . did not apply for, and then after unsuccessful national searches, [I] applied for [the positions]. So his mentoring is absolutely what got me here today. [So,] I think it’s extraordinarily powerful [to have a mentor].

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Despite President Whitley’s sentiment about the utility of mentoring to support women’s advancement, the majority of the women in our study did not experience that benefit. The Secondary Role of Mentors and Role Models. Most of the women indicated that mentors and role models played a secondary role in their career advancement to administrative positions. Provost Barlow clarified that mentors and role models helped “very little, actually, in terms of moving into leadership roles.” Dean Atwood was also aware that mentors have “not [played] as much [of a role in her career advancement] as they should have.” Since the majority of women did not begin their careers with aspirations of achieving a senior leadership role, many of the women did not realize the need to have mentors and role models with university leadership experience at an earlier point in their careers. Several women spoke to how their lack of primary career mentoring experiences by individuals with university leadership experience was a result of their unplanned career paths to university leadership. Provost Barlow explained, “I just didn’t look at . . . the dean position . . . [or] the provost position . . . and say, ‘that’s something I’d like to do and therefore I need a mentor or role model to help me develop the skills that I need [in order to] to get into those [positions].’” Many of the participants who began their careers as faculty members attributed their lack of leadership aspirations in the earlier stages of their academic careers to the enjoyment and satisfaction that they found in the teaching and research components of their faculty roles. President Rice, who conveyed a sense of surprise by her advancement to administrative roles, embodied the sentiments shared among many of the participants who began their careers as faculty members and did not initially view themselves as becoming university leaders. When asked if she envisioned herself in a position of university leadership in the early stages of her academic career, President Rice replied, “No, I thought of myself as a professor.” President Rice explained, “I was successful and happy . . . as a professor . . . So, I didn’t think of myself as doing anything really beyond [that].” Vice President Young stated, “My [educational] degrees, my credentials, [and] my other experiences . . . have really played more of a role” than mentors and role models in her career advancement. She distinguished that the factors which facilitated her career advancement are largely reflective of “[what] I’ve had to do on my own [and the] things that I have actively pursued on my own in terms of building credentials.” President Howard, who lacked primary career mentors and role models, indicated that her advancement to top-level university leadership was the result of her efforts to “build up a reputation and then people recommended me . . . [based on] what I had done in various roles.” The secondary role that mentors and role models played in the majority of women’s movement to positions of university leadership may also be attributed to how they viewed their own “achievements,” or abilities to “do a good job,” “produce credentials,” and/or “build a professional reputation” as being more influential in facilitating their advancement to university.

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Gender Dynamics Characterizing Participants’ Role Models and Mentoring Relationships The gender dynamics of the participants’ access to role models and mentors was often influenced by aspects of their positionality with respect to their age, status as a woman first, and/or career stage. Among participants who described having mentors and/or role models, Provost Ellis exemplified the majority (14) of participants’ experiences in conveying, “I would say that most of my mentors were male.” Many sought to emphasize that most or all of their mentors and role models had been males. As Dean Atwood clarified, “notice . . . both [of my mentors are] male[s], there’s no women.” However, the youngest participant in the sample, Vice President Landon, who was in her late thirties, indicated she had “more female mentors” than male mentors. She reported having three female career mentors serving in university keyline administrative posts at various institutions. Vice President Landon noted that when she was selected for her current administrative role she sought out two female mentors who were “vice president[s] of student life” at two different universities to help her learn the “nuts and bolts” of her new administrative role. Dean Atwood represented half of the participants’ experiences in pointing out, “I’ve had no female mentoring whatsoever.” Dean Atwood exemplified the shared sense of recognition among many of the participants in this study by stating, “I’ve been keenly aware that there was sort of this paucity of female mentors out there for somebody like me.” Most participants, especially participants who represented the first woman to hold their administrative position at their respective institutions, spoke to the dearth of female university leaders to serve as role models and mentors. Female Mentors and Role Models. Nine participants described having a female career mentor (e.g., faculty member, peer mentor) at a certain point in their career path. Although President Perkins had mostly male mentors, she described a female faculty member who served as a mentor in her early career. When I was a new faculty member there was another woman. . . . There weren’t many women on the faculty and she had only been hired a year ahead of me. . . Yet, she took a lot of her precious time just to . . . show me the ropes. She’d sit me down and say, “. . . honey here’s what you need to know and here’s what you need to keep your eye on.”

Three participants, Provost Barlow, Vice President Landon and President Rice, reported having a female mentor who had experience serving in a university key-line administrative position and only one participant, Provost Ellis, reported having a female mentor who was a university president. These women communicated that they did not have a female mentor with experience in university leadership until the mid-stages of their career path when they entered their first key-line administrative position (e.g., dean, vice president). Provost Ellis, who was the first woman to serve as a provost in her institution’s history, had mostly male mentors

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throughout her career path. However, she indicated “we [now] have a president who is a female . . . and I really feel like I’ve been mentored by [her . . . in the past] year.” Participants also spoke to having only a few, if any, female role models serving in positions of university leadership. Most participants did not begin to have role models who were female university leaders until the mid-to-latter stages of their career paths, often after the participants had achieved official positions of university leadership. The influence of the lack of female role models and mentors in leadership roles during the participants’ early career stages may also help explain why many of the participants did not aspire to university leadership in an earlier point in their career paths. President Perkins explained that when she began to have presidential aspirations in the mid-to-later stages of her career path, “there were not a lot [of women presidents to serve as role models], but [there were] a few.” President Perkins indicated when she began aspiring to a presidency, “the numbers [of women] were growing. I think the term I heard . . . [was], we were in the pipeline  .  .  .  There were growing numbers of women in the pipeline—­ moving up into deanships, [and] provostships.” Although President Whitley had a few female mentors and role models who were employed as administrators at a research foundation, she noted that she did not have a female presidential role model until she achieved her first presidential appointment: I had a female president . . . who was terrific and wonderful. . . . [She] was the first person to reach out to me when I became president here. She wasn’t a personal mentor when I knew her, but she certainly reached out to me when I reached this point.

The gender dynamics of the majority of participants’ experiences concerning the availability of male university leaders to serve as role models and mentors and the “paucity of female [university leaders to serve as] mentors” and role models may also be attributed, in part, to how most of the participants (13 out of 16) in this study were “the first woman” to serve in their current position as a key-line administrator or university president at their respective institutions. President Perkins communicated, there weren’t any women ahead of me. . . . I was [the] first woman dean, . . . the first woman provost, . . . I was the first woman [president]. So, I didn’t have a lot of women to watch.

President Rice also characterized the uniqueness of her experiences as the first person of her race and gender to hold certain administrative positions in her career path. “Being the only woman and the only African American . . . was my world . . . for a long time.” Likewise, Vice President Carter, who was the first-ever female to serve on the university president’s executive cabinet at her institution, conveyed that prior to

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her appointment, “they didn’t even have any women deans.” When she began her academic career as a faculty member “there were very few women who were faculty and so I didn’t really have mentors that were women.” Although most of the “women firsts” indicated having female leaders to look to as role models in the later stages of their careers, prior to moving to positions of top-level university leadership they were not aware of any female leaders to serve as role models. The Influence of Age and Generation on Participants’ Having More Male Mentors and Role Models. Although the participants who were the first woman to occupy their current position represented a variety of ages, with two of the youngest women firsts in their forties, the majority of the participants who were over sixty sought to emphasize, in the words of President Howard, the “generational differences” of their career path experiences concerning the lack of university women faculty and administrators to serve as role models and mentors in the early and middle phases of their careers in higher education. Dean Reed, who was in her sixties, contextualized the generational differences for the women of her generation concerning their lack of mentoring: In all honesty, I think [many] women of my generation and of my age in . . . careers missed out on mentoring. There just were not any mentors available to us, and frankly we probably didn’t understand the importance of mentors, either. . . I believe I was the first woman ever to be tenured at the university. So, it’s not like there were a lot of women on faculty who could mentor me. There really weren’t any. . . Some of the men who were a little bit more senior [in the faculty ranks] may have been doing a little bit of mentoring for the guys, but they weren’t doing any mentoring for me.

Despite the increases in the number of university women administrators, Dean Atwood, who was in her late forties, indicated that many of the women of her generation continue to lack female mentors and role models. She explained, “I don’t think I actually modeled myself after any female academic administrators because . . . I knew so few of them or was even aware of them.” In contrast, the younger generations of women administrators, between the ages of 39 to 57, such as Vice President Landon who reported having “more female mentors,” spoke to their awareness of the presence of university women leaders to serve as role models and mentors. Generational Differences Among Women Firsts. Many participants discussed the value of having male leaders as their mentors and/or role models. Provost Ellis, noted, “most of my mentors were male . . . [who] were interested in what I brought to the table and [in] giving me good advice.” President Perkins recalled: As a matter of fact . . . [my mentors] were all men. And they were men that were, what we now call, “evolved men.” They weren’t threatened by women in the workplace [and] they weren’t threatened by a woman moving into a position of leadership. I think they welcomed that. . . They were not father figures, they were just good, decent people who recognize[d] some ability in me and they wanted to encourage it.

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Although many of the participants who represent women firsts in their current and/or previous administrative roles were aware of the uniqueness of their status as a woman first, most participants did not view their lack of female role models and mentors to serve as a hindrance in their career advancement.

Mentoring Moments with Multiple and Non-Traditional Mentoring Relationships The majority of participants (15), including the two participants who had primary career mentors, described experiencing mentoring moments with multiple and non-traditional mentoring relationships at various points in their career paths. For example, Vice President McNair described having a total of six significant mentoring relationships (e.g., dissertation advisor, peer mentors, etc.) during her career. Vice President McNair is representative of many other participants in indicating that her mentoring relationships were often “serial” in their nature. Similarly, President Rice relayed, “I’ve had good mentors . . . and many of them . . . all along the way.” President Perkins also expressed, “at key intervals, somebody stepped in with a word [of advice] and I took it and ran with it. So, they were the ones who made the difference.” In comparison to the experience of having an ongoing relationship with a primary career mentor who guides one’s career to leadership, participants with multiple mentors often described how these experiences took the form of short intervals of time or “mentoring moments” which, provided them with what President Perkins referred to as “little assists” at certain points in their career paths such as providing a word of “encouragement” or “career advice.” In lacking primary career mentoring experiences, especially by female mentors, six of the participants may be viewed as asserting personal agency in taking the initiative to obtain non-traditional mentors and role models from the relationships in their personal life such as family or friends. Vice President McNair represented many participants’ mentoring experiences in stating, “I think that when I consider mentors, they are . . . not always in traditional roles, [al]though some [of my non-traditional mentors] have played those [traditional mentoring] roles from time to time, for me.” President Howard, who did not report having a mentor with university administrative experience, also noted that she viewed her peers as playing a mentoring role in her early career path as she stated, “in many ways it was my fellow graduate students that actually helped my career.” Vice President McNair also described how her friends served as her role models: [As] . . . an African-American vice president for student affairs, my girlfriend . . . was always going before me. She was the director before me. She was the vice president before me. So, I did get to see her doing things, and then I’ve just had women friends who are achievers. They achieve, and so it’s the circle that I’m in . . . Almost all [of us are working] in higher education . . . we all expect each other to achieve.

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Several participants indicated that members of their family such as their mothers or siblings served as their role models and mentors. President Whitley described how her mother and the women in her family served as important role models in influencing her career path to leadership. She states: Well, I came from a long line of very influential, powerful women, and . . . [I have been] surrounded by mostly women in my personal life. I had a grandmother, a mother, . . . sisters, a daughter, . . . granddaughters, a mother-inlaw. . . So, I think I’ve had a lot of strong, female role models in my life . . . [They are] independent women who . . . carved out very wonderful lives for themselves.

Although President Perkins did not have a primary career mentor, she noted “I did have people that encouraged [me] and were  .  .  .  generous with their time.” President Rice pointed out that although most of her mentors were male, “I [have] had women [mentors] at different times in my life who were real supportive.” The women in this study were resourceful in obtaining needed advice and support during their career. Spouses/Partners as Informal Mentors. Many of the married women voiced how their spouse often functioned as an informal mentor through providing the support and encouragement they needed to pursue and thrive in leadership roles. President Perkins described how her spouse has influenced her career. I have a retired husband who is wonderful [and] . . . he’s my champion . . . He was key even before he was my husband. He was just really supportive about [my career in suggesting,] “you might want to think about this [career position] and you might want to think about that [opportunity].

Although Vice President Landon had no presidential aspirations herself, she described how her husband, also a faculty member, encouraged her to advance to a presidency. “My husband has said, ‘Yeah. Be a president’ . . . He would be all for it!” The participants’ relationships with multiple and non-traditional mentors and role models expands the extant literature by detailing how many of the participants in this study gained valuable mentoring experiences from informal and non-traditional mentors and role models, including family members peers, and/ or friends. Women’s relationships with informal and non-traditional mentors and role models may play an important role in influencing their career development and leadership aspirations, especially when women lack formal and traditional career mentors and role models.

The Benefits of Mentoring Relationships and Role Models Although most women did not view mentors and role models as playing a major role in their advancement to positions of university leadership, many women discussed how mentors and role models provided them with a variety of benefits,

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which served to increase their selfconfidence in their ability to advance to administrative roles and/or build their credentials in becoming qualified candidates for leadership positions. Vice President Young explained how mentors and role models influenced her career advancement: a great deal primarily just through encouragement . . . and interactions between myself and others who have encouraged me to do different things or be engaged in different types of activities to give me a range of experience so that I am actually a qualified applicant [for leadership positions].

The three most commonly reported benefits pertained to participants receiving encouragement and support, career advice and information, and skills and/or training. Eight women described how they had received encouragement and/or support through their relationships with both traditional and non-traditional role models and mentors and eight also spoke to the value of receiving career advice from traditional and/or non-traditional mentors and/ or role models. Vice President Landon shared how, prior to entering her current position, two female mentors, with experience as vice presidents of student affairs, provided her with career advice and information pertaining to the responsibilities that accompanied the role of a vice president of student affairs. She relayed: [One] sat down with me . . . for . . . two hours [and] she said, . . . “This is how I lead a staff meeting . . . [These are] the professional networks [in student affairs]. . . [These are] . . . the challenges [of this role, and] this is how you act in cabinet [meetings].”

Half of the participants also described the benefit of gaining skills and/or training through their relationships with mentors and/or role models. Provost Fields noted, I have been very fortunate to be able to work with very capable administrators throughout my career and they have served as [my] role models and mentors. It has been very helpful to me to have the association that I have had with them. Their leadership style has given me the opportunity to learn effective strategies for handling issues.

This finding suggests that receiving encouragement and support from mentors is critically important for women in gaining a vision for leadership and confidence in their ability to achieve top leadership roles. The participants’ lack of primary career mentoring relationships may also help explain why most women in this study reported that factors related to their own efforts such as educational attainment and job performance played a greater role in their advancement to leadership roles than mentors and role models.

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Discussion We used a postmodern feminist framework to illuminate the complexity of multiple identities of female working professionals rather than examine them as onedimensional persons. We recognize the participants as working professionals who are colleagues, sisters, friends, daughters, wives, and mothers. The participants in our study used the term mentor and role model interchangeably, which is consistent with the findings of Madsen’s (2008) study of university women presidents. Possibly, because many of the participants did not plan to become a senior leader in higher education, mentors and role models played only a secondary role in their career paths. Our study also found that women in key-line administrators or presidents often advanced to leadership roles in the mid-to-latter stages of their careers. This is similar to the findings of Cox (2008), Eddy (2009), Madsen (2008), Steinke (2006), and Switzer (2006). This outcome may be explained, in part, by the context of our participants’ emergent career paths to university leadership and their sense of subjectivity in their early career paths, which shaped their view of having mentors. Seeking leadership positions is associated with identity (Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011) and many participants did not initially view themselves as leaders. None of the women in this study began their careers with the aspiration of becoming a university leader, but rather each emerged as leaders in the mid-to-latter stages of their careers. Our findings contradict studies that found mentoring plays an instrumental role in women’s advancement to top leadership in higher education (Warner & DeFleur,  1993) in that mentoring appeared to play only a minimal role in our participants’ career paths to senior leadership. However, Steinke (2006) and Switzer (2006) found in their respective studies of women presidents that some but not all of their participants had a primary career mentor who supported, sponsored, and guided their career paths to the presidency. The lack of female mentoring experienced by our participants may be the result of generational differences due to a scarcity of women in leadership, competition, and gendered norms about leadership (Frechette,  2009). The participants’ lack of available female leaders to serve as mentors and/or role models reflects the long-standing under-representation of women in university administration (American Council on Education, 2012). The debate about whether a mentor needs to be similar to the mentee in gender and other characteristics (Kurtz-Costes et al., 2006) is rendered inert when women lack mentorship opportunities. What is remarkable is how resourceful the women we studied were in creating mentoring relationships and seeking career guidance and social support from multiple sources including male and female mentors, role models, colleagues, friends, and family members. This inventiveness can positively influence women’s preparation for top university leadership. This finding closely resembles the university women presidents in Madsen’s (2008) study who had a variety of people serving as “influential individuals” across their higher education careers (p. 163). Brown’s study (2005) also found that over half of female presidents had multiple

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mentoring relationships. Generational differences also played a part in the experiences of the research participants, with younger women having more opportunities for female mentoring simply because there were women who preceded them in leadership. To progress in new roles, women not only need to learn the skills of the new position but also the socially constructed norms and rules regarding how they should behave. Women in this study had to resist normative assumptions of femininity (Frechette,  2009) to assert their right to participate as competent academic leaders amid discriminatory practices. Madden (2011) indicates that power threads through the structure of academic institutions and gender stereotypes remain active in the academic world. She further suggests that women first fit in and then work to change the culture to suit themselves and other women. New generations of women in leadership offer hope for disrupting and ultimately changing the power structures to benefit women and minorities (Frechette, 2009; Madden, 2011). Having female mentors and role models who challenge the gendered assumptions of leadership may promote social change. In keeping with the aims of feminist research and praxis (Lather,  1991; Nidiffer & Bashaw, 2001), one of the goals of this study was to provide women with information that would be instructive for navigating their career paths to university leadership. This study supports previous research (Brown,  2005; ­Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011; Kuk & Donovan, 2004; Marshall, 2009) which indicated that it may be particularly helpful for women to find other women to serve as mentors who can provide sponsorship, advice, and support concerning work/life balance issues. Given the lack of primary mentoring experienced by women in this study and the importance they accorded to having role models and mentoring, it is clear that women interested in academic leadership should take responsibility for seeking out and providing mentoring opportunities. Women should support other women (Morley, 2013). Women could share their leadership experiences with other women seeking opportunities, thereby serving as role models. “Mentoring can be another form of leadership . . . [and] can result in a form of feminist redistribution of power and social capital” (p.  125). Women could also benefit from cultivating multiple traditional and non-traditional mentoring relationships across the span of their career paths (Brown, 2005; Madsen, 2008). The implications of this study support the development of practical applications aimed at providing women with mentoring experiences in university settings, especially doctorategranting universities, where it may be more difficult for women to identify role models and mentors of a higher rank due to the continued underrepresentation of females and minorities as key-line administrators and presidents (Airini et al., 2011; Madsen, 2012). Academic institutions could develop formal mentoring programs that pair aspiring women leaders or new administrators with male or female mentors who hold a more senior-level position of university leadership and also provide women with opportunities for

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cultivating informal mentoring relationships. However, gendered assumptions of male and female behaviors remain prevalent in higher education and continue to foster gender discrimination (Madden, 2011). Programs designed to encourage women to seek leadership need to be attentive to the evolving, adaptive nature of discrimination so as to counteract it. Mentoring programs could encourage women to develop authentic leadership identities, recognize and challenge gender bias, and contribute to social change in the academy (Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2013; Morley, 2013). The limited empirical data on the topic of university women administrators’ and presidents’ career paths underscores the need for future research that provides a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of why women continue to be underrepresented in top leadership positions in university settings. In the future, researchers could seek to delve deeper into the personal and professional factors which influence women’s career paths and leadership aspirations, and tell the stories of minority women in leadership positions. Another productive form of research should involve the leadership experiences of women who are minorities.

Limitations The main limitations of this study relate to criteria for the selection of the research sample. Since the participants were from the southeastern region of the U.S., the study is limited in addressing how geographical location might have affected the participants’ experiences with mentors and role models. The sample of participants for this study was also limited to women with current or recent experience holding key-line administrative roles (e.g., academic dean, vice president, and provost) or university presidencies. Next, the sample of participants was limited to women holding administrative roles in university settings. Therefore, the findings may not apply to other types of higher education institutions such as twoyear colleges. Finally, the use of a qualitative design limits the generalizability of the findings obtained from the sample in this study to the larger population of female university key-line administrators and presidents. Although the qualitative design of this study does not allow for generalization of the research findings, the richness of the data presented allow for the possibility of other women who plan to pursue leadership opportunities in higher education applying the findings of this study to their own situations.

Concluding Thoughts While some women have broken through the metaphorical glass ceiling in higher education to attain top positions of leadership, the findings of this study provide insights into the subtle ways that availability of mentors and role models can actually serve as social and cultural barriers to women’s advancement in regard to (a) a lack of primary career mentoring by a mentor in a higher-level administrative position, (b) the paucity of women in university administration to

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serve as mentors and role models, (c) having more male than female mentors and role models, and (d) generational differences in access to mentors and role models, particularly among women who were the first to occupy their respective position. The women in this study described the unique and individualized ways they exercised personal agency in navigating the subtle social and cultural barriers concerning their lack of primary career mentoring to reach their current position, such as identifying non-traditional mentors and role models. This study provides greater insight into how traditional and nontraditional mentors and role models can positively influence women’s preparation for top university leadership. Providing women with encouragement or career advice enables women to draw upon the unique and individualized aspects of their personhood to overcome subtle barriers to attaining leadership roles in academic settings. With this research, we hope to encourage other women to aspire to leadership roles in higher education and that they find this information useful in preparing for leadership roles through identifying relationships that would be instrumental to the attainment of the aspiration.

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Appendix Interview Protocol Career Path 1. I would like to begin the interview by asking you to tell me a little bit about yourself and your academic background? 2. Could you briefly describe for me the career path that you took to becoming an administrator/president? 3. What was the immediate prior position that you held before being selected to serve in your current leadership role? 4. At what point in your career did you begin to have a vision for leadership? 5. What are your future career goals after your tenure in your current leadership role? Mentors and Role Models 6. What kind of a role has mentors or role models played in helping you to advance into leadership positions? 7. How did your mentoring relationship(s) first develop? 8. Have you had more male or female role models and mentors? Balancing Work-Life Issues 9. Could you briefly describe what are the most important roles and responsibilities that accompany your leadership position? 10. What kinds of demands does this position make on your time? 11. As an administrator or president, how would you describe your ability to achieve balance between your professional life and your personal life? 12. How have issues related to work-life balance influenced your career decisions and career goals? Family Influences on Women’s Career Paths and Aspirations 13. In general, how do you think the relationships that women ­administrators/presidents have in their personal lives (e.g., with children or spouses/partners, etc.) influence their career paths and leadership aspirations? 14. What influence have the significant relationships in your personal life (e.g., with children or spouses/partners, etc.) had on your career path and leadership aspirations? Gendered Perceptions of Leadership 15. How would you describe your personal leadership style? 16. What particular personal traits, characteristics, or qualities that you would use to describe your leadership style? 17. From your experiences serving an administrator or president, have you seen any differences in male and female leadership?

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18. In your own life, how has your gender shaped your leadership? 19. As a female administrator or president, how do you believe your leadership is seen or perceived by others? Concluding Question 20. Given that my research focus is on women’s leadership, is there anything that I did not ask today that you think is important for me to know?

Author Note Lilian H. Hill is professor and co/chair of the Department of Educational Research and Administration at The University of Southern Mississippi. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: [email protected]. Celeste A. Wheat is an assistant professor of student affairs in higher education at the University of West Alabama. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: [email protected] Copyright 2017: Lilian H. Hill, Celeste A. Wheat, and Nova Southeastern University.

Article Citation Hill, L. H., & Wheat, C. A. (2017). The influence of mentorship and role models on university women leaders’ career paths to university presidency. The Qualitative Report, 22(8), 2090–2111. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss8/2

Mutual Reflections on Conceptual Frameworks in Qualitative Research Lilian H. Hill University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS [email protected]

Celeste A. Wheat University of West Alabama, Livingston, AL [email protected]

As co-authors of this article, we have each written a reflection that centers on the use of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in research.

Lilian’s Reflection Sometimes a book leaps off a bookstore shelf and demands you take it home. The Girl Within by Emily Hancock (1989) was one such book. Originating from her dissertation research, the book details the life story of women who rediscovered their identity in adulthood by reaching back to the people they were at 8 or 9 years old – before, in Hancock’s words, their spirits were pruned by cultural sex roles. I read the women’s stories avidly; however, I did not realize that it would be the first qualitative study I would read. I don’t recall paying much attention to the methodology chapter, but in writing this reflection I found I had underlined significant parts of it, probably while taking doctoral qualitative research courses. The article reproduced in this book is derived from the dissertation of my co-author, Celeste A. Wheat. I am struck that themes described in our article resonate with The Girl Within regarding women resisting essentialist definitions of femininity, negotiating roles in society, and seeking sources of guidance. A

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generation stands between Hancock’s book and Celeste’s dissertation, and powerful cultural forces continue to contest women’s ambitions despite heralded declarations that much has changed. Many women prevail in their ambitions, while some are never able to realize them, but in both cases we should question the cost women pay. Hancock (1989) invokes a powerful metaphor of the egg and stone: in hostile conditions a fertilized egg may never hatch, while a stone in ideal conditions can never bring forth life. Hancock drew on the work of Jane Loevinger, George Vaillant, Jean Baker Miller, and Carol Gilligan to develop the conceptual framework of her study. As a doctoral student, I did not realize that you could create your own conceptual framework until my dissertation chair guided me in the process. Celeste drew on postmodern feminist theory learned from Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Practice (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) to structure her dissertation research. It contests essentialist notions of gender identity and ultimately contests conceptions of leadership characteristics as male. Postmodern feminism describes positionality as being situated in a rich web of relationships. In describing our positionality, we are open about our changing, maturing relationship and experiences with leadership. Feminist research is interested in how “experiences are structured in society and confronting social inequities” (Hill & Wheat, 2017, p. 2095), and in our articles we have tried to accomplish that. We explored women’s experiences in negotiating a higher education leadership landscape still largely constituted as male, and we made recommendations for change. Today I have the privilege of teaching qualitative research and mentoring students in dissertation research. I emphasize the development of appropriate conceptual frameworks to guide aspects of the research process, including the research problem and questions, selection of research methods, articulations of positionality, data collection, and analysis (Ravitch & Riggan, 2017). By crafting conceptual frameworks from reflections on their own experiences combined with theory from literature, I find that students truly understand the rationale for conducting the study they are proposing. Students sometimes resist this thoughtful, intensive work and I emphasize that the conceptual framework is integral to the study and does not perch like a stone on a table, easily removed and discarded.

Celeste’s Reflection Although I had been conducting qualitative research since I was an undergraduate sociology major, I was unaware that my research needed to be grounded in a theoretical or conceptual framework. In Lilian’s qualitative methods course, I not only learned about the meaning and importance of a theoretical framework, but I also found a mentor in Lilian, who would become my dissertation chair. As we have derived articles from my dissertation, our own careers have progressed. I transitioned from being a doctoral student to become an assistant professor at a nearby university and was recently granted tenure. Lilian was promoted from associate to professor and simultaneously named department chair. Our relationship has evolved from mentee/mentor to colleagues who write together.

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In seeking to understand how women made meaning of their leadership experiences, it made sense to me that a feminist theoretical framework would be a useful analytical tool. A chapter in Merriam’s first edition of Qualitative Research in Practice titled “Stories of One’s Own: Nonunitary Subjectivity in Narrative Representation” introduced me to postmodern feminist thought. I used a course assignment to conduct a pilot study for my dissertation by conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews with three female academic deans about their leadership experiences. I had assumed that all women would share common experiences such as gendered barriers to leadership or feminine-associated leadership styles, but learned instead that each of these women’s career paths and experiences was uniquely shaped by the salient dimensions of their positionality such as family status (e.g., wife, mother, and/or daughter), academic discipline, and/or spirituality. The adoption of a postmodern feminist theoretical framework for my dissertation, Women’s Pathways to the Presidency (Wheat, 2012) and to our article on mentoring influenced every aspect (e.g., research questions, methodology, interpretation of findings) of the development of both works of scholarship. The application of this framework represents a new direction for the study of women’s leadership experiences. Studying women’s leadership through a postmodern feminist lens rejects essentialist views that all women experience university leadership in similar ways, and it illuminates how gender intersects with other dimensions of their positionality to influence the individualized ways in which they experience, perceive, and understand the phenomenon of leadership.

References Hancock, E. (1989). The girl within. New York, NY: Dutton. Hill, L. H., & Wheat, C. A. (2017). The influence of mentorship and role models on university women leaders' career paths to university presidency. The Qualitative Report, 22(8). Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ravitch, S. M., & Riggan, J. M. (2017). Reason and rigor: How conceptual frameworks guide research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wheat, C. A. (2012). Women’s pathways to the university presidency: A qualitative inquiry into university women leaders’ career paths and presidential aspirations (Order no. 3534841). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (1277602938).

Phenomenology Phenomenology is both a 20th-century school of philosophy associated with ­Husserl (1970) and a qualitative research design. With its roots in philosophy and psychology, phenomenology focuses on the subjective experience of the individual. Although all qualitative research is phenomenological in the sense that there is a focus on people’s experience, a phenomenological qualitative study seeks to understand the essence or structure of that experience. This approach rejects the notion of a dichotomy between subject and object; that is, “the reality of an object is only perceived within the meaning of the experience of an individual” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 76). The person and her or his world are interrelated and interdependent. The researcher’s focus is thus on neither the human subject nor the human world, but on the essence of the meaning of this interaction. It is the researcher’s task “to enter the dialogue, and eavesdrop, as it were; to listen in and capture the essence of what is perceived by the subject” (van der Mescht, 1999, p. 3). Phenomenological research addresses questions about ordinary, everyday human experiences (for example, friendship), experiences believed to be important sociological or psychological phenomena of our time or typical of a group of people (for example, being a cancer patient), and transitions that are common or of contemporary interest (such as becoming a parent or changing gender assignment). A phenomenological research design is considered especially suitable for understanding affective or emotional experiences such as loneliness or love or meditation. The defining characteristic of phenomenological research is its focus on describing the “essence” of a phenomenon from the perspectives of those who have experienced it. Although documents can be a source of data, the phenomenological interview is the primary method of data collection wherein one attempts to uncover the essence, the invariant structure, of the meaning of the experience for those involved. Prior to interviewing others, phenomenological researchers usually explore their own experiences, in part to examine dimensions of the experience and in part to become aware of their own prejudices, viewpoints, and assumptions. This process is called epoche, “a Greek word meaning to refrain from judgment” (Moustakas,  1994, p. 33). These prejudices and assumptions are then “bracketed” or set aside, so as not to influence the process.

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During a phenomenological interview, the researcher focuses on the “lived experience” of the participant, that is, how the person experiences the phenomenon in the moment, rather than recalling events from the past. Often the researcher will conduct a series of phenomenological interviews with each participant to allow time to build rapport and delve deeply into the participants’ experience. Seidman (2013) proposed a now widely used, three-part method of phenomenological interviewing. The first interview establishes the context of the participants’ experience. The second focuses on participants’ reconstructing of the details of their experience within the context. The final interview asks participants to reflect on the meaning they associate with the experience. There are also other strategies involving data analysis unique to a phenomenological study such as phenomenological reduction, horizontalization, and imaginative variation (see Moustakas,  1994, for an explanation of these strategies). The final step in a phenomenological study is to construct a synthesis of textual and structural descriptions of the phenomenon such that the essence or meaning of the experience can be conveyed to others. The two articles in this section illustrate the nature of phenomenological research. In Bongaardt, Røseth, and Baklien’s (2016) study of two families’ experiences of hiking as a leisure activity, the authors speak about bracketing their assumptions about the phenomenon so they can better capture the meaning of the experience for those involved. The researchers are thus open to discovering the meaning of hiking as a leisure activity for the two families involved. They found that there were three interwoven levels of meaning (positive bodily feelings, sense of belonging and togetherness, and the creation of a family narrative). Indeed, in their reflection on conducting this type of study, they comment on how a phenomenological framework allowed them to uncover “underlying principles of intuitive sensing in situ and the unfolding of shared meanings in real time.” The second selection by Norlyk, Martinsen, Hall, and Haaler (2016) is a phenomenological study of the “lived experience” of becoming a prosthesis user after leg amputation. Again, the researchers chose a phenomenological qualitative research design because of their interest in capturing the meaning of becoming a prosthesis user as experienced by the persons themselves. Using a phenomenology-­based approach familiar to healthcare professionals called Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR), the authors point out that the human body is integral to how one experiences life itself – thus the focus on becoming a prosthesis user in this phenomenological study. In their reflection, they examine the methodological and ethical ramification the unanticipated presence of a prosthesis user’s partner had on the validity of the phenomenological interview.

References Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Evanston, IN: North University Press.

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Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Seidman, I. (2013). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. van der Mescht, H. (1999, July 5–8). Poetry, phenomenology, and “reality.” Paper presented at the Conference on Qualitative Research, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Chapter Five

Hiking Leisure Generating a Different Existence Within Everyday Life Introduction Family leisure is a widely used term referring to “time that parents and children spend together in free time or recreational activities” (Shaw, 1997, p. 98). The idealization of family leisure in various media outlets depicts quality time and family togetherness in a positive light (Shaw, 2001). In research, it is argued that family leisure involvement promotes family functioning and “facilitates feelings of closeness, personal relatedness, family identity and bonding” (Poff, Zabriskie, & Townsend,  2010, p. 367). Families yearn for the “ideal of togetherness” (Daly, 2001, p. 288), and common activities during family time can be romanticized as time involving “everyone having fun or strengthening bonds of intimacy” (Segrin & Flora,  2011, p. 46). Some studies, however, present a less romantic, more critical take on family leisure. Shaw (2008) pointed out that the different members in the family can have different experiences with family leisure. While mothers may continue experiencing the responsibility of caring for the children associated with necessary household chores, fathers may structure their leisure by adopting the children’s activities (Such, 2006). Harrington (2014) found that in Australian families, there is a classed dimension in the parents’ intentions for joint family activities. A common aim among low-income parents is to create family bonds that last after the children have left home. Middle-income parents stressed that family leisure can pass on values that are important to children’s later work life, such as “working together, getting along, being responsible” (Harrington, 2014, p. 480). “The Core and Balance Model of Family Leisure Functioning” (Zabriskie & McCormick, 2001) describes “core” and “balance” as two functions of ­family leisure activities. Core family leisure addresses needs for stability and cohesion between family members. It typically involves activities such as watching television together, playing board games, playing in the yard, or other home-based activities. Bongaardt, R., Røseth, I., & Baklien, B. (2016). Hiking Leisure: Generating a Different Existence Within Everyday Life. SAGE Open, 6(4), 2158244016681395.

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Balance family leisure addresses the families’ need for change and the opportunity to learn new skills through novel experiences. It typically involves the families physically getting away from everyday hustle to unusual, less frequent, non– homebased activities (Zabriskie & McCormick,  2001), such as trips to a theme park or outdoor recreation. Theoretically, this model suggests that to promote family functioning, there should be a relatively equal involvement in family leisure at home and away (Zabriskie,  2001). It also suggests that although most activities can be characterized as either balance or core, some activities may provide stability for one family but change and novelty for another (Zabriskie & McCormick, 2001). In a recent article, Izenstark and Ebata (2016) called for research that goes beyond a sheer theoretical approach and incorporates context, such as the natural environment, including trees, grass, events, animals, and so on. In this article, we address how two Norwegian families make sense of their experiences with hiking in the forest. How does the experienced meaning of their hiking trip relate to the functions of leisure delineated by the core and balance model and how does the natural environment provide context for these functions? To answer these questions, we build on the concept of “leisure affordance” (Pierskalla & Lee, 1998, p. 75), which bridges the gap between the physical and the experiential worlds that families engage in when hiking in the forest. In the next section, we will present the affordance concept, incorporating recent theoretical developments. A phenomenological study of two families hiking in the forest forms the core of this article. We explain how we designed and conducted this research, linking the theoretical framework of affordances to Husserlian descriptive phenomenological research. In the discussion, we underscore the relation between the general meaning structure of the phenomenon at hand—a family hiking in the forest—and the various affordances that are effectuated in this activity. We suggest that these two Norwegian families seek experiences of the familiar as well as novelty in their hiking trips, demonstrating a blend of core and balance activities.

The Concept of Leisure Affordance Pierskalla and Lee (1998) proposed a holistic model of recreation that takes into account the experience of meaning for the person as well as the properties of the environment that are significant to the realization of this meaning. They resorted to ecological perception theory, as initiated by Gibson (1986) and further developed by the Gibsonians (Michaels & Carello, 1981; Reed, 1996; Turvey, 1992), as the basis for their model. Affordance is the core concept of the ecological approach to perception and action; an affordance is defined as a property of the environment that affords action that is meaningful for the organism. In recreational science, as Pierskalla and Lee (1998) argued, one can speak of leisure affordances, that is, information in the environment that affords leisure activities for human beings: Examples of forest affordances include locomotion (e.g., trails), manipulation (e.g., forest products), concealment (e.g., city buffers), and certain

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behaviour (e.g., roads vs. hiking trails). These affordances can also be described by the perceiver using mental concepts such as excitement, relaxation, or stress. (p. 71)

Another ecological psychological concept endorsed by Pierskalla and Lee (1998) is that of event. An event takes place with a spatial and temporal configuration and captures the whole of the affordance and activities that take place within it. A hiking trip, for instance, begins and ends with respect to both time and place; it is an event in itself, including a pattern of activities that effectuates affordances that are available and meaningful. Events are seen as nested structures, and Pierskalla and Lee (1998) stated that “[f]uture research might suggest that a short hiking event in a park be nested in a longer vacation event” (p. 72). We will return to the idea of nesting in the discussion. The concept of leisure affordance was picked up by Kleiber, Walker, and Mannell (2011) in the second edition of A Social Psychology of Leisure. They further specified the concept of leisure affordance in outdoor environments to include preferred experience, that is, qualities such as “particularly enjoyment, relaxation, and a feeling of comfortable present-centeredness” (Kleiber et  al.,  2011, p. 425). In addition, they underscored the role of social affordances. In this field of research, it is important to understand the properties of an environment that afford social interaction or are “conducive to self-expression more generally” (Kleiber et al., 2011, p. 426). Three troublesome themes run through these adaptations of the ecological approach to leisure science, namely, the question of how affordances for physical activity relate to affordances of a psychological and social nature, the issue of the existence of affordance for the individual as experienced as meaningful yet existing independently of the individual in the environment, and a lack of empirical research applying and developing the leisure affordance concept. Points of debate around the affordance concept in general have existed since its introduction in the 1960s (see Michaels, 2003, for a review of these). A recent article by Rietveld and Kiverstein (2014) developed a conceptual framework that claims to overcome some of the sticky problems, and, as we stress for the purpose of this article, offers a way to frame the leisure affordance concept that opens up for its use in empirical research. The crux of their approach is to emphasize that affordances are embedded in sociocultural practices (Rietveld & Kiverstein,  2014). The varieties of practices that humans engage in are patterned as different “forms of life,” “manifest in the normative behaviours and customs of our communities” (pp. 328–329). The flexibility that the notion of a “form of life” offers allows us to capture the variety of practices within the human way of life. It can be understood on at least three grains of analysis: the human form of life in general (as contrasted with the form of life of another kind of animal); a particular sociocultural practice . . .; and finally, the particular engagement with affordances of individuals that we see when we zoom in on this practice at a more detailed level of

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analysis. It is this straddling of different grains of analysis that makes the notion of “form of life” well suited for using it in a definition of affordances. (Rietveld & Kiverstein, 2014, p. 330)

For the individual, the perception and effectuation of affordances requires a certain skill. Children and adult novices alike require “the improvement of perceiving with practice and the education of attention” (Gibson, 1986, p. 254). Educators provide normative assessment of the learner’s perception based on the execution of a particular skill in an actual situation: “situated normativity,” as Rietveld and Kiverstein (2014, p. 332, emphasis in original) coined this. The properties of the particular physical environment also require the education of attention: Steep Amsterdam stairs or rain on an icy mountain road provides instant “judgment” of the skill of the one who dares to take on the climb. The particular skills of an individual, in other words, require a familiarity with the socio-material surrounds in agreement with a particular form of life, which provides normative standards (Rietveld & Kiverstein,  2014). In terms of the present article, all this translates into saying that hiking in the forest as a leisure activity takes place in a landscape of leisure affordances, whereby the latter can be understood as nested sociomaterial properties of the surrounds that afford positive feelings of well-being. We now turn our attention to the concrete use of the idea of leisure affordances in a field study, that is, a gateway to understanding what sense families make of their hiking trip and how this translates into the constructs of core and balance family leisure activities. As we will describe in the next section in more detail, we accompanied and interviewed two families on day-long hiking trips through a forest. For the interviews and the analysis, we used a descriptive phenomenological research approach. It has been argued that the Gibsonian approach is congruent with phenomenology. These approaches understand perception, movement, and the body in similar ways, which is best illustrated with reference to Merleau-Ponty (Merleau-Ponty & Smith,  2002). Dohn (2009), for example, stated that [r]eturning to the concept of affordances with the Merleau-Pontian notion of body schema, the two concepts emerge as complementary ways of referring to the fact that concrete situations are, objectively seen, meaningfully structured relative to the actual skills of a particular agent. (p. 161, emphasis in original)

Phenomenological psychologists who followed Merleau-Ponty and Husserl (a founding father of phenomenology) have developed research methods that tease out meanings as these are experienced by a person in a concrete situation. We contend that the phenomenological research method we have used in our study of a family’s hiking trip is consistent with and, in fact, a concrete operationalization of a Gibsoninspired study of leisure affordances.

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Method Descriptive phenomenology aims to uncover the meaning structure of a phenomenon as it appears to the consciousness of those who experience it. As consciousness is primarily concerned with something else than itself, this meaning structure describes the meaningful relationships that the person has with others and the world as well as his or her own place within this. This meaning is as experienced by the person and is not merely a statement about the external world. It is said that phenomenologists refrain from claiming existential truth and rather focus on how the phenomenon and its meaning appear to the person as manifest through his or her interaction with them. In this particular study, we used Giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological method. Giorgi based his research method on Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, but he changed it to enable it to be used in research on other persons than oneself, as is common in qualitative social and human scientific research. Data are typically obtained from people’s everyday life world, which is the “common everyday world into which we are all born and live” (Giorgi,  2009, p. 10). When collecting and analyzing the data, the researcher is to suspend or “bracket” theoretical assumptions about the phenomenon under study. The researcher also makes an effort to minimize his or her own preconceptions about the phenomenon and adopts an attitude of wonder (Merleau-Ponty & Smith,  2002). After the analysis and presentation of data are completed, the researcher can remove the brackets and open up the newly acquired description of the phenomenon for further dialogue with existing research or other rich sources of information about the phenomenon at hand, or, for example, with professional practice.

Participants The data for this particular study were selected from a previous set of data collected in Norway in 2012 to explore phenomenologically the relationship between hiking in nature and experienced sense of well-being (Baklien, Ytterhus, & Bongaardt, 2015). Two of the interviews in that study took place over the course of a day, in contrast to the other interviews that took no more than about half an hour. The present article is based on those two day-long trips. We recruited the two families through their blogs on the Internet where they had posted pictures and text about being a family who enjoy hiking in nature. Both families consisted of a Norwegian mother and father (all in their 30s) and two children (5 and 11, and 8 and 10 years old, respectively). These are typical nuclear families and may represent the ideal of family leisure experiences. In Norway, as in other parts of Western Europe and North America, other family constellations are common (Shaw, 2010). This was also the case in our original data set as referred to above. We joined these two families on whole day trips because they both had a reflective attitude toward hiking experiences (as witnessed by their engagement on

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their Internet site) and were willing to include us in their in situ hiking experience. The third author went along with the families on a trip into the woods and conducted the interviews on the way and during a gathering around a campfire. The trips were focused on activities such as fishing or preparing food rather than walking a long distance. During the activities, individual and family meanings were generated and confirmed as we will describe in depth. Following families with different constellations on a day-long trip would perhaps have revealed different meanings. The impression from our earlier study (Baklien et al., 2015), however, is that experienced meanings in this natural context of hiking in the forest converge into similar themes.

Fieldwork The focus was on the family as a unit and the entire interviews took place with both parents and both children present. This type of fieldwork has been called “go-along” (Carpiano,  2009; Kusenbach,  2003). Following informants in their daily activities, one gets an opportunity to see the phenomenon unfold in its natural setting (Czarniawska, 2007; Ingold & Vergunst, 2008; Kusenbach, 2003). For example, one can go along with informants in the neighborhood, to the shop, to a park, or out in the woods and, at the same time, ask questions and observe how they experience, interpret, and practice such environments (Carpiano,  2009). This method is suitable when the researcher desires to be present in the informant’s “natural” environment to ask questions, listen and observe, and explore life worlds and social practices where the phenomenon takes place (Kusenbach,  2003). While the theoretical framework that we described above helped us to frame the research situation and maintain sensitivity to experienced meanings during the fieldwork, the theory of leisure affordance did not inform the content of meanings that we teased out during the analysis. That is to say, with respect to the meaning content as experienced by the participants, we bracketed our preconception of leisure affordances.

Data Collection The researcher met the families in their respective homes. Both families took the researcher to a bonfire site where the family made a small shelter known as gapahuk. To meet the families before the trip, to learn their names, and to walk along with them to the bonfire site gave the researcher a chance to chat before the interviews and to get an impression of how the family interacted as a unit during the hiking trip. It also gave the researcher an opportunity to create a somewhat informal relationship to avoid the feeling that he was some kind of “inspector” judging the family’s interactions and hiking skills. Some tension was present, however, especially in relation to being a professional researcher, a participant, or being a “good guest” (Yee & Andrews, 2006, p. 407). For example, when the family shared food and coffee with the researcher, he was a guest; when participating in carrying gear or collecting dry wood for the fire, he was a participant; and

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when asking questions, he was a researcher. The interviews were recorded when sitting around the fire. Both families were eager to share their experience. Most of the descriptions came from the parents; the children occasionally joined the conversation, but took part in most of the ongoing activity. The taped interviews lasted approximately 2 hr each.

Data Analysis In our study, two families totaling eight persons participated. The interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Giorgi’s (2009) phenomenological method. The interviews were conducted in Norwegian. In his research method, Giorgi recommends four steps to analyze data. The first step is to read the entire transcript to get a sense of the whole. In Step 2, the transcript is read again, and meaning units are identified. That is to say, when rereading the interviews, the researcher makes a mark in the text when he or she experiences a shift in the meaning. This typically occurs when the participant moves on to another aspect of his or her life world. The 4 hr of interview data showed a typical repetition of meanings. In Step 3, the meaning units are transformed into a cohesive language in an effort to identify the general character of the meaning unit. This is a process of so-called imaginative variation, in which the researcher tries out different formulations of what is said at various levels of generalization. The formulation that captures the meaning of the experience across participants is taken into the final step of analysis. All authors were involved in this third step as well as the fourth step. In the fourth step, the transformed meaning units are synthesized to a consistent statement that expresses the general meaning structure of the entire experience of the phenomenon. The structure must be found in all the interviews to be part of the essence of the experience of the phenomenon. However, in the interpretation of the results of the study, one should be aware that the general meaning structure can never grasp the totality of the original experience (Giorgi, 2009). The researcher has to read “between the lines” and tease out “the coherence between explicit and implicit meanings in the description” (Røseth, 2013, p. 29). That is to say, due to the process of imaginative variation, these meanings appear in the meaning structure in different phrasings than those used by the participants. The fourth step was the opportune moment in the analytical process to make the shift from Norwegian to English. The meaning structure was written in English from its first draft onward, whereas Steps 1 to 3 were conducted in Norwegian. Giorgi’s (2009) research method usually involves at least three separate interviews with different persons who share their views and experiences of the phenomenon under study. The reason for this is that having only one or two participants puts a heavy strain on the imaginative variation; it becomes more difficult to separate the essential from the more incidental meanings. Since our study included two families with a total of eight participants, we judge our data to be sufficiently rich and varied to grasp meanings that are more general.

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Results The phenomenological analysis revealed a general meaning structure of the families’ experience of hiking in the forest. The results are presented as follows: first, the general meaning structure that describes the families’ experience of hiking in the forest. Second, three interrelated constituent parts of the meaning structure are described. These constituents are interdependent and should not be confused with theoretical themes. However, it is common in Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenology to take the essential meaning structure apart and explore its constituents independently of each other for the sake of further analysis and discussion (Von Essen & Englander, 2013). The constituents are presented with reference to quotes from the participants. These were translated into English by a professional translator.

The General Meaning Structure of Hiking Family Leisure The family’s experience is that the upcoming hiking trip to the forest is a continuation and confirmation of their desire as a family to integrate outdoor experiences into the way they live their life. In a sense, this trip had started already when they came home from the previous trip and were pondering about where to go next time, thus prolonging the good feelings that the recent trip had generated. Before the onset of the new trip, they planned when, where, and with whom to go hiking. Although they look forward to the joy that comes with the trip, getting out of the door still implies the mental challenge of leaving behind many things left undone. This is a tension they are aware of and know will dissolve once they are on their way. They pack for the hiking trip in anticipation of encountering a world with physical demands more challenging than those at home. At the same time, they prepare for a simple form of life in choosing to leave behind electronic devices or other luxury goods. Having experienced the simplicity of outdoor life themselves earlier in life, the parents are eager to pass on to their children the manual skills and peaceful frame of mind that come with the trip. While on the trip, the family gradually loses their interest in clock time as they become driven by the length of day given to them by the light of the sun and a campfire. They tune in to the pace of the environment, through which also the pace of the family members becomes more synchronized than it usually is at home. Basic tasks, like fishing, collecting firewood, and preparing and eating a meal around the campfire bring the family together. Individually, a bodily feeling of well-being emerges in congruence with the satisfactory and successful bodily efforts that were made earlier that day—like walking a long distance or climbing a steep slope. Good feelings also come with sitting close together and feeling the warmth of the flames or tasting self-prepared food. An awareness of each person’s well-being as well as being in tune as a family underscores for them the relevance of being outdoors as part of their life. They reinforce family unity during hiking trips by remembering and telling stories about earlier trips. These

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verbal exchanges and reflections converge into a larger narrative that conveys a shared meaningful world that surpasses the family’s everyday life as lived at home, while still being integrated into their family life. We identified the following three constituents integrated in the general meaning structure: (a) simplicity and bodily awareness, (b) joint activity and cohesion in the family, and (c) creating a larger family narrative. Between them, the three constituents underscore that the family is aware of the relevance that they attach to hiking and of their purposeful initiative and endeavor to implement the hiking trips. We propose to characterize this awareness-driven endeavor as an act of hiking leisure. Before we discuss the meaning structure, constituents, and the idea of hiking leisure in terms of the leisure affordance concept, we will describe the three constituents in more detail with reference to quotes from the interviews.

Constituent I: Simplicity and Bodily Awareness The first constituent identifies the individual family member’s interaction with the environment and the positive bodily feelings this evokes. Immersed in the peacefulness of the environment, a sense of simplicity takes over. The mother in Family 2 explains that you “don’t miss the paper and news on TV and stuff like that. Because it means so little when you’re out on a hike.” The father adds that when “you’re out hiking, there aren’t any problems  .  .  .  whatever you’ve forgotten, well, you’ve kind of forgotten it . . . if you forgot to bring a fork, it’s too bad. So you have to find another solution. Make a fork from a piece of wood or something.” The father in Family 1 finds the simple lifestyle in his blackened coffee pot. He says, “. . . it is something about the simplicity. The eternal, somehow. . . . It has great value. Also something to do with the campfire, of course.” The campfire is another token of life taking a turn toward less complexity, “they belong together, campfire and a hiking trip” (Mother in Family 2). This family tells us that they always make a campfire when that is allowed, and sometimes even during summer, when it is forbidden. The father explains that there “is something about the sound. . . . It turns off other thoughts . . . getting cleansed a bit.” And “there’s also something about sitting and staring at the flames; you get a nice warm feeling inside,” the mother adds. However, it is not only the campfire which constitutes bodily awareness, but also the horizon or the soothing movement of water or trees affords a sense of well-being, according to the mother in Family 1: “There’s something that moves, something that’s living. But then, there’s nothing that demands anything.” The family members, each in their own way, dwell in the peaceful physical environment, which is experienced as a distance from obligations and gives a sense of bodily relief and well-being. The father in Family 1 summarizes this as follows: I certainly do lower my shoulders a lot when I get outdoors. At least now in a busy period, I’m almost a bit kind of absent when I’m at home. My mind is somewhere else all the time, very often, with things to be done or that should

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have been done. Now [in the countryside], for example, it’s quite different. Now I’m completely focused in comparison. What you’re doing, where you are.

The first constituent underscores the experiential intertwining of a world perceived as immediately present through its beauty and simpler qualities and the person’s bodily and mental well-being expressed as warmth and relief.

Constituent 2: Joint Activity and Cohesion in the Family The simplicity of the environment invites the family members to see each other in a different light. The forest is without outsiders or intrusive tasks. It affords another way of living, a different form of social interaction, and a sense of “just being a family” sharing activities. A son (Family 1) states that “fortunately there’s no internet in the woods, so Dad cannot work.” His father confirms that he is aware of being more present while hiking and that this enables him to be more open to be together with his children: “it’s easier to get me to join in their playing or something when we’re out [hiking] than when we’re sitting in the living room.” The couple in the other family had this exchange: Mother: I think that for me and [my husband], it’s done a lot for our relationship that we’re so much out on hiking trips. Now we’re out hiking. Here we collaborate, something like that. I don’t like to stand idle with my hands in my pockets until the tent is up, I need something to do. So we have clear tasks, who does what. Father: From the moment we find a site for the camp until we’re lying in our sleeping bags we don’t need a system . . . somehow we both know what the other one does. Mother: And it feels very nice that that’s the way it is. We witnessed some of the interactions between family members. The younger son in Family 2, for example, is helping to build the campfire, when the mother asks the other son: “Can you help him? There are a few longer sticks back there. Find a small branch or a stick that has fallen down there. Oops!” [The boy trips and falls] “Up again.” The father in this family reflects on his experience that they are more together and that he really sees his children when they are out hiking: It binds us more together when we’re here in the forest. . . . Anyway, I feel that when we get out, I’m more able to see the kids properly. . . . It’s like . . . hiking . . . is good, both for the body and for cohesion in the family.

Without distractions and time constraints, the family members become more visible to each other. They literally emerge in a different light. “Now I feel it’s getting really cosy, now that it’s getting darker all around us. Can you see that the campfire’s shining on [the son’s] face, for example? Can you see that,” the father (Family 2) asks the son, “that it’s shining on [the sister]? That’s nice and cosy.” The daughter in the other family notices that her father relaxes more when hiking; “at home he is sometimes a little bit more strict,” she says.

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Sitting around the campfire, sensing the presence of others and the security they provide, the family members experience a gathering point where they are just together. It gives them a sense of being away from others. When they stare into the campfire or fish or eat together, the focus is on what is happening in the situation. The parents experience that time slows down when they become aware that time is no longer filled with obligations but with whatever they feel like doing. They describe their ways of being active together in the moment. The family feels that they can just “be” without doing much. Mother (Family 2):

 lthough we do things and this and that, there’s no A stress involved. If we’re outdoors, there’s nothing we’ve got to do by a certain time, maybe we’ll have to be back home for something, but apart from that, there’s no constant time pressure. Having to go here, go there, do this, do that. Here we can just be, we don’t necessarily do.

Constituent 3: Creating a Larger Family Narrative Simple living replaces comfortable living at home. The family sits on the ground or on some timber and they make simple food like hot dogs with simple means. They actively seek a simpler life because that is part of what they experience as a breathing space. In the breathing space, the family can just stop, see each other through a joint dialogue, and create narratives about themselves. The simplicity is valued and is part of the breathing space that becomes a plot or an event they can attach to their shared family narrative. They retell stories from the distant or recent past to bring forth the sense of being together that provides continuity and belonging. Mother (Family 2):

 ut when we were there at Easter then, when [the B younger son] had his birthday on Palm Sunday. Then we’d made it out of a kind of tarpaulin. We’d made it out of wood and so on, that we’d made like a “gapahuk,” then we were lying there, each in our own sleeping bag, and you look up at the sky and there are thousands of stars. It’s really an incredible feeling. . . . You get a bit of perspective when you’re lying there, looking up to see thousands of stars, and if you look some more, you see even more stars. You get a bit humble or how should I put it.

By telling stories about earlier trips, the family creates a narrative, which also incorporates reflections about why it is important for them to be a family that takes hiking trips— they hike the experience. The young daughter in Family 1 asks, “Mom, wasn’t it fun when we were hiking there where we were with [friend’s name] and there were sheep down there? During the evening the sheep came and stood where we were packing.”

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Son: Father: Daughter:

They were goats. That was another trip. Yes, and then the sheep came and daddy had to chase them away, and they followed him, and he had to hide behind a tree.

The mother in this family tells us that “the trip is definitely good in itself, but there’s something about knowing, ‘Well, now I’ve been out hiking, now we’ve been together and we’ve had fresh air and exercise.’” Her reflections on the relevance of being on family trips then extend to a larger time scale: There’s no doubt about it, I take out the kids because I think they’ll come to appreciate it, or appreciate it and remember later . . . Creating memories, and that has to do with how you yourself remember how it was when you went on a trip.

Even difficult and straining experiences tend to be woven into a narrative that binds the family in a positive manner. As the son in Family 1 recalls, “We were there, and it was actually a bit dirty, but then it was fun to slide down the hill.” Through every hiking trip the family takes, the family’s narrative about hiking is enacted and reshaped.

Discussion In the theoretical section above, we have characterized the hiking trips of the two families as events with a beginning and an end in time and space. As events, these trips are part of a sociocultural practice within a form of life that endeavors to find a place between workaday life and leisure. Family leisure activities are said to enhance family cohesion, increase family satisfaction, encourage positive interaction between family members, and bring novel experience and adaptive strength into the family. Such scientific concepts and theories are abstractions that need to be anchored in an analysis of actual experiences (Pratt, Howarth, & Brady, 2000). In what follows, we discuss how a Gibsonian theory of leisure affordance dovetails with our in-depth descriptive phenomenological analysis of two families on a hiking trip. The meaning structure interweaves three levels of affordances of the hiking trip: First, individual family members experience meaning on a bodily emotional level when they effectuate physical affordances present on the trail and in the forest. Second, interactions between family members during the trip’s events effectuate social affordances of closeness and coherence between the family members. Finally, reflections on the phenomenon of hiking itself as induced by actual events and joint activity as well as the interviewer’s questions effectuate cultural affordances. Between them, these activities constitute the act of hiking leisure. The individual family members engage in activities that the forest affords. Good examples are how a fork is cut out of a stick lying around in the forest, how a campfire is built from what is available in the immediate surrounds, but also the

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enjoyment of the view of a sunset afforded by the waterside and the mirroring effect of the water surface. Through effectuating these leisure affordances, the person experiences a sense of satisfaction and well-being. This takes place at the individual level and seems to imply a limited amount of explicit reflection during the activity—one is immersed in the act of doing what one is doing. The perspective taken is from the first person; the “I” forms the apex of the experience. Moreover, it is “I” who effectuates affordances that offer a counterweight to daily life, balancing out stress and routines. Zabriskie and McCormick (2001) referred to this as balance leisure activities. Yet, these activities make even more sense to the individual person when they are shared with others. Building the campfire is done together with other family members, the view of the sunset is pointed out to the other, implying an invitation between children and parents alike to share the perspective. As such, the environment not only consists of the natural surroundings but also of the rest of the family, so that the nature and other family members afford a wider range of activities. Among these activities are the conversations within the family about the same view (like the starry sky), tasks (like putting up the tent), and artifacts (like the father’s blackened coffee kettle). This shared effectuation of social leisure affordances constitutes the feeling of belonging and togetherness for the family during the trip. In the moment when this happens, it arises between family members without any explicit reflection on this happening itself. The perspective taken is from the second person, that is, between you and me, and the “we” forms the apex of the experience. Between you and me, we effectuate affordances that bring us closer together and confirm the core of our existence as a family. A third perspective is also present, one that reveals a reflective stance on the family hiking experience, putting it in a larger sociocultural context. Especially the parents in the families are aware of the continuity of their hiking trips. The family communicates what is significant and meaningful for them through a narrative that is built out of a collection of memorable events, situations, and feelings generated during their trips. This narrative affords and shapes the families’ conduct because they enact what is inspiring in their life and “what gives life meaning” (Gorro & Mattingly, 2000, p. 11). When the family sings about what they are doing, enjoys the starry night, fishes together, or makes a campfire, they do more than just add words to a narrative; they put their bodily awareness and sense of belonging together into their narrative while being in action. The narrative structure that the family collectively constitutes thus cannot be separated from their experience of it. Narratives help inform and form thoughts, emotions, and perceptions, and vice versa; what is experienced in the present affects how we understand the past and anticipate the future (Goldie, 2000; Heidegger, 1929/1996). The narrative has a motive that lies in the future (Van den Berg,  1972). This concerns the future of not only the family as a whole, but also, more specifically, the children who are given experiences that they can continue in their own family later. One father confirmed this when he told us that he was giving his children an experience that children from other cultures may not get. The cultural affordances illustrate most explicitly the normativity implied in affordances

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(see above, Crossley, 1996; Rietveld, 2012). The perspective taken on the family is embedded in the normative cultural expectation of Norwegian society to use nature optimally as an easily accessible means to promote health and family wellbeing (Riese & Vorkinn, 2002). The apex of this perspective lies beyond the individual family and closer to the family “form of life” (see above) that Norwegian society endorses. At this sociocultural level of understanding, hiking trips are primarily regarded as a balancing leisure activity that functions to promote health and wellbeing as a counterweight to daily life. Yet, at this level, one can also make a case for understanding the family hiking trips as a core activity. The argument then goes as follows: Maclaren (2011), who primarily follows Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological understanding of emotions, differentiates between emotional clichés and authentic passions. She writes, Sometimes life presents us with a genuine question—a question for which we do not have an answer prepared, a question that unsettles and deranges not only the habitual network of meanings that structures our world, but our very sense of self, of who we are and how to live. (Maclaren, 2011, pp. 59–60)

In such situations, one may experience a genuine passion, where emotion takes over and one struggles initially to find a place for it. A sense of passivity characterizes the entire experience, but once one manages to resolve the situation and has broken down habitual ways of living, a new understanding of self and life may arise; novelty has emerged. In this sense, hiking leisure qua balancing out a stressful life is not the creation of novelty, but rather what Maclaren describes as living through an emotional cliché. Cliché is used as a descriptive term rather than a normative judgment of the person or the emotion. It describes the feelings or emotions that accompany the realization of a meaning that one is already familiar with “established routes for making sense of things . . . that reinstitute familiar ways of being” (Maclaren, 2011, p. 58). Emotional clichés work for us, Maclaren (2011) explained, in helping us navigate the physical, social, and cultural world; we assent to “a particular inclination of meaning in [the] perceived world” (p. 59). In terms of the present article, the family realizes affordances with which they are familiar within their form of life and which they expect to bring a sense of belonging and coherence. As hiking trips are fully integrated in the form of life, they can be seen to generate a different existence within everyday life each time they take place.

Conclusion In this article, we have attempted to elaborate on and nuance the understanding of core and balance leisure activities by introducing a conceptual framework and a research setting and methodology that underscore the relational character of perception, action, and experience. Our research has highlighted some of the concrete meanings of these activities as perceived by the family

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members themselves rather than as conceived by theoretical constructs. In doing so, we were able to identify various nested layers of family leisure experiences. “Hiking leisure” becomes a meaningful idea because the experience of “hiking” “hikes” different meanings as part of the leisure activity; some counterbalance everyday life, some strengthen a sense of family belonging, while others prepare the family for its future. We recognize that within the same trip, both core and balance activities are played out at different levels of abstraction, each associated with different types of leisure affordances. In the light of Zabriskie and McCormick’s (2001) model, this illustrates a case in which one and the same activity fulfills both core and balance functions. This aligns with Schänzel and Carr’s (2016) critical evaluation of the core and balance model. They argue that for many present-day family constellations, this duality does not hold, or, as is the case in our study, is applicable to some, not all, aspects of the leisure activity. The phenomenological approach used in this article is often used in the fields of psychology and health care studies where interviews are conducted in an office. The use of a phenomenological in situ approach in the field of leisure studies is not common. One exception is Bischoff’s (2012) phenomenological-­ hermeneutical study of hiking trails and how different persons construct a variety of meanings while hiking on the same trail based on their individual interpretations of its natural surrounds and ideological contexts (as indicated by, for instance, the signs that mark the trail). Earlier we referred to the “going along” methodology. What makes our phenomenological approach different from these studies is that one brackets, whenever possible, theoretical assumptions or common sense assumptions while collecting and analyzing the data. This implies that one also aims to bracket the normative or ideological ideals or critical views in the field in which the research is set. That is, “hiking leisure” was allowed to speak for itself through the mothers, fathers, and children who engaged in it. The fieldwork proved manageable, but challenges remain: Although we opted to tape the interviews and conversations during the hours around the fire for practical reasons, other unrecorded moments during hiking trips may involve conversations that are valuable to analyze at the level of detail that Giorgi’s method provides. For example, transitional moments from walking on a trail to setting up camp or from being engaged in here-and-now actions to talking about experiences from earlier trips may provide valuable information about the shifts between and integration of levels of experiences. Paying attention to such moments in future research may also provide more information about the specific affordances effectuated in hiking and other leisure situations.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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Author Biographies Rob Bongaardt, PhD, is professor of Mental Health. His current research focuses on mental health promotion and the lived experiences of good mental health throughout the life course. Idun Røseth, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and researcher who specializes in mother’s mental illness and its impact on child health. Børge Baklien, PhD, is an associate professor of Mental Health Care. His research focuses on the role of human relationships and dialogue in mental health care.

Hiking the Phenomenological Psychological Method Rob Bongaardt The University of South-Eastern Norway, Notodden, Norway [email protected]

Børge Baklien Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Elverum, Norway [email protected]

Idun Røseth Telemark Hospital, Norway [email protected]

Gaining insight into “the different existence of a Norwegian family on a hiking trip,” which we suggest we do in this article, does not come that easily. Where did the idea to accompany families on a hiking trip come from? How did phenomenology help us to understand what matters to the family? To start with the first question, the idea was Rob Bongaardt’s doing. Born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Rob moved to Norway at the age of 33, at that time lacking a family-with-children experience of his own and quite unfamiliar with Norwegian culture and nature. When colleagues at the university sometimes disappeared only to surface again with sunburned cheeks and proud stories of blisters, he started wondering about their hiking trips. Then students taught him more about this culture of being in nature: In a research project about personal experiences of good mental health, he had asked them to describe situations in which they experienced exactly that. Many resorted to memories of hiking in nature with friends or family. To explore these experiences in depth, a PhD project was developed. Børge Baklien was to take it on. As a social anthropologist, he was already familiar with “being there” where people live their lives, and as a mental health worker he had developed a sensitivity for a person’s ways of “being well.” He therefore had a good

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combination of competencies to study mental health or well-being in situ. Idun Røseth’s practical and philosophical knowledge of phenomenological psychological interviews and analysis completed the research methodological ingredients of the project. Among us, we poured into this project genuine ignorance-­cumcuriosity concerning the family hiking phenomenon, experience of fieldwork, a sensitivity toward people’s experiences of well-being, and a research method developed to analyze the structure of a phenomenon qua its psychological meanings. The ingredients were there, but we had to mix them in different ways than before. Why so? Doing phenomenology as methodologically rigorous and psychologically relevant research was conceived by Amedeo Giorgi in the early 1970s. He developed the method we used in our study in the setting of the Psychology Department of Duquesne University. Exchange visits with staff from European universities frequently took place there and were highly appreciated. The European visitors combined their interest in everyday life phenomena, such as falling asleep, staying at a hotel room or in a child’s hiding place, with deep knowledge of philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. But they had not developed a systematic research method for this, lest the nature of human subjectivity be lost in the process of doing the research. Giorgi found a way to underscore that subjectivity, be true to Husserl’s phenomenology, and be systematic in collecting and analyzing data. Hence his stepwise approach, which we have used in the article. The catch of the method is that it is not empirical but intuitive, that is, it invokes an intuitive (or empathic) sensing of the meaning of a phenomenon as this appears to the consciousness. This consciousness does not belong to the researcher but to an Other. And, as European phenomenologists have emphasized, this consciousness is not located in the head of the Other, but in his or her world-as-lived. It is therefore shareable and accessible to researchers, who can immerse themselves in the world as it presents itself to the Other. It is an intersubjective world. The challenge for our research project was that much of the phenomenological research based on Giorgi’s method accesses phenomena through individuals’ experiences captured in after-the-event writings or interviews. In contrast, Børge set out to accompany families on daylong hiking trips, observing and interviewing them on the spot. We had constituted a research situation where the researcher could be part of the world that the family experienced while hiking, close-up to personal experiences as these unfolded for the family members. As we literally followed them crossing their home doorstep twice, once out of the house and once on the return, we acquired a sense of the whole phenomenon. This is linked to Step 1 of Giorgi’s method of analysis. Step 2 is to make the phenomenon available for detailed analysis by breaking the experience up in smaller bits, so-called meaning units. This implies a loose decomposition of the flow of consciousness in (consecutive) meaningful moments or events, each characterized by a specific attunement to the world. Phenomenology underlines that such meaningful moments can be shared. The family members can share how they are attuned to the world (in fact, such sharing is one of the main points of the family hiking trip). In other words, to understand the phenomenon “family

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hiking trip” the researcher must appreciate that shared meanings show up along with individual meanings, in the fieldwork and the interviews alike. In Step 3 of our analysis, such meanings became highlighted, sometimes more individually toned, other times more shared. During the trip, such meanings involve patterns of divergence and convergence, diastole and systole; the family meanders between acting as one and acting as many. In Step 4, the writing of the meaning structure of the phenomenon, we tried to capture the flow of divergence and convergence via the heuristic of first-, second-, and third-person perspectives. In this way, we stressed that the “whole” of the family hiking experience implies different “parts” with their respective meaning for each of the family members. The hiking experience is about creating a different existence within everyday family life. For us, the collection, analysis, and writing up of the data created a somewhat different existence within research life. The challenge of encountering individuals as part of a family during fieldwork observations and in situ interviews forced our application of phenomenology to move beyond its standard use. This came with the challenge of deepening our understanding of the method with its underlying principles of intuitive sensing in situ and the unfolding of shared meanings in real time.

Chapter Six

Being In-Between The Lived Experience of Becoming a Prosthesis User Following the Loss of a Leg

An ageing population and lifestyle-related illnesses, such as diabetes and ­peripheral vascular disease, have increased the prevalence of leg amputations internationally (Schaffalitzky, Gallagher, Maclachlan, & Ryall, 2011). R ­ egardless of etiology, a leg amputation is usually followed by major physical and psychosocial challenges that severely influence the person concerned (Murray & Forshaw, 2013; ­Norlyk, Martinsen, & Kjaer-Petersen,  2013; Ostler, Ellis-Hill, & D ­ ­ onovan-Hall,  2014; Washington & Williams,  2016). Reduced quality of life (Davidson, Khor, & ­ Jones,  2010; Remes et  al.,  2010), significantly higher levels of social isolation, depression, and post-traumatic disorder (Horgan & M ­ acLachlan,  2004; Remes et  al.,  2010) are reported particularly in the first year after the amputation (Phelps, Williams, Raichle, Turner, & Ehde, 2008). Furthermore, a leg amputation includes an existential dimension that refers to limitation of action space and loss of freedom experienced as an exclusion from life (Norlyk et al., 2013). The prescription of a prosthesis is a key component of the rehabilitation process for persons with lower limb amputation (Schaffalitzky et  al.,  2011; Webster, Hakimi, & Czerniecki, 2012). Several studies have shown a direct link between locomotor capabilities with prosthesis and increased levels of autonomy, self-esteem, and improved social life (Jefferies, 2015; Murray, 2009; Murray & Forshaw, 2013; Schaffalitzky et al., 2011; Senra, Oliveira, Leal, & Vieira, 2012; Zidarov, Swaine, & Gauthier-Gagnon,  2009). However, not everyone will benefit from the provision of a lower limb prosthetics or will learn to master its use. Reported rates of prosthetic use can vary from 49% to 95% (Schaffalitzky et al., 2011), and there is an ongoing concern in lower limb prosthetic rehabilitation with underuse and non-use of artificial limbs (Murray, 2009; Schaffalitzky et  al.,  2011). A growing number of studies highlights the importance of psychosocial support together with physical rehabilitation in facilitating patients’ Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., Hall, E., & Haahr, A. (2016). Being in-between: The lived experience of becoming a prosthesis user following the loss of a leg. Sage Open, 6(3), 2158244016671376.

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prosthesis use (Coffey, Gallagher, Horgan, Desmond, & MacLachlan,  2009; Ostler et al., 2014; Schaffalitzky et al., 2011). Ostler et al. (2014), for example, pointed to a need for psychoeducation interventions and concluded that, within prosthetic rehabilitation, “more time should be dedicated to talking, rather than just walking” (p. 1174). Many persons with leg amputation experience that using a prosthesis enriches their quality of life and greatly increases their psychological health and well-being (Liu, Williams, Liu, & Chien, 2010; Murray, 2004, 2009; Murray & Forshaw,  2013). Murray (2004) found that adapting to a prosthesis was an ongoing activity and that initial problems became more manageable over time. However, Murray (2004) underlined that for potential prosthetic users, there is a critical period between an initial experience of prosthesis use as unnatural to the subsequent feeling of prosthesis use as natural. If this initial critical period is unsuccessful, Murray (2004) argues, patients may tend toward rejection of prosthesis use. In a later study on prosthetic users and their experiences, Murray (2009) found participants describing the process of learning to use an artificial limb as painful and arduous. Some participants even talked about hating their prosthesis initially. This finding of an initial critical period among potential prosthetic users is further supported in a recent qualitative meta-synthesis aiming to identify issues of key concern among people who undergo an amputation and begin using prosthesis (Murray & Forshaw, 2013). The meta-synthesis showed that prosthesis use required both a physical and a psychological adjustment. Facing prosthesis use was an emotional challenge and an ambiguous experience for patients; they often felt both dependent on and limited by the prosthesis. The patients appreciated the benefits that a prosthesis could offer such as independence and freedom; however, they still experienced a profound loss of limb and their former physical capacity (Murray & Forshaw, 2013). Focusing on patients’ expectations of undergoing prosthetic rehabilitation following a leg amputation, Ostler et  al. (2014) found that patients experienced many unknown aspects of the process that followed. They wondered about the rehabilitation process and whether they would eventually learn to master using the prosthesis. The rehabilitations process for potential prosthetic users focuses on establishing a higher quality of life for the individuals concerned. One of the main goals is to enable potential prosthetic users to regain mobility (Murray,  2004,  2009; Zidarov et al., 2009). To improve support and care for potential prosthetic users following a leg amputation, the experience of being supplied with a prosthesis needs further investigation. In-depth knowledge is needed about the process of becoming a prosthetic user, that is, from a perspective characterized by “insiderness” (Todres, Galvin, & Dahlberg,  2014, p. 1). Consequently, the aim of this study was to explore the lived experience of becoming a prosthetic user as seen from the perspective of persons who have lost a leg.

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Method The study was conducted within the framework of Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR). This approach builds on epistemological assumptions from continental lifeworld theory developed by phenomenological philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty (Dahlberg, Dahlberg, & Nyström, 2008). Fundamental assumptions within this methodology are that life manifests itself in experience and that the human body can never be understood merely as a biological thing controlled by the mind. The body is an entity of subject and object; it is a living whole. Human existence means “being-in-the-world” and “the body is the vehicle of being in the world” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p. 94). Through our bodily existence, we relate with things, others, and the world itself, and we constitute meanings through our engagement in the world (Dahlberg et al., 2008). Meaning refers to an original givenness and to how the things present themselves for us in our interrelationship with the world (Dahlberg et al., 2008). In RLR, the question of lifeworld meanings is the focus. Describing the lifeworld meaning is feasible when the researcher approaches participants with an open mind taking nothing for granted. The researcher works by way of a bridled process of understanding to be surprised rather than imposing personal ideas on the material (Dahlberg et al., 2008). Hence, the phenomenological approach opens up the possibility to capture the meanings of becoming a prosthetic user as experienced by the persons themselves prior to any application of theory.

Participants and Setting The participants of the present study were recruited from a Danish university hospital. When their physical condition allowed for prosthetic training, participants received 2 weeks of individualized training by a physiotherapist while staying at the hospital’s patient hotel. The follow-up training was not standardized. Training was planned depending on the participants’ individual needs and the training offers available in the participants’ local community. Inclusion criteria were Danish patients who had undergone a non-malignant leg amputation, discharged to their private homes, and referred to prosthetic training. Six men and two women, aged between 33 and 74 years, participated in the study. The participants had undergone amputation of different etiologies. The characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1. Participants were invited to participate in the study by their physician or nurse. Subsequently, the first author contacted participants who had accepted to participate. Variations in the patients’ physical condition meant that the start of prosthetic training was based on individual assessments. To study patients’ experiences of becoming a prosthetic user while they were living through the process, data were collected through three in-depth interviews with each participant during the first year post-amputation.

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Interviews The first interview took place about 4 weeks post-discharge, while the second interview was conducted 4 to 5 months later. The third interview took place approximately 1 year after the amputation. The researchers had no clinical experience as concerns prosthetic rehabilitation. The first author (A.N.) conducted all the interviews in the participants’ homes. The interviews were meanings-directed and characterized by a dialogue in which the researcher sought to facilitate the participants’ description of the lived experience as detailed as possible (Dahlberg et al., 2008). The first interview focused on participants’ experience of how the amputation had influenced their daily life and on their expectations of the prosthesis. In accordance with the phenomenological approach, the interview questions were not predefined. The researcher approached the participants with an open mind taking nothing for granted. The participants were encouraged to use their own words and to talk about what really mattered to them in the process of becoming a prosthetic user. In the first interview, for example, the opening question was “Please tell me how living with one leg influences your everyday life?” Additional questions were asked to deepen participants’ description such as “What happened next?” or “Please give another example of this?” The second and the third interviews focused on participants’ experiences of becoming a prosthetic user. In all interviews, the participants were encouraged to describe and elaborate on concrete situations from their everyday life. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Ethical Considerations Ethical considerations followed the basic principles for research given in the Helsinki Declaration and the Northern Nurses’ Federation (2003), and the study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency (ID No.116028312). The participants received verbal and written information about the purpose of the study, the right to withdraw, and the confidentiality of the data given. According to Danish law, formal ethical approval of the study was not required.

Data Analysis Interviews were analyzed according to the RLR guiding principles. The researchers focused on discovering patterns of meanings and variations to describe the essential meaning of the phenomenon (Dahlberg et al., 2008). The analysis began with repeated readings of all transcripts to get an overall sense of the descriptions. Then followed a process of carefully exploring each transcript and dividing it into meaning units. Subsequently, each meaning unit was the subject of reflection to discover meanings that disclosed experiential aspects of becoming a prosthetic user. An intensive dialogue with the text characterized this search for meanings exemplified by questions such as “What is being

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said?” “How is it said?” and “What is the meaning?” These questions were supplemented by critical and reflective questions such as “Is this the actual meaning or is there a different meaning?” The emerging meanings were clustered into a preliminary pattern of meanings. Subsequently, a process of open reflection followed to synthesize the meaning units into a new whole that clarified the essential meaning of the participants’ descriptions. As described by Dahlberg et  al. (2008), this open and critical attitude aimed at achieving scientific objectivity during the research process. The researchers took on this attitude and discussed the emerging understandings of participants’ descriptions of becoming a prosthetic user. Quotes from the interviews are provided as examples of explicated meanings.

Findings The essential meaning of becoming a prosthetic user after a leg amputation is characterized by the experience of being in an in-between phase. The participants are neither living their usual life nor are they integrated in the life changes that require them to cope with daily life in new ways. The participants experience the reduced mobility as a reduction of their former life, and the prosthesis symbolizes the lifeline back to their previous active life. Becoming a prosthetic user means that the very act of walking changes from being a natural bodily movement to a planned movement with the prosthesis. Walking with a prosthesis eventually becomes a natural movement as the participant learns to master the use of the prosthesis and acquires the necessary new skills and habits. The ability to move around with the prosthesis is associated with a sense of freedom, independence, and the re-conquering of daily life. However, the participants also experience that becoming a skilled prosthetic user requires committed training, courage, and stamina. In this process, the participants oscillate between victory and defeat. The essential meaning is further elaborated in the five constituents described as follows: Living on Standby, Standing on Your Own 2 Feet Again—Tall and High, Becoming One With the Prosthesis, A Test of Stamina, and Re-Conquering the World.

Living on Standby After the amputation, participants experienced feelings of living on standby in the waiting time between the amputation and the start of prosthetic training. To the participants, the loss of a leg was a major life change, which limited their daily lives. They looked forward to using a prosthesis. The loss of mobility and the dependence on help and walking aids led to feelings of isolation and restricted freedom. Consequently, the participants experienced missing out on life and they frequently despaired. They feared that they would be unable to live the lives

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they had lived before the amputation. The support from family was important in participants’ daily struggles, and they emphasized that their families also experienced major changes and new demands. Participants were afraid of becoming a burden to their partner, and some feared that their relationship could not sustain the change. Normal everyday actions turned into problems, which influenced participants’ self-perception negatively. It is terrible to no longer to be able to do what you used to . . . you get into situations, where you get sad when the wife for instance says: “The handle fell off the bathroom door.” I am a skilled labourer, and have always been able to fix things around the house, and now I suddenly cannot do very much . . . all I think about is to begin wearing the prosthesis and to walk again. (Finn, first interview)

The participants hoped that prosthetic training would enable them to resume former daily routines. Waiting for the prosthetic training was exhausting. It was like being in limbo marking time, doing monotonous exercises, and living on standby. Occasionally I have days where I don’t get anything done. I just turn on the TV and do absolutely nothing . . . it is as if my life is reduced to exercises and more exercises and getting help with everything . . . (Hanna, second interview)

The experience of being in limbo was especially emphasized by participants, who had experienced complications such as prolonged wound healing, which delayed the training. These participants experienced the prolonged waiting time as extremely frustrating and demotivating especially as concerned the preparatory exercises. However, once a fixed time for the start of the prosthetic training had been set, these participants experienced a new surge of energy. Because it took such a long time for the wounds to heal, I have had some serious psychological issues . . . however, now I have an appointment for prosthetic training in a couple of weeks and I just cannot wait . . . However, there was a long phase where I did not have the energy to do my exercises because the prosthetic training seemed to be way into the future. (Finn, second interview)

Standing on Your Own 2 Feet Again— Tall and High Participants experienced the world differently from an upright position. Wearing the prosthesis and standing upright for the first few times was a very emotional experience, which reminded participants that the world is designed for people who walk upright. Being in an upright position signaled normality and

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contributed at a concrete level to the experience that walking again was a real possibility. Furthermore, standing up meant that the symmetry of their personal relationships could be re-established. Standing up and taking the first few steps with the prosthesis was experienced as a victory and a turning point. I feel tall as well as high . . . tall because I’m standing up and not in a wheelchair and high because I can do it. (Hanna, third interview)

Standing up by wearing the prosthesis gave rise to both pride and anxiety. The participants experienced the shorter leg as a considerable bodily change; they needed to familiarize themselves with their new body to re-establish physical confidence and a regain a new sense of balance. The first time I stood up was challenging (laughs) or something (cries) . . . suddenly I was no longer sitting down, but standing on that stilt (laughs) . . . and I was very anxious to see if I would fall over immediately or if my legs would collapse. (Axel, second interview)

Being able to stand and walk again was an experience of both concrete and symbolic significance. The symbolic significance was associated with the meaning of being physically at eye level with other people. To stand up meant re-­ establishing the experience of relating to other people on an equal basis in contrast to communicating from the lower position of a wheelchair. These days, when talking to the neighbour, it is completely different from when I was in the wheelchair. When you are not at eye level . . . it is like . . . people do not address you 100% . . . but now that I am standing up, it is a completely different experience. (Eric, second interview)

Life in a wheelchair created asymmetric relationships. Moreover, participants experienced that the wheelchair limited their opportunity to have physical contact with their loved ones. Standing up and being able to walk meant that they could take the initiative and show their partner love or gratitude. The world is suddenly perceived in an entirely different perspective . . . that is when you have sat down for nearly a year and you then suddenly get up . . . then it is like wow . . . and to stand up and look my wife in the eyes . . . and give her a kiss, hurrah . . . instead of just leaning back and tilting your head to receive a kiss. Now I can also give a kiss . . . and when she cooks and I go to her on my crutches, then she is so happy (moved to tears) . . . (Curt, third interview)

Becoming One With the Prosthesis Although standing up and taking the initial steps represented the first milestone, the participants experienced that the main challenge was to become confident with the prosthesis and to integrate it as a natural extension of the leg. Walking

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with the prosthesis changed from being a conscious act to eventually becoming a new habit that did not require attention. The participants experienced the previously automatic act of “walking” as a new learning process. First of all, they needed to divide the walking movements into many smaller sections they had to remember. You don’t just click on the prosthesis and take off . . . suddenly you need to consider walking in a new perspective . . . Putting one foot ahead of the other, lifting the foot, then stretch the knee and tighten your muscles. All of a sudden there are a number of things you need to control, things that used to be second nature . . . This is probably the hardest thing; the fact that you must think so much about the process of walking . . . previously you just moved your feet. (Axel, second interview)

An unstable balance could be frightening and discourage the participants from trying to walk without the use of a walking stick. In contrast, feeling safe and secure could stimulate participants’ courage to challenge themselves. Participants, who had had the appropriate physiotherapeutic training in the use of a prosthesis in their own home, experienced that this training was of special significance as it helped them to address the hurdles in the home, and to incorporate skills they could not define. Through conducive pressure, the physiotherapist could stimulate the participants’ courage in a way that gave them a sense of victory. When I first crossed our doorstep I felt victorious because I had been looking at it many times. The threshold kept getting higher and higher (laughs) . . . but then the physiotherapist said: “try lifting first one leg and then the second leg across the threshold,” . . . and then I dared to try, when he was around. (Eric, second interview)

As the participants incorporated the new walking routines, the prosthesis no longer required their full attention. At first, the participants experienced this situation in flashes of insight, as they suddenly realized they had moved around without paying attention to the prosthesis. This only occurred when the prosthesis did not cause pain or discomfort. Having faith in the skills of the surgical appliance maker and being taken seriously about problems with the prosthesis became decisive to the participants’ experience of the fit of the prosthesis. Not until the various daily routines of the use of the prosthesis became second nature did the participants experience the prosthesis as a fully integrated aid. You need to create a day-to-day life, where you do not think so much about it anymore. It needs to become a routine that you need to put on a sock in the morning, and remember to wash it before going to bed in the evening . . . it should be like brushing your teeth. Something you do without even thinking about it. (Daniel, third interview)

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A Test of Stamina The participants experienced that becoming a prosthetic user required stamina. The building up of muscle mass and the training in using the prosthesis were constant focal points in their daily lives. Professional support helped them optimize the experience of becoming increasingly capable and the training program at home became very significant. However, participants could occasionally experience that the prosthetic training became too dominant as illustrated below. I do not intend to spend my entire life learning to walk with the prosthesis . . . after all, I am 77 years old and, you know, I feel that there are other things in life as well . . . My physiotherapist now seems to think that I should also wear the leg in the afternoon . . . but then there will be no time for anything else but walking with the prosthesis, . . . so I will not (emphasis) do that . . . there should also be time left for other activities. (Gretha, third interview)

Even if the participants expected to adapt to the prosthesis, they were often surprised that several types of prosthesis adaptations could occur, had high expectations of every single adaptation, and were disappointed if problems with the prosthesis recurred. For participants who had pains in the remains of the leg or who needed several prosthesis adaptations, these ongoing adaptations were experienced as particularly challenging. Recurring adaptations affected both participants’ stamina and belief in the prosthesis negatively. Participants, who experienced adaptation difficulties and temporarily had to make do without their prosthesis, feared that their training was wasted. They experienced feelings of extreme adversity and doubted they would ever succeed in becoming adept at using the prosthesis. This further challenged the stamina necessary to resume the prosthesis training. In those situations, the wheelchair could become a tempting alternative to the challenge of the prosthesis. The wheelchair was an easy option; it offered comfort and made no demands. It has been a long summer because I had just begun walking and then the prosthesis was torn away from me for 6 weeks . . . that broke my spirit somewhat and I have been fairly defaitistic. (Curt, second interview) . . . This is my third leg in 4 months and every time I have been so disappointed . . . because . . . it did not work after all and then began another long waiting period . . . I am at a standstill again. I just start walking and then I am back to sitting down . . . and finally the wheelchair becomes a kind of a refuge . . . because you know you can trust it . . . But now that I have my leg again, my mood improves. But it is like starting all over again . . . It is hard work . . . It is like pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, because I must (emphasis) move on. (Curt third interview)

Participants who sought information about this difficult part of the process found that the information accessible tended to give an unrealistic picture of becoming a prosthetic user and of the stamina required.

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On YouTube you see the start-up, then you see how quickly persons with leg amputations succeed . . . then you think it is going to be a piece of cake to get to that stage. You do not get an impression of the roadmap and how difficult the process has been for these successful people . . . you only see the beginning and the end . . . you are not told of the phase between (emphasis) beginning and end . . . and I wasn’t aware of that middle phase. (Finn, third interview)

Re-Conquering the World Depending on the degree of regained mobility the participants strived to reconquer a daily life that resembled their previous lives. Being able to walk with the prosthesis, however, regenerated experiences of freedom and independence. Succeeding in resuming previous activities or traditions was a victory. The participants experienced they were moving toward the re-conquering of everyday life although it was a different kind of everyday life. Some participants regained a high degree of mobility and were able to walk without stick, while others had to use a walking stick. Walking without any aids at all remained the ultimate dream for some participants. I dare not have too high hopes . . . But I do have a dream that I can walk down the street without a stick for support, that is a big dream (emphasis) . . . and it would be a major victory for me to go shopping without anyone realizing that I walk with an artificial leg. (Hanna, third interview)

Other aids such as a handicap car or a crosser also contributed to the participants’ mobility and helped them to regain their former everyday life. The participants experienced their dialogue with the municipality as a struggle if they needed to justify evident needs such as the need for training or necessary aids. After seven months the municipality thought I would be walking normally . . . and that I would no longer be needing my electric scooter or my wheelchair! . . . And then I thought, but hello . . . I need to sit in the wheelchair to rest if I get a pain in my leg . . . But that is what they assumed! I quickly get annoyed with them. (Burt, second interview)

To recapture everyday life, participants continually had to conquer their fears and challenge their skills in terms of using the prosthesis. When unexpected hurdles occurred, their newly gained confidence with the prosthesis was challenged, and once again, the unconscious use of the prosthesis became a conscious act. Recently we were in the theatre . . . and there was a hell of a lot of people there, and God help me if all those people were not sitting on the stairs next to the railing . . . and I had to walk up those stairs. I was just standing there . . . I could not just tell those people to move . . . so I simply plucked up my courage and walked up the stairs without talking hold of the railing . . . It turned out not to

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be a problem . . . but occasionally I get a bit, you know, out of sorts. (Daniel, third interview)

In spite of the many positive aspects, the participants had to reconcile themselves to the fact that life with a prosthesis would never be the same as before. When I waited for the wound to heal, I thought, well, when I get the prosthesis, then I will be able to do everything again . . . but it is just not true, because you are still handicapped . . . So even if you get the aid, and it works out well, it is still a downer. (Finn, third interview)

Discussion By exploring participants’ lived experiences, the findings of the present study highlight the existential nature of becoming a prosthetic user. The main finding is that the participants were in a state of in-between existence. They felt disconnected from their usual lives and not yet integrated in a new and different life with dependency of prosthesis or appliances. In this in-between existence, the participants were oscillating between experiences of victory and defeat. They hoped to be able to return to their former, normal life; however, they were also vulnerable. To become a prosthetic user required a high degree of stamina and resilience particularly if prolonged healing of wounds or several adaption processes of the prosthesis delayed the training. Congruent with previous studies (Jefferies,  2015; Liu et  al.,  2010; Murray, 2009; Murray & Forshaw, 2013), the present study found that beginning to use a prosthesis limb was of deep personal significance and constituted a turning point for participants. Being in an upright posture meant more than equality in interpersonal relations. Being upright gave a sense of normality and made participants’ hope of walking again a real possibility. With reference to Strauss’s philosophy, Abrams (2014) and Rusczek (2014) argued that the upright posture is what characterizes the human species. It is linked to being autonomous connoting independence, mobility, and physical strength. Other studies exploring persons’ experiences of living with a prosthesis point out that prosthesis use provides autonomy, independence, and freedom (Dunne, Coffey, Gallagher, Desmond, & Ryall, 2015; Hafner, Morgan, Abrahamson, & Amtmann, 2015; Murray & Forshaw, 2013). Exploring how walking is understood among healthy people Darker, Larkin, and French (2007) found that walking is obviously a primary form of transport for human beings; however, walking was also constituted as “an experience which takes one out of the world, and into an inner realm” (p. 2178). This indicates that walking refers to a more profound existential dimension as also demonstrated in the present study. Our main finding of the in-between existence contributes to increased understanding of the initial critical stage among prosthetic users as previously reported (Murray,  2004; Murray & Forshaw,  2013; Ostler et  al.,  2014). Murray and Forshaw (2013) found that the use of prosthesis use was an emotionally ambivalent

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experience. The users appreciate the benefits of the prosthesis while experiencing a profound loss. As demonstrated in the present study, the process of becoming a prosthetic user involves existential and conflicting experiences of being betwixt and between the former life and a new life. The state of being betwixt and between is addressed within an anthropological perspective (Turner, 1987). Turner (1987) related the position to cultural changes such as social position and age. He builds on Van Gennep who proposed a tripartite structure of rites of passage explaining how individuals pass through different phases of transition. First, a pre-liminal phase of separation from the old position; second, a liminal phase referring to mid-transition; and finally, a post-liminal phase in which individuals become assimilated and socialized into the new position (Turner, 1987). Turner (1987) pointed out that the liminal state represents an in-between and vulnerable position in which the individual is disengaged from one role, and has not yet engaged in a new role. Turner (1987) characterized the liminal phase as a no-place in which individuals are in limbo. Although becoming a prosthetic user does not necessarily imply that all patients pass through Turner’s three phases, the present study highlights that the liminal phase in particular seems integral to the process of becoming a prosthetic user. More importantly, the findings highlight the critical stage related to the incorporation of new skills and roles as well as identity changes. This critical stage is characterized by uncertainty and the experience of being in a void. The present findings demonstrate that potential prosthetic users are particularly vulnerable in the liminal phase especially if several adaptions occur and they have to do without the prosthesis for a period of time. In these situations, patients might lose their belief in the prosthesis as a future appliance, and the wheelchair becomes a tempting alternative. In this context, the findings contribute to a potential explanation of the underuse and non-use of artificial limbs (Murray, 2009; Schaffalitzky et al., 2011). Furthermore, the present study highlights that for patients to benefit from prosthetic use requires resilience to overcome hurdles and challenges especially during the in-between transitional process. Although resilience is seen as an important concept in the transitional process of learning to cope and adapt to life in chronic illness (Aburn, Gott, & Hoare, 2016; Kralik, van Loon, & Visentin, 2006; Quale & Schanke, 2010), resilience is given less attention in research addressing the concerns experienced by persons who have undergone a leg amputation. A number of studies have been carried out to understand how patients adapt to the new life situation. Focus has been on coping strategies (Couture, Desrosiers, & Caron, 2012; Oaksford, Frude, & Cuddihy, 2005) and patient’s psychological reaction to the artificial limb (Donovan-Hall, Yardley, & Watts, 2002; Grobler, 2008; Senra et al., 2012). These studies report dominant themes such as low self-esteem, changes in self, and struggles to accept a new identity as disabled. These aspects all point to the complexity of the transitional process among prosthetic users. One study, however, reports resilience as the main finding (Livingstone, Mortel, & Taylor, 2011). This particular study, however, refers to patients who have undergone a diabetesrelated foot or leg amputation rather than prosthetic users

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in general. The authors found that despite the participants’ sense of grief and loss post-operatively, participants revealed remarkable ability to endure and remain sufficiently resilient to perpetuate hope (Livingstone et  al.,  2011). Similarly, the present findings show that resilience is an important factor in the process of becoming a prosthetic user. The findings point out that participants’ resilience was under pressure if they constantly experienced challenges. Examining the resilience of patients in physical rehabilitation settings, Quale and Schanke (2010) found that resilience is the most common response to a severe physical injury and point to a need for identifying the strengths of an individual when faced with adversity rather than his or her weaknesses. The findings of the present study support this suggestion and point to a need to direct attention beyond mere physical and medical aspects. The findings stress the importance of addressing patients’ experiences of the in-between existence that seems to be inherent in the process of becoming a prosthetic user. This implicates a need for health care professionals to meet these patients from the perspective of lifeword-led care (Galvin & Todres, 2013; Todres, Galvin, & Dahlberg, 2007). This perspective rests on a phenomenological framework to caring that acknowledges the complexities of the individual patient’s lifeworld and emphasizes the importance of being sensitive to existential issues concerning the patient’s world (Dahlberg, Todres, & Galvin, 2009; Galvin & Todres, 2013). Embedded in this approach is an existential view of well-being that focuses on the experience of well-being as an inner resource important to patients facing health-related challenges (Dahlberg et al., 2009; Galvin & Todres, 2013). This resource-oriented approach to care is particularly relevant to support patients in the initial critical phase in which they have lost their former life and need to re-conquer life as a prosthetic user.

Study Limitation The present study is limited by the fact that all participants are from a country in which they can be referred to prosthetic training regardless of income. This fact may have resulted in experiences potentially different from experiences of patients from other cultural backgrounds. The number of participants corresponds with the notion that within a phenomenological framework, sampling is concerned with gathering depth and richness of the experience rather than demographic variation and size (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003; Norlyk & Harder, 2010). However, the fact that most of the participants had full walking ability prior to the amputation may have influenced the findings. Consequently, persons with longterm walking impairment prior to an amputation may experience the process differently.

Conclusion The study contributes to existing knowledge by providing insights into the existential nature of patients’ experiences of becoming a prosthetic user following a leg amputation and adds to increased understanding of the initial critical stage

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of becoming a prosthetic user. After the amputation, the participants felt disconnected from their usual lives. They had not yet adapted to a new life in which their quality of life depended on their ability to master using a prosthesis. As found in the present study, the in-between existence was inherent in the process of becoming a prosthetic user. This in-between existence takes its toll on patients’ recovering process. In summary, the present phenomenological study highlights that for patients, a prosthesis is not merely a technological fix. To benefit from prosthetic use requires resilience to overcome challenges during the in-between transitional process.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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Dunne, S., Coffey, L., Gallagher, P., Desmond, D., & Ryall, N. (2015). Beyond function: Using assistive technologies following lower limb loss. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 47, 561–568. Galvin, K., & Todres, L. (2013). Caring and well-being—A lifeworld approach. Oxford, UK: Routledge. Giorgi, A., & Giorgi, B. M. (2003). The descriptive phenomenological psychological method. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes, & L. Yardley (Eds.), Qualitative research in psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design (pp. 243-273). Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Grobler, I. (2008). Re-defining self after limb loss: A psychological perspective. Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 32, 337–344. Hafner, B. J., Morgan, S. J., Abrahamson, D. C., & Amtmann, D. (2015). Characterizing mobility from the prosthetic limb user’s perspective: Use of focus groups to guide development of the prosthetic limb users survey of mobility. Prosthetics and Orthotics International. First published online May 5, 2015 doi:10.1177/ 0309364615579315 Horgan, O., & MacLachlan, M. (2004). Psychosocial adjustment to lower-limb amputation: A review. Disability & Rehabilitation, 26, 837–850. Jefferies, P. L. (2015). ‘Just normal’: A grounded theory of prosthesis use (Doctoral thesis). Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland. Kralik, D., van Loon, A., & Visentin, K. (2006). Resilience in the chronic illness experience. Educational Action Research, 14, 187–201. Liu, F., Williams, R. M., Liu, H., & Chien, N. (2010). The lived experience of persons with lower extremity amputation. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19, 2152–2161. Livingstone, W., Mortel, T. F., & Taylor, B. (2011). A path of perpetual resilience: Exploring the experience of a diabetes-related amputation through grounded theory. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian Nursing Profession, 39, 20-30. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2005). Phenomenology of perception. London, England: Routledge. Murray, C. D. (2004). An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the embodiment of artificial limbs. Disability & Rehabilitation, 26, 963–973. Murray, C. D. (2009). Being like everybody else: The personal meanings of being a prosthesis user. Disability & Rehabilitation, 31, 573–581. Murray, C. D., & Forshaw, M. J. (2013). The experience of amputation and prosthesis use for adults: A metasynthesis. Disability and Rehabilitation, 35, 1133–1142. Norlyk, A., & Harder, I. (2010). What makes a phenomenological study phenomenological? An analysis of peer-reviewed empirical nursing studies. Qualitative Health Research, 20, 420–431. Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., & Kjaer-Petersen, K. (2013). Living with clipped wings-patients’ experience of losing a leg. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 8, 21891. Northern Nurses’ Federation. (2003). Ethical guidelines for nursing research in the Nordic countries. Oslo, Norway: Sykepleiernes Samarbeid i Norden. Oaksford, K., Frude, N., & Cuddihy, R. (2005). Positive coping and stress-related ­psychological growth following lower limb amputation. Rehabilitation Psychology, 50, 266–276. Ostler, C., Ellis-Hill, C., & Donovan-Hall, M. (2014). Expectations of rehabilitation following lower limb amputation: A qualitative study. Disability and Rehabilitation, 36, 1169–1175.

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Phelps, L. F., Williams, R. M., Raichle, K. A., Turner, A. P., & Ehde, D. M. (2008). The importance of cognitive processing to adjustment in the 1st year following amputation. Rehabilitation Psychology, 53, 28–38. Quale, A. J., & Schanke, A. (2010). Resilience in the face of coping with a severe physical injury: A study of trajectories of adjustment in a rehabilitation setting. Rehabilitation Psychology, 55, 12–21. Remes, L., Isoaho, R., Vahlberg, T., Viitanen, M., Koskenvuo, M., & Rautava, P. (2010). Quality of life three years after major lower extremity amputation due to peripheral arterial disease. Aging Clinical & Experimental Research, 22, 395–405. Rusczek, J. (2014). Living the upright posture with a disability: Challenges and lessons for a philosophical anthropology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 42, 98–101. Schaffalitzky, E., Gallagher, P., Maclachlan, M., & Ryall, N. (2011). Understanding the benefits of prosthetic prescription: Exploring the experiences of practitioners and lower limb prosthetic users. Disability and Rehabilitation, 33, 1314–1323. Senra, H., Oliveira, R. A., Leal, I., & Vieira, C. (2012). Beyond the body image: A qualitative study on how adults experience lower limb amputation. Clinical Rehabilitation, 26, 180–191. Todres, L., Galvin, K., & Dahlberg, K. (2007). Lifeworld-led healthcare: Revisiting a humanising philosophy that integrates emerging trends. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 10, 53–63. Todres, L., Galvin, K. T., & Dahlberg, K. (2014). “Caring for insiderness”: Phenomenologically informed insights that can guide practice. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 9, 21421. Turner, V. (1987). Betwixt and between: The liminal period in rites of passage. In L. C. Mahdi, S. Foster, & M. Little (Eds.), Betwixt & between: Patterns of masculine and feminine initiation (pp. 3-20). La Salle, IL: Open Court. Washington, E. D., & Williams, A. E. (2016). An exploratory phenomenological study exploring the experiences of people with systemic disease who have undergone lower limb amputation and its impact on their psychological well-being. Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 40(1), 44–50. Webster, J. B., Hakimi, K. N., & Czerniecki, J. M. (2012). Prosthetic fitting, use, and satisfaction following lower-limb amputation: A prospective study. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 49, 1493–1503. Zidarov, D., Swaine, B., & Gauthier-Gagnon, C. (2009). Life habits and prosthetic profile of persons with lower-limb amputation during rehabilitation and at 3-month followup. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 90, 1953–1959.

Author Biographies Annelise Norlyk, PhD, is an associate professor in nursing, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research focuses on patients’ and relatives’ experiences of the transition from hospitalization to recovery at home, research ethics and qualitative research methodology. Her work is informed by phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches. Bente Martinsen, PhD, is an associate professor in nursing, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research is concerned with, peoples’ experiences of physical dependency and ageing. Methodologically her particular

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interests are phenomenology and hermeneutics and the resulting methodological implications. Elisabeth Hall is a professor emerita in nursing, Department of Public Health, Health Aarhus University, Denmark and adjunct professor at Department of Nursing, Faculty of Natural and Health Sciences, University of the Faroe Islands. Her area of interest is caring, family nursing, research ethics and qualitative research methodology, and she has published extensively in these areas. Anita Haahr, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Bachelor programme in Nursing, VIA University College, Skejby, Denmark. Her research interests concern the lived experience of chronic illness, research ethics and hermeneutic phenomenological research methodology.

Caught Up Between Ethics and Methodology Reflections Addressing the Unintended Presence of a Participant’s Partner During a Phenomenological Interview Annelise Norlyk Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark [email protected]

Within healthcare contexts, it is relevant to explore the life-worlds of patients to gain a deeper understanding of how they experience different situations connected to their illness. Having conducted many phenomenological studies within healthcare contexts, we have experienced that despite careful planning, interviews with patients often raise unexpected and challenging questions of an ethical and methodological nature, particularly with the unintended presence of a patient’s partner. Scrutinizing research studies, we have found that the unintended presence of a partner during interviews is rarely addressed. Although not reported we nevertheless believe that the presence of a partner occurs often and, as researchers, we should expect this. In the following, we illustrate how the interviewer (AN) was caught up in a dilemma between ethics and methodology in the study of becoming a prosthetic user due to unintended presence of participants’ partners during interview sessions. AN describes some of her reflections in the following paragraphs: The participants had received written information about the study, emphasizing that the focus was to be the interviewees’ experiences of becoming a prosthetic user following the loss of a leg. Sometimes the participant’s partner was at home during the interview. On five occasions, I experienced that coffee was prepared and the table set – with three cups. When the interview was about to start, some partners left the room. But three partners stayed. In those situations, I wondered if it would be ethically sound to ask the partner to leave. Separating a married couple in their own home was difficult even though the participant had been prepared beforehand through

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the written information about the study. They were in a vulnerable situation. In addition, asking the partner to leave the room could imply that I thought they kept secrets from each other. Following my intuition, I once asked for a separate interview referring to methodological requirements. In the other situations, I chose a pragmatic solution for ethical reasons and dealt with the presence of the partner. On one occasion, the participant’s partner spoke for the first 20 minutes of the interview to tell me how she had experienced their life situation changing after her husband’s loss of a leg. Sometimes I perceived that the presence of the partner helped the participant recall memories. The presence thus seemed to contribute with nuances and to the depth of the interview. If the partner had stayed in the background, the participant would occasionally shout to the partner something like “isn’t that right, Betty?” I reflected on whether this could serve as a kind of confirmation of the information given or was a way to check if the partner was listening. This unintended presence of the interviewee’s partner made me wonder if or how the partner’s presence influenced the knowledge gained from the interview. Further, I reflected on how to act to secure sound research and at the same time be sensitive toward the participant’s partner. Despite my concerns, there was no doubt in my mind that these partner interviews contributed important data. But I wondered how I could account for the data in our phenomenological study.

Reflections on the Unintended Presence of a Partner AN’s description demonstrates how ethical and methodological aspects are interwoven. Ethical matters made AN change the form of the interview. However, this methodological compromise subsequently led to necessary speculations regarding impact on the knowledge gained. Giving preference to methodological considerations could violate ethical aspects and vice versa. To reflect further on potential consequences of the unintended presence of a partner, we searched out studies discussing issues related to interviewing couples together. Some studies reported that interviewees may be hesitant to contradict each other (Bjørnholt & Farstad, 2014; Forbat & Henderson, 2003), or that the presence of a partner might make the participant give conventional rather than honest responses (Paterson, 2003). Other studies reported that interviewing couples together contributes to generate data that would not be obtained through individual interviews because partners supplement each other’s stories or introduce fresh issues for discussion, thus providing rich data (Morris, 2001; Taylor & de Vocht, 2011). Norlyk, Haahr, and Hall (2016) argue that interviewing couples together potentially changes the focus toward shared experiences of the phenomenon under study rather than capturing the individual perspectives. Consequently, the unintended presence of the partner during the interview sessions produces data different from individual interview data. The phenomenological study that we contribute to this volume concerns participants’ lived experiences of becoming a prosthetic user. The presence of the

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partner might have altered the obtained insight into the participant’s perspective. However, considering the studies conducted on interviewing couples together as we reflected on the data collected in our study, we came to the conclusion that the interviews with the unintended presence of a partner had given us insight into the couple’s shared experiences. Given the premise that these interviews contributed important data, as perceived by AN, we wondered if this could be legitimized in phenomenological methodology. In his phenomenological methodology, Merleau-Ponty (1995/1945) stresses that a perceived thing is always perceived as having a certain figure against a background, and Merleau-Ponty used figure and background as the way to discover the appearing phenomenon. To work in terms of figure and background is also important in the specific work with phenomenological interviews (Dahlberg, Dahlberg, & Nyström, 2008). Due to this aspect, we found that, because the presence of the partner also had given us data about the couple’s shared experience of the phenomenon under study, these data could serve as background when the participant’s perspective was the figure. Consequently, when using a phenomenological research approach, the presence of a partner does not necessarily mean invalid data. On the contrary, it can be seen as a possibility to provide complementary data to individuals’ perspectives. Our reflections demonstrate the importance of the researcher’s ethical awareness and ability to act in the unique interview situation. Of equal importance are the researcher’s methodological considerations about the knowledge gained when something unexpected happens during data collection. In our study, the specific phenomenological research approach served as a necessary guide with regard to answering if or how the interview data provided relevant knowledge.

References Bjørnholt, M., & Farstad, G. R. (2014). “Am I rambling?” On the advantages of interviewing couples together. Qualitative Research, 14(1), 3–19. Dahlberg, K., Dahlberg, H., & Nyström, M. (2008). Reflective lifeworld research. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur. Forbat, L., & Henderson, J. (2003). “Stuck in the middle with you”: The ethics and process of qualitative research with two people in an intimate relationship. Qualitative Health Research, 13(10), 1453–1462. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2005). Phenomenology of perception. London, UK: Routledge. Morris, S. M. (2001). Joint and individual interviewing in the context of cancer. Qualitative Health Research, 11(4), 553–567. Norlyk, A., Haahr, A., & Hall, E. (2016). Interviewing with or without the partner present? An underexposed dilemma between ethics and methodology in nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(4), 936–945. Paterson, B. L. (2003). The koala has claws: Applications of the shifting perspective model of chronic illness. Qualitative Health Research, 13(7), 987–994. Taylor, B., & de Vocht, H. (2011). Interviewing separately or as couples? Considerations of authenticity of method. Qualitative Health Research, 21(11), 1576–1587.

Ethnography An ethnographic study takes an emic (or insider) approach focusing on human society with the goal of describing and interpreting the culture of a group. Historically associated with the field of anthropology, ethnography has come to refer to both the approach (how the researcher conducts the study) and the product (a cultural description of human social life). This dual use of the term has led to some confusion in what is called ethnography; that is, the mere use of datagathering techniques associated with ethnography, such as fieldwork, does not result in an ethnographic study unless there is a cultural interpretation of those data. It provides an account of people’s experiences and stories from their own words and environment by calling on researchers to immerse themselves in the world of the participants to better understand the meaning in the participants’ behaviors and culture (Fetterman, 2010). Culture, the cornerstone of ethnography, has been studied from a number of perspectives. One common approach is to view culture as the knowledge people have acquired that in turn structures their worldview and their behaviors. Working from this framework, the researcher would be interested in describing what people do, what they know, and what things people make and use. Another approach, called critical ethnography, applies a critical ontology to the examination of culture through the lens of power, prestige, privilege, and authority due in part to an ethical responsibility to address injustices and achieve positive social change (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Ethnography was traditionally conducted by a single researcher in a specific geographical location, like an anthropologist researching in a remote village in Alaska, but more recently the concept of who conducts the research and the setting of the research has broadened. Today ethnography might be conducted with researcher as participant within a culture through autoethnography, or similarly with two or more researchers as researchers/participants (co-constructed, bricolage, duoethnography), or through collaborative, team, multisite, or organizational ethnography. There is also an increase in the study of virtual communities and the products and cultures they create through digital ethnography or netnography. Netnographers use archival and communications functions of Internet-based technologies and resources – such as blogs, social media, message

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boards, and websites – to understand the human experience in the technology age (Kozinets, 2015). Regardless of the underlying theory, participant(s), or setting, an ethnographic study involves extensive fieldwork wherein the researcher becomes intimately familiar with the group being studied with an emphasis on serendipity, reflexivity, and openness (Rivoal & Salazar, 2013). As Cerwonka and Malkki (2008) note, “Fieldwork is always already a critical theoretical practice; a deeply and inescapably empirical practice; and a necessarily improvisational practice” (p. 6). Immersion in the site as some degree of participant observer is the primary method of data collection for ethnography, whether that means living in the community, being present on a campus and during classes at a school, sitting in on the meetings and work engagements of a business unit, or playing and interacting with others in a multiplayer online game. In addition to field notes, formal and informal interviews, and the collection of documents, records, and artifacts, along with a researcher’s diaries, journals, and memos that capture their personal feelings, ideas, impressions, or insights, can serve as data sources. At the heart of an ethnography is “thick description” – a term popularized by Geertz (1973). “Culture,” he writes, “is not a power, something to which social events, behaviors, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can be intelligibly – that is, thickly – described” (p. 14). The write-up of ethnography is more than description however. Although ethnographers want to convey the meanings participants make of their lives, they do so with some interpretation on their part (Wolcott, 2008). Ethnographers arrive at the cultural interpretation of their data through various data analysis strategies such as the use of inferences or preexisting category schemes to organize and analyze their data (Agar, 1983). For example, Lofland and Lofland’s (2006) categories and subcategories for organizing aspects of ­society – the four broadest of which are economy; demographics; “basic situations of human life,” including family, education, and health care; and the environment, both “natural” and “built” (p. 104). Others have used visual methods such as ethnoarrays. Abramson and Dohan (2015) describe the ethnoarray as a means of display to assist the ethnographer in discovering the contextual richness of data relationships for insights that are both confirmatory and exploratory. Whatever the origins of the concepts or themes, some sort of organization of the data is needed to convey to the reader the sociocultural patterns characteristic of the group under study. It is not enough, then, to describe the cultural practices of a group; the researcher must also depict their understanding of the cultural meaning of the phenomenon. As Van Maanen (2011) notes, “the trick of ethnography is to adequately display the culture (or, more commonly, parts of the culture) in a way that is meaningful to readers without great distortion” (p. 13). Researchers present their ethnographies in a myriad of formats from scripts for ethnodramas, to live performance, to documentaries. Or, because ethnographies can be lengthy due to intense and prolonged engagement in the field, many, like the work of Kurie (2018), Maggio (2017), and Vaught (2017), are published as books. With that said, there are still numerous ethnographies published

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in academic journals. What follows are two such studies – one an embodied ethnography and the other an autoethnography. The first in this volume, by Ribeiro (2017), sought to understand why people box and how they became involved in boxing as a serious leisure activity. He does this by framing the design as embodied ethnography. That is, he took an immersive, participant-observer role that aided in his ability to understand the culture of the boxing community he was engaging in. The reflection he writes addresses this approach in more detail and offers new insights into the bodily apprenticeship he undertook to gain access to a culture of controlled violence. The second, by Grenier (2016), is an autoethnography derived from her experiences as a Fulbright scholar in Iceland. She draws from a variety of data sources to understand what she calls her cultural in/competence – the successful and unsuccessful interactions and experiences from her work and personal life while living in Iceland – and interprets those through human resource development and adult learning scholarship. In her reflection, she provides specific strategies for novice autoethnographers to manage the research process, including writing memos, peer debriefing, and finding a “critical friend.”

References Abramson, C. M., & Dohan, D. (2015). Beyond text: Using arrays to represent and analyze ethnographic data. Sociological Methodology, 45(1), 272–319. Agar, M. H. (1983). Inference and schema: An ethnographic view. Human Studies, 6(1), 53–66. Cerwonka, A., & Malkki, L. H. (2008). Improvising theory: Process and temporality in ethnographic fieldwork. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fetterman, D. M. (2010). Ethnography step by step (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York, NY: Basic Books. Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Kurie, P. (2018). In chocolate we trust: The Hershey Company town unwrapped. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lofland, J., & Lofland, L. H. (2006). Analyzing social settings. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Maggio, R. (2017). Liquidated: An ethnography of Wall Street. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Rivoal, I., & Salazar, N. B. (2013). Contemporary ethnographic practice and the value of serendipity. Social Anthropology, 21(2), 178–185. Van Maanen, J. (2011). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Vaught, S. E. (2017). Compulsory: Education and the dispossession of youth in a prison school. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wolcott, H. F. (2008). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press.

Chapter Seven

Boxing Culture and Serious Leisure Among North American Youth An Embodied Ethnography In this paper, I discuss how I followed in the footsteps of Loïc Wacquant (2004) and took a closer and personal look at boxing as a leisure activity, from the point of view of those who participate in it, using embodied ethnography as the means of research. I was curious as to how and/or if leisure theory relates and applies to boxing, given the latter’s peculiar characteristics, which seem to equate it more with “work” than with “leisure.” I sought to answer a basic question, “Why do you box?” within these theoretical and methodological frameworks, and discovered that, while Robert Stebbins’ casual/serious leisure dichotomy applied to boxing, the reality was far more complex than I had anticipated. The ethos of boxing did not fit neatly into any theoretical classifications, and the participant nature of the research allowed for a more nuanced analysis of boxing culture, with surprising results. Implications for leisure theory and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: Boxing, Embodied Ethnography, Culture, Behavior, Casual Leisure, Serious Leisure

In 1983, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association argued that “boxing should be banned from civilized countries” (Lundberg, 1983, p. 250), with another author in the same issue (Van Allen, 1983) calling boxing a “deadly degrading sport” (p. 250). Three years later, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson, the “baddest man on the planet,” defeated Trevor Berbick by TKO in the second round, conquering the WBC Heavyweight Championship, and becoming the youngest (aged 20 years and 4 months) heavyweight champion in history. By doing so, Mike Tyson also reignited the American public’s interest in boxing, lost since the great days of Joe Louis, “Sugar” Ray Robinson, and Muhammad Ali (Oates, 1987). Since then, appeals to ban boxing have continued (Lundberg, 1984, 1986, 2005) and these, combined with the meteoric popularity of other combat sports (Gentry, 2005), such as jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts Ribeiro, N. F. (2017). Boxing Culture and Serious Leisure among North-American Youth: An Embodied Ethnography. The Qualitative Report, 22(6), 1622.

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(MMA) as well as a host of other factors, have contributed to the decreased popularity of boxing both as a sport and as a leisure activity (Anasi, 2002). Existing academic research on boxing has concentrated almost exclusively on the (negative) clinical effects of boxing as a physical activity (e.g., Jordan et al., 1997; McCrory, 2007; Mendez, 1995). Although there is a wealth of popular literature on boxing (e.g., Liebling, 1956; Oates, 1987; Toole, 2000) and “how-to” manuals (e.g., Frazier & Dettloff, 2005; Halbert, 2003), sociological and anthropological studies focusing on boxing are less common (e.g., Anasi,  2002; Coates,  1999; Sekules, 2000; Sheard, 1997; Wacquant, 2004; Weinberg & Arond, 1952). The latter invariably fall into one of two categories: those done from an etic1, or outsider’s perspective (e.g., Hargreaves, 1997; Sheard, 1997; Weinberg & Arond, 1952), or those studies which acknowledge that an emic, or insider’s perspective is best suited to study boxing (e.g., Anasi, 2002; Wacquant, 2004). The emic approach has been championed in particular by Loïc Wacquant (e.g., 2004), whose boxing (auto)ethnography in the black suburbs of Chicago, Body & Soul, has received much praise2 (e.g., Krueger & SaintOnge, 2005; Stoller, 2005). Regardless of their epistemological stance, boxing scholars have mostly focused on three distinct areas of research: a) the social and economic conditions that are thought to be both the demiurge and the milieu of boxing, and the subsequent impact of boxing on the individuals who engage in it and on society as a whole (e.g., Sheard, 1997; Sugden, 1987; Wacquant, 1995, 2004); b) issues of gender, masculinities, and feminism and their relation to boxing (e.g., Hargreaves, 1997; McNaughton, 2012; Nash, 2015; Wacquant, 1992; Woodward, 2004); and c) phenomenological accounts of boxing as an extremely demanding physical and mental activity and, as such, worthy of research (e.g., Anasi, 2002; Wacquant, 1995a). Thus far, studies of boxing as a leisure activity, are rare (e.g., Donnelly,  1988; Carter, 2003). In this paper, I discuss how I followed in the footsteps of Loïc Wacquant (2004) and took a closer and personal look at boxing as a marginalized leisure activity, from the point of view of those who participate in it. I was particularly curious as to how and/or if leisure theory relates and applies to boxing, given the latter’s peculiar characteristics, which seem to equate it more with “work” than with “leisure” (Wacquant, 2004). Furthermore, my research takes place in a non-stereotypical boxing gym, that is, situated in a fairly affluent college town in Pennsylvania, where the vast majority of the participants were undergraduate or graduate college students, and seem to regard boxing not as a possibility to escape (literally or metaphorically) undesired socio-economic conditions, but merely as a leisure activity. I was interested in investigating if boxing at could be considered leisure or work, especially for those who are “serious” about it. Given the demands and rigors of training (translated, as I mentioned before, in a higher drop-out rate than for other activities), and the fact that, for the majority of the participants, such work will not culminate in a fight, one would expect  On the distinction between etic and emic see, for example, Headland, Pike, and Harris (1990).  So profound was the effect of Body & Soul on the academic circles that a whole issue of the journal Qualitative Sociology (Vol. 28, Issue 2, July 2005) was dedicated to Loïc Waqcant’s (2004) work.

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participants to classify boxing at as leisure. It is a freely chosen activity (“no one is forcing me to be here”), it is done in one’s “economically free-time” (Kaplan, 1975, cited by Henry, 2001, p. 5), and furthermore, one has to pay to do it. In regard to the latter (pecuniary remuneration in exchange for participation in a leisure activity), and given the respect and admiration that boxers enjoy and naturally appreciate, boxing is not unlike Veblen’s (1994 [1899]) notion of “conspicuous leisure” (p. 35). The fun that many participants experience derives from learning a new set of skills and putting them into practice. Finally, I was curious to see if any parallels between the ethos of boxing (which stresses hard work, camaraderie, and absolute dedication) and the socioeconomic background and values of the participants could be established. My main research question (one that I asked myself as well) was “Why do you box?” Additionally, I asked two additional questions, namely “How did you get involved with boxing?” and “Why do you like boxing?”

Serious Leisure The conceptual framework I used for the study is that of serious and casual leisure. Given the ethos of boxing, that revolves around relentless acquisition of new skills and aprimoration of the body, built on relentless discipline and almost exclusive devotion to the sport, the acquisition of new skills in order to ­participate/engage in higher levels of the sport is paramount. Further, the distinction between amateur and professional boxers mirrors the casual/serious leisure dichotomy (Stebbins, 2007). Robert Stebbins coined the term serious leisure in the midst of collecting data for his “fifteen year project” of research on amateurs and professionals who formed a long-term commitment to a leisure activity (Stebbins & Elkington, 2014). Serious leisure refers to the “systematic pursuit of an. . .activity that participants find so substantial, interesting, and fulfilling that, in the typical case, they launch themselves on a (leisure) career centered on acquiring and expressing a combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience” (Stebbins, 2007, p. 5). Those who participate in serious leisure do so for the experience of it (the intrinsic reward) and generally attain a high level of performance. They have a sense of self-identity related to the activity and are often involved with social groups engaged in the same activity. For example, someone who participates in serious leisure related to skiing is likely to define him or herself as a skier and be heavily involved in social groups related to skiing (Stebbins, 2007). Research has yet to explore boxing specifically from the perspective of serious leisure, but past literature has suggested that sport and other types of physically active leisure can be ideal settings for serious leisure (e.g., Heo et al., 2012; Stevens-Ratchford, 2016).

Methods This study can best be described as an embodied ethnography (Bernard, 2002; Creswell,  1998; Wacquant,  2004). Through participant observation (Lichterman, 1998; Ribeiro & Foemmel, 2012) and in-depth interviews (Weiss, 1994), I tried

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to record patterns of behavior, social systems, values, beliefs, and understandings, in order to generate a “thick description” of life in the gym (Geertz, 1973, p. 3). As much as possible, I observed and participated in daily life at the gym, in order to garner enough knowledge about boxing life so that I could not only understand what goes on in the gym, but also be able to participate in a meaningful way (Wolcott, 1999). By doing so, I attempted to “place specific encounters, events and understandings into a fuller, more meaningful context” (Tedlock, 2000, p. 455), that of boxing as a leisure activity.

The Body as a Research Tool An embodied ethnography involves the use of the body as an actual research tool, that is, one’s own body becomes the/one of the medium(s) through which experiences are lived, catalogued, and analysed. Embodied ethnography(ies) acknowledge the physical presence of the anthropologist in the field as necessary, and recognizes that such presence, while impacting the cultural milieu which the scholar seeks to study, in condition sine qua non for sound analyses of culture (Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1987). Furthermore, the physical presence among those the scholar seeks to study and understand aids in the comprehension of culturally prescriptive and culturally proscriptive behaviors (i.e., what one should and should not do as part of a given culture: “culture can be understood to be embodied and sustained and developed in practice, interaction and disposition” (Turner, 2000, p. 53). The body memorizes and internalizes the praxis of a given culture; nowhere is that more evident than with boxing, where the most minute movements, and combinations of movements, must be practiced over and over again, thousands of times, so that they become memorized by the body and consequently become instinctual. The boxer need not think about he is going to do; his body should do the thinking for him. As training progresses, the body of the boxer changes; so does the researcher’s; the relentless punishment withstood both in training and in the ring (sparring or fighting), leaves its toll on the body and imparts painful lessons, never to be forgotten. As Waquant (2004) points out, imbedded in a boxer’s body is an entire culture; and with time the astute observer/researcher learns to recognize the marks of careful training, skills, and devotion to the “sweet science.” Given the type of questions asked, and the fact that a thick description of a particular culture is only possible through immersion in that same culture (Geertz, 1973), an ethnographytype study was deemed the most suitable methodology. I wanted to not only describe what was going on at the gym, but also understand why it goes on the way it does (Bernard, 2002). Out of the five “traditions of inquiry” (Creswell,  1998), ethnography appeared to be the one that would provide the best results in this particular case. Intent on staying in shape and wanting to escape the claustrophobic rigors of academia, I enrolled in a boxing class at Pete’s Gym3, in a mid-size college town

 Fictional name.

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in Pennsylvania. Mirroring the academic calendar, to each academic semester corresponds a block of classes and, with the exception of summer, rest periods correspond to typical academic vacation periods (e.g., Christmas, Thanksgiving). Depending on the participant’s skill and previous experience, Pete4, the owner and manager, places him or her in the appropriate level class. Although I had had some previous experience with combat sports (e.g., kickboxing, Thai boxing) when younger, I knew very little about boxing, and was thus placed in the beginner’s class. Although I had not intended to conduct research on boxing when I first joined the gym, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I disclosed my identity as a researcher to Pete, Daniel (an advanced boxing student who was instructing the more advanced boxing classes), and my gym mates (Fine, 1993). By then, I had already established rapport (Henderson, 2006) and was considered a “regular” at the gym, and Pete, Daniel, and my boxing mates were supportive of my research project. Over the course of the next three years, I conducted fieldwork by means of participant observation (ranging from non-participant observation to complete participation), structured and semi-structured interviews with coaches, athletes, and students, and accompanied my gym mates in several of their endeavours both inside and outside the gym as much as possible. I took copious fieldnotes throughout, but refrained from doing so while I was in the gym unless I was interviewing someone (Van Maanen, 2011). After leaving the gym, I briefly wrote down my impressions of the day (i.e., “jottings” – see Emerson et al., 2011), and composed and enlarged my notes at the end of each day. I tended to focus on the “regulars” – about 20-30 people (all male), who attended classes or boxed on a regular basis, along with a handful of coaches and instructors. Of these regulars, I conducted lengthier (>3 hours) interviews with two coaches and five athletes. I used purposeful and snowball sampling (Patton, 2005) to select my informants: I was primarily interested in the regulars who (a) had been boxing for more than one year; (b) were over 18; (c) were “serious” about boxing, meaning that they saw and experienced boxing as an integral part of their lives; and lastly (d) boxers with whom I had established closer rapport and were more familiar with the purpose and details of my study. On two instances, one of the coaches suggested someone: “You should talk to (. . .) he’s been boxing for a long time and he’s got a good shot (at becoming a good boxer).” Other times still, serendipity dictated who to talk to, as when I bumped into one of my gym buddies at the university library and he inquired as to what I was doing. When I mentioned that I was writing about the gym for a class project, he sat down with me and answered my (multitude of) questions, in a most fortuitous encounter for me. For the interviews, I followed a semistructured model (Seidman,  1998) wherein I began by asking some icebreaker questions (e.g., age, place of origin, occupation, major in school, future career, etc.), followed by some questions on when/where/how the participant(s)

 To protect the participants’ anonymity and ensure confidentiality, all names have been changed.

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had begun his interest in boxing, past boxing/related sport(s) experience, their perceived level of skill, aspirations for the future, and the importance that boxing played in their lives. In addition to these preliminary questions, I asked two main questions of all participants: “Why do you box?” and “Why do you think others box?” The interviews were fluid, and I allowed participants to interject, bring up other topics, asked followed up questions, etc. Often, I followed up on a new topic brought up by the participant (e.g., past martial arts history, drop-out rate of athletes after the first semester of classes, decrease in boxing popularity among the general public vs MMA, etc.). Often, I checked my findings against what more senior athletes (i.e., who had been boxing for more than 2 years, or with the gym for more than 3 years), thought. These were informal affairs, where, taking opportunity of a lull in “gym life,” I would, notebook in hand, check perceptions, analysis, or discuss events that were pertinent to my research question(s). This study was conducted in accordance with my academic institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols for studies conducted under the supervision of senior faculty as part of a course project.

Data Analysis Analysis of data followed canon in ethnographic fieldwork, drawing on the traditions of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and phenomenology (Rogers, 1983). I sought to understand why the participants boxed, on their own terms, and allow, as much as possible, data to rise to the surface without any preconceived assumptions. I worked primarily from my fieldnotes, analytical memos (Emerson et al., 1995), and interview(s) shorthand/notes. Interestingly, participants were uncomfortable with digital recording of the interviews, which I tried in the beginning. Instead, I used shorthand and took copious notes during the interviews, often stopping the speaker mid-interview to make sure I had gotten a particular quote correctly – these the participants were perfectly able and willing to do. Further, it was not uncommon to have participants return to me a few days later to expound on something they had said earlier and that I had noted down – they were very patient and courteous with my many questions and requests for repetition. I used the qualitative analysis software QSR NVivo to organize my data and assist in the analysis. Data was initially coded using open coding, noting and recording “words and phrases that identify and name specific dimensions and categories” (Emerson et al., 1995, p. 150). I also wrote analytical memos on particular topics, or “core themes” that I felt were important (Emerson et  al., 1995), or that I had noted as important in my fieldnotes; often a particular event at the gym (e.g., a sparring session between two uneven opponents) spurred the need to enlarge that day’s fieldnotes on a larger memo (e.g., on sparring as a defining moment in an aspiring boxer’s trajectory). I then recoded the data using axial coding, based on the interrelations between the open codes, attempting to piece together a coherent picture of life at Pete’s Gym (Charmaz, 2006; Creswell, 1998).

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I further narrowed down the number of codes using selective coding, attempting to bring them under the umbrella of an overarching theme or or set of themes that I after many re-reads of the data, subsumed the boxing experience at Pete’s Gym, and answered my main question “Why do you box?” adequately.

Reliability and Validity I used a number of procedures in this study in order to verify accuracy of data, confirm evidence, and assure representativeness of findings (Creswell,  1998; Golafshani,  2003; Miles & Huberman,  1994). Creswell (1998) recommends “qualitative researchers [to] engage in at least two” out of eight possible verifying procedures (prolonged engagement, triangulation, peer review, negative case analysis, clarifying researcher bias, member checks, thick description, and external audits; p. 203). First, I used multiple sources and methods of collecting data (Denzin, 1978; Webb et al., 1965). As was mentioned before, data were collected using participant observation and in-depth interviews. Additionally, comparisons with similar studies were established (vide supra), and alternative sources of information (e.g., informal conversations with boxers, other ethnographies, non-academic works) were used. Second, one of the researcher’s mentors, acted as a “peer debriefer” (Creswell, 1998), meeting with the researcher once a week in debriefing sessions. Third, I engaged in negative case analysis, that is to say, I “refine(d) (. . .) working hypotheses (. . .) in light of negative or disconfirming evidence” (Creswell, 1998, p. 202). Namely I worked under the assumption that boxing may not have been as important for all the participants in the study. Whether it occurred or not (see findings below), an ongoing process of “looking for negative evidence” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 271), done not only by the researcher, but by the peer debriefer as well, will strengthened the study. Fourth, researcher’s bias (see below) were clarified from the onset of the study, and permanent reflection on how the same has affected the processes and outcomes of the research occurred throughout the study (Naples,  2003). Fifth, I conducted periodic member checks, so that I was sure that I “got it right.” Finally, I attempted to generate a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of the boxing experience, ensuring “transferability” of information gathered to other settings (Creswell, 1998). At the onset of this study, I positioned myself as a white, single, heterosexual, male, with all the cultural baggage that such condition entails (DeVault, 1999; Kimmel,  2000), in line with the participants in this study (all were white, single, heterosexual males, with the exception of one of the coaches who was married, and a boxer who was African-American. No doubt cultural, race, gender and sexual positions played a role in the outcome of the study (Naples, 2003). What is more, although I possessed some past martial arts/combat sports experience, I knew precious little about boxing and still entertained pre-conceived notions about boxing in general and boxers in particular, most of which generated by the media and non-scholarly readings, which I tried to reflect upon and negotiate as much as possible. Peer debriefing and member checks stood

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out as means of addressing these issues. It is also possible that the mere presence of the researcher influenced the outcome of the research (Bernard, 2002; Creswell, 1998). If, on one hand, the researcher must abandon the “naïve view that the fieldworker is a mere observer outside and independent of the observed phenomenon (Emerson, 1987, p. 78), on the other hand the researcher must also try not to purposefully influence either participants or settings, as it would no doubt taint the results of the study. I endeavoured to adopt a permanent reflective stance, as well as a critical view of settings, participants, meanings, and myself (Naples, 2003).

Amateur Boxing as a Leisure Activity Pete’s Gym is situated downtown, between a motel and a fast-food franchise outlet, within walking distance to campus. It is a medium sized gym, with two levels, and the usual equipment one would expect to find in a martial arts/boxing gym. The main area of the gym (lower level) consists of a large open space, dominated by the ring, where the heavy bags and double-end bag stand, and with a large mirror lining the outdoor wall. To the right of the ring are a few cardio machines and the weighting scale, along with two vending machines, on top of which sits the round timer. To the left of the ring is an open area where classes are held, and separated from a workout/weight training area by a long canvas curtain hanging from the ceiling. Two doors on the opposite wall lead to the locker rooms and Pete’s office, respectively. A tall iron stairwell leads to the upper level, and entrance to the gym is done by a side entrance. Originally a martial arts academy, Pete’s Gym is not a “traditional” boxing gym, that is to say, it offers activities other than boxing, such as kickboxing, MMA (by far the most popular activity), Muay Thai (Thai boxing), Filipino martial arts, self-defense, youth martial arts, and personal fitness and weight training lessons. Pete’s Gym is also a co-ed gym, with the kickboxing classes being offered for females only. Furthermore, a significant percentage of the members of the gym are youngsters (aged 8-16), who are enrolled in a number of youth martial arts classes. Indeed, taking into account the number of participants, boxing is the least popular activity at the gym, with smaller-sized classes and a higher drop-out rate than any other activity. Thus, Pete’s Gym is not the “typical” boxing gym, as described in most of the existing boxing literature: it is not situated in a “black ghetto” (Sugden,  1987; Wacquant, 2004), nor is it particularly well known for turning out top contenders or even well-known boxers (Anasi, 2002; Beattie, 1996; Woodward, 2004), minus one or two exceptions. Nor is Pete’s Gym an enclave of violence and masculinity, where women are barred entry and only men are accepted to learn the “manly art” (Hargreaves, 1997). In summary, Pete’s Gym is a small martial arts/boxing gym, singly owned and operated, common to so many others throughout the country (Tharrett & Peterson, 2006). What distinguishes Pete’s Gym from other boxing gyms is precisely the less dominant role of boxing as an activity within the gym (particularly when compared with more popular and more lucrative

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activities such as MMA), and the (almost complete) lack of interaction between the boxers, the coaches, and other gym members outside the space of Pete’s Gym. In this regard, Pete’s Gym seems to be for many of its members a sort of “third place” (Oldenburg,  1999) that is to say, a place which is neither home nor work, but where they find fulfilment through social interaction and symbolic belonging (Oldenburg & Brisset, 1982)

Why Do You Box? Over the course of three years of fieldwork, I gradually learned that there is not one, but many reasons that draw participants to boxing. Some merely see in boxing a way to stay in shape, others see it as a natural progression from other sports, such as wrestling, others still wish to learn some basic techniques of selfdefense. Unlike other, more boxing-oriented gyms, especially those situated in large metropolitan areas (e.g., Frasier’s Gym in Philadelphia, PA; Gleason’s in Brooklyn, NY), it is not the prospect of a boxing career, often as an alternative to unemployment or worse, especially in disadvantaged urban areas (see Sammons, 1988; and Weinberg & Aron, 1952) that draws participants to boxing at Pete’s Gym. For example, to my knowledge, only one boxer, Kenneth (aged 19), had dreams of becoming a professional boxer. Another boxer, Mark, a young man of fifteen, joined under the advice of his father (who will often accompany him to workouts and observed from a distance). Thus, a host of personal factors seemingly come into play as the origin of the decision to join Pete’s Gym boxing classes. The drop-out rate of boxing is high: from beginner classes with almost twenty students, the numbers dwindle rapidly as the semester progresses, and most advanced classes have ten students or less. Time constraints and the physical demands of boxing, coupled with the academic and extra-curricular activities of collegiate life (the latter especially) contribute to trim the numbers of the participants, to the extent that Pete has been forced to change the regular boxing classes’ schedule on Fridays (from the usual 7:30pm-8:30pm to 5:30pm-6:30pm) due to low attendance. Only the most dedicated boxers will frequent the gym outside of scheduled class periods, and a clear distinction is made between those who are “serious about boxing,” as Daniel (the head boxing instructor) puts it, and those who are not. Interestingly, there seem to be no negative repercussions for those boxers that miss a class or even a number of them, sometimes for extended periods of time (I have been guilty of the same myself, especially towards the end of the semester). Other than an occasional “Where have you been!?” or “Long time no see!” returning students are welcomed to class without sanction or penalty, and they are not treated differently (from what I could see) afterwards. Naturally, they must be brought up to speed on the material (boxing techniques) that they have missed, but that seldom disrupts the class, nor does it cause any (visible) irritation to the instructors. This stands in contrast with existing literature on the relationship between boxers and their trainers/coaches (Coates, 1999; Wacquant, 2004),

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which stresses that “the coach plays an important role in the self-development of a boxer and in building a trusting relationship” (Coates, 1999). In such cases, missing a workout is an unpardonable sin, a sign of lack of interest from the boxer, and cause of concern and/or punishment by the coach (Wacquant, 2004; Weinberg & Around, 1952). At Pete’s Gym, there seems to be little emotional attachment between the coaches and their students, at least not to the extent reported in “boxing-only” gyms (Anasi,  2002; Beattie, 1996; Sugden,  1987; Toole,  2000; Wacquant,  2004). This study’s preliminary findings point toward a lack of personal and emotional investment from both the coaches and the boxers at Pete’s Gym, but especially from the latter ones, who (with some exceptions, which I will discuss later) regard boxing as another leisure activity, for which they pay a price (the monthly gym fee – $50.00) that in turn entitles them to come to boxing class or not, depending solely on their will. Therefore, the question “Why do you box?” takes added meaning when asked to those who, like Daniel, are “serious” about boxing. The following quotes from a semi-structured twohour long interview with Daniel (age 30), in a downtown bagel shop, illustrate how he first got interested in boxing: I’ve been a fan of boxing my whole life, I always used to watch the fights, since I was about 14. I’ve always been interest in self-defense, in being able to depend just on myself (. . .) I did karate, kung-fu, and wrestling (. . .) Then in about (. . .) when I came here [for graduate school] I think it was 2003, I saw the sign (to Pete’s Gym) (. . .) and then I joined in 2005 (. . .) I wanted to box and also to stay in shape, I wanted to get in better shape.

Daniel has fought three times at the amateur level and, although he lost all three fights, that has not diminished his enthusiasm for boxing, nor has it dampened his desire to improve his skills and return to the ring: You know, I only fought three times – I feel I need more fights – and I lost all three (laughter), but I loved it (. . .) people fighting, screaming (. . .) what a great feeling! (. . .) you’re in there fighting to win (. . .) I lost, and I wanted to get back in the ring.

The exhilaration of the fight itself is common amongst the “serious boxers” at Pete’s Gym who, despite constituting the minority, are looked upon with awe and respect. Pete’s Gym is also, for a number of boxers, an antechamber for the University’s collegiate boxing team, of which Daniel is now the assistant coach. They feel that working out at Pete’s Gym will give them an advantage over “all the other meatheads” during the demanding tryouts for the team and increase their chances of being accepted (which seemed to be true – all of my boxing mates that tried out for the team were eventually accepted). These two worlds – Pete’s Gym and the University’s Boxing Team – intersect in more ways than one, but further research is needed to draw any definite conclusions as to their relationship.

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Finally, Daniel’s opinion on why people in general and boxing students at Pete’s Gym in particular like boxing and subsequently join Pete’s Gym to learn how to box is an evident sign that he has reflected on this matter: Why? (. . .) There is a range of possibilities (. . . .) Well, this is a college town, so the reasons are more narrow (. . .) I would say self-defence, fitness, and because it’s enjoyable, it’s fun (. . .) There’s a definite pattern, you know, they’re not jocks, they’re not thugs (. . .) they’re smart, nice kids, well-spoken, that make a conscious decision to want to box (. . .) maybe for self-defence, to build confidence (. . .) and [kids] that can afford it (laughter).

Thus, it seems that at first glance, the decision to join a boxing class at Pete’s Gym is not a product of one’s (disadvantaged) socioeconomic environment, in contrast with most existing literature (e.g., Hauser,  1986; Wacquant,  1992; Weinberg & Arond, 1952). Other factors, mainly of a personal nature, usually rooted in one’s childhood (e.g., being bullied at school) also manifest themselves as reasons why one wants to learn how to box. Moreover, given the everincreasing corporatization and politization of culture and leisure, (Henry, 2001; Rojek, 2000; Schiller, 1989), boxing provides a sort of last refuge for an authentic and pure means of expression, different from mainstream society’s sanitized and overly health conscious leisure activities (e.g., Caldwell, 2005). As Daniel puts it, For us [those that box, i.e. me and him], boxing is a rite of passage (. . .) it’s a test of manhood (. . .) we of more privilege, feel we have to prove our manhood (. . . .) You know, someone once asked Pete just to stand in the ring (. . .) That’s right, just to stand in the ring (. . . .) That’s what it means [to box] (. . .) how many people are fascinated and look at you in awe (. . . .) You need guts and talent [to] (. . .) be able to do it [Daniel, 30, personal interview, March 30, 2008].

Daniel’s remarks echo Zoja’s (1989) thesis on the “modern search for ritual,” which states that modern society’s inability to “provide institutional initiation” (p.  3), leads individuals to seek such rites of passage elsewhere, namely their leisure pursuits. Moreover, Sammons (1988), posits that modern society’s fascination with boxing lies in human nature and society itself: “Supported by a culture that values physicality and manliness, boxers pursue a sport at once scorned and glorified for its violence by a confused people who have prided themselves on civility and modernity but cling to atavistic instincts” (p. 251). This desire to cling on to something pure, untouched, not dependent on favor, politics, or influence, but based on hard work, skill and guts alone is something that most “serious” boxers at Pete’s Gym, as well as Pete himself, appreciate and value as an intrinsic part of the sport. The blue-collar values of hard work and acceptance of punishment (both physical and mental), which are at the core of the ethics of boxing (Wacquant,  1995a), seem strangely out of place in a hegemonic society where most leisure pursuits are

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massified (Larrabee & Meyersohn, 1958), commercialized (Baudrillard, 1970; Plumb, 1973; Rojek, 2000) and stripped of their intrinsic value (Linder, 1970; Urry, 1995). Nevertheless, this working-class view of leisure in general and boxing in particular finds support in Durrenberger and Duka’s (2008) research on the “gospel of work.” In their dual research in white Central New York and the hinterlands of Eastern Pennsylvania, these authors have found evidence of working-class values and beliefs, such as hard work, frugality, and community spirit, i.e. the “gospel of work,” which stand in direct opposition to the current hegemonic notion of “meritocratic individualism,” i.e., the “gospel of wealth” (Carnegie, 2006 [1900]). It is my belief that such working-class values are still very much present in a number of (marginalized) leisure activities (Floyd et  al., 1994), but further research is needed before definite conclusions can be drawn in regard to the applicability of the “gospel of work” hypothesis to boxing as a leisure activity at Pete’s Gym.

Amateur Boxing as Casual and Serious Leisure Boxing at Pete’s Gym was a far more complicated matter than it seemed at first sight, and boxing itself constituted a complicated nexus of practices that occurs within a particular social space (Bourdieu 1984). First, there was a marked distinction between boxers who were “serious about boxing” as one of my informants put it, and those who were not (the vast majority). For the former, boxing was undoubtedly serious leisure: they persevered, found leisure careers and identities in boxing, exerted significant effort in the acquisition of new skills, derived durable benefits from the activity, and shared in boxing’s unique ethos (Stebbins 2007, pp. 11-13). For those who weren’t “serious,” or, merely “want[ed] the t-shirt (that proclaimed their status as boxers/fighters),” boxing at Pete’s constituted casual leisure. The exhilaration of the fight itself is common amongst the serious boxers at Pete’s Gym who, despite constituting the minority, are looked upon with awe and respect by all others, no doubt because Pete’s Gym was also, for a number of boxers, an antechamber for the local college boxing team, which Daniel also coaches. They felt that working out at Pete’s Gym gave them an advantage over “all the other meatheads” during the demanding tryouts for the team and increase their chances of being accepted (which was true – all of my boxing mates that tried out for the team were eventually accepted). These two worlds – Pete’s Gym and the University’s Boxing Team – intersected in more ways than one, and the serious boxers tended to gravitate towards the team sooner or later, or abandon the activity altogether. Interestingly, for an even smaller minority, boxing could be considered project-based leisure but nonetheless with a high level of involvement and emotional attachment to the sport: because the majority (if not the totality) of the boxers at Pete’s were college students, many of the older ones wanted to box only until they graduated, thus

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devoting themselves fully to boxing for a few years and then abandoning it. As Ralph, a senior, put it: “This is it man (. . .) this is my last chance (. . .) you know we won’t have another opportunity like this (. . .) we won’t have the time to box when we get jobs.” Moreover, given the ever-increasing corporatization and politization of culture and leisure, (Henry 2001; Rojek 2000; Schiller 1989), boxing provided a sort of last refuge for an authentic and pure means of expression, which was often equated with a rite of passage of sorts, the lack of which in modern life most participants bemoaned, in eloquent and less than eloquent terms.

Discussion The findings of this study point towards the applicability of Stebbins’ (2007) serious leisure framework to amateur boxing in the context of Pete’s Gym. Stebbins (1997, pp. 17-18) defined serious leisure as the “systematic pursuit of an amateur, a hobbyist, or a volunteer activity sufficiently substantial and interesting for the participant to find a career there in the acquisition and expression of a combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience,” whereas casual leisure is “immediately, intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasurable activity requiring little or no special training to enjoy it.” No doubt for the “serious” boxers at Pete’s, amateur boxing was very serious business indeed, but what to say of all the others? While it was true that for the majority of participants at Pete’s Gym boxing was nothing more than a “short-lived pleasurable activity,” a great deal of training was necessary to enjoy it, as I discovered at my own expense. Even for the least dedicated of boxers, each workout was challenging in itself, and thus forced each individual to keep him or herself in shape and learn an entire new set of skills. Furthermore, attachment to a certain boxing culture, or boxing ethos, particularly in regard to the conspicuous display of items that denoted one’s status as a boxer, was a characteristic of some of the “less serious” boxers at Pete’s. These findings support and extend existing research that used Stebbin’s serious leisure framework to explain emotional involvement in other leisure settings, such as Gibson et al.’s (2002) study of college football fans. Boxing at Pete’s Gym serves also as an illustration of the often tenuous difference between leisure and work, and the “common ground of two separate worlds” (Stebbins, 2004). Given the demands and rigors of training and the fact that, for the majority of the boxers at Pete’s, such work will not culminate in a fight, one would expect participants to classify boxing at Pete’s Gym as leisure. It is a freely chosen activity (“no one is forcing me to be here” – said a participant), it is done in one’s economically free-time, and furthermore, one has to pay to do it. Why then, do many boxers and coaches persist in denominating it as work? For example, one doesn’t “play boxing,” like one plays basketball; one boxes, or fights. Furthermore, a boxing workout is not fun in a ludic, child-like (see Pieper, 1998 [1948]) sense, but hard work, and one would be hard-pressed to find a single boxer at Pete’s who disagreed. The findings of this study point towards

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new avenues of research in regard to the work/leisure dichotomy that scholars may wish to pursue in the future, and validated the use of ethnographic research methods with which to do so (Coates, 1999; Wolcott, 1999).

Limitations, Conclusion, and Directions for Future Research It is important to acknowledge that this study possesses some limitations. First, it should be noted that the scope of the fieldwork is small: I studied only the microcosm of a small working-class gym in Pennsylvania, that barely numbered 100 in athletes. Second, the type of sampling procedures used (i.e., purposive/ convenience) do not allow for generalizable comparisons beyond the participants surveyed; further, given its scope this study should be classified as exploratory. Third, while the amount of fieldwork was extensive (more than three years), this study should not be any means be considered a longitudinal study; long-term comparisons should be drawn with care. And fourth, I attempted to write an ethnography account of what boxing is like at Pete’s Gym using my body as a research tool; it is by no means the ethnography of boxing, but merely an ethnography of boxing in a specific temporal, geographic, and cultural nexus. Nonetheless, as leisure scholars weave together existing threads of established theoretical frameworks, ethnographic studies that reveal the complexity of leisure phenomena become increasingly important. This study’s findings point towards the applicability of an important existing theory in leisure ­studies  – ­serious leisure – to a controversial leisure activity – boxing – that is often thought of as outside mainstream society, or is even considered deviant by some (Lundberg, 1983). This study also reinforced the importance of individual detail when validating existing leisure theories. The level of detail that ethnographic research affords provides scholars with a unique arena in which to add intricacy and texture to the tapestry of leisure studies. As we strengthen the threads of our field and add new ones we as leisure scholars and educators should encourage the study of new and controversial leisure contexts and activities, under penalty of ending up with a functional, yet dull pattern in our tapestry. Boxing at Pete’s Gym is a far more complicated matter than it seemed at first sight, and Pete’s Gym itself a more complicated nexus of practices (Bourdieu, 1984) than I had thought. Indeed, the position that boxing occupies at Pete’s Gym as a less popular activity than other activities at the same gym (e.g., kickboxing, MMA), stands as an accurate metaphor of boxing (both amateur and professional) as a marginalized sport and leisure activity in mainstream society (Sammons, 1988). Furthermore, Pete’s Gym can be seen as a bastion of resistance of a certain set of working-class values, beliefs, and practices, embodied in the coaches, the athletes, and the place itself. As a commercial recreation business (Crossley, Jamieson, & Brayley, 2007), Pete’s Gym has thus far been able to avoid

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the inescapable logic of franchised sport and fitness facilities (e.g., LA Boxing®, Gold’s Gym®), and it would be interesting to investigate further as to why that has occurred. Lastly, Pete’s Gym can be seen as a metaphor of resistance of a certain set of leisure values, beliefs, and practices, embodied in the coaches, the boxers, and the place itself. Pete’s Gym has thus far been able to avoid the inescapable logic of franchised sport and fitness facilities, and thus escape the inevitable commercialization of leisure (Rojek, 2000). The values of hard work and acceptance of punishment (both physical and mental), which are at the core of the ethics of boxing (Wacquant, 1995a), seem strangely out of place in a hegemonic society where most leisure pursuits are massified (Larrabee & Meyersohn, 1958), commercialized (Baudrillard, 1970; Plumb, 1973) and stripped of their intrinsic value (Linder, 1970; Urry, 1995).

References Anasi, R. (2002). The gloves: A boxing chronicle. New York, NY: North Point Press. Baudrillard, J. (1970). La société de consommation: Ses mythes, ses structures. Paris, France: Editions Planète. Bernard, H. (2002). Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Caldwell, L. (2005). Leisure and health: Why is leisure therapeutic? British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 33(1), 7–26. Carnegie, A. (2006) [1st ed. 1900]. The autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the gospel of wealth. New York, NY: Penguin. Carter, T. (2003). Violent pastime(s): On the commendation and condemnation of violence in Belfast. City & Society, 15(2), 255–281. Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative research. London, UK: Sage. Coates, S. (1999). An ethnography on boxing: The role of the coach. Sociology of Sport Online, 2(1), 1–4. Creswell, J. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Crossley, J., Jamieson, L., & Brayley, R. (2007). Introduction to commercial recreation and ­tourism – An entrepreneurial approach. Champaign, IL: Sagamore Publishing. Denzin, N. (1978). Sociological methods: A sourcebook (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. DeVault, M. (1999). Liberating method: Feminism and social research. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Donnelly, P. (1988). On boxing: Notes on the past, present, and future of a sport in transition. Current Psychology 7, 331–346. Durrenberger, E. P., & Doukas, D. (2008). Gospel of wealth, gospel of work: Counterhegemony in the US working class. American Anthropologist, 110(2), 214–224. Emerson, R. (1987). Four ways to improve the craft of fieldwork. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 16(1), 69–89.

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Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fine, G. (1993). Ten lies of ethnography: Moral dilemmas of field research. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 267–294. Floyd, M., Shinew, K., McGuire, F., & Noe, F. (1994). Race, class, and leisure activity preferences: Marginality and ethnicity revisited. Journal of Leisure Research, 26(2), 158–173. Frazier, J., & Dettloff, W. (2005). Box like the pros. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gentry, C. (2005). No holds barred: Ultimate fighting and the martial arts revolution. Preston, UK: Milo Books. Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 8(4), 597–607. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/ vol8/iss4/6 Halbert, C. (2003). The ultimate boxer: Understanding the sport and skills of boxing. Brentwood, TN: ISI Publishing. Hargreaves, J. (1997). Women’s boxing and related activities: Introducing images and meanings. Body & Society, 3(4), 33–49. Hauser, T. (1986). The black lights: Inside the world of professional boxing. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Henderson, K. (2006). Dimensions of choice: Qualitative approaches to parks, recreation, tourism, sport and leisure research. State College, PA: Venture Publishing. Heo, J., Lee, I. H., Kim, J., & Stebbins, R. A. (2012). Understanding the relationships among central characteristics of serious leisure: An empirical study of older adults in competitive sports. Journal of Leisure Research, 44(4), 450. Jordan, B., Relkin, N., Ravdin, L., Jacobs, A., Bennett, A., & Gandy, S. (1997). Apolipoprotein E epsilon4 associated with chronic traumatic brain injury in boxing. Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(2), 136–140. Kimmel, M. (2000). The gendered society, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Krueger, P., & SaintOnge, J. (2005). Boxing it out: A conversation about Body and Soul. Qualitative Sociology, 28(2), 185–189. Larrabee, E., & Meyersohn, R. (Eds.). (1958). Mass leisure. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Lichterman, P. (1998). What do movements mean? The value of participant-observation. Qualitative Sociology, 21(4), 401–418. Liebling, A. (1956). The sweet science. New York, NY: Viking Press. Linder, S. (1970). The harried leisure class. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Lundberg, G. (1983). Editorial: Boxing should be banned in civilized countries. Journal of the American Medical Association, 249(2), 250. Lundberg, G. (1984). Boxing should be banned in civilized countries – Round 2. Journal of the American Medical Association, 251(20), 2696–2698. Lundberg, G. (1986). Boxing should be banned in civilized countries – Round 3. Journal of the American Medical Association, 255(18), 2483–2485. Lundberg, G. (2005). Boxing should be banned in civilized countries – Round 4. Medscape General Medicine, 7(3), 29. McCrory, P. (2007). Boxing and the risk of chronic brain injury. British Medical Journal, 335(7624), 781–782. McNaughton, M. J. (2012). Insurrectionary womanliness: Gender and the (boxing) ring. The Qualitative Report, 17(17), 1. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/ vol17/iss17/2

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Mendez, M. (1995). The neuropsychiatric aspects of boxing. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 25(3), 249–262. Miles, M., & Huberman, A. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Naples, N. (2003). Feminism and method: Ethnography, discourse analysis and activist research. New York, NY: Routledge. Nash, M. (2015). Gender on the ropes: An autoethnographic account of boxing in Tasmania, Australia. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 1-17. Oates, J. (1987). On boxing. New York, NY: Doubleday Press. Oldenburg, R. (1999). The great good place: cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. New York, NY: Da Capo Press. Oldenburg, R., & Brisset, D. (1982). The third place. Qualitative Sociology, 5(4), 265–284. Patton, M. Q. (2005). Qualitative research. New York, NY: Wiley. Pieper, J. (1998) [1st ed. 1948]. Leisure: The basis of culture. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. Plumb. J. (1973). The commercialization of leisure in eighteenth-century England. Reading, UK: Reading University Press. Ribeiro, N. F., & Fommel, E. W. (2012). Participant observation. In L. Dwyer, A. Gill, & N. Seetaram (Eds.), Research methods in tourism (pp. 377–391). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Rojek, C. (2000). Leisure and culture. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Sammons, J. (1988). Beyond the ring: The role of boxing in American society. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Seidman, I. (1998). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Schiller, H. (1989). Culture Inc: The corporate takeover of public expression. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Scheper-Hughes, N., & Lock, M. (1987). The mindful body. A prolegomenon to future work in medical anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1, 16–41. Sekules, K. (2000). The boxer’s heart: How I fell in love with the ring. New York, NY: Villard Press. Sheard, K. (1997). Aspects of boxing in the Western “civilizing process.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 32(1), 31–57. Stebbins, R. (1997). Casual leisure: A conceptual statement. Leisure Studies, 16(1), 17-25. Stebbins, R. A. (2007). Serious leisure: A perspective for our time. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Stebbins, R., & Elkington, S. (2014). The serious leisure perspective: An introduction. New York, NY: Routledge. Stevens-Ratchford, R. G. (2016). Ballroom dance linking serious leisure to successful aging. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 83(3), 290–308. Stoller, P. (2005). The presence of the ethnographic present: Some brief comments on Body and Soul. Qualitative Sociology, 28(2), 197-199. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sugden, J. (1987). The exploitation of disadvantage: The occupational subculture of the boxer. In J. Horne, D. Jary, & A. Tomlinson (Eds.), Sport, leisure and social relations (pp. 187–209). London, UK: Routledge.

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Tedlock, B. (2000). Ethnography and ethnographic representation. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.) The handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 455–486). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tharrett, S., & Peterson, J. (2006). Fitness management: A comprehensive resource for developing, leading, managing, and operating a successful health/fitness club. Monterey, CA: Healthy Learning Press. Toole, F. (2000). Million dollar baby: Stories from the corner. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Van Allen, M. (1983). Editorial: The deadly degrading sport. Journal of the American Medical Association, 249(2), 250–251. Van Maanen, J. (2011). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Veblen, T. (1994) [1st ed. 1899]. The theory of the leisure class. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Wacquant, L. (2004). Body & soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wacquant, L. (1995). Through the fighter’s eyes: Boxing as a moral and sensual world. In R. Cantu (Ed.), Boxing and medicine (pp. 129–173). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Wacquant, L. (1995a). The pugilistic point of view: How boxers think and feel about their trade. Theory and Society, 24(4), 489–535. Wacquant, L. (1992). The social logic of boxing in black Chicago: Toward a sociology of pugilism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 9, 221–254. Webb, E., Campbell, D., Schwartz, R., & Sechrest, L. (1965). Unobtrusive measures. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Weinberg, S., & Arond, H. (1952). The occupational culture of the boxer. The American Journal of Sociology, 57(5), 460–469. Weiss, R. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York, NY: The Free Press. Woodward, K. (2004). Rumbles in the jungle: Boxing, racialization, and the performance of masculinity. Leisure Studies, 23(1), 5–17. Wolcott, H. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Urry, J. (1995). Consuming places. London, UK: Routledge. Zoja, L. (1989). Drugs, addiction and initiation: The modern search for ritual. Boston, MA: Sigo Press.

Author Note Dr. Nuno F. Ribeiro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport & Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Ribeiro’s research agenda deals primarily with the comparative study of culture and behavior in tourism and leisure contexts. Broadly, Dr. Ribeiro’s research interests comprise culturally-derived belief and behavior models in tourism destinations; young people’s leisure behavior; visual methods in tourism research; and cross-cultural leisure and tourism behavior. Dr. Ribeiro has published extensively and has been the PI or co-PI of several grants totaling in excess of 1.5M $US, receiving research support from the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology, the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation, and the Canadian Institutes of

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Health Research, among others. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: [email protected]. The author wishes to acknowledge the help of E. P. Durrenberger and T. Liechty, who assisted in the preparation of this manuscript and provided helpful comments. Copyright 2017: Nuno F. Ribeiro and Nova Southeastern University.

Article Citation Ribeiro, N. F. (2017). Boxing culture and serious leisure among North-American youth: An embodied ethnography. The Qualitative Report, 22(6), 1622–1636. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss6/10

Embodied Ethnography as a Research Approach Further Reflections and Insights on Boxing as Serious Leisure Nuno F. Ribeiro [email protected] Embodied ethnography uses the researcher’s body as the actual means through which data is acquired and analyzed, becoming a nexus of performance and awareness (Spry,  2001). Instead of assuming the role of an observer (the proverbial “fly on the wall”) or participant-observer, embodied ethnography places the researcher as a full participant in the middle of a cultural and social milieu, from which insights about a given (sub)culture are to be garnered, often after a more or less painful process of enculturation via one’s own body. It purposefully discards notions of “objectivity” and “impartiality” at the onset (Ellis & Bochner,  2000), and instead focuses on providing a written (Ancient Greek γράφω, ̗ gráphō, “writing”) account of a people or culture (Ancient Greek έθνος, éthnos, “people, nation”), with the embodied self (Ancient Greek αύτός, autós, “self”), as both the starting and vantage point. The body is both a means and an end to research; culture is not only observed and recorded, but also physically done by the researcher (Turner, 2000). Embodied ethnographic research provides a unique type of personal narrative(s) and (self)reflexivity that still seeks to present culture as “thick description” (Geertz, 1973), but the focus of such narrative(s) begins with one’s body. Both intensely private and obviously public (Monaghan, 2006), the body contains cognitive and behavioral elements of culture, and embodied ethnography is particularly appropriate for studying cultures whose foci is the body and its performance, such as sport, martial arts, medicine, nursing, and others. Scholars who embark on embodied ethnographies should be particularly diligent about taking good field notes (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011). It is all too easy to get caught up in the cultural praxis and neglect the systematic recording of cultural mores and, more importantly, prescriptive and proscriptive behaviors that guide

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cultural action. In this regard, I found ethological approaches (Cloak, 1975; Tinbergen, 1963), combined with the use of second-generation qualitative software (e.g., ATLAS.ti, NVivo) immensely useful. The researcher’s body is both currency and key to a culture or cultures wherein bodies are on display, either for aesthetic (e.g., bodybuilding), performative (e.g., dance), or combative (e.g., boxing) reasons. The researcher must be willing to allow his or her body to be exposed and changed, often in strictly regulated ways (e.g., faster, stronger, leaner, lighter). Success in such endeavor increases the researcher’s bodily capital (Wacquant, 2004) among the members of said culture(s), ideally to the point wherein the researcher is so at ease that the insider-outsider debate is moot (Woodward, 2008). Such bodily transformations are not without risk or hazard, and it is not uncommon for researchers to have to endure a painful ritual initiation to gain access to a certain culture. In my case, it was not only necessary to undertake a bodily apprenticeship to gain access to a specific subculture that has controlled violence as its raison d′être, much like Wacquant (2004) and others (e.g., Green, 2011; Spencer, 2009, 2013; Woodward, 2008) have described; my body was the vehicle that allowed answers to fundamental research questions that drove the study to emerge with often painful clarity. What it means to dedicate oneself to a craft that demands fanatical exclusivity, early dawn runs, twice daily workouts, quasi-anorectic concern with one’s diet and physique, and that puts one’s body on conspicuous display under “those bright lights” to fight another similarly almost nude body, bent on causing the maximum amount of bodily harm possible, within the confines of a set of rules and two rings of a bell, could only be understood by doing, not by watching. There is a major difference between “hanging out” at a boxing gym (Woodward, 2008) and lacing up leather gloves (these exist primarily to protect a boxer’s hands and not the opponent’s body) and stepping into the ring (Wacquant, 2004). Alongside a new patois (“peek-a-boo,” “journeyman,” “gate,” “bleeder,” “cutman,” etc.), there was a whole new body language to learn, made of movements large and small, instructed, explained, exemplified, and repeated in aeternum, over and over again, so that they become second nature, instinctive, and need not be intellectualized any further, but merely called upon at the deepest subconscious level as reflexes when needed. The syntax and grammar of this language would have been impossible to obtain via any other means than my own body—nor would I have been permitted (initiated?) into its mysteries without “paying my dues,” primarily in sweat, sometimes in blood. No amount of carefully detailed field notes would have assisted me in understanding the absolutely crucial detail of keeping one’s chin tucked down at all times better than a solid punch to the same, a punch that seemed to send the entire body tingling (the multitude of nerve endings at the tip of the human chin makes it an especially desirable target for a trained fighter): It is literally the difference between standing on one’s two feet and not standing at all.

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References Cloak, F. T. (1975). Is a cultural ethology possible? Human Ecology, 3(3), 161–182. Ellis, C. & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Geertz, C. (1973). Towards an interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Green, K. (2011). It hurts so it is real: Sensing the seduction of mixed martial arts. Social & Cultural Geography, 12(04), 377–396. Monaghan, L. F. (2006). Fieldwork and the body: Reflections on an embodied ethnography. In D. Hobbs & R. Wright (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of fieldwork (pp. 225–242). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Spencer, D. C. (2009). Habit (us), body techniques and body callusing: An ethnography of mixed martial arts. Body & Society, 15(4), 119–143. Spencer, D. C. (2013). Ultimate fighting and embodiment: Violence, gender and mixed martial arts. London, UK: Routledge. Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6), 706–732. Tinbergen, N. (1963). On aims and methods of ethology. Ethology, 20(4), 410–433. Turner, A. (2000). Embodied ethnography. Doing culture. Social Anthropology, 8(1), 51–60. Wacquant, L. (2004). Body & soul: Notes from an apprentice boxer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Woodward, K. (2008). Hanging out and hanging about: Insider/outsider research in the sport of boxing. Ethnography, 9(4), 536–560.

Chapter Eight

A Sojourn Experience in the Land of Fire and Ice Examining Cultural Competence and Employee Well-Being Through an Autoethnographic Exploration The sociologist, Charles Horton Cooley once said, “To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.” My chance to get away from my work environment and away from the “self” I had created as a professor at the University of Connecticut for the last nine years came in the form of a Fulbright Award to Iceland in the winter of 2014. I was to be a sojourner: a short-term visitor to a new culture where permanent settlement is not the purpose (Gudykunst & ­Hammer, 1984). From the moment I got the acceptance letter in March 2013, I began to think, plan, dream, and fear the experiences that awaited me in the Land of Fire and Ice. With increases in globalization, more individuals are taking on the role of sojourner - temporarily leaving home to work or study in foreign countries. These sojourners are, according to Fenton-O’Creevy, Brigham, Jones, and Smith (2014), engaged in identity development, yet their work “is not aimed at assimilation within the community but at accommodation to the practices of that community and its regime of competence in order to function effectively within and beyond the community” (p. 45). Benefits of the sojourn experience include cultural learning (Masgoret & Ward, 2006; Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, 2001), and personal development (Oppedal, 2006), but in their new country sojourners also face an acculturation process (Berry,  2003). This involves adjusting to societal norms different from their home cultures, managing unfamiliar job and organizational expectations, and facing challenges to their cultural competency, which can result in stress (Berry, 2006; Kim, 2008) and culture shock (Furnham & Grenier, R. S. (2016). A Sojourn Experience in the Land of Fire and Ice: Examining Cultural Competence and Employee Well‐being Through an Autoethnographic Exploration. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 28(1), 8–22.

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­ ochner, 1986; van der Zee & van Oudenhoven, 2013; Ward et al., 2001). All of B these are likely deterrents to employee well-being. Employment worldwide by U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) increased by 1.5 percent in 2011 to 34.5 million workers, primarily reflecting increases abroad (Bureau of Economic Development, 2013) and despite increases in human resource development (HRD) scholarship concerned with employee well-being (Gilbreath & Montesino,  2006) and work/life balance (Morris & McMillan, 2014) sojourners are largely absent from HRD research. By furthering our understandings of sojourner experiences, we may be able to expand HRD research into how those experiences shape the individual and influence professional practice and success both at home and abroad, as well as how sojourning employees can effectively use cultural knowledge (Klafehn, 2012). To contribute to this body of research, I present here an autoethnography of my own sojourner experience that reveals my cultural in/competence – both the success and failure of interactions and social relationships derived from my professional practice and personal life while working and living in Iceland. In evoking my memories, I am exposing myself to all of the various assumptions that are linked to these experiences, thus illuminating the complex processes of navigating a new culture and acknowledging the positive and negative aspects of the experience. First I describe my methodological process including an explanation of autoethnography and how I collected and analyzed data. I then delve into my own cultural in/competence by presenting my experiences as a sojourner in Iceland, and conclude by considering how my local experience may inform the larger discourse in HRD and the study of sojourners.

My Autoethnographic Process To be clear, an autoethnography is messy, and “designed to be unruly, dangerous, vulnerable, rebellious, and creative” (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p. 433), which might not sit well with some, but for me it mirrors the experience I wish to share since traveling and working abroad can similarly feel dangerous, vulnerable, and messy. I believe that for many autoethnography is new and the uncertainty about the process or its representation for academic audiences causes scholars to avoid the methodology. For others, autoethnography is shunned as a postmodern approach that is seen as self-indulgent, narcissistic (Coffey, 1999). It is too far beyond the acceptable boundaries of academic research (Sparkes, 2000) and fails to replicate the accepted and expected signs of traditional methodological rigor. To address responses along this continuum, and in a spirit of learning, I begin by share where I am coming from methodologically, and how that shapes what I have chosen to create, represent, and make available for critique. Autoethnography is not simply an autobiography or memoir; instead it is a methodology stressing selfinterrogation by the narrator of the sociocultural processes of identity construction at a certain point in her identity formation (Austin & Hickey, 2007). Identity construction is what Dirkx (2013) and Moore (2008) describe as inner work; a process of learning about one’s self, as well as about developing self-understanding and self-knowledge that provides a deeper

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relationship with ourselves, others, and our work (Whyte, 2009). Sparkes (2002) furthers this idea in autoethnographic work by emphasizing that the highly personalized account draws from the author’s/researcher’s experiences in order to extend sociological understanding while at the same time critiquing “the situatedness of self with others in social contexts” (Spry, 2001, p. 710). For this process to be successful, it requires the “study of the space between self and culture that engages the individual in experiences that cultivate an authentic cycle of action” (Starr,  2010, p. 1). The cycle of action Starr refers to is based on Friere’s (1972) concept of conscientization that involves the author’s/­ researcher’s process of becoming aware and creating the space for changes in perceptions of reality.

Capturing my Experiences The experiences in this autoethnography come from my time in Iceland, in particular teaching in the Museum Studies Program at the University of Iceland beginning in January 2014. Additionally, I was able to draw from a service-­ learning course requiring me to travel to rural towns in southeast Iceland, as well as my own research exploring conceptualizations of adult learning in Iceland’s cultural institutions. It is also important to note that I am a constructivist and a scholar of informal and experiential learning. I believing that learning is more likely to occur through real life experience and that as an educator my role is to use a learner’s prior experiences, interests, and intrinsic motivation to facilitate learning (Kolb, Kolb, Passarelli, & Sharma,  2014). Moreover, I do not identify solely as a professor or researcher: I bring to this examination my experiences as a woman, mother, wife, American, and introvert. As such, my experiences, combined with this selfreflective process, allowed me to construct and contextualize my new learning and knowledge. Each of these selves shapes how I make sense of my data and represent my experiences. I used my journal, a public blog I maintained with my family, photos and video, and my class notes and recordings to make sense of the back and forth of meaning making from my travels, teaching, research, successes, and failures. I began journaling about a month before leaving for Reykjavik and continued for approximately 6 months after my return. The entries ranged from 1–5 a day and included small notes and ideas, as well as longer narratives that captured my experiences and my reactions to those experiences. The blog (https://­experiencingiceland .wordpress.com/) was maintained by me and included entries written by myself, my husband, and our daughter. The photos and video were stored in a private account, but many were shared in the blog, on my personal Facebook account, and referenced in my journal. I also maintained audio recording of each class meeting, which originally were for the use of distance-students enrolled in my class, but these, along with my teaching notes about each class became invaluable for capturing my teaching experiences. The data sources allowed me to become immersed in the events and the emotions these moments created, and to relive  the details, which according to Ellis, Adams, and Bochner (2010) are foundational to autoethnography.

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Making Sense of my Experiences In looking back on my experiences, I found single instances of my great ignorance and ineptitude. This included the personal, like not knowing how to operate my oven, and the professional, like putting all my PDFs in the wrong online file because I couldn’t understand the instructions on the university’s Icelandic webpage. I also captured my sense of profound awe and happiness like the video of my daughter Catherine (Cat) skating across Tjörnin (the lake) in Reykjavík, Iceland as the sun set at 4:30 in the afternoon or professionally when I received 12 emails following a student service-learning trip asking for my input and guidance. As I sorted through the notes, entries, photos, and audio I took note of concepts that seemed to reoccur over and over and I began to make sense of how each of these experiences shaped my sense of time in Iceland. What I discovered was that these were too complex to simply label them as a binary of successes and failures that would be easily categorized into themes – which is the expectation in conventional sociological analysis. Instead, after a process of reflexive social analysis, self-reflection, and dialogue with critical friends, I identified those experiences and the accompany emotions that most resonated with me and matched my intention to explore my own cultural in/competence, along with those that I could best express to others. Specifically, I have chosen to share my challenges with the Icelandic language, my sense of cognitive overload, and experiences of developing relationships, as well as my initial reactions to re-entry to the U.S.

My Experience as Sojourner It’s two days before the start of a new semester, and I am at the window of our fourth floor apartment looking over the lake, and the lights, and up the hill to the church. The Christmas trees are still up and the ice is thick on the small pond in front of our building. For many professors, it’s the calm before the storm. The time when you are energized for the new semester (or maybe fretting it), but you’re ready–the start of classes, the welcome from colleagues and students, and the sense that you’re rolling downhill to the end of the school year in May. My husband joined me at the window and together we looked out at the landscape. Without turning to him I say it softly, “It’s not too late to go home.” He takes my hand, squeezes it, and says with a small chuckle, “Yes, it is.”

Of course he was right. There was no turning back. I wanted to flee from the challenges that awaited me on Monday morning, but not because I was enjoying my winter break. I had to move forward because this was not my usual semester. Three weeks prior we had moved to Reykjavík, Iceland, and I was about to begin teaching in a new university, in a new program, with new content, and with new students in a new culture. That night at the window was almost two years ago, and as scared as I was in that moment, I stayed – and in some ways flourished as a sojourner. I began this autoethnography many months ago, sitting in Stofan (Icelandic for living room), a wonderful café with large windows that look out onto the oldest street

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in Reykjavík. Back then, conversations of others in dizzying and melodic Icelandic filled my ears, and the warmth of a strong coffee and a kleina (Icelandic donut) filled my belly, but now that has been replaced with the welcome -home greetings of family and friends, familiar responsibilities, and comforts of home. Now back in the U.S., I am beginning to make sense of what was my life for six months and have attempted to create an autoethnography. In doing so, I am hopeful that sharing how the Fulbright sojourner-experience has influenced my professional practice and sense of self may possibly inform scholars as they consider living and teaching abroad. It also addresses the need for qualitative research to better understand the experiences of international sojourners (Kostohryz, Wells, Wathen, & Wilson, 2014), and contributes to the gap in the literature examining negative feelings and experiences of these individuals (Chang, 2007). That being said, I do attempt to provide both the good and the bad, but I should be clear that at times the experiences are nuanced and reside in both extremes simultaneously.

Call me Geir Over the last nine years, at the start of each semester, I make it my goal to learn my students’ names. I agree with Rogers and Smith (2011), who note that accessibility is enhanced, along with students’ sense of value, when an instructor knows students’ names. I have always operated under the belief that I can create a bond and stronger sense of commitment from students if I know their names and use those in class. So I began with the same thinking in Iceland. I stood in front of the class—roster in hand, ready to call out each name, make eye contact and welcome them to the course. The names mocked me from the page “Go ahead, I dare you!” Heidrun, Geirþrúður, Tryggvi, Hrafnhildur, Ingibjörg, Ásdís, Edda, Arndís, Kolbrún, and Sigríður. I went for it. I figured I’d had names in my U.S. classes that I was unfamiliar with and like those times if I mispronounced it, the student would correct me, I’d repeat, make a note on my list, and all would be fine. This is what happened with Geirþrúður.

Me: Her: Me: Her (slowly and smiling):

Gear-thur-uthur? Geirþrúður. Gearth-uruthur? Geirþrúður. Maybe you can call me Geir.

OK, we’ll call that whole beginning a FAIL. . . And then the next name stared up at me from the roster.

Have you heard someone speak Icelandic? The pauses, breath, slight intonation, and threat of one wrongly placed sound (that can turn the masculine name to the feminine) can make even the most confident language learners wary. Despite my efforts, I butchered just about everyone’s name that first day–and for days to come, and I admit there are students that, even at the end of the semester,

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I still avoided calling by name because I did not have the confidence in my pronunciation. I don’t think I fully realized until this experience how important those names are to the relationships I build in my classes. The names are the building blocks to the work that occurs in the classroom, and in order to connect with students and create a community, instructors must learn students’ names (Townes-O’Brien, Leiman, & Duffy, 2014). In doing so an act of hospitality is extended, offering what Parker Palmer (2010) argues is a learning space where the individual and group voices are honored. Without names securely in my brain, I struggled to put emails to faces, to specifically commend a student’s response in class, and to greet them in the halls in a way I am accustomed to doing. In many ways my struggle with my students’ names were indicative of the challenges of communication and understanding that affected the quality of the content in my classes and my pedagogical choices. Although the students understood, the courses were to be taught in English, their confidence in using English varied greatly. Just as I was hesitant to try out my Icelandic pronunciation, they too were cautious about using their English. And I can’t say that I blame them. A student made this point to me: Americans come and want to know about the volcanoes here in Iceland. That’s fine except when I want to say the word (saying it very slowly and carefully) “ash”. Icelandic doesn’t have that “sh” sound, so it will come out as “ass” instead – doesn’t really make you want to talk about volcanoes because you know at some point you’re going to mess up and say “ass.” The first time I did it I kept emphasizing that there was ash all over the place – or should I say ass all over the place.

In the U.S. I avoid lectures. Instead, I like to create facilitated conversations based on the assigned readings. I usually bring to class talking points and questions for students to consider. In preparing for the two classes in Iceland I was told to use Power Points because the slides, along with my audio, were uploaded for distance learning students who were registered across Iceland. As such, I tried to balance my “lecture” with questions or ideas I would pose to the students throughout the 1.5-hour class. This proved to be ineffective since students like the one above showed an abundance of caution when speaking in the classroom. For example, in the first week of one course I focused on defining the term community participation, and at one point asked students to generate examples of how museums ask communities to “participate”. As soon as I asked the question someone cued the cricket noises. Nothing. No sound, no sign of someone who was on the verge of answering. . .zilch. OK, no biggy, maybe it’s just the first week jitters?

My entry from the next class shows a similar response and my growing desperation. Another class, and again with the sound of silence. . . I can’t have this for 14 weeks. MUST FIND A SOLUTION. . .

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In thinking about these moments I am struck by how similar this experience was to my study of expertise redevelopment (Grenier, 2013; Grenier & Kehrhahn, 2008). The model I had created addressed experts going through a re-­development of expertise when there was a significant change to the content, context, or audience. I had seen countless examples of such a need for redevelopment of expertise, but it didn’t immediately occur to me that I too was having such an experience. I knew how to teach, and have good reviews from students to back me up, but quite suddenly, I went from feeling confident in the ­classroom – an expert, to feeling a shift in my sense of what works and doesn’t work with university students. My content was rather novel to me, but I had done extensive prep and had confirmed my work with others at the university, so I was sure that was not the issue. Although Power Point was not my preferred method of teaching, I was comfortable with it, and it did not shake me either. That left my audience–the students. I was quickly discovering that what I knew to work, was not working this time. My use of a constructivist mode that rejected a prescriptive model (i.e. Tyler, 1949) where instruction focused on the ends, rather than the means of the curriculum, seemed to be at odds with the experiences of my students. I wondered if the students were familiar with what I was attempting to do, or were they used to passive learning (Michel, Carter, & Varela, 2009) where there is little student involvement (Stewart-Wingfield & Black, 2005)? Or did they need time in class to process their readings or my talks? Did they lack the mental models for understanding and applying what was happening in the class; those sets of assumptions about a college course that include their values, beliefs, knowledge, and skills, as well as the ways they process information and apply skills to solve problems (Eckert & Bell, 2005)? I was not accustomed to this new audience need, and therefore I had to challenge my own mental models and find new ways (other than what had worked in the past) to reach students and engage them in their own learning. After presenting my quandary to the American Fulbright students who were studying in Iceland, they described their own experiences as students enrolled at the University of Iceland, and how it compared to “back home”. It seemed that for the majority, classes followed traditional modes with common single q ­ uestion/ single response interactions. I also spoke with my GA, AlmaDís, and she helped me to not give up on what I knew was important for students – g ­ etting them to engage more critically with the content and be more reflective in their discussions with me and their peers. The next class I went in prepared with a new tactic. Today I proceeded as usual, but when it got to the first group question, I asked students to find a partner and discuss the question (in Icelandic). I didn’t care about a gap in the audio recording and let them have time to talk. IT WAS GREAT!! It is the most I heard out of the class since I started. The pairs talked, took down notes, and even referred to their reading as they discussed the question with each other. After about ten minutes I reconvened the class and the pairs reported out. In some cases both individuals shared, [in] others one took the lead. Students also interjected and commented on each other’s statements. Yay!

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What I concluded after confirming with students was that, despite “checking in”, they were hesitant to speak in English or more often were not always fully processing what I was saying. Instead they had used what Ferreira, Ferraro, and Bailey (2012) call “good enough”, which is an approach where non-native speakers’ language processing is sometimes only partial and often incomplete (LevAri & Keysar,  2012). By offering the chance to think and process in Icelandic, students became more involved in their classroom activity and felt more confident in reflecting and sharing their thoughts. They also had time to formulate a response in English using vocabulary they were comfortable with. I continued to successfully use this approach throughout the rest of the semester in both classes. I must add though that although this was quite effective, I was still missing the informal interactions I should have had with pairs or small groups as I circulated through the classroom. I tried to make myself available during their discussions, but unlike in the U.S., where I could interject or probe, or integrate what I ­overheard from the pairs when we brought it back to a whole-class conversation, there I was an outsider. I had no idea what was being said, how my statements or the readings were first interpreted, or even when the pairs were finished or had moved off-task. In many ways my adapted teaching methods resulted in my own “good enough” approach where I applied my developing understandings of my students and their learning needs to modify my pedagogical practices into something that was not, in my estimation ideal, but worked to meet my immediate needs. Being “good enough” meant I could use some of the teaching techniques I loved, but not necessarily to their fullest potential or in exactly the same ways because there were differences in the students I was teaching compared to those I was used to working with in the U.S.

This is Exhausting As a former high school English teacher, I am fond of words, appreciate the power of language, and believe communication is central to building relationships. Living, and more importantly, working in a place where English comes second was humbling and a constant challenge. Whether it was the grocery store, or trying to use the ATM when English is not an option, or logging in my use of the shared copier/scanner with drop -downs in Icelandic, each word, exchange, sign, or conversation was a test of patience, humility, and persistence. Although seemingly minor inconveniences, my lack of language soon compounded and became the constant force that added an extra layer of stress and expended energy that at times was overwhelming. Green (2013) describes it as “mind mush”; it’s the exhaustion that results from learning, engaging, and functioning in a new language. One afternoon at the start of January I expressed my sense of mind mush to my husband Paul. Me: This is exhausting. Paul: What?

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 verything. If I want to read what is posted on the program E Facebook page I have to copy and paste it into Google Translate and then try to make sense of what Google translates. Like this–The post reads: ‘Hey! Nafn nemendafélag safnafræðinema er nú orðið að safni!!! Er þetta ekki ávísun á vísindaferð?!’. Google Translate says: ‘Hey! Name of Student museology study is now a museum!!! Is not this a recipe for science?!’. I have a “translation”, but I still have no idea what that means! It’s like that with every post. Plus, it takes 20 minutes to pick out a sandwich in the cafeteria because I have to look at each one to see what the ingredients might be because I can’t read the labels. And the same is true when I get home. I want to make dinner, but I can’t make the sauce because I can’t read the directions, or I have to convert from grams to ounces, or Celsius to Fahrenheit. The free “quiet” space I usually have in my head is now occupied by all this constant chatter, self-doubt, and second-guessing.

Now, I must pause to tell you that Paul has been my partner for over 20 years, through 9 moves, a child, and graduate school. After my momentary pity-party, in great Paul fashion, he smiled, gave me a hug, and told me it sounded as though I had more load than power. What he was referring to was McClusky’s (1963) Theory of Margin that I have invoked in conversation a number of times over the years. Paul was right (again). The amount of internal and external factors of load was, at that moment, outweighing my power – thus inhibiting my ability to learn and be successful in managing additional stressors. He heard me out, we talked about strategies for lessening my load, and then he gently reminded me that our daughter Catherine was managing to have an amazing, happy, and successful experience at Vesturbæjarskóli, her new, Icelandic elementary school; a school where she knew no one, didn’t speak or read the language, and was facing the usual socio -cultural struggles of a fifth grade girl. I got the hint, tugged at my biggirl panties and proceeded on. But that didn’t mean it was easy. I came to recognize how absolutely central language is to my existence, not just in Iceland, but also in the U.S., and in particular to my work and my sense of identity. Selmer (2006) notes that communication and language are an essential for sojourners as they develop their understanding of a new culture, and I clearly felt that without the language I would never truly fit in. As a result, I became hyperaware of each conversation I heard, word I read, and sentence I spoke. My first retail transaction without English, which would be a forgotten activity in the U.S., was in Iceland a reason to celebrate, announce it on Facebook, and feel some sense that I was in the process of ‘becoming’. Me: Shopkeeper: Me: Shopkeeper:

Góðan daginn! (Good day!) Eitthvað fleira? (Anything else?) Nei takk. (No thanks.) Viltu fá poka? (Need a bag?)

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Me (presenting my grocery bag): Nei. (No.) Shopkeeper: Takk. (Thanks.) (Me: giddy and smiling like a child who got all the right answers on her pop quiz) With the exception of my grocery shopping exchange, and a few similar “conversations”, I was hyperaware of my linguistic shortcomings. I believe that those struggles with language contributed to a sense of isolation that I felt while in Iceland. Welch and Welch (2008) point out that language “determines aspects such as who has the information and knowledge, whether and how it is articulated, when and if it is shared, and in what form” (p. 353). Although this feeling came from everyday experiences, I felt particularly on the outside of the department and university. Emails I received, such as this for a faculty training event (to be held in Icelandic), reminded me that I was not part of the faculty community: Turn-it-in-ritstuldarforrit og kennslukaffi Við minnum á kynningu á Turnitin-ritstuldarforritinu þri. 11. febr. og kennslukaffi, mán. 10. febr. Skráning á viðburðina er á heimasíðu Kennslumiðstöðvar. Sjá nánar.

Evidence of such isolation arrived daily in my in-box. Those small, constant reminders that would begin with a simple email announcement would compound to create in me a heightened sense of being alone in my work and moments of loneliness.

Alone in the Lunchroom Now first let me say that I consider myself an introvert, and often make choices  that  allow me to be alone, where I am by myself or can make conscious choices about how much interaction I have or how long such interaction will last. Aloneness is “the objective state of having no one around, or, more precisely, the state of communicative rather than physical isolation” (Galanki, 2004, p. 436). This is different from loneliness, which is a “subjective condition experienced even if others (important or not) are present” (p. 436), which I can say, even as an introvert, I do not want to experience. I found it difficult to initiate relationships with Icelanders, and because of my lack of an extensive network of extended family and friends in the host country I faced feelings of isolation and loneliness (Mahajan & De Silva, 2012). While at the University of Iceland I had a number of days like this one I recorded in my journal that do well to capture those dual states of aloneness and loneliness: Today I ate silently and alone at a table in the lunchroom, while those around me were filled with noise, and friendship, and communion. I am feeling like the new kid at school, like I did growing up in a military family, always arriving knowing no one and expected to make my way. I can do it, but I don’t

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particularly like it–I have forgotten this feeling of isolation and uncertainty, which is amplified by not knowing what is being said around me.

Zig, the head of the department, gave me the tour when I arrived, made sure I had access to resources and buildings, and spoke to me on a regular basis, we even on occasion shared family meals (his daughter and mine are now the best of friends), but other than that I felt very alone at the university. Although Zig warmly welcomed me, I found it a challenge to create peer relationships at work. I do not know another soul at the university except for the students, the department head, and the man whose office I occupy (apparently he is on sabbatical, but you’d never guess it by the number of times I arrive and he’s sitting at his desk). My office is in a hallway with about 12 others, and we share a copier and a bathroom, but no one has stuck their head in to introduce themselves, or even ask who I am or why I am using the faculty ladies room. I arrive to my office, sit at my desk, work, grab lunch (by myself), then I work some more before teaching class. Most days I don’t speak to anyone before three. I’m struggling to decide if this is my fault–am I not trying? Should I just stick my head into an office, introduce myself and see if I can get a lunch invitation? Or maybe they know who I am and choose not to “bother me”? I miss the camaraderie of my department at home.

Researchers (Caligiuri & Lazarova,  2002; Caligiuri, Hyland, Joshi, & Bross, 1998; Kraimer, Wayne, & Jaworski, 2001) have previously identified three types of support for sojourners like myself– informational, emotional, and instrumental. I was getting the informational support to address processes and routine issues, and to a lesser extent the instrumental support for adjusting to the country and city of Reykjavík; where I see a void was in the availability of emotional support from native Icelanders. Such support can include, according to C ­ aligiuri and Lazarova (2002), passive listening to my concerns and opportunities for socialization beyond work. Stimming (2012) describes Icelanders as possessing a collectivist-individualist consciousness, which produces a high-level of independence that can leave foreigners feeling left out. The lack of connection to others and support that I was feeling seemed to fit this, and was supported by my students. In their discussions of community development in museums, my students describe the near complete lack of volunteers in Iceland’s cultural institutions. They describe Icelanders as missing the mindset to volunteer or give freely of themselves. As one student put it, “If you want something, it’s not that they are not willing; it’s just that you have to ask.” This might be why they seem to be less likely to strike up a conversation with someone they don’t know. I captured these thoughts sitting in a café along Laugavegur, the main street in town. I marvel at the tourists mingled with each other. There are North Americans comparing travel plans with the Japanese couple at the next table, Brits asking

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fellow travelers for recommendations as they wait for the tour bus out front, and a South American couple is sharing stories with the Swedes at the bar. The Icelanders on the other hand for the most part keep to themselves. Like Nobel Prize winner, Halldór Laxness highlights [in his well-known Icelandic novel], Icelanders are an Independent People (1934/35).

Although I felt isolated in my teaching role, and I lacked the emotional support from colleagues, my personal experiences with fellow sojourners and expats were quite different. Employees at the U.S. Embassy went out of their way to welcome my family and me. Invitations to Christmas dinner, tours of town, and advice on where to shop helped get us acquainted with our surroundings, and events and meetings scheduled by the public affairs officer with local Icelandic museum staff and artists helped to at least lessen the isolation I felt at work. This reliance on other Americans is supported by Stimming (2012) who notes that, “the difficulty of accessing Icelandic society and integrating often drives foreigners to support one another, thus having less opportunity to interact in Icelandic society keeping them further from being able to acculturate” (p. 91). Moreover, a simple promise made the difference between spending my evenings reading a book on the couch and spending my evenings going to happy hour, taking a boat to an island to go Easter egg hunting, and tasting pickled sheep’s head. You see, even before arriving, my husband forced himself, along with me, and our daughter to make a pact to be adventurous–if asked to try, see, or do anything, we had to say, “sure, why not?”. This sense of adventure has been described in the expatriate literature as important (Osland, 2000) where individuals are adventurous in order to create and experience opportunities they might otherwise never have (Richardson & McKenna, 2002). Furthermore, this openness to trying different new things is described by Ward, Leong, and Low (2004) as a key to sojourners’ sociocultural adaptation. Our adherence to this rule proved to be an important decision on our part as it resulted in some truly amazing experiences that gave me a sense of accomplishment, inclusion, and joy. Our blog highlights many of those “why not?” adventures, like this one to a knitting meet-up: To immerse ourselves in the local culture, Cat and I checked out a knitting group at an international hostel in Reykjavík tonight. The event was free and newbies were welcomed, so I figured we’d give it a try. We were welcomed into the group and soon found ourselves surrounded by new and experienced knitters from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Norway, France, and Iceland. The chance to talk to so many different people was great–our ability to knit? Well, let’s just say we’ll keep trying.

Most importantly our adhering to our mantra resulted in us developing friendships with the six U.S. Fulbright students who were also in Reykjavík at the time. Weekly outings together allowed me and our whole group to see new parts of the city, hear unusual music, and commiserate on our sojourner failures and relish in our successes. What I wasn’t getting from a professional network I

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was getting from meet-ups, dinners, and game nights, thus providing me with the sense of inclusion and familiarity that I was missing. Eurovision night was the perfect example of this friendship and camaraderie. It’s nearing the end of our time here and it means that the Fulbrighters are starting to head home. I’m determined to live each day here in Iceland and experience as much as I can – including Eurovision, whatever that is. . . Elliot, Sarah, Paul, and Cat, and I had a great time. The grown-ups drank cider and beer and watched as each contestant sang. Sarah took copious notes to remind us of each performance, like “guy in hamster wheel in background” and Cat waved her homemade Icelandic flag when the Icelandic band Pollapönk took the stage. We cheered, booed, and waited along with 195 million other viewers to see who would take home the trophy.

It was a great night and a memory I will have for years to come, but looking back on that night I see what was missing – Europeans. The irony is not lost on me that I was sitting in an apartment in Reykjavík, Iceland watching one of the biggest television events in Europe with four Americans. Cat’s Icelandic friends had told her of the great Eurovision parties that are held in homes around the city and they posted to Instagram pictures of themselves and others in front of televisions wearing Icelandic face paint, but we were still on the outside looking in. What sense of inclusion I felt was derived by relationships with Americans, and I see that what I needed was an Icelandic intermediary or Host Country National (HCN) – someone Icelandic I knew who would make introductions and invite me to join in. HCNs have been identified as a critical source of information that can support sojourner adjustment both in and outside the work environment (Furnham & Bochner 1986; Selmer, 2006). Zig was an HCN, but it was not enough. He invited me to his book opening, to a journal editorial dinner, and even his wife’s birthday party, but the small talk that started in each of those events was not sustained. I needed multiple and prolonged avenues of outreach, but maybe those are difficult to build in a short time when culture and language differences slow the process? If I compare my experience with that of the U.S. Fulbright students, I see a significant difference. The students had made friends with Icelandic classmates and roommates over a nine-month period; they had a four-month head start to overcome the barriers created by different cultural norms and form bonds to create emotional supports. The feelings I experienced have taught me two important lessons. First, I needed to ask for what I wanted. I should have asked AlmaDís, my GA, to invite others along to our regular meetings or had Zig and his wife Tinna, who was also a professor, over more often and encouraged them to bring another couple or colleagues. If I consider why I did not extend myself, I find that although my introversion likely played a part, it was more likely a fear of seeming clingy or worse yet being seen as incapable of managing on my own. I did not want to admit that I lacked the social skills to form relationships with Icelanders. In

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retrospect I see that I was scared and ill-equipped to challenge Iceland’s closed cultural etiquette toward foreigners (Stimming,  2012) or the “well established and ingrained familial and friendship networks,” that make Icelanders less likely to “want to form new friendships that may not eventuate in any permanent or lasting relationship” (pp. 103–104). Second, I brought with me certain expectations regarding my role at the university (Black, Mendenhall, & Oddou, 1991), which caused me to have a heightened sense of exclusion. I realize now that the cultural expectations I had set for myself with respect to what it meant to be a Fulbright Scholar were of my own design. And although the culture of Iceland didn’t make it any easier, my deepening sense of isolation was in many ways a result of the fairy tale image I had created in my mind before I arrived. I thought that I would meet the university dean, maybe be asked to present to the faculty or attend a department meeting where I would be introduced to faculty members. Those faculty members would reach out to me and we would build collegial relationships, and maybe even friendships. I guess I expected to be embraced by my hosts, but in retrospect my idealized notions of me as visiting scholar were unrealistic. When reality did not align with my expectations I had, at one point, told myself, “This is not what we would do in the U.S.” I wish I was more included in the work of the university or had more interactions with faculty or practitioners here. I expected more, or at least something different–an extended hand from those in the school, a kind gesture, maybe coffee. Zig is my only connection, but he’s so busy and done so much already. This wouldn’t happen at UConn. . .

But in reflection, as I think more critically about my own role as a faculty member and the practices in my department and school at UConn, I must admit that what I wrote is not a true statement. What did I do when a scholar from abroad visited my department or school? I listen if they attended the department meeting, shook their hand when introduced, but did I make the kind of effort I was hoping for from my Icelandic counterparts? The truthful answer is no. It was hypocritical of me to expect a different response from my Icelandic peers. The experiences from my time in Iceland have taught me to use my “why not?” response now that I have returned to the U.S. It has changed how I engage with international visitors to my university and has made me more empathetic with those people adjusting to a new country, language, and culture.

How was Iceland? The process of adaption and reentry into a home culture can be difficult and stressful (McGraw et  al.,  2013). Once I returned I was experiencing profound feelings of reentry shock and reentry adjustment (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1962) and negative effects while readapting to my own environment and culture (Sussman,  2000)–all common experiences of reverse culture shock (Uehara,  1983). Although for many returned sojourners, a central contribution to adjustment at

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home is being able to talk about their international experiences (Kidd, 2010), I was finding it particularly difficult to truly explain my sojourn (Uehara, 1983). Friends, family, and colleagues have asked nearly the same, identical question since my home-coming, “How was Iceland?” They mean well, and are sincere in their interest, but for most, the response they are looking for is, “It’s cold, or it’s beautiful”. I am tired of being asked – I think it’s because I sense that few wish to hear at length of my actual experience – my hell and heaven. If you ask me about Iceland while picking up your mail or while in line at Starbucks you’re being polite and it makes me a little sad to give you a watered down version of what happened (is happening) to me.

I was also experiencing feelings of homesickness (Uehara, 1983) for Iceland. An American friend still living in Reykjavík recently sent me an email where he mentioned the two ducks that live in the pond across the street from our former apartment. . . .wish you guys were still here. I walk by your house almost daily, see Laverne and Shirley swimming in the pond, and feel like ringing the doorbell to drop in. . .

I had named those ducks, and each day I watched them from our dining room window. The minor comment (referencing Laverne and Shirley) left me melancholy and reaching for a tissue, but I was also happy knowing that a bit of my influence had stayed behind in Reykjavík. Another instance of homesickness for Iceland came from social media: I still subscribe on Facebook to “The Grapevine”, “Americans in Iceland” and a few other groups, as well as following the UI Museum Studies students and faculty. I still read the Iceland – English papers online and blogs of travelers to Iceland. Today on Facebook, the Grapevine posted a strange picture (https://www .facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204206547336892&set=a.1175766227331 .27790.1023337121&type=1&theater) of a police officer holding guns and a cat–what I saw was not the subjects in the image, but my house in the background. Or rather the apartment building we lived in. There it was across the bridge and squeezed between the two city hall buildings. It’s barely noticeable, but that’s all I saw and I teared-up. I wish I was there instead of here.

In addition to these feelings of homesickness I was experiencing for a place I only spent six months in, the reverse culture shock caused me to see the world differently after I returned (Uehara, 1983).

Þa ð er Rúsínan í Pylsuendanum In Iceland, they have the phrase, það er rúsínan í pylsuendanum, which translates to, that is the raisin at the end of the hot dog. It’s used to describe something extra that wasn’t expected, or comes as a surprise, and is usually positive.

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This autoethnography has been my raisin at the end of the hot dog, providing insights that allow me to situate my local experience into the global discussions in adult learning and HRD. This autoethnography helped me to clarify my change in perspective and recognize the importance of sharing my experiences with others. Maertz, H ­ assan, and Magnusson (2009) contend that in order to improve expatriates’ and sojourners’ cross-cultural adjustment, it is vital to understand the psychological processes they go through while trying to fit in with their host culture. This autoethnography is in that spirit, thus I leave you with recommendations for scholars considering their own sojourn to a distant land. First, Caligiuri and Lazarova (2002) state that social support is one of the major contributors in helping expatriates to adjust better in the host country while on assignments. Social support is an exchange of resources between at least two individuals in order to enhance the well-being of the recipient (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). Copeland and Norell (2002) identify social support as a “buffer against stress and positive associate of emotional well-being” (255). Daily social interactions can address the immediate everyday needs of sojourners, providing information about day-to-day activities. For example, the Fulbrighters who arrived after me have taken part in a program hosted at the U.S. Embassy offering support in cooking with local, Icelandic ingredients on a tight budget. These daily functional interactions are helpful in the adjustment process (Adelman, 1988). Next, as a U.S. born scholar, employed in a public U.S. university, I have been insulated from the cultural, social, and overall psychological uncertainty (Black et  al.,  1991) that I experienced in Iceland. My mental models of collegiality, research, and teaching are formed by my education and work experiences, yet I found that those models were insufficient for my new work context in Iceland. Critically and reflectively examining my data enabled me to better understand and present my experiences, and exploring how those experiences have changed my view of what it means to be a U.S. professor and educator. This autoethnographic process has allowed me the chance to make public both the good and bad of being a sojourner/scholar. Boyle and Parry (2007) contend that “autoethnography has the potential to make full bodied theoretical contributions to the study of organization and culture” (p. 185), and may also, according to Ellis and Bochner (2006), “open up conversations about how people live” (p. 435), and creates a conversation that opens hearts and increases understanding of difference. I hope I have contributed to our understanding of sojourner experiences, and specifically on the formation of new cultural identities in Fulbright Scholars teaching abroad. I can look back now and say with some confidence that despite my struggles, I experienced a trying, but valuable shift in my cultural identity. Cultural identity is derived from one’s experiences in a culture, and according to Wan and Chew (2013) it is a part of an individual’s self-definition and an indication of an individual’s psychological connection with a culture. These complex experiences are layered. First, I began by gaining cultural competence through knowledge of Icelandic values, beliefs, and norms. This was achieved with a lot of

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observation and questions to trusted sources including the Fulbright students, Zig, and those at the U.S. Embassy. Competence allowed me to act appropriately in various situations according to the cultural demands, like acting nonchalant while naked and talking with some of my female students in the pool changing room. More importantly the cultural competence provided me with the cultural content necessary for the construction of cultural identity. Toward the end I was gaining confidence as I moved from feeling like a tourist to a resident (even a temporary one). I helped English-speaking visitors find spots on their tourist maps after the surprise wore off that it was not an Icelander they had stopped on the street. This competence was coupled with my discoveries about how to manage and overcome the shortcomings of communicating in Icelandic. Each failure and subsequent success bolstered my self-determination and sense of self as an adult learner. And although I tried to develop new social relationships, I fell short. I’ve never been particularly good at making friends, so when I couple that with a culture that generally keeps to itself I find that I left Reykjavík with very few meaningful social connections with Icelanders. As such, I did not achieve what Wan and Chew (2013) call “a larger cultural milieu” which would enable me to more freely associate myself with the Icelandic culture. I have thought a lot about this, and although I am responsible for my own actions and inactions, I tend to think back to that sense of overload I was feeling. In less than six months, I settled into a comfortable home, started teaching two new classes, began a research agenda, found a hockey team for my daughter to play with, made sure my husband’s work arrangement was successful, worried about my daughter’s transition to a new school, and all this along with all the other struggles that come with a sojourner’s adjustment (Church, 1982) to a new country and culture. When I look at other Americans that had been in Iceland longer, including the Fulbright students who had been in Reykjavík for four months before me, I have some sense that I might have developed lasting relationships. Leaving at the end of May I was only just beginning to feel what Bryans and Marvin (2003) describe as the fluidity and complexity of everyday relational experiences that were framing my understandings of who I was, what I knew to be true, and what was still left to learn. I sensed the start of a profound shift in the way I interacted with students and faculty, and residents of Reykjavík. I was undertaking what Kristjánsdóttir (2009) calls sojourner adaptation—that feeling of satisfaction and well-being in an unfamiliar environment. New mental models were emerging that were altering my existing heuristics and ways of knowing, and what it meant to be both a facilitator of adult learning and a researcher. Similar to the sojourners’ experiences explored by Kim (2005), I felt stress when I was first faced with a problem, but then I worked through it and thus I feel as though I gained the increased capacity to face future challenges. I was finding my sense of well-being, and was starting to feel “at home” in Reykjavík, just as I packed my bags to leave. Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank Elliott Brandis, Sarah Lucht Anderson, and Sigurjon Baldur Hafsteinsson for their invaluable support and feedback on the original manuscript.

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Fenton-O’Creevy, M., Brigham, L., Jones, S., & Smith, A. (2014). Students at the academic– workplace boundary. In E. Wenger-Trayner, M. Fenton-O’Creevy, S. Hutchinson, C. Kubiak, & B. Wenger-Trayner. Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning, Abingdon Press, Abingdon, England. Ferreira, F., Ferraro, V., & Bailey, K. G. D. (2012). Good-enough representations in language comprehension. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(1), 11–15. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London, England: Penguin Books. Furnham, A., & Bochner, S. (1986). Culture shock: Psychological reactions to unfamiliar environments. London: Methuen. Galanki, E. (2004). Teachers and loneliness: The children’s perspective. School Psychology International, 25, 92–95. Gilbreath, B., & Montesino, M. U. (2006). Expanding the HRD role: Improving employee well-being and organizational performance. Human Resource Development International, 9(4), 563–571. doi: 10.1080/13678860601032684 Green, L. H. (2013). Global Journeys: Exploring the Communication Strategies Successful Longterm Sojourners use for Cultural, Language, Identity and Family Adjustment (Doctoral dissertation, Gonzaga University). Gudykunst, W. B., & Hammer, M. R. (1984). Dimension of intercultural effectiveness: Culture specific or general? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 8(1), 1–10. doi: 10.1016/0147-1767(84)90003-8 Gullahorn, J. R., & Gullahorn, J. E. (1962). An extension of the u-curve hypothesis. Journal of Social Issues, 19(3), 33–47. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1963.tb00447.x Kidd, M. A. (2010). Communication and the challenges of sojourner readjustment: An exploratory study. University Press of Kansas, Lawerence, KS. Kim, Y. Y. (2005). Adapting to a new culture: An integrative communication theory. In W.  B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Theorizing about intercultural communication (pp.  375–400). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kim, Y. Y. (2008). Intercultural personhood: Globalization and a way of being. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32(4), 359–368. doi: 10.1016/j.ijintel.2008.04.005 Klafehn, J. (2012). Cultural competence: Implications for validity, measurement, and performance (Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Kolb, A. Y., Kolb, D. A., Passarelli, A., & Sharma, G. (2014). On becoming an experiential educator: The educator role profile. Simulation & Gaming, 45(2), 204–234. Kostohryz, K., Wells, P. C., Wathen, C. C., & Wilson, D. (2014). More than a vacation: Exploring the impact of reentry for international sojourners. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 36(4), 315. Kraimer, M. L., Wayne, S. J., & Jaworski, R. A. (2001). Sources of support and expatriate performance: The mediating role of expatriate adjustment. Personnel Psychology, 54(1), 71–99. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2001.tb00086.x Kristjánsdóttir, E. S. (2009). Invisibility dreaded and desired: Phenomenological inquiry of sojourners’ cross-cultural adaptation. Howard Journal of Communications, 20(2), 129–146. doi: 10.1080/10646170902869445 Lev-Ari, S. & Keysar, B. (2012). Less-detailed representation of non-native language: Why non-native speakers’ stories seem more vague. Discourse Processes, 49(7), 523–538. doi: 10.1080/0163853X.2012.698493 Mahajan, A., & De Silva, S. R. (2012). Unmet role expectations of expatriates, host-­ country national support, and expatriate adjustment. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 2(3), 349–360. doi: 10.1177/1470595812440153

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Maertz, C. P., Hassan, A., & Magnusson, P. (2009). When learning is not enough: A process model of expatriate adjustment as cultural cognitive dissonance reduction. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 108(1), 66–78. doi: 10.1016/j .obhdp.2008.05.003 Masgoret, A.- M., & Ward, C. (2006). Cultural learning approach to acculturation. In D. L. Sam & J. W. Berry (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Acculturation Psychology (pp. 58–77). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McClusky, H. Y. (1963). The course of the adult life span. In W. C. Halllenbeck (Ed.), Psychology of Adults, Chicago: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A. McGraw, J., Brooks, L., Myers, M., Vizcarra, A., Edwards, D., Arroyo, E., & Hernandez, A. (2013). Surviving the journey home: Social support and student sojourner. Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research, 4(1) Article 1. http://knowledge.e.southern .edu/jiur/vol4/iss1/1 Michel, N., Cater, J. J., & Varela, O. (2009). Active versus passive teaching styles: An empirical study of student learning outcomes. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 20(4), 397–418. doi: 10.1002/hrdq.20025 Moore, T. (2008). A life at work: The joy of discovering what you were born to do. New York: Broadway Books. Morris, M. L. & McMillan, H. S. (2014). Guiding HRD research in the work/life interface. In N. E. Chalofsky, T. S. Rocco, & M. L. Morris (Eds.) Handbook of Human Resource Development, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Oppedal, B. (2006). Development and acculturation. In D. L. Sam & J. W. Berry (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Acculturation Psychology (pp. 97–112). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Osland, J. S. (2000). The journey inward: Expatriate hero tales and paradoxes. Human Resource Management, 39(2–3), 227–238. doi: 0.1002/1099-050X Palmer, P. J. (2010). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Richardson, J., & McKenna, S. (2002). Leaving and experiencing: Why academics expatriate and how they experience expatriation. Career Development International, 7(2), 67–78. doi: 10.1108/13620430210421614 Rogers, J., & Smith, M. (2011). Demonstrating genuine interest in students’ needs and progress: Implications for student satisfaction with courses. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 3(1), 6–14. doi: 10.1108/17581181111150865 Selmer, J. (2006). Language ability and adjustment: Western expatriates in China. Thunderbird International Business Review, 48(3): 347–368. doi: 10.1002/tie.20099 Shumaker, S. A., & Brownell, A. (1984). Towards a theory of social support: Closing conceptual gaps. Journal of Social Issues, 40(4), 11–36. doi: 10.1111/j.15404560.1984.tb01105.x Sparkes, A. C. (2002). Autoethnography: Self-indulgence or something more? In A. P. Bochner, & C. Ellis (Eds.), Ethnographically speaking: Autoethnography, literature and aesthetics (pp. 209–232). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Spry, T. (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6), 706–732. doi: 10.1177/107780040100700605 Starr, L. (2010). The use of autoethnography in educational research: Locating who we are in what we do. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education 3(1), 1–9. Stewart-Wingfield, S., & Black, G. S. (2005). Active versus passive course designs: The impact on student outcomes. Journal of Education for Business, 81(2), 119–128. doi: 10.3200/JOEB.81.2.119-128

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Stimming, C. U. (2012). ‘Making it or breaking it’ in Iceland: An exploration of expatriate spouses’ adaptation strategies and experiences. University of Iceland Press, R ­ eykjavik, Iceland. Sussman, N. M. (2000). The dynamic nature of cultural identity throughout cultural transitions: Why home is not so sweet. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(4), 355–373. doi: 10.1207/S15327957PSPR0404_5 Townes-O’Brien, M., Leiman, T., & Duffy, J. (2014). The power of naming: The multifaceted value of learning students’ names. QUT Law Review, 14(1), 114–128. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago press. Uehara, A. (1983). The nature of American student re-entry readjustment and perceptions of the sojourner experience. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(4), 415–438. doi: 10.1016/0147-1767(86) 90043-X van der Zee, K., & van Oudenhoven, J. P. (2013). Culture shock or challenge? The role of personality as a determinant of intercultural competence. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(6), 928–940. doi: 10.1177/0022022113493138 Wan, C., & Chew, P. Y.-G. (2013). Cultural knowledge, category label, and social connections: Components of cultural identity in the global, multicultural context. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(4), 247–259. doi: 10.1111/ajsp.12029 Ward, C., Bochner, S., & Furnham, A. (2001). The psychology of culture shock. East Sussex, UK: Routlegde. Ward, C., Leong, C. H., & Low, M. (2004). Personality and sojourner adjustment: An exploration of the big five and the cultural fit proposition. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35(2), 137–151. doi: 10.1177/0022022103260719 Welch, D. E., & Welch, L. S. (2008). The importance of language in international knowledge transfer. Management International Review, 48(3), 339–360. doi: 10.1007/ s11575-008-0019-7 Whyte, D. (2009). The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationships. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Managing the Burden and Blessing of Autoethnography Robin S. Grenier University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT [email protected]

I think there’s something funny about writing a reflection about my experience of studying my experience – it’s very meta, but somehow it works because autoethnography is itself, so very self-referential. Autoethnography calls on the researcher/participant to be both the fish in the fishbowl and the person looking into the bowl. Although there are numerous considerations when planning and carrying out this methodology, I want to offer thoughts for novice autoethnographers on managing the burden and blessing of constantly being in, with, and from the data. Ellis (1991) in writing about autoethnography once asked, “Who would make a better subject than a researcher consumed by wanting to figure it all out?” (p. 30). Certainly, there is no better way to know what to collect, how much to collect, and when to collect than to be the participant/researcher. Autoethnography means that you always have the participant at your disposal – you can collect data at any time, in any moment, and you can continually triangulate your data and identify gaps as you analyze in order to address missing or incomplete information. Of course, this benefit is also a burden. Unlike many ethnographic studies where you can leave the setting, even if for only short periods of time, I  was always on duty – as both researcher and participant. I was very aware of being in a constant state of research; given the fact that the study encompassed both my professional practice and personal life I was never removed from the work. This also meant that even when I returned to the United States and began a focused analysis, interpretation, and representation of my experiences, my participant was always looking over my shoulder as I worked. The un/conscious member checking was a constant presence as I volleyed back and forth between researcher and participant. To address this hyperexamination of self I found two techniques extremely useful: memo writing and sharing my process with others.

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Consistent memo writing during autoethnography shapes the research and the researcher’s perceptions (Antony, 2015) in a highly reflexive process of thoughtful, conscious awareness of the self in the process of research (­Finlay, 2002). In my case, as I sorted my data and began my open coding process, I found that I needed memos to elicit what was motivating my interpretive choices. Was I coding something that was actually in the data? Or, was I coding based on something tacit, something that wasn’t present in the physical data, but was part of the experience that I had not originally captured in the moment? Writing memos allowed me to think about the data in new ways, and to sort through and track my reflexive process. I also found member checking and peer debriefing useful to manage the unique experiences associated with autoethnography. Although I have always turned to these techniques while conducting other forms of qualitative inquiry, member checking and peer debriefing were a vital part of the autoethnographic process. The techniques allowed me to get out of my own head. I began member checking with those who in some way shared the experience with me – my husband, my daughter, the other Americans I met in Iceland, but later I added a peer debriefer. Kim was a trusted colleague and friend at UConn. She understood the methodology and was willing to listen as I explored the feelings that surfaced as I read my journals and notes and sorted through photos. The first process, member checking, was important to me because those people were present in the research. At different stages I shared my work with them, allowing them to see how they were represented in my findings and acting as triangulation of the data – they read my emerging findings and could in some cases confirm my interpretations of an experience, and in others give a contrary or more nuanced take. The latter was extremely valuable as it gave me a way to reflect on my bias or recognize and address blind spots in my data. Second, although I did not set out to use a critical friend (Costa & ­Kallick, 1993), I realized during the process that it was crucial. As I worked in my office on this autoethnography I experienced sadness, anxiety, and joy – even shedding tears as I sat with the data. I found myself needing breaks and would wander the halls to clear my head. It was on one of these walks that I realized I needed someone to talk to who might understand my emotions, not in relation to the experiences in Iceland, but as a qualitative researcher. Kim was down the hall and I trusted her; she became for me my critical friend. Acting as a peer debriefer, Kim supported and challenged my thinking during the interpretation and writing phases. During that time, she asked me provocative questions, provided an alternate lens as I examined and wrote about my data, and offered critique of my work (as well as tissues and cookies). Because of her background in qualitative inquiry and her understanding of the inherent vulnerability of autoethnography, she was able to support and empower me through our conversations, which lead to new insights and facilitated reflective learning (Kember et al., 1997). Autoethnography can amplify your vulnerability as both participant and researcher and can take an emotional toll. So I agree with Lee (1995), who contends that autoethnography is the most dangerous form of research. Taking care to write memos,

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conduct member checks, and seek out a critical friend must not be overlooked in order to ensure your emotional wellness and the success of the autoethnography.

References Antony, A. (2015). Tacit knowledge and analytic autoethnography. In F. Adlof, K. ­Gerund, & D. Kaldewey (Eds.), Revealing tacit knowledge: Embodiment and explication (Vol. 2, pp. 139–168), https://leseprobe.buch.de/images-adb/ff/a6/ffa67128-f1a44b05-95f4-82d9b626173e.pdf Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (1993). Through the lens of a critical friend. Educational Leadership, 51, 49–49. Ellis, C. (1991). Sociological introspection and emotional experience. Symbolic Interaction, 14(1), 23–50. Finlay L. (2002). Negotiating the swamp: The opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice. Qualitative Research, 22, 209–230. Kember, D., Ha, T. S., Lam, B. H., Lee, A., Ng, S., Yan, L., & Yum, J. C. (1997). The diverse role of the critical friend in supporting educational action research projects. Educational Action Research, 5(3), 463–481. Lee, R. M. (1995). Dangerous fieldwork. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Grounded Theory Grounded theory first came to the attention of qualitative researchers with the publication in 1967 of Glaser and Strauss’s book, The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Similar to other qualitative research designs, grounded theory is “the study of experience from the standpoint of those who live it” (Charmaz, 2000, p. 522). The investigator is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, and the mode of inquiry is inductive. What distinguishes a grounded theory study from other designs of qualitative research is that the goal of a grounded theory study is the building of a substantive theory – theory that emerges from and is “grounded” in the data collected. A substantive theory is one that relates to specific, everyday-world situations, “slices of social life” (Charmaz, 2000, p. 522), as opposed to the more global, theoretical frameworks of “grand” theories. Further, grounded theory is particularly useful for illuminating a process, that is, how something evolves over time. Examples of substantive theories might be how healthcare professionals deal with difficult homecare visits, or how fifth grade children incorporate technology into learning math, or how a community recovers from a natural disaster. As with all types of qualitative research studies, data in grounded theory studies can come from interviews, observations, and/or documents/artifacts. Although interviews and observations are the primary sources of data in grounded theory studies, Glaser and Strauss (1967) remind us that a wide variety of documentary materials, literature, and even reports of previous research can be potential sources of data in a grounded theory study. In Pandit’s (1996) study, for example, a grounded theory of corporate turnaround was developed exclusively from existing literature and documents. A grounded theory study begins with an initial sample, chosen by its logical relevance to the research problem, then data are collected and analyzed, and, as Charmaz (2000) points out, “we likely find gaps in our data and holes in our theories. Then we go back to the field and collect delimited data to fill those conceptual gaps and holes” (p. 519). This is referred to as theoretical sampling. The basic analysis procedure in grounded theory research is guided by the constant comparative method. Units of data deemed meaningful by the researcher are compared with each other in order to generate tentative categories or themes and properties, the basic elements of a grounded theory. Through constantly

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comparing incident with incident, comparing incidents with emerging conceptual categories, and reducing similar categories into a smaller number of highly conceptual categories, an overall framework or substantive theory develops. As Strauss and Corbin (1998) observed in their detailed description of how to derive categories from the data, categories are the fundamental components of the developing theory. They provide the means by which the theory can be integrated. This process is facilitated by coding (open, axial, and selective) and the continual writing of memos recording any insights that arise in the course of data analysis and, in particular, connections that are seen between and among categories and properties. It’s important to point out that the constant comparative method of data analysis originally described by Glaser and Strauss (1967) is by far, the most common procedure for data analysis in qualitative research studies, regardless of design. The process allows one to examine interview transcripts, field notes, and documents and come up with “findings” that are responsive to a study’s research questions. However, unless one builds a substantive theory from the categories, properties, and links between them, the study would not be considered a grounded theory study. Building a grounded theory also involves the identification of a core ­category—the main conceptual element through which all others are connected. The core category is the main theme of the findings. Corbin and Strauss (2015) explained that the core category is “a concept that is abstract and broad enough to be representative of all participants in the study. . . . It is the category among ­others that seems to have the greatest explanatory power and the ability to link the other categories to it and to each other” (pp. 188–189). The linking of categories and properties through hypotheses or propositions is often part of the process of developing a grounded theory. In their original work on grounded theory, Glaser and Strauss (1967) laid out criteria for assessing a grounded theory, criteria that are relevant and practical today: fitness – the theory must be closely related to the reality of the substantive area of investigation; understanding – laypersons working in the setting of the investigation should be able to understand and use the theory; generality – categories of the grounded theory “should not be so abstract as to lose their sensitizing aspect, but yet must be abstract enough to make . . . theory a general guide to multiconditional, everchanging daily situations” (p. 242); and control – the theory must offer enough robustness and clarity resulting in enough control “to make its application worthwhile” (p. 245). The two examples of grounded theory studies included in this section illustrate several of the characteristics of grounded theory studies reviewed above. Teräs and Kartoğlu’s (2017) grounded theory study of online professional development programs for vaccine management resulted in a model of professional learning. This model or grounded theory positions the learner at the center of the process with peers, mentors, and content in supporting roles. The researchers explain how they moved from open coding of their interviews to axial, then selective, coding. This process resulted in their arriving at the core category, “professional learning as interactions,” which is at the heart of their model of

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professional development. Their reflection takes the reader “behind the scenes” so to speak, revealing the process of identifying themes and patterns in the data but then moving to a more theoretical explanation characteristic of a grounded theory study. In the second study, Cronin (2017) used grounded theory to develop a model of open educational practices used by university educators. Open educational practices (OEP) model involve the use of open resources, open pedagogy, and open sharing. Cronin explains her use of theoretical sampling and the constant comparative method of data analysis to come up with a model of open educational practices consisting of the following four dimensions: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. Her reflection on the process highlights one of the characteristics of grounded theory – that of building a useful theory, one grounded in an area of practice. She also comments on how a grounded theory is itself a subjective and social construction.

References Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 509–535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2015). Basics of qualitative research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Pandit, N. R. (1996). The creation of theory: A recent application of the grounded theory method.” The Qualitative Report, 2(4), pp. 1–20. Retrieved from https://nsuworks .nova.edu/tqr/vol2/iss4/3 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chapter Nine

A Grounded Theory of Professional Learning in an Authentic Online Professional Development Program Introduction While professional development programs are increasingly often offered online, little is known of how professional learning actually takes place in online professional development (OPD) programs and what elements of the learning design and learning environment support or hinder it. This study examines how professional learning occurs in an OPD program designed and implemented according to the pedagogical model of authentic e-learning (Herrington, Reeves & ­Oliver, 2010) and how the elements of the learning design and the use of technology affect the professional learning experience of the participants. The context of the study is an international OPD program in vaccine management, offered by the World Health Organization (WHO). A theoretical model of the professional learning process in an authentic online learning environment is developed using a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin,  1998). While the model can be used to inform the design, implementation, and facilitation of online professional learning programs, we believe it will potentially be helpful for other online learning contexts designed for adult learners as well.

Professional Development and Professional Learning In this study, we define professional development (PD) as activities that are intended to engage professionals in new learning about their professional practice (Knapp, 2003), whereas professional learning (PL) is an intrinsic phenomenon. Teräs, H., & Kartoğlu, Ü. (2017). A Grounded Theory of Professional Learning in an Authentic Online Professional Development Program. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(7).

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Participating in professional development activities may or may not lead to professional learning. Ruohotie (2002) describes professional learning as a continuous process that builds throughout the entire professional career or the individual. As a result, as Webster-Wright (2010) summarises, “PL cannot be mandated, coerced or controlled, but can be supported, facilitated and shaped” (p. 12). This observation is a starting point for the study presented in this paper and provides a key motivation for the research task. In order to better understand the value of OPD, it is important to first understand how PL in fact occurs during the type of PD endeavour in question. Whereas many OPD programs are based on online content delivery, examples of more pedagogically driven designs can also be found. For example, Ching and Hursh (2014) report on an OPD program that led to wide-scale innovation adoption and change in professional practice. This was seen to be a result of the learning design that built on the social constructivist belief that people construct knowledge collaboratively and learn best when creating purposeful artefacts for an authentic audience (Ching & Hursh, 2014). The findings align with earlier research on PD and adult learning. Learner involvement, building upon experience, situated content, and problem-centered context have been suggested to be key principles of adult learning (Knowles,  1990). In line with these principles, effective professional development is believed to be social, active and practicedriven (Webster-Wright, 2010). However, instead of the above identifiers, the advantages of OPD are often primarily associated with accessibility and flexibility regarding time and space (Dede, Ketelhut, Whitehouse, Breit, & McCloskey,  2009); Carey, Kleiman, R ­ ussell, & Venable,  2009). While these perceived advantages often serve as the default ground for OPD research, they tend to make assumptions of the pedagogical foundations of e-learning that are seldom defined or questioned. OPD is often assumed as content delivery in the form of self-study materials and assignments, sometimes mandated by the employer. For example, Vu, Cao, Vu, and Cepero (2014) examined factors that lead to learner success in OPD, and found selfdirection, compliance to employer expectations and disciplined study routine as the most important characteristics. Kyalo and Hopkins (2013) studied the acceptance of OPD amongst medical professionals and found that while the majority appreciated the flexibility and the self-paced nature of the studies, less than third of the participants regarded the OPD program as a successful professional learning experience. The difficulty to remain motivated and self-directed was identified as a challenge. Moreover, OPD was found theoretical and unsuitable for practical subjects (Kyalo & Hopkins, 2013). Neither of these examples describes the learning design of the OPD offerings in question but seems to automatically assign OPD with content-driven self-study. Baran and Cagiltay’s (2006) study examining teachers’ expectations and experiences with OPD make these assumptions more explicit. Their rather discouraging observation was that the participants found the OPD experience decontextualized, theoretical, and downright boring. The only advantage was the flexibility of time and space. The participants were not eager to undertake another OPD course unless it was interactive and highly practical, and provided opportunities

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to problem-solve and learn from colleagues (Baran & Cagiltay, 2006). Interactivity and collegial sharing have often been particularly difficult to achieve in OPD; Liu (2012) identifies their absence as one of the most obvious shortcomings in OPD. The issue is sometimes tackled by adding a discussion board in the online learning environment; however, these often remain underutilised. This was the case also in an OPD program evaluated by McConnell and Monroe (2012), and as a result, the design was reverted to a static website focussing on content delivery and individual assignments. Ignoring the dimension of learning design has led to weaknesses in the evaluation of e-learning, including OPD. The effectiveness of e-learning is typically evaluated in comparison with a face-to-face delivery, reducing social interactions into quantitatively defined variables and assuming these can be controlled or randomised (Phillips, McNaught, & Kennedy,  2012; Reeves,  2006). In such endeavours, the pedagogical and education-philosophical underpinnings of either mode are typically not defined or considered in the research design. The measurements take the form of test results or participant satisfaction surveys (e.g., Lahti, Kontio, Pitkänen, & Välimäki, 2014; McConnell & Monroe, 2012), or user acceptance questionnaires (e.g., Kyalo & Hopkins, 2013; Alsofyani, Bin Aris, Eynon, & Norazman, 2012). However, the research results remain of little applicability when “online” is presented as a pedagogical strategy in its own right, while it, in reality, is a channel through which a variety of different pedagogical designs can be employed. Authentic professional learning. Some researchers have taken a different approach to professional development research, shifting the focus from the characteristics of the PD program to the learning process of the professionals. Vermunt and Endedijk (2011) have studied teachers’ professional development and argue that most of the literature in the area is prescriptive and neglects to explore how teachers learn naturally. Similarly, Webster-Wright (2010) believes that professional development research would benefit from a better understanding of how professional learning takes place in natural work settings. She used phenomenological analysis to reveal how health care professionals keep learning in working life and developed this understanding further into a framework of “authentic professional learning” (Webster-Wright, 2010). The present study builds on this thinking and seeks to combine the two approaches by investigating how professional learning actually takes place in an OPD program. Acknowledging that “online” is not a pedagogical design or a universal variable in its own right, we next move on to describe the learning design of the OPD program in question.

Authentic e-Learning as a Design Framework for Professional Development We believe it is not possible to arrive in a theoretical framework of professional learning in an OPD program without considering the learning design of the program in question. Different approaches to teaching are known to lead to different learning strategies and experiences (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). The OPD program

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that forms the context of this study has been designed and implemented according to the principles of authentic e-learning (Herrington, Reeves & ­Oliver, 2010). Authentic e-learning is a pedagogical framework that has originally been developed and studied in a higher education context. The goal of the framework was to apply a “model of instructional design based on the theory of situated learning to the design of multimedia learning environment for university students” (Herrington & Oliver, 2000, p.25). The authentic e-learning framework has been widely studied in different educational contexts, including pre-­service teacher education (e.g., Amiel & Herrington,  2012; Valtonen, ­Kukkonen, K ­ ontkanen, Sormunen, Dillon, & Sointu,  2015), higher education (e.g., Bozalek et  al., 2013), teacher professional development (e.g., Teräs,  2013; Parker, Maor, & Herrington,  2013), vocational education (Pu, Wu, Chiu, & Huang,  2016), and foreign language learning (Ozverir, Herrington, & Osam, 2016). However, applications of authentic e-learning in industry and organisations are still scarce. Most examples involve linking students with industry through projects, placements, or authentic practices (e.g., Collis, Foth, & Schroeter, 2009; Pu et al., 2016). This study makes a contribution to the research of authentic e-learning by applying the model in a professional development context and presenting a theoretical model of how exactly professional learning might take place in an authentic e-learning based program. The authentic e-learning framework provides learning design guidelines for translating the pedagogical ideas of situated learning (Lave & Wenger,  1991) into practice in online education. Being based on the notion that learning occurs best when it is embedded in context, activity, and culture, situated learning is a natural match for professional development and training purposes (e.g., Machles,  2003). One of the claims for authentic learning is that it is able to bridge the gap between formal education and the expectations of society and working life better than traditional methods based on the delivery of abstract and decontextualized content (Herrington et al., 2010). It moves away from traditional university course activities, such as lectures, readings, and examinations to an approach where the focus of the course is in an authentic project. Such an approach is well suited for professional development – perhaps even more easily than in a higher education context where the constraints of traditional academic practices are often hindering the development of authentic e-learning courses (Herrington et al., 2010). The role of technology in an authentic e-learning environment differs significantly from the commonly seen practice of using technology as an information delivery channel, where content is delivered to students by technology, students use technology to complete assignments to indicate that they have processed the content, and the teacher uses technology to assess the adequacy of the student’s response, or the response is assessed automatically. Herrington et al. (2010) refer to this as learning from technology. By contrast, learning with technology uses technology as cognitive tools that learners use for constructing knowledge, solving problems, collaborating, and articulating their knowledge to others. The latter is assumed in authentic e-learning.

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The authentic e-learning framework consists of nine elements that align closely with success factors identified in earlier professional development research, as well as with central adult learning theories. These elements are described in the following. 1. Authentic context which is not created merely by providing real world examples, but Herrington et al. (2010) define it as “need(ing) to be allembracing, to provide the purpose and motivation for learning, and to provide a sustained and complex learning environment that can be explored at length” (p.19). An authentic context must reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life; therefore, it must also preserve the complexity of the real life setting. 2. Authentic tasks are the core of an authentic learning design. In addition to having strong real-life relevance, they are as ill-defined and complex as real world problems tend to be. Authentic tasks are long-term efforts and result in a polished product. The importance of such tasks in professional development has been known for a long time: Ling and MacKenzie (2001) found that successful professional development is a long-term process that offers opportunities for practical implementation. The same has later been confirmed in other studies (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007; Garcia & Roblin, 2008). These observations support Knowles’ (1990) notion that adult learners require situation-relevant content and prefer to work within a problemcentered context. 3. Access to expert performances and the modeling of processes is an idea that originates from apprenticeship learning. In the context of professional development this means that the learners have the opportunity to observe how experts solve problems as well as learn with and from their colleagues. The idea of apprenticeship is also found behind Lave and Wenger’s (1991) influential and widely studied ideas of situated learning, legitimate peripheral participation and communities of practice. 4. Promoting multiple roles and perspectives ensures that learners are exposed to controversies, debates, and discussion, as well as to various sources of information rather than a single textbook or teacher’s lecture notes. The benefits of learning environments that promote dialogue and collegial sharing have been identified in different OPD studies worldwide. For example, Garcia and Roblin (2008) and Löfström and Nevgi (2007) have found that sharing of viewpoints and experiences enhances the work performance of professionals. 5. Collaborative construction of knowledge is a key characteristic of authentic learning and a widely stated success factor of professional development. Collegial sharing (Ling & MacKenzie, 2001), interdisciplinary teamwork (Garcia & Roblin, 2008), as well as interaction and collaboration between participants (Liu, 2012) have all been recognized as key ingredients in effective professional development.

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6. Reflection in authentic learning can be promoted by requiring participants to make decisions regarding completing tasks, by presenting materials in a non-linear fashion that allows free navigation and acting upon reflection, and by offering opportunities to compare one’s thoughts to the ideas of other learners, experts, and mentors. The role of reflection in adult learning is long recognized (Schön, 1983) and it has also been identified as a feature of quality professional learning (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007; G ­ arcia & Roblin, 2003). 7. Articulation is encouraged when the tasks require the participants to discuss their growing understanding, negotiate meaning, and publicly present and defend arguments. In accordance with this principle, Garcia and Roblin (2007) found that promoting articulation through weblogs in OPD enhanced reflection, the development of metacognitive abilities, creativity, and interaction between colleagues. 8. An authentic e-learning course “provides for coaching at critical times, and scaffolding of support, where the teacher provides the skills, strategies, and links that the students are unable to provide to complete the task” (­Herrington et al., 2010, p. 35). Similarly, Ling and MacKenzie (2001) maintain that successful professional learning is well supported. 9. Authentic assessment is not separated from the learning process, but is seamlessly integrated in the activities. Moreover, authentic assessment requires that learners be provided with the opportunity to be effective performers with the skills and knowledge they have acquired.

Research Context The participants of the study consist of experts in immunisation, vaccine management, and pharmaceuticals that completed an OPD course in Vaccine Vial Monitor (VVM) based vaccine management offered by the WHO and EPELA (Extensio et Progressio, Authentic e-Learning) (http://epela.net/epela_web/ evvm.html). The participants of the OPD program consisted of both men and women from different organisations all around the world, mostly from different African and Asian countries. The OPD program took place fully online and the participants never met each other or the mentors physically. VVM is a label containing a heat-sensitive material, which is placed on a vaccine vial to register cumulative heat exposure over time. The VVM label indicates whether the administered vaccines have been damaged by heat or not, consequently helping to reduce vaccine wastage, identify cold chain problems and manage vaccine stocks. The eVVM OPD course aims to develop sound vaccine management skills using VVMs. Instead of delivering the course content in the form of readings and lectures, the OPD program invites participants to interact and learn within an authentic online learning environment that simulates a vaccine cold chain. The course spans over nine weeks, during which the participants travel virtually from one level to another in the supply chain, assuming the

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relevant professional roles in situations ranging from international arrival of the vaccines to storage and a plan of action to adopt VVM policies for national use. On each level, participants engage in authentic tasks, solving similar problems as they would in a real-world situation and producing outcomes that can actually be used in the field for authentic working purposes. They work in teams, reflect on their learning both individually and collaboratively, and receive continuous feedback from mentors and peers. As a result, the participants develop and apply advanced decision-making and planning skills. The course does introduce short expert videos and reference materials about the subject matter, but the most important learning opportunities are enabled via authentic tasks. Self, peer, and mentor review are important aspects of assessment. Following five weeks of virtual visits, participants are introduced to a real client so that together with their peers as consultants they analyse a real world cold chain challenge and make recommendations to the client. Figure 1 illustrates the course flow and the activities of the participants and mentors during the course. The process illustrated in the figure above takes place in the online learning environment of the course, utilising a variety of technologies for different purposes. The learning environment has been designed to integrate the authentic learning principles. In addition to the online technologies, the participants receive a set of real physical VVM cards for observation. Table 1 illustrates how the nine principles of authentic learning were used in the course and how the technologies supported this.

Methodology A grounded theory approach was employed for the research task. Grounded theory seeks to determine how the actors respond to different conditions and  the consequences of their actions (Corbin & Strauss,  1990). The purpose of grounded theory is thus to develop a theoretical explanation for a process or an action through the process of constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This theoretical explanation is grounded in and generated from the qualitative data produced by the participants. As Strauss and Corbin (1998) emphasise, a theory goes beyond a set of findings in that it offers an explanation about phenomena. In the case of the present study, the aim was to explain the occurrence of professional learning, grounding that explanation on the actual experience of the participants to the eVVM course.

Collection and Analysis of Data The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with seven participants who completed the eVVM course, as well as through observations in the online learning environment. The interviews were conducted via Skype and they were recorded and transcribed. The length of the interviews varied from 30 minutes to one hour. The interview questions invited the interviewees to reflect on and

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Figure 1  The flow of the eVVM online professional development course.

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Table 1  Authentic Learning Principles and Technologies in the VVM OPD Course Authentic learning principle

How the principle was used

Technologies

Authentic context.

The vaccine supply chain is represented through virtual visits implemented with 360° videos and authentic documentation. Authentic practices and approaches are employed in all learning tasks.

• EPELA environment, which integrates virtual steps of the vaccine supply chain with the authentic tasks, resources and tools. • VVM cards that the participants observe and experiment with.

Authentic tasks.

All tasks are designed based on actual real life problems that are complex and ambiguous. The tasks are completed over an extended period of time. All tasks are designed based on real-world problems notified to WHO.

• Google Drive provides participants access to shared folders for submission of task reports and peer review. • WebEx is used as a conference platform for the final task for groups to present their work to the real client. • VVM cards. • Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook used for communication when working on these tasks.

Access to expert performances and modelling of processes.

Expert videos, access • Video and document libraries to mentors, sharing of provide authentic resources participant expertise through such as expert videos and collaborative tasks. scientific papers.

Multiple perspectives.

Versatile materials (video & document library) presented in a non-linear fashion.

• Video and document libraries. • Discussion forums for sharing perspectives, asking questions, and discussing experiences in different contexts.

Collaborative construction of knowledge.

Participants access and comment on each other’s work. Individuals and groups create reports and recommendations as well as mind maps, flow charts and decision trees for processes – these documents are now in use in the field.

Several tools are used for this purpose throughout the course: • Skype • Discussion forums • Google Drive

(continued)

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Table 1  Authentic Learning Principles and Technologies in the VVM OPD Course   (continued) Authentic learning principle

How the principle was used

Technologies

Reflection.

Participants keep a diary to reflect on authentic tasks, their learning and approaches to solve problems. Diary entries are made following completion of the tasks, peer review and mentor comments, enabling critical reflection on action.

• Online diaries. • Scavenger hunt blog where participants are given a list of situations to observe and photograph in their own working contexts and post them in the blog along with a story of each situation.

Articulation.

Diaries, Flipgrid videos and course director’s oneon-one interactions with participants about their diary entries provide articulation opportunities.

Several tools support articulation: • Diaries • Flipgrid • Discussion forums • WebEx

Scaffolding and coaching.

Mentors are readily reachable • Discussion forums. via Skype, email and other • Skype for both group and means. In each authentic individual mentoring. task, mentors provide prompt • Email. constructive feedback. • Google Drive for feedback and comments on participants’ work.

Authentic assessment.

Authentic assessment is embedded within the authentic tasks. Products resulting from these tasks include reports, presentations, peer reviews and learning diaries. These are used to assess the learning of each individual.

• • • •

Diaries. Discussion forums. Google Drive. WebEx.

describe their learning experience and discuss the impact the course had on their professional growth. The analysis followed the coding procedures described by Strauss and Corbin (1998). In grounded theory, data collection and analysis are interrelated processes (Corbin & Strauss, 1990): the analysis starts with the first bits of data and directs the next steps in data collection. In this study, the first bits of data were

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collected through observations in the online learning environment. These observations guided the interviews and informed the formation of interview questions. As the interviews were being completed, they were first listened to again and transcribed, after which the transcripts were read through repeatedly. This initial process allowed the researcher to immerse in the data, become more familiar with it, and identify initial points of interest. This stage was followed by the process of open coding, which involves identifying concepts in the data. Conceptual labels are given to incidents, events, and happenings, in order to be able to analyse them as potential indicators of phenomena. Concepts are thus the basic units of grounded theory analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). An effort was made to generate codes that would capture what essentially was going on with regard to professional learning. At the same time, memoing was used to record questions, interpretations, and thoughts that rose from the data, to facilitate a detailed, indepth analysis that would result in an adequate code. The process of memoing is an integral part of grounded theory as it provides a system for the researcher to keep track of all categories, properties, questions, and hypotheses that result from the analysis process (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). The concepts identified were labelled in the transcripts and organised into categories with the help of concept mapping and constant comparison of data, codes, and emerging categories. Corbin and Strauss (1990) refer to categories as the “cornerstones of a developing theory” (p. 7) as they allow for the theory to be integrated. As a result of the process, the coded concepts represent abstractions derived from the responses of many participants. Table 2 illustrates an example of how codes were organised into categories. For example, some of the interviewees talked about how they had enjoyed the group work activities, whereas some others mentioned how they had been able to learn from their colleagues who knew more than they did about a certain issue. Although these concepts are not exactly the same, they both describe experiences that may be categorised as “appreciating collaborative learning.” Table 2  Example of Codes and Categories Open codes

Categories

Enjoying group work Appreciating collaborative learning Appreciating small, rotating groups Learning from a more knowledgeable colleague Group member not responding to emails Challenges with collaboration Group member not contributing to the task Juggling between commitments Testing scenarios with peers Collaborating beyond course requirements Comparing professional contexts Continuing to stay in touch

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After the process of open coding, the next stage of axial coding involves relating categories to their subcategories and testing their relationships against data (Corbin & Strauss,  1990). Through axial coding, the number of codes is reduced and connections and relationships among them are uncovered (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Moghaddam, 2006). For example, the subcategories of appreciating collaborative learning, challenges with collaboration, and collaborating beyond course requirements were grouped together under the axial code “experiencing collaborative learning.” The final stage of the analysis is the process of selective coding. In this stage, a central category is chosen and other categories are related to it (Strauss & Corbin,  1998, Moghaddam,  2006). A central category must be one that all other major categories relate to, either as actions, conditions, or consequences. It must also appear in the data so frequently that, in almost all cases, there will be indicators pointing to that concept. (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). The central category that emerged from the data in this process was “professional learning as interactions.” During the process of selective coding, the categories were integrated and developed into a theoretical scheme (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This was facilitated by reviewing and sorting memos, diagramming, and revisiting all the interviews to compare the scheme against the raw data. A theorised framework was then formed by connecting the dots and identifying the factors that enable or hinder these interactions.

Research Findings As Corbin and Strauss (1990) point out, the interrelatedness of data collection and analysis in the grounded theory process allows for the research process to capture all relevant aspects of a topic as soon as they are encountered. In this study, one of the first points of interest to catch the attention during the early stages of the research process was that all participants were already experienced in e-learning. Some had completed a considerable number of OPD courses. However, they emphasised that the eVVM course was different from their previous experiences because of the authentic learning approach. This was definitely very problem based learning. A lot of MOOCs have been done very well, but there’s still a lot of aspects that deal with a lot more theoretical content, rather than: “you are now a manager of a health unit and you have to deal with these types of problems.” There is a lot of grey area in how you deal with it and how you make decisions. So, that was the difference. It was very hands on (Participant 5).

Secondly, most interviewees described very tangible learning outcomes that impacted directly on their practice, rather than accumulating merely theoretical knowledge. One of the participants reported: “Now that I’ve done it physically, I can explain it,” referring to a recent fieldwork situation where he had been able to apply his new skills with the VVM observation. Other examples included the ability to use some of the authentic products developed during the course in the field. A third early observation was that no one emphasised the “usual”

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benefits of e-learning associated with flexibility with regard to time and space. Instead, they highlighted the high degree of realism, relevance, and practicality of the course. The different thing, when I’m comparing the eVVM with the rest of the eLearning courses. . . . The realistic task! When I was doing my eVVM course, we had some complex collaborative tasks with colleagues from different countries. So we’re dealing with, you know, actual tasks. (Participant 1)

The first provisional concepts in the study were thus “difference from other OPD programs,” “realistic task,” and “impact on professional practice”. As outlined by Corbin and Strauss (1990), provisional concepts are validated and later included in the theory if they are repeatedly present or significantly absent in the data. The repeated mentions of the benefits of the authentic tasks and, on the other hand, the lack of discussion around the “usual” benefits of e-learning were both considered significant. Other sub-categories that emerged from the data were organised through the process of axial coding into eight categories: the learner, authentic tasks, authentic learning resources, collaboration with colleagues, scheduling, mentoring, technology, and impact on professional practice. Through further refining and selective coding, “learning as a web of interactions” emerged as a central category. The eight categories all relate to the central category, either as causal conditions, contextual conditions, consequences, or strategies, explained in further detail in the following section.

Learning as a Web of Interactions A model of professional learning as a dynamic web of interactions, facilitated by technology, started to form during analysis (see Figure 2). At the centre of the web of interactions is the learner who engages in authentic learning tasks in collaboration with her or his peers, supported by the mentors, and making use of authentic learning resources. Technology facilitates these interactions as a means of communication, as tools for collaboratively preparing the authentic tasks and sharing the products, and as a way of accessing the supporting learning resources. All interactions are reciprocal: each person involved brings in a unique contribution that has an impact on another person’s learning process. In this sense, the process cannot be fully predicted or replicated. The learning interactions illustrated in the framework do not exist in a vacuum, nor do they have their starting and ending points within the scope of the OPD program, as illustrated in the following interview excerpt: “(T)he course is over but there’s a couple of us that are still communicating and digesting. . .we take a scenario and we kind of change it a little bit, and add our own experiences we used to deal with” (Participant 5). The interactions were influenced by different forms of prior professional learning, such as existing professional networks, as well as attendance to other professional development programs either prior to or concurrently with the eVVM

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Figure 2  A framework of professional learning in authentic learning based OPD. Online resources

Authentic tasks

Together with Access

Mentors

Guidance and feedback

Engaged in

Learner

Construct new knowledge

Colleagues

Previous experience and knowledge Interactions facilitated by technology

program. Moreover, the interactions were spontaneously deepened beyond the requirements of the program and continued afterwards in the form of ongoing discussion, strengthened networks, and collegial bonding. It is therefore noted that the learning interactions cannot be fully designed and managed, nor can they always be expected to occur in a similar manner. This is not to say that they cannot be supported and facilitated. Each of the elements in the framework can contain qualities that either promote or hinder the interaction and thus learning. Evidence of both types of qualities was found in the data, as explained in the following section.

Qualities that Promote the Learning Interactions The first of the eight categories related to the central category is the learner. In the web of interactions, the learner is the active subject and in the centre of the interaction. The most important qualities that either promote or hinder the learning interactions are therefore attached to the learner. The crucial importance of commitment to studies was emphasised in the data. Without commitment from the learner’s side, meaningful learning interactions cannot take place. Commitment should not be regarded an inherent quality that the learner either has or has not, rather, it is something that can be supported and encouraged, as well as smothered and discouraged. Striving for an authentic learning experience is a key measure in encouraging commitment: “(A)ll of the activities were very useful because they were based on a realistic task.  .  .it can increase

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personal commitment in terms of continuing with the course” (Participant 1). This includes ensuring the practical relevance of the professional development program for the target group, as well as employing an appropriate authentic learning design. The categories of authentic tasks, authentic learning resources, collaboration with colleagues, scheduling, and mentoring all relate to the central category as causal or contextual conditions. Table 3 illustrates the qualities of these categories that promoted or posed challenges to the learning interactions. Table 3  Elements That Promote/Impede Learning Interactions Category

Promoting qualities

Challenges

Authentic tasks

• • • • •

• Time constraints

Colleagues

• Global network • Shared interest • Ability to share experiences and test scenarios • Ability to see each other’s work • Feedback and comments

• Unresponsive group member • Drop-out during group work • Work across time-zones • Unavailability of colleagues

Learning resources

• Authentic resources instead of textbook • Just-in-time instead of predefined readings • Clear and systematic presentation • Availability for future reference • Easy navigation

• Bandwidth requirements • Length of documentation • Not downloadable

Scheduling

• Tight schedules facilitate concentration • Increased commitment • Flow • Encourage to do one’s best

• Juggling between commitments • Hindering activities beyond the required • Difficulty meeting deadlines

Mentors

• • • •

Realism and practical nature Complexity Collaboration Intellectual challenge Meaningful use of digital technology

Availability Timely feedback Clarity of instructions Good course management

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Authentic tasks and collaborative learning were new to most participants, although all were experienced in OPD. This suggests that the principles of authentic learning are not yet very widely employed in OPD. Despite the newness, these features were appreciated by the participants. When describing the authentic tasks, some emphasised that the tasks were not only relevant and realistic, but they were “real practice.” These statements challenge the traditional way of perceiving e-learning as better suited for theoretical learning: “Instead of just somebody presenting information, you could see how it would work in the field. So it gave us a better depth of understanding and practical application” (Participant 5). My best learning activity was the case study. . .because in that one I had to assume I’m the one doing the investigation on ground. . . how the VVM changed, I didn’t have that experience. But now I think I know how I would do that investigation. It was realistic. (Participant 3)

Some of the participants would have appreciated more time to complete the tasks, whereas others found that the deadlines actually increased focus and commitment. Almost all pointed out that they had put in their best effort, which indicates a deep level of engagement with the tasks: “I and my partner we actually did a lot of work on the case study and the presentation as well. We put in our very best” (Participant 2). All participants appreciated the collaboration with colleagues. Each participant brought a unique set of experiences to the course environment. The participants tapped into this resource and at times, discussions evolved beyond course expectations as participants shared experiences, compared professional contexts, and tested scenarios. Some continued to work together after completing the course, establishing lasting professional relationships. Learning from and with others was repeatedly emphasised as a beneficial and meaningful way of professional learning. On the other hand, the busy schedules of the participants made it difficult to stay on track with the group tasks and there were cases where a group member was unresponsive or did not contribute to the task. In such cases, the role of skilful facilitation and good course management was emphasised. All participants were juggling between commitments, and some found it difficult to meet deadlines. On the other hand, others found that the busy schedule increased their commitment to the studies and encouraged them to do their best. Based on the findings, learning resources that promote interaction are authentic, innovative, and relevant. They are based on real environments and scenarios that the participants can identify and relate to. Other important qualities include easiness of navigation, clear presentation, as well as accessibility (adequate length, format, and alternatives for materials that require ample bandwidth). The most important qualities of mentoring included availability of the mentors, active communication, clear instructions, good course management (e.g., dealing with group issues), as well as constructive feedback.

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The Role of Technology The category of technology relates to the central category as strategy: technology served as an enabler of the different learning interactions. While the course introduced a very wide range of technologies, no major technology-related challenges emerged from the data. The participants mentioned technology mostly when referring to learning experiences that were enabled by technology, such as organising vaccine vials in a refrigerator in a simulation, participating in a stimulating discussion, or giving presentations in a web-conference. Technology was also mentioned when describing communication with peers and mentors. The role of technology as a vehicle for distributing information gained minor attention compared to the roles of enabling active learning experiences and ­communication.

Experienced Impact of the Program The last one of the categories, impact on professional practice, relates to the central category as a consequence. The impact of the eVVM course on professional learning described by the participants fell into three sub-categories: impact on professional practice, impact on self, and impact on the wider community. The impact on professional practice included improved decision-­making in vaccine stock management, ability to use the VVM to determine whether a vaccine can be used, as well as developing a robust mental model on how to manage vaccines with VVM. The authentic task played a central role in achieving this impact: “With the observation of the VVM that we did, that actually gave me a kind of visual understanding of the principles in VVM management.  .  . now that I’ve done it physically, I can explain it” (Participant 2). The impact on self could be seen as increased self-confidence and trust in one’s ability to perform new tasks, expanded professional network, as well as strengthened professional identity. The impact on the wider community that followed the professional learning was significant: reduced wastage, improved outreach services, increased accessibility, and coverage of immunization programs, increased storage life of vaccines and reduced damage during transportation: “So you can increase the services, you can increase the accessibility, and even the coverage. So you reach more children” (Participant 1).

Discussion and Implications This study has examined how professional learning occurs in an authentic e-­learning based OPD program. There are three key features in the learning interactions model that may inform OPD development and implementation. Firstly, online professional learning can be practice-oriented and result in changes in the field. The impact in the case presented in this paper was felt on the three levels of professional practice, professional identity, and impact on wider community. Secondly, OPD that has such an impact goes beyond content acquisition and

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information delivery and provides the participants with opportunities to engage in authentic professional tasks that are similar to what they would perform in the actual field and collaborate with colleagues in solving problems. Thirdly, such a model is heavily learner centred and requires active commitment. Therefore, a robust authentic learning design, meaningful use of technology as cognitive tools, as well as skilful facilitation play a crucial role. Interestingly, the way professional learning took place in the interactions has parallels with the authentic professional learning framework presented by Webster-Wright (2010), implying that professional learning occurred in a way that resembles the way professionals naturally learn at work. Based on this observation, the authentic e-learning model (Herrington et al., 2010) appears to be a promising learning design framework for OPD. The learning interactions were not only directly related to the course content and learning tasks, but spontaneously extended beyond course requirements as the participants’ discussions moved away from the course platforms towards testing hypotheses, comparing situations in the field, and questioning and suggesting solutions to problems, and continued to do so after the course had ended. This phenomenon supports the observation that the professional learning that took place resembled the way professionals learn in authentic work situations, as opposed to simple information delivery. This is, in fact, not dissimilar to the early stages of a community of practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Like professional learning, communities of practice cannot be forced but they form voluntarily when a group of people find value in interacting. The following description of communities of practice aligns with what some participants experienced: (T)hey spend time together, they typically share information, insight, and advice. They help each other solve problems. They discuss their situations, their aspirations, and their needs. They ponder common issues, explore ideas, and act as sounding boards. . . . They also develop personal relationships and established ways of interacting (Wenger et al., 2002, pp.4–5).

This is not to say that authentic learning is a silver bullet that will automatically result in the formation of a community of practice. As Wenger et al. (2002) point out; communities of practice form on their own as a natural part of organisational life, they cannot be forced with the help of an intentional learning design. They cannot be managed, controlled, and directed. Attempting to force the participants of a PD program to form a community of practice is therefore doomed to be unsuccessful. However, communities of practice can be cultivated by creating an environment where they can thrive: making time and resources available, valuing their learning, and giving them a voice in decisions (Wenger et al., 2002). It does seem that the authentic e-learning design promotes real-life relevance, complexity, and collaboration that are often absent in formal OPD but may be helpful in creating an environment where the unforced creation of a community of practice is possible.

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Engagement is another identifier of authentic professional learning. According to Webster-Wright (2010), active engagement in practice is not merely desirable, but essential to the experience of learning as professional. Authentic tasks provide a feasible way of integrating this dimension in OPD. In Webster-Wright’s model, engagement requires for the professional to care about the situation. It is therefore crucial that the OPD program is directly relevant to the participants’ context and they can see how it impacts on practice. Engagement also involves dealing with uncertainty and working out solutions, often with help from colleagues. In fact, “uncertainty is an important feature of learning” (Webster-­ Wright, 2010, p. 122). This aligns with authentic e-learning which assumes that the complexity of the real world is retained in the learning environment and reflected in the learning tasks. In this study, these features were seen to foster commitment to learning, which is one of the most important factors that may either support or hinder learning interactions. These findings resonate with earlier research regarding the role of motivation and self-regulation as crucial factors in initiating and fostering commitment. According to Corno and Kanfer (1993), the processes involved in motivation affect decision-making and commitment with respect to an individual’s goals. However, as Ruohotie (2002) points out, motivation alone is not sufficient as even a highly motivated person may find it challenging to follow through her or his intentions. Therefore, conative skills are needed to maintain commitment (Pintrich,  1999). Ruohotie (2002) suggests that these skills can be fostered by learning designs that promote learner autonomy, collaborative learning, and meaningful learning tasks. In the light of the present study, authentic e-learning seems to provide a useful framework for such a design. In designing OPD, it is important to keep in mind that the program must be intrinsically motivating for the practitioners and serve their personal professional learning needs. Merely compliance-driven professional development is unlikely to promote a sense of ownership and commitment in the participants. The authentic professional learning model emphasises the temporal and social interconnectedness of professional learning (Webster-Wright, 2010). Temporally, learning is not isolated to a single transition situation but is continuous, dynamic, and iterative. This aspect is also an important part of the learning interactions framework suggested in this study: learning interactions do not begin at the beginning of a course, nor do they end when the course does. Socially, learning occurs through dynamic interactions with others. In collaborative learning situations, one learns with others (collaborative problem solving, working together), from others (multiple perspectives, knowledgeable colleagues), as well as about others (empathy, appreciating different viewpoints). Evidence of all three was found in this study. As Webster-Wright (2010) points out, professional learning is open-ended and requires openness of attitude. This is evident also in the learning interactions model: professional learning does not have a beginning and an end, and it can only occur when the professional cares enough to commit to the learning interactions. Therefore, a model of how professional learning occurs in an

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authentic e-learning based OPD program will inevitably remain incomplete. The course ends but learning continues, and what each individual takes home will vary. In that sense, attempts to determine very detailed “learning outcomes” may be futile. Rather, authentic learning based OPD provides opportunities to learn professionally through authentic tasks, collaborating with others, reflecting and articulating, accessing latest knowledge and expertise, scaffolded, and coached by capable mentors. These processes facilitate the interactions that spark professional learning.

Conclusion In this study a grounded theory approach was used to examine how professional learning takes place in an OPD program designed and implemented according to the principles of authentic e-learning, as well as to understand the impact of the authentic learning design on the professional learning experience of the participants. The context of the study was an OPD program in vaccine management offered by the WHO. A key outcome of the study is a theoretical model of learning interactions that may be beneficial for professional development providers, online learning designers, online educators, and online learners. Understanding the mechanisms of online professional learning and the implications for OPD will also provide insight for decision-making and policy development in the relevant sectors. In the theoretical model that was developed in this study, online professional learning occurs through interactions rather than by consuming content. Enabled by technology, the learner, colleagues, mentors and authentic curriculum all interact with each other in layers, each layer bringing in added value and promoting learning. Curriculum therefore becomes enriched with knowledge from the participants and mentors. It is not a ready-made package that can be delivered and consumed, but rather a dynamic series of interactions that lead to collaborative construction of new knowledge. The role of technology is to create an interactive learning environment, which enables and facilitates these interactions. The authentic e-learning model provides a helpful pedagogical framework for creating such a learning environment. Parallels with the authentic professional learning model could be detected in the theoretical model of learning interactions. There was evidence of professional learning taking place with impact on practice, self, and wider community. These findings imply that authentic e-learning based OPD may enable learning that resembles the way professionals learn naturally in the workplace. Finally, it can be suggested that learning design is a key component in OPD research as it contextualises the findings, improving their applicability, and comparability. It is crucial to realise that e-learning in itself is not a pedagogical dimension, rather, it is just a delivery mode. Further research into OPD learning design would therefore be in place. Holistic approaches, such as designbased research or a phenomenological inquiry could provide further insight into OPD research. More research is also needed in order to further test and validate

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the theoretical model introduced in this study. The model is based on a well-­ documented adherence to the pedagogical principles of authentic e-learning. The hypothesis that thus follows is that the theoretical model will work in other OPD contexts using the authentic e-learning design. Testing this hypothesis with other authentic e-learning based OPD offerings is the next step in validating the theoretical model.

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Navigating the Sea of Data With Grounded Theory Hanna Teräs Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland [email protected]

The thing that most differentiates grounded theory from many other forms of qualitative inquiry is – as the name suggests – that it aims at forming a theoretical model of something. This may sound like a daunting task, and it sure did sound like it to me when I was just getting started with this research project. A theoretical model sounds like a lot of work. Yet this was exactly what I knew had to be done in order to fully and satisfactorily answer my research question: How does professional learning actually take place in an online professional development program? I did consider other approaches, but after all, this study was not primarily about the experience, perceptions, or stories of the participants; this was about the process of learning that took place “behind the scenes,” sometimes unnoticed, covered, and escaping definitions. I felt like there was a secret to be unveiled. The result would be a model of this very process of professional learning brought to daylight. This is what grounded theory is best suited for: developing a theoretical explanation of a process or an action. As grounded theory is completely data-driven, it is crucial that the data are rich and useful. Moreover, because the processes of data collection and analysis are interwoven, one needs to be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time with the data. This is not a quick thing to do. I was also facing a special challenge regarding data collection: The participants of the online professional development program were located all over the world, and the program itself was fully online. This meant I would not be able to meet any of them face to face for interviews or observations, yet I would still need to collect meaningful data and build rapport with the participants. It turned out to be an exciting experience. The course was very interactive and the learning activities took place in a wide range of digital environments. Thus, I found myself participating in webinars, conference calls, blogs, discussion forums, Flipgrid videos, and shared Google documents, observing the learning activities and familiarizing myself with the online

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course inside out. The participants knew why I was always there and they soon got used to my presence. I believe that my presence as an observer was actually less distracting to them in the digital environments, compared to what it would be in a physical learning environment. A thumbnail picture in the conference call interface is probably easier to ignore and forget than a person in a physical room. After the course, it felt more than natural to continue the online interactions in the form of Skype interviews. In the end my data consisted of observation notes and seven transcribed interviews. The interrelatedness of the collection and analysis phases was evident from the beginning. From the very first hours of online observations, the data were living: I was making connections, comparisons, inquiries, and further observations. The interview questions were informed by the data already obtained and the questions that had risen from it. I transcribed my interviews myself, and found it an inseparable and extremely valuable phase in the analysis. (I highly recommend self-transcribing in grounded theory research, as it is also a step in the analysis process.) Once I had everything in writing, the coding began. A question frequently asked, especially amongst novice qualitative researchers, is whether grounded theory and thematic analysis are the same. The question really is well justified, as these two approaches do have a fair bit in common. However, whereas thematic analysis seeks to find out patterns and unifying themes in the data, grounded theory takes a few steps further in that it aims at offering a theoretical explanation. The theoretical explanation is formed as a result of a process of coding in which concepts and categories are identified, compared, contrasted, combined, and connected in a continuous, interrelated process of data collection and analysis. It sounds rather clear and straightforward when it is written down like this. In reality it can be a messy process, a sort of a sea of data and codes, meanings and connections, where the researcher gets immersed in, to the point of feeling like drowning – until at last, after a substantial amount of hard thinking, headaches, and coffee, the sea of data suddenly starts calming and a picture of a theoretical model starts forming. It feels like magic. But in order to get there one needs to be immersed head and heels in the sea of data first, and just keep navigating and trusting the process of coding, as one would trust beacons in the midst of a rough sea. The good thing is that despite the inevitable messiness in the head of the researcher at times, grounded theory is systematic, and the procedures of the methodology (such as open coding, axial coding, selective coding, memo writing, diagramming) actually do what they are designed to do: help you navigate the data, make sense of it, draw the connections, and finally form a theoretical explanation of the process that was being examined. A grounded theory process requires time and thought, and one needs to be prepared to dig deep in the data and adhere to the procedures of the methodology. At times it calls for stretching one’s tolerance for uncertainty. However, at the same time it is fun, rewarding, and very meaningful. For me, engaging

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in this process resulted in profound learning and a much deeper understanding of how professional learning can take place in online environments. As a by-product of the research I was awarded the opportunity to experience very meaningful online professional learning as a researcher and as a teacher myself.

Chapter Ten

Openness and Praxis Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education Introduction Openness in education attracts considerable attention and debate. Much recent research has focused on MOOCs, open educational resources (OER), social media in education, and concomitant issues related to data, privacy, ethics, and equality (Moe,  2015; National Forum, 2015; Stewart,  2015; Weller,  2014; Wiley, Bliss, & McEwen, 2014). The potential benefits and limits of open education are widely reported in the literature and explored briefly in this paper. However, there is a lack of empirical data about the use of open educational practices (OEP), particularly in institutions without open education policies. OEP is a broad descriptor that includes the creation, use and reuse of OER, open pedagogies, and open sharing of teaching practices. Veletsianos (2010) notes that educators can shape and/or be shaped by openness. It is this individual meaning-making and praxis that I explore in this study. The qualitative, empirical study explores meaning-making and decision-­ making by university educators regarding whether, why and how they use open educational practices. It is a study not only of open educators, but also of a broad cross-section of academic staff at one university. The purpose is to understand how university educators conceive of, make sense of, and make use of OEP in their teaching, and to try to learn more about, and from, the practices and values of educators from across a broad continuum of “closed” to open practices. The paper begins with a review of the literature, exploring interpretations of openness in education. I pay particular attention to the various definitions of open educational practices (OEP) and provide a theoretical framework for exploration of them. Following this, I describe the results of an empirical study of a diverse cross-section of academic staff across multiple disciplines, focusing on whether, why and how they use OEP. The paper ends with general conclusions of the study as well as implications for higher education practitioners, researchers, managers and policy makers. Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5).

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Openness in Education Education is about sharing knowledge; thus, openness is inherent in education. But what exactly is “open education?” According to the Open Education Consortium (n.d.): “open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.” Yet open education narratives and initiatives have evolved in different contexts, with differing priorities. Thus, open education often means subtly or substantively different things to different people. The qualifier “open” is variously used to describe resources (the artefacts themselves as well as access to and usage of them), learning and teaching practices, institutional practices, the use of educational technologies, and the values underlying educational endeavours. Weller (2014) advises that we are mistaken to try to define or discuss openness as a unified entity; it is more useful as an umbrella term. Watters (2014) cautions that while such multivalence can be a strength, it is also a weakness when the term “becomes so widely applied that it is rendered meaningless.” Conducting and studying research on open education thus requires that we identify the precise interpretation(s) and contexts of openness being explored.

Interpretations of Openness in Education Four broad interpretations of openness within the context of higher education can be identified across the literature. Following is a brief summary of these four interpretations: open admission, open as free, open educational resources (OER), and open educational practices (OEP). This is followed by a deeper exploration of OEP, the focus of this study. Open admission. One interpretation of openness is open admission to formal education. The qualifier “open” refers to open-door academic policies; that is, elimination of entry requirements for institution-based learning, as in “open university.” No prior educational attainment is required for entry to open universities, although course fees generally apply. Open universities often make educational resources available to the public for free (an example of the second interpretation of open education, described below), historically via television, radio, and more recently the internet. Open as free. A second interpretation of openness describes educational resources that are available for free, i.e. at no cost to the user. This level of openness is an extension of the idea of public libraries and the internet as a free and open resource for all. Under this interpretation a vast array of online resources and courses would be considered open; for example, YouTube videos, TED Talks, Khan Academy screencasts, MOOCs, etc. (Moe,  2015). These educational resources are freely available online to anyone interested in and, not insignificantly, able to access them. In many cases (e.g., most MOOC providers) users are required to register, providing personal information such as a name and email address. In such cases, while resources are technically free,

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they have an opportunity cost to the user in the form of personal data and usage data (Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray,  2009). In addition, the use of free online resources is subject to copyright restrictions unless the creators provide explicit permission for reuse of the original works. Many open education advocates and researchers thus consider “open as free” to be a limited interpretation of openness (Wiley,  2009; Winn,  2012), leading to a third interpretation: open educational resources or OER. Open educational resources (OER). According to the Open Education Consortium (n.d.), openness is not simply a matter of access but “the ability to modify and use materials, information and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for large and diverse audiences” (para. 6). This change in the conception of openness is often described as the difference between open as gratis (free of cost) and open as libre (enabling legal reuse) (Winn, 2012). The term “open educational resources” or OER, first coined in 2002, defines resources that expressly enable reuse through the use of open licensing or release into the public domain (Wiley et al., 2014). Open licensing, typically via a Creative Commons license, means that resources can be altered, reused and/or repurposed to suit requirements within specific contexts, depending on the exact terms of the license. These usage rights are defined as the “5 Rs of Openness:” Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute (Wiley et al., 2014). Thus, while openness in OER is focused on freedom, the degrees of freedom available within a particular license can vary (Lane, 2009). Multiple studies have shown a low but slowly increasing level of awareness and acceptance of OER among academic staff in higher education (Allen & Seaman, 2016; National Forum, 2015; Reed, 2013; Rolfe, 2012). Overall, the focus of OER is on educational content, leading to a fourth interpretation of openness: open educational practices or OEP. Open educational practices (OEP). Open education practitioners and researchers describe OEP as moving beyond a content-centred approach, shifting the focus from resources to practices, with learners and teachers sharing the processes of knowledge creation (Beetham, Falconer, McGill, & Littlejohn, 2012; Deimann & Sloep,  2013; Ehlers,  2011; Geser, 2007; Lane & McAndrew,  2010). A widely used definition of OEP, arising from the OPAL project (2011), is provided by Ehlers (2011): “practices which support the (re)use and production of OER through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning paths (p. 4).” Research studies deal with this broad definition of OEP in various ways. Some focus primarily on the OER aspects of OEP (Armellini & Nie, 2013; Atenas, Havemann, & Priego, 2014; Hogan, Carlson, & Kirk, 2015; Karunanayaka, Naidu, Rajendra, & Ratnayake, 2015; Murphy, 2013; Schreurs et al., 2014). Other studies explore broader aspects of OEP such as open pedagogies and learning in open networks (Casey & Evans, 2011; Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016; Veletsianos, 2015; Waycott, Sheard, Thompson, & Clerehan, 2013) and power relations and inequality (Czerniewicz, Deacon, Glover, & Walji, 2017; Rowe, Bozalek, & Frantz, 2013; Smyth, Bossu, & Stagg, 2016).

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The scope of OEP continues to evolve rapidly. Education researchers across many domains have described and theorized some or all of the practices defined here as open educational practices using a variety of definitions and theoretical frameworks. These include open scholarship (Veletsianos & ­Kimmons,  2012b; Weller,  2011), networked participatory scholarship (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a), open teaching (Couros & Hildebrandt, 2016), open pedagogy (­DeRosa & Robison, 2015; Hegarty, 2015; Rosen & Smale, 2015; Weller, 2014), and critical digital pedagogy (Stommel, 2014). All are emergent scholarly practices that espouse a combination of open resources, open teaching, sharing, and networked participation. I have drawn from research in all of these areas to inform my work. I use the following definition of OEP in this study: collaborative practices that include the creation, use, and reuse of OER, as well as pedagogical practices employing participatory technologies and social networks for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation, and empowerment of learners.

Theoretical Framework This study draws on both sociocultural and social realist theories. From a sociocultural perspective, human activities are viewed as social practices situated within particular social, cultural, and historical settings (Lewis, Enciso & Moje, 2007). Openness is a sociocultural phenomenon, as is higher education; both are situated in and reflect their specific contexts and cultures (Peter & Deimann, 2013; Siemens & Matheos,  2010). A sociocultural framework is used by Veletsianos (2010,  2015) and Veletsianos and Kimmons (2012a,  2012b) to explore agency and context in their work on the practices and complexities of open, networked, participatory scholarship. In this study, I explore individual agency as well as the relationship between agency and structure. Building on the work of other open education researchers (see Cox, 2016; Cox & Trotter, 2016; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009), I have found Archer’s (2003) social realist theory to be a useful framework. Archer’s work identifies three interdependent strata of reality: structure (e.g., institutional systems, policies), culture (e.g., norms, ideas, beliefs), and agency (individual freedom to act). According to Archer’s (2003) “morphogenetic cycle,” the interrelations between structure, culture, and agency occur over time. The powers of structure and culture exist but are only activated when human agents seek to act. Human reflexivity is the mechanism that mediates between structure and agency, moving from confronting constraints to elaborating a course of action (Archer, 2003).

Study and Method The goal of this study is to understand why, how, and to what extent academic staff use, or do not use, open educational practices. The scope of the study is the use of OEP for teaching: it does not include other aspects of OEP such as open research or open publishing. The study posed the following research questions: • In what ways do academic staff use OEP?

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• Why do/don’t individual members of academic staff use OEP? • What practices, values and/or strategies are shared by academic staff who use OEP, if any? The study used qualitative research methods, specifically constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) to explore these questions. Grounded theory method, originally developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), aims to build useful theory from empirical observations; “ground” refers to the grounding of findings in rigorous qualitative inquiry and analysis. Underpinned by interpretivist epistemology, grounded theory is a systematic, inductive, and comparative approach for conducting inquiry (Charmaz, 2006). Key aspects include the constant comparative method (comparing data with data, data with codes, codes with codes, codes with categories, etc.) and the generation and emergence of theory from what is observable in the data (Charmaz,  2006,  2014; Glaser & Strauss,  1967; Mavetera & Kroeze,  2009). In constructivist grounded theory, as pioneered by Charmaz (2006), reality is recognized as multiple and interpretive rather than singular and self-evident. Thus, “generalisations are partial, conditional and situated in time and space” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 141). Storytelling is key: the focus is on participants’ interpretations of their experiences. Overall, however, the goal of all grounded theory method is to generate concepts that explain the way people resolve their central concerns (Charmaz, 2014; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). For this study, the central concern relates to making sense of openness and the use of OEP for teaching. The constructivist grounded theory approach was used for sampling, interviewing, and analysis.

Context The study took place at one higher education institution in Ireland: a mediumsized, research-focused, campus-based university offering both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Although an increasing number of courses are offered in online and blended learning formats, the majority of the university’s courses are offered on campus. The university uses a well-known Virtual Learning Environment (VLE, i.e., learning platform). In terms of institutional structure and culture with respect to openness, there were no policies or strategies related to open access publishing or OER at the time at which interviews were conducted for this study.

Participants Participants were members of academic staff across a broad range of disciplines. Rather than exploring the practices of open educators only, I sought to explore the practices of educators along a continuum of “closed” to open practices. Open sampling was used initially to maximize diversity across three categories: gender, discipline area, and employment status. Firstly, an equal representation of female and male participants was invited to participate. Secondly, participants

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Table 1  Discipline Groups Group 1. STEM

Group 2. Arts, Social Science, Business & Law

• • • • •

• • • •

Engineering Science IT & Computer Science Mathematics Medicine & Nursing

Arts Social Science Business & Public Policy Law

were invited from across two broad discipline areas using Biglan’s (1973) typology of disciplines: hard and soft, pure and applied (further developed by Becher & Trowler, 2001; Trowler, Saunders, & Bamber, 2012; and others). Participants were invited equally from two groups: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines and Arts, Social Science, Business and Law disciplines. The breakdown of disciplines is shown in Table 1. Finally, for the purposes of the study I defined the term “academic staff” broadly as: individuals employed by the university with responsibility for teaching, regardless of whether they were employed full-time or part-time, on permanent, fixed-term, or no contracts. Later in the interviewing and analysis process, participants were selected using theoretical sampling, a process in grounded theory whereby data is jointly collected, coded and analysed so the researcher can decide what data to search for and to collect next in order to saturate each emerging category/concept (Charmaz, 2014; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Hallberg, 2006). The total number of participants is not predetermined; it is determined by theoretical saturation of the emerging theory. A total of 19 academic staff participated in the study. The breakdown across the three categories is shown in Table 2.

Data Collection and Analysis Using a semi-structured interview protocol I interviewed all participants, face-toface, between August and December 2015. Each interview lasted approximately one hour and was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In constructivist grounded theory, data and analysis are seen as social constructions reflecting both the participant and the researcher (Charmaz, 2014; Hallberg, 2006). Data were analyzed in an iterative manner. Interview transcripts were initially hand Table 2  Participants (19) Gender

Discipline area

Employment status

Female (9) Male (10)

STEM (7) Arts, Social Science, Business, Law (12)

Permanent & full-time (15) Fixed-term and/or part-time (4)

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coded using open, inductive coding methods. Using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss,  1967), data analysis was undertaken concurrently with data gathering. Results of early interviews enabled refinement of interview questions for subsequent interviews. New codes were added as they emerged and previous transcripts were checked for these codes. I continued this process until I could not identify any new codes, categories or themes; that is, the point of data saturation was reached. NVivo 10 was used to facilitate data management and visualisation, the move from codes to categories, and the development of themes.

Rigor Charmaz (2014) identifies four criteria for evaluating grounded theory studies: credibility, originality, resonance, and usefulness, with the first two increasing the value of the latter two. I reflected on and shared my own positionality with participants as an open educator/researcher, presently engaged in critical, qualitative, open education research. I also constructed the study so that participants could review stages of the research as it progressed. Each participant received their interview transcript as well as early stages of the concept model and analysis, and was invited to correct, clarify, or expand these. Three participants made minor changes or suggestions; fifteen returned specific affirming comments. All additions and changes suggested by participants were incorporated into the transcript records and analysis. These aspects of the study reflect a commitment to accountability and ethical research practice, but also contribute to the credibility the findings. Lather (1991) notes that returning to participants with initial findings, as well as systematic interaction between researcher and participants, lessens the possibility that researchers will impose meanings on situations and data instead of mutually constructing meanings with those they are studying.

Findings Participants described a wide range of digital and pedagogical practices and values; a summary of these is shown in Table  3. It is impossible to draw a clear boundary between educators who do and do not use OEP. Instead there is a continuum of practices and values ranging from “closed” to open. A complex picture emerges of a broad range of educators: some open (in one or more ways), some not; some moving towards openness (in one or more ways), some not; but all thinking deeply about their digital and pedagogical decisions. This concurs with other research findings that configurations of openness are uneven and diverse on both organizational (Ehlers, 2011) and individual (Veletsianos, 2015) levels. Overall, for the participants in this study, “using OEP” was primarily characterized by: having a well-developed open digital identity; using social media for personal and professional use, including teaching; using both a VLE and open tools; using and reusing OER; valuing both privacy and openness; and accepting some porosity across personal-professional and staff-student boundaries.

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Table 3  Summary of Participants’ Digital and Pedagogical Practices and Values on a Continuum of Increasing Openness increasing openness Not using OEP for teaching DIGITAL NETWORKING PRACTICES

DIGITAL TEACHING PRACTICES

PERSONAL VALUES

Main digital identity is universitybased (e.g. university email) Not using social media at all, or using social media for personal use only

Using OEP for teaching Combined use of university & open digital identities

Well-developed open digital identity (e.g. blog, Twitter)

Using social media for personal and/ or professional use, but not for teaching

Using social media for personal & professional use, including teaching

Using VLE only

Using VLE & open tools

Using free resources; little concern re: copyright; little or no knowledge of Creating Commons Wanting strict boundaries; PersonalProfessional & Staff-Student

Using & reusing OER

Strong attachment to personal privacy

Cautious about crossing boundaries: PersonalProfessional & Staff-Student

Accepting some porosity across boundaries: PersonalProfessional & Staff-Student Valuing both privacy & openess; seeking balance

Using OEP Fewer than half of the educators participating in the study (8 of 19) used OEP. Based on participants’ own descriptions, two distinct forms of “using OEP” could be discerned: (i) being open, and (ii) explicitly teaching openly. All 8 open educators in the study demonstrated the former; a small subset  also demonstrated the latter. All participants using OEP described being open with students; that is, being visible online, interacting and sharing resources in open online spaces. Each has an open digital identity and shared at least one of their profiles with students. A small subset of participants who used OEP chose not only to be open with their students but also to teach openly; that is, to create learning and/or assessment activities in open online spaces beyond the VLE. Teaching openly

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took different forms; for example, inviting students to engage in discussion via Twitter, creating courses in WordPress blogs, and encouraging students to share their work openly. Participants across the spectrum of “closed” to open practices cited both pedagogical and practical concerns regarding the use of OEP. These included lack of certainty about the pedagogical value of OEP, concerns about students’ possible over-use of social media, reluctance to add to their already overwhelming academic workloads, concerns about excessive noise in already busy social media streams, and concerns about context collapse (Marwick & boyd, 2010), both for themselves and for students. While many participants who were open educators acknowledged potential risks to using OEP, they considered the benefits to outweigh the risks. Participants who used OEP described what they perceived to be the benefits for students; these included: feeling more connected to one another and to their lecturer, making connections between course ­theory/content and what’s happening in the field right now, sharing their work openly with authentic audiences, and becoming part of their future professional communities.

Dimensions Shared by Open Educators After exploring the extent to which participants used open practices and their reasons for choosing OEP or not, the analysis turned towards the third research question. What dimensions (values, practices, strategies) were shared by participants who used OEP, if any? The study of a diverse group of participants proved immensely useful here. Comparisons could be made not only among educators who used open practices, but also between those who used open practices and those who did not. Four dimensions emerged of participants who used OEP: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. The first two dimensions appear to be interdependent, as do the latter two. The four dimensions (see ­Figure  1) were shared variously by many of the participants, however all four were evident in each of the participants who used OEP. These are described briefly below and the first dimension is explored in detail in the Discussion section. Dimension #1. Balancing privacy and openness. Striving for a balance between privacy and openness emerged as the primary issue of concern for participants in this study. Although participants overall defined privacy in different ways, none said they did not value privacy. Strategies for managing privacy ranged from non-use of social media altogether to using particular digital practices in order to manage it (hence the link to Dimension #2). Those who used OEP described a variety of strategies for balancing privacy and openness, as networked individuals and networked teachers. Interaction in open online spaces tends to blur the boundary between different identities and roles. Participants described boundary-keeping activities in two domains, personal-professional and staff-student.

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Figure 1  Four dimensions shared by educators using OEP.

Valuing social learning

Balancing privacy and openness

Developing digital literacies

Challenging traditional teaching role expectations

Most participants expressed a preference for a maintaining a boundary between their personal and professional digital identities and activities. Many wanted to avoid mixing streams of conversations about work with other conversations about family, social activities, sports, politics, etc. This mixing of streams, defined by Marwick and boyd (2010) as context collapse, is described by Vitak (2012) as “the flattening out of multiple distinct audiences in one’s social network, such that people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients (p. 451).” Some participants accepted a degree of context collapse or porosity across the personal-professional boundary; for example, work colleagues becoming friends online as well as offline. However, an ongoing challenge for many was managing interactions along this boundary; that is, the liminal space between the personal and the professional. Overall, participants described various ways of managing a personal-professional boundary, including using privacy settings, maintaining different Facebook profiles (professional and personal), and using different tools for different purposes (typically Facebook for private/personal, Twitter for public/professional). While many participants spoke of the importance of communicating with and supporting students, most also described their desire to maintain some kind of staff-student boundary, both online and offline. Most participants felt it was “safest” to communicate online with students via the VLE and email only. Those using OEP tended to interact with students in open online spaces rather than personal online spaces. This was evident in the number of participants who said

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they do not “friend” students on Facebook. However, some created Facebook pages/groups or separate professional Facebook profiles to work around this. Twitter was seen as open and public and thus more acceptable by some as a tool for staff-student interaction. Dimension #2. Developing digital literacies. Another dimension shared by many participants, including all who used OEP, was developing digital literacies, for self and students. Jisc (2015) defines digital literacies as “capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society (para. 3);” for example, ICT proficiency; information, media and data literacy; digital creation, communication and collaboration; digital learning and personal/professional development; and digital identity and wellbeing. Many participants said they would like to develop stronger or “better” digital identities. Some felt unsure of how to do this, or how do it well. Many said simply that they did not have enough time to develop their digital identities. This was often associated with feelings of guilt: I should have much more. I should have my own web presence, a comprehensive presence. I just haven’t gotten around to it – like 101 other things on my list, you know? (participant 3, not using OEP)

Participants who used OEP had well-developed and open digital identities and tended to be proficient users of social media. In addition to building their own digital literacies to communicate, collaborate, learn, and teach, many also sought to develop the digital literacies of their students, exploring issues such as digital culture and privacy. Dimension #3. Value social learning. A third dimension shared by all who used OEP and many other participants was valuing social learning. Theories of social learning such as social constructivism and sociocultural theory emphasise the importance of learners being actively involved in the learning process (Conole & Oliver,  2006; McLoughlin & Lee,  2010). Many academic staff value social learning, whether or not they explicitly identify their teaching philosophies as such. Most participants in this study described their efforts to move away from a didactic lecturing style and to encourage more student engagement. Not all participants who encouraged social learning used OEP in their teaching. Many sought to create social learning activities in their classrooms and some tried to do this within the VLE. Thus, while all participants who used OEP valued social learning, the reverse was not true. Dimension #4. Challenging traditional teaching role expectations. Finally, participants who used OEP described various ways that they challenged traditional teaching role expectations. Some spoke in terms of having a broader identity, seeing themselves as learners as well as teachers. One open educator spoke of trying to break down the traditional barrier between lecturer and student, another of using open practices explicitly as a way of expressing care for students. In these cases, challenging traditional teaching role expectations may be seen as a corollary to valuing social learning (Dimension #3), but this is not always the case.

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It also can be a way of working around structural barriers. Adjunct academic staff, for example, may not have reliable access to institutional email or the VLE. In such cases, alternative communication channels must be used. One participant described this vividly: I don’t let students know I’m on Twitter, they seem to figure it out. It depends on what email account I reply to them with. Depending on the teaching or contractual situation in any given year, sometimes the [university] email account just evaporates and I have to fall back and use my own email account. My personal email signature has my Twitter name, my blog - the [university] account just has the department name. (participant 8, using OEP)

These findings are explored in more detail in the following section.

Discussion This study explored meaning-making and decision-making by university educators regarding whether, why and how they use open educational practices for teaching. A number of academics used OEP; the majority did not. Participants spoke about privacy and openness—their interpretations of these and the relationship between them—more than any other aspect of digital, networked practice. Across all participants, both using and not using OEP, there was recognition that balancing privacy and openness is an individual decision and an ongoing challenge. In the words of one participant: “you’re negotiating all the time.” Analysis showed that participants sought to balance privacy and openness in their use of social and participatory technologies at four levels: macro (global level), meso (community/network level), micro (individual level), and nano (interaction level). Differentiating between these levels proved helpful in understanding decision-making around open practices (see Figure 2). At the macro level, individuals make decisions about whether or not to engage in open sharing and networking. Some opt out at this level, while those Figure 2  Considering openness at four levels. MACRO

Will I share openly?

MESO

Who will I share with ?

MICRO

Who will I share as ?

NANO

Will I share this ?

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who engage in open practice must consider questions at three further levels. At the meso level, individuals consider whom they would like share with (e.g., family, friends, colleagues, students, community/interest groups, the wider public) as well as those with whom they do not want to share. At the micro level, individuals make decisions about their digital identities, i.e. who they will share as. And at the nano level, individuals decide whether to interact/share something particular: for example, post, tweet, or retweet; use a specific tag or hashtag; like, follow, or friend. Considering these four levels—macro, meso, micro, and nano—proved helpful in understanding the personal and complex negotiations involved in open educational practices. Formal and informal professional development initiatives often focus at the top or macro level; that is, describing the benefits of sharing, and supporting staff in learning how to use various tools. But the complex and ongoing work of open practice happens beneath this level, at the  meso, micro, and nano levels, where issues around context collapse and digital identity are negotiated. A few examples from this study are included below, to illustrate. At the macro level, educators who do not use open practices may have various reasons for choosing not to share openly. For example, three participants in this study recounted incidences of bullying and/or stalking experienced by members of their families, citing these as reasons for their strong attachment to personal privacy and limited/non-use of social media. Others described wanting simply to avoid the noise of open streams: It’s not just a question of privacy. It’s a question of having a bit of time or space for myself. I need a tremendous amount of solitude. . . I need an awful lot of time to think. (participant 10, not using OEP)

At the meso level, where individuals decide whom to share with, many participants recounted how they used Facebook. In some cases, decision-making was clear-cut: I definitely don’t accept friend requests from people I don’t know. . . Facebook does have personal information, family photographs, things like that. You just don’t want to share with the world. (participant 19, using OEP)

In other cases participants described more nuanced decisions, influenced by the social norms in their discipline: I’ve used privacy settings to block certain things that I post from professional colleagues on Facebook. But I still accept their invitations because I think it would be rude not to. (participant 11, using OEP)

At the micro level, decisions regarding openness relate specifically to an individual’s sense of their own digital identity and their sense of agency in managing

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that identity. Some participants who were open educators saw the merits of having an open digital identity and sharing this with students: I don’t mind having all these profiles or students being able to look me up or know something about me. I think that’s probably positive. . . . It’s part and parcel of being an academic. (participant 17, using OEP)

Others have well-developed open digital identities but do not view these as integral to their roles as educators: I don’t mind if students follow me and if they find stuff that I’ve written online. But I just don’t encourage it as part of the teaching, or their relationship with me as their teacher. (participant 5, not using OEP)

Digital identity issues raised in this study concur with findings from previous studies by Veletsianos (2013) and others indicating “an increasing tension between personal and professional identity, the spectrum of sharing that lies between the two, and the perception of what a scholar is and what she/he does” (p. 44). Finally, at the nano level, individuals make decisions about individual open transactions; for example, “Will I share this?” For many participants in this study, regardless of their level of openness, open practice is experienced as a process of continual reflection and negotiation, and occasionally anxiety: It’s not that I think people in the quad are watching our every move or anything like that. But occasionally you do think, maybe I’ll be careful. (participant 14, not using OEP)

Open practice is not a one-time decision. It is a succession of personal, complex, and nuanced decisions. Individuals will always be motivated by personal values. As illustrated in this study, individual agency with respect to openness is influenced by both structure and culture. In an institution without an explicit strategy or policy regarding openness, individual educators were influenced by that absence as well as by disciplinary cultural norms and broader social norms when exercising their agency with respect to open practice. Many open practitioners characterize openness as not just a practice but an ethos, a way of being, a commitment to democratic practices (e.g., Mackness, 2013; Neylon, 2013). While this may be the underlying motivation for many open educators, it is not a valid assumption for all open educators. Adjunct academic staff, for example, operate with a different set of structural constraints. For some, lack of access to institutional tools may act as a driver to adopt open practices; others may choose to avoid the risks of open practice due to the precarious nature of their positions. One aspect of OEP which did not emerge in a significant way in this study was the use of OER. None of the participants spontaneously mentioned OER or open licensing. Where sharing of resources arose during interviews, I asked

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participants about their use of open resources. Discussion of copyright, licensing, and OER then ensued. This suggests that the relationship between OER and OEP may be more complex than sometimes conceived. Wiley (2015) notes that use of OER leads to OEP. This study suggests that the reverse can also be true: use of OEP, specifically networked participation and open pedagogy, can lead to OER awareness and use. Archer (2003) notes that structural/cultural properties have generative powers of constraint and enablement. Where openness is not “infused” at an institution (Veletsianos, 2015), as in this case, the absence of open education policy acts as a constraint to OER awareness and use. However, the nascent and growing use of OEP may lead individual educators to develop Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) through which they become aware of broader issues around openness, including OER.

Conclusions Use of OEP by educators is complex, personal, contextual, and continually negotiated. The findings of this study highlight a number of key issues for higher education practitioners, researchers, managers, and policy makers. Open education promises much. But attention must be paid to the actual experiences and concerns of staff and students; empirical research should inform open education policy. In addition, a growing body of research advocates greater theorization and critical analysis of openness and open education (see Bell, 2016; Edwards, 2015; Gourlay, 2015; Knox, 2013; Watters, 2014). Recognition of the complexities and risks of openness, as well as the benefits—for individuals as well as institutions— should inform both policy and practice. In their study of institutional culture and OER policy, Cox and Trotter (2016) found that appropriate institutional policies alone cannot ensure sustainable engagement with OER: “institutional culture mediates the role that policy plays in academics’ decision making.” The same appears to be true for OEP. Further research in this area would be useful; that is, studies of situated practices in specific places and times, enabling detailed exploration of agency, structure, and culture with respect to OEP. At a minimum, however, the findings of this study highlight the need for institutions to work broadly and collaboratively to build and support academic staff capacity in three key areas: developing digital literacies and digital capabilities; supporting individuals in navigating tensions between privacy and openness; and, critically, reflecting on the role of higher education and our roles as educators and researchers in an increasingly open and networked society. The research study described here is limited in scope; it explores the experiences of a relatively small number of academic staff at one university. However, it extends and complements the literature, offering opportunities for further research and collaboration. This study comprised Phase 1 of my PhD research study on OEP in higher education. Two further phases are currently in process. Phase 2 is a survey of all academic staff at the same university and Phase 3 follows two open educators and their students in exploring how academic staff and students interact and negotiate their digital identities in open online spaces.

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Acknowledgements My thanks to each of the participants in this study: without your generosity, frankness, and support, this work would not have been possible. Many thanks to my PhD supervisor, Iain MacLaren, for feedback and support throughout the course of my research, and to my Graduate Research Committee: Simon Warren, Mary Fleming, Katheryn Cormican, and Kelly Coate. Finally, thanks to Frances Bell, Caroline Kuhn, and Leo Havemann for reviewing early versions of this paper, and to three anonymous reviewers from this journal for their insightful and useful feedback.

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Cox, G. (2016). Explaining the relations between culture, structure and agency in lecturers’ contribution and non-contribution to open educational resources in a higher education institution (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town, South Africa). Retrieved from https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/20300 Cox, G., & Trotter, H. (2016). Institutional culture and OER policy: How structure, culture, and agency mediate OER policy potential in South African universities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(5). doi:10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.2523 Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Glover, M., & Walji, S. (2017). MOOC-making and open educational practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 29 (Special Issue on Open Education), 81–97. doi:10.1007/s12528-016-9128-7 DeRosa, R., & Robison, S. (2015). Pedagogy, technology, and the example of open educational resources. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved from http://er.educause .edu/articles/2015/11/pedagogy-technology-and-the-example-of-open-­ educational-resources Deimann, M., & Sloep, P. (2013). How does open education work? In A. Meiszner, & L. Squires (Eds.), Openness and education(vol. 1, pp. 1–23). Emerald Group Publishing. Edwards, R. (2015). Knowledge infrastructures and the inscrutability of openness in education. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 251–264. doi:10.1080/17439884 .2015.1006131 Ehlers, U. -D. (2011). Extending the territory: From open educational resources to open educational practices. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(2). Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/147891/ Geser, G. (2007). Open Educational Practices and Resources: OLCOS Roadmap, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.olcos.org/cms/upload/docs/olcos_roadmap.pdf Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. St. Louis, MO: Transaction Publishers. Gourlay, L. (2015). Open education as a “heterotopia of desire.” Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 1–18. doi:10.1080/17439884.2015.1029941 Hallberg, L. R.-M. (2006). The “core category” of grounded theory: Making constant comparisons. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 1(3), 141–148. doi:10.3402/qhw.v1i3.4927 Hegarty, B. (2015). Attributes of open pedagogy: A model for using open educational resources. Educational Technology. Retrieved from https://www.scribd .com/doc/276569994/Attributes-of-Open-Pedagogy-A-Model-for-Using-Open-­ Educational-Resources Hodgkinson-Williams, C., & Gray, E. (2009). Degrees of openness: The emergence of OER at the University of Cape Town. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 5(5), 101–116. Retrieved from http://ijedict .dec.uwi.edu/viewissue.php?id=23 - Refereed_Articles Hogan, P., Carlson, B., & Kirk, C. (2015). Showcasing: Open educational practices’ models using open educational resources. Open Education Global Conference, Banff Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Retrieved from http://conference.oeconsortium .org/2015/­presentation/showcasing-open-educational-practices-models-usingopen-­educational-resources/ JISC. (2015). Developing students’ digital literacy. Retrieved from https://www.jisc .ac.uk/guides/developing-students-digital-literacy Karunanayaka, S. P., Naidu, S., Rajendra, J., & Ratnayake, H. (2015). From OER to OEP: Shifting practitioner perspectives and practices with innovative learning experience design. Open Praxis, 7(4), 339–350. doi:10.5944/openpraxis.7.4.252

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Knox, J. (2013). The forum, the sardine can and the fake: Contesting, adapting and practicing the Massive Open Online Course. Selected Papers of Internet Research, 3(0). http://spir.aoir.org/index.php/spir/article/view/795 Lane, A. (2009). The impact of openness on bridging educational digital divides. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(5). http://www .irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/637/1396 Lane, A., & McAndrew, P. (2010). Are open educational resources systematic or systemic change agents for teaching practice? British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(6), 952–962. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01119.x Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy within/in the postmodern. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4316164 Lewis, C., Enciso, P. E., & Moje, E. B. (Eds.). (2007). Reframing Sociocultural Research on Literacy: Identity, Agency, and Power. Mahwah, NJ: Routledge. Mackness, J. (2013). An alternative perspective on the meaning of “open” in higher education [Web log post]. https://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/analternative-perspective-on-the-meaning-of-open-in-higher-education/ Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2010). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. doi:10.1177/1461444810365313 Mavetera, N., & Kroeze, J. H. (2009). Practical considerations in grounded theory research. Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 9(32). https://dspace.nwu.ac.za/ bitstream/handle/10394/3136/Mavetera_Kroeze_GroundedTheoryMethod. pdf?sequence=1 McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. (2010). Personalised and self regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era: International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1). doi:10.14742/ajet.1100 Moe, R. (2015). The brief and expansive history (and future) of the MOOC: Why two divergent models share the same name. Current Issues in Emerging eLearning, 2(1). http://scholarworks.umb.edu/ciee/vol2/iss1/2 Murphy, A. (2013). Open educational practices in higher education: Institutional adoption and challenges. Distance Education, 34(2), 201–217. doi:10.1080/01587919 .2013.793641 Nascimbeni, F., & Burgos, D. (2016). In search for the Open Educator: Proposal of a definition and a framework to increase openness adoption among university educators. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(6). doi:10.19173/irrodl.v17i6.2736 National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Ireland. (2015). Learning resources and open access in higher education institutions in Ireland: Focused Research Report. Retrieved from http://www.teachingandlearning.ie/wpcontent/uploads/2015/07/Project-1-LearningResourcesandOpenAccess-1607.pdf Neylon, C. (2013). Open is a state of mind [Web log post]. http://cameronneylon.net/ blog/open-is-a-state-of-mind/ OPAL (2011). Beyond OER: Shifting focus to open educational practices. OPAL Report 2011. Essen: Open Education Quality Initiative. https://www.scribd.com/­ document/49389350/OPALReport2011-Beyond-OER Open Education Consortium. (n.d.). About the Open Education Consortium. Retrieved from http://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/ Peter, S., & Deimann, M. (2013). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction. Open Praxis, 5(1), 7–14. doi: 10.5944/openpraxis.5.1.23

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Reed, P. (2013). Hashtags and retweets: Using Twitter to aid community, communication and casual (informal) learning. Research in Learning Technology, 21. doi: 10.3402/rlt .v21i0.19692 Rolfe, V. (2012). Open educational resources: Staff attitudes and awareness. Research in Learning Technology, 20. doi:10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14395 Rosen, J. R., & Smale, M. A. (2015). Open Digital Pedagogy = Critical Pedagogy. Hybrid ­Pedagogy. http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/open-digital-pedagogy-­ critical-pedagogy/ Rowe, M., Bozalek, V., & Frantz, J. (2013). Using Google Drive to facilitate a blended approach to authentic learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(4), 594– 606. doi:10.1111/bjet.12063 Schreurs, B., den Beemt, A. V., Prinsen, F., Witthaus, G., Conole, G., & de Laat, M. (2014). An investigation into social learning activities by practitioners in open educational practices. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(4). doi:10.19173/irrodl.v15i4.1905 Siemens, G., & Matheos, K. (2010). Systemic changes in higher education. In Education, 16(1). Retrieved from http://ineducation.ca/index.php/ineducation/­article/ view/42 Smyth, R., Bossu, C., & Stagg, A. (2016). Toward an open empowered learning model of pedagogy in higher education. In S. Reushie, A. Antonio, & M. Keppell. (Eds.), Open learning and formal credentialing in higher education: Curriculum models and institutional policies (pp. 205–222). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Retrieved from http://www .igi-global.com/book/open-learning-formal-credentialing-higher/129622 Stewart, B. (2015). Open to influence: What counts as academic influence in scholarly networked Twitter participation. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 1–23. doi:10 .1080/17439884.2015.1015547 Stommel, J. (2014). Critical digital pedagogy: a definition. Hybrid Pedagogy. http://www .digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/critical-digital-pedagogy-definition/ Trowler, P., Saunders, M., & Bamber, V. (Eds.) (2012). Tribes and territories in the 21st century: Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. London: Routledge. Veletsianos, G. (2010). A definition of emerging technologies for education. In G. Veletsianos (Ed.), Emerging technologies in distance education. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120177 Veletsianos, G. (2013). Open practices and identity: Evidence from researchers and educators’ social media participation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(4), 639–651. doi:10.1111/bjet.12052 Veletsianos, G. (2015). A case study of scholars’ open and sharing practices. Open Praxis, 7(3), 199–209. doi:10.5944/openpraxis.7.3.206 Veletsianos, G., & Kimmons, R. (2012a). Networked participatory scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks. Computers & Education, 58(2), 766–774. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.10.001 Veletsianos, G., & Kimmons, R. (2012b). Assumptions and challenges of open scholarship. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(4), 166– 189. doi:10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1313 Vitak, J. (2012). The impact of context collapse and privacy on social network site disclosures. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(4), 451–470. doi:10.1080/08838 151.2012.732140 Watters, A. (2014). From “open” to justice [Web log post]. Retrieved from http:// hackeducation.com/2014/11/16/from-open-to-justice

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Waycott, J., Sheard, J., Thompson, C., & Clerehan, R. (2013). Making students’ work visible on the social web: A blessing or a curse? Computers & Education, 68, 86–95. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2013.04.026 Weller, M. (2011). The digital scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice. Basingstoke: Bloomsbury Academic. Weller, M. (2014). The battle for open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. London: Ubiquity Press. Wiley, D. (2009). Defining “open” [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://opencontent. org/blog/archives/1123 Wiley, D. (2015). Reflections on open education and the path forward [Web log post]. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4082 Wiley, D., Bliss, T. J., and McEwen, M. (2014). Open educational resources: A review of the literature. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology. NY: Springer. Winn, J. (2012). Open education: From the freedom of things to the freedom of people. In H. Stevenson, L. Bell, & M. Neary (Eds.), Towards teaching in public: Reshaping the modern university. London: Continuum.

Why Constructivist Grounded Theory? . . . and the Importance of Researcher Reflexivity Catherine Cronin National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Ireland [email protected]

As an educator and researcher, I have used open educational practices (OEP) for many years: teaching, blogging, and publishing openly; creating and sharing open educational resources (OER) and supporting students in doing the same; and working with faculty and students to explore the practices and politics of ­networks. Like many other “open educators” working in higher education, however, I have experienced tensions between my academic/institutional roles and my ­experiences of open scholarship and open teaching. Among my reflections on these tensions, I wondered why some educators and not others chose to move their teaching practices from institutionally managed systems onto the open web, and also how open practices worked, and felt, for educators across diverse contexts. These reflections were the origin of my PhD research study on the use of OEP for teaching in higher education. I used a qualitative, interpretive approach to explore faculty practices, decision-making, and meaning-making regarding openness. I chose to use constructivist grounded theory as the research methodology because it is particularly suited to exploring meaning-making and to building emergent understanding, in the form of mid-range theories or models, based on participants’ central concerns (Charmaz,  2014). The aim of grounded theory, as a methodology, is to build useful theory to describe or explain a phenomenon of interest – in this case, the use of open educational practices. Theory is developed through “an interactive process that involves the creation and refinement of abstract conceptualizations of particular phenomena” (Jones, T ­ orres, & Arminio, 2014, p. 77). The term “ground” in grounded theory refers to the grounding of findings in rigorous qualitative inquiry and analysis of data. Grounded theory research is iterative, nonlinear, and recursive, with data gathering and

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analysis proceeding simultaneously and in parallel. The data in this study were gathered in interviews with 19 members of academic staff. I asked participants about their research, teaching, use of the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment, also known as a Learning Management System, or LMS), digital identities, use of social media, and knowledge and thoughts about students’ use of social media. I also used open-ended questions to explore participants’ subjective experiences and to unpack taken-for-granted meanings. My aim throughout was to be honest in my discussions with participants, acknowledging my positionality (including my existing knowledge and practice in the area of open education), but also being clear about my role in this study as a critical-interpretive researcher of OEP. Constructivist grounded theory is located firmly within the interpretivist tradition; reality is recognized as multiple and interpretive rather than singular and self-evident. Thus, primacy is placed on meaning-making and interpretation of and by participants, but also researchers. For this reason, constructivist grounded theory foregrounds the importance of researcher reflexivity (i.e., researcher accountability in data collection and interpretation), but also reflection on “self, process, and representation, and critically examining power relations and politics in the research process” (Sultana,  2007, p. 376). Reflexivity played an important role throughout my study, from the earliest decisions regarding methods, through the long process of data collection and analysis, through to theory building. This included paying attention to how my own experience as an open educator intersected with the research study and how others constructed my identity. Memo-writing, a key feature of grounded theory, was instrumental in facilitating reflexivity, as well as in understanding and conceptualizing the data. Indeed, it is suggested that memo-writing is “the fundamental process of researcher/data engagement that results in a ‘grounded’ theory  .  .  .  [as] the distillation process through which the researcher translates data into theory” (Lempert, 2007, p. 245). I wrote memos continually throughout the study; many were private, but as an open researcher I shared others as public blog posts, inviting feedback. As an iterative and comparative methodology, grounded theory requires immersion on the part of the researcher. I immersed myself in the data throughout: reading and re-reading transcripts, re-listening to interview segments, and exploring similarities, differences, and links among codes, categories, and participants. Although I struggled at times to make sense of the data, I wrote memos to record ideas and reflections throughout. I worked with NVivo to facilitate data management, analysis, and visualization, but also hand-sketched very many tentative models and diagrams. Together, the computer-aided analysis, sketched models, and reflective memos were essential in formulating the final grounded theory (Cronin, 2018). Researchers are part of what we see, not apart from it. The nature of qualitative research means that varied, complex, and sometimes contradictory data are analyzed and interpreted through the lenses of both the participants and the researcher. The grounded theory emerging from this study reflects the concerns and conceptions of openness expressed by the academic staff participants, as

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interpreted by me. Participants in this study rarely described their practices and decisions in binary terms as either “open” or “closed.” Rather, rich descriptions of a range of practices, values, motives, reflections, and assumptions were shared. I analyzed and reflected on these in order to identify processes, actions, meanings, concepts, and themes, and I shared my emerging findings with participants to include them in this process of interpretation. Thus, the grounded theory model is a subjective and social construction; it represents a deeply considered, if necessarily incomplete, description of faculty practices, meaning-making, and decision-making regarding openness, with an invitation for others to use, adapt, and/or reinterpret the theory.

References Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cronin, C. (2018). Openness and praxis: A situated study of academic staff meaning-making and decision-making with respect to openness and use of open educational practices for teaching in higher education (Doctoral thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway). Available at https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/browse?value=Cronin%2C+Catherine &type=author Jones, S., Torres, V., & Arminio, J. (2014). Negotiating the complexities of qualitative research: Fundamental elements and issues (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge. Lempert, L. B. (2007). Asking questions of the data: Memo writing in the Grounded Theory tradition. In A. Bryant & K. Charmaz (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of Grounded Theory (pp. 245–264). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sultana, F. (2007). Reflexivity, positionality and participatory ethics: Negotiating fieldwork dilemmas in international research. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 6(3), 374–385. Available at https://www.acme journal.org/index.php/ acme/article/view/786

Narrative Inquiry We use stories or narratives to make sense of experiences in our lives, communicate with others, and come to understand the world we live in. Narratives are accounts of experiences that are in story format having a beginning, middle, and end. We tell others what happened at work, we “story” our interactions with our family, friends, and strangers, and we watch, listen to, or read other people’s stories. As Daiute (2014) explains, “The power of narrative is not so much that it is about life but that it interacts in life. Narrative is an ancient practice of human culture, enhanced today with technologies, personal mobilities, and intercultural connections” (p. xviii). Although informed by a myriad of disciplines and theoretical perspectives, “most scholars . . . concur that all forms of narrative share the fundamental interest in making sense of experience, the interest in constructing and communicating meaning” (Chase, 1995, p. 1). Not surprisingly, storytelling has found its way into therapy and education, and even the workplace, where stories are told to convey a company’s corporate culture. The story is a basic communicative and meaning-making device pervasive in human experience; it is no wonder that stories have moved center stage as a source of understanding of the human condition. First-person accounts of experience form the narrative “text” of this research design. Whether the account is in the form of autobiography, life history, interview, journal, letters, or other materials that we collect “as we compose our lives” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 167), the text is analyzed via the techniques of a particular discipline or perspective. As Patton (2015) points out: “Narrative inquiry is more than just telling or capturing stories (Bell, 2002). One distinction is to treat the story as data and the narrative as analysis, which involves interpreting the story, placing it in context, and comparing it with other stories. Another distinction is that the story is what happened and the narrative is how the telling of what happened is structured and scripted within some context for some purpose” (p. 128).

There are several methodological approaches to analyzing the stories a researcher might collect about a particular phenomenon. Each approach

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examines, in some way, how the story is constructed, what linguistic tools are used, and the cultural context of the story. Biographical, psychological, and linguistic approaches are the most common. In Denzin’s (1989, 2014) biographical approach, the story is analyzed in terms of the importance and influence of gender and race, family of origin, life events and turning point experiences, and other persons in the participant’s life. Biographies and autobiographies are narratives constructed from this perspective. For example, Westover (2018) tells a powerful story of her isolated childhood growing up in a Mormon, survivalist family in Idaho; she never attended school and only barely taught herself to read. However, her drive to learn leads her to Brigham Young University and then to earn a doctorate from Cambridge University. The psychological approach concentrates more on the personal, including thoughts and motivations. This approach “emphasizes inductive processes, contextualized knowledge, and human intention. . . . [It] is holistic in that it acknowledges the cognitive, affective, and motivational dimensions of meaning making” (Rossiter,  1999, p. 78). For example, Gramling et  al.’s (1996) story of Tess, a woman with AIDS, is from a psychological perspective. Tess’s story reveals not only how she interpreted her life, and the meaning she found, but also how she managed to cope with her condition in today’s healthcare system. Another example might be McAdams, Josselson, and Lieblich’s (2013) collection of narrative stories of people in transition in their lives. Finally, a linguistic approach, or what Gee (2014) calls discourse analysis, focuses on the language of the story or the spoken text, and also attends to the speaker’s intonation, pitch, and pauses. He offers 18 questions by which one can build the analysis. Basically, a linguistic approach analyzes the structure of the narrative (Labov, 1982; Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001). In this approach one summarizes the substance of the narrative and identifies the events and their sequence of occurrence, the meaning of the actions, and the resolution or what finally happens. The growing popularity of narrative inquiry is evidenced by the availability of resources (including a multivolume series, a handbook, and journals, such as Narrative Inquiry and Journal of Narrative and Life History), for those interested in this type of qualitative research. One can find numerous discussions as to how best to access people’s stories, how to present the stories, the role of the researcher in the process, and the trustworthiness of these narratives. Finally, Mishler (1995) reminds us that “we do not find stories; we make stories” (p. 117). In fact, we as researchers are also “storytellers” who construct a story. “In this sense the story is always coauthored, either directly in the process of an interviewer eliciting an account or indirectly through our representing and thus transforming others’ texts, and discourses” (pp. 117–118). There are two narrative studies in this section, each illustrating a different approach to narrative inquiry. Danzak’s (2017) article is the story of Chandra, a Guyanese immigrant who attends a literacy program to improve her English and then prepares to take the GED for her secondary school certificate. Primarily through the 34 narratives she writes as part of her literacy program, as well

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as three interviews, we learn about her “story” – from growing up in Guyana in extreme poverty (and with little schooling) to immigrating to the United States, to her efforts to learn English so she can have a better life. As Danzak writes, the narrative “is a tapestry woven from Chandra’s own stories.” The article is her story in her own words. The theme of this narrative is the desire for and importance of education in her life. In her reflection, Danzak points out that in a narrative inquiry, what’s important to remember is that in the end “It’s not your story, it’s their story.” The second narrative inquiry from Hannås (2015) focuses on youths’ and adults’ stories related to seeking a referral for an ADHD (attention-deficit/­ hyperactivity disorder) assessment. Participants were asked, in interviews, to tell their “stories” about how they came to want or need an assessment. Hannås describes in detail how she analyzed the interview data to derive the themes that characterize their stories. The three recurring themes in these participants’ stories that led them to a referral are: (1) health-related disorders and problems, (2) diffuse sensation of not being like everyone else, and (3) an identification with ADHD symptoms. In reflecting upon conducting a narrative inquiry, Hannås notes that stories move back and forth in time and that insight from later events might influence the meaning of earlier events. She contends that an important part of anyone’s story can be revealed by attending to what is important in people’s daily lives.

References Chase, S. E. (1995). Taking narrative seriously: Consequences for method and theory in interview studies. In R. Josselson & A. Lieblich (Eds.), Interpreting experience: The narrative study of lives (pp. 1–26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. London, UK/New York, NY: Taylor Francis. Daiute, C. (2014). Narrative inquiry: A dynamic approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive biography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Denzin, N. K. (2014). Interpretive autoethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (4th ed.). London, UK: Routledge. Gramling, L., Boyle, J. S., McCain, N., Ferrell, J., Hodnicki, D., & Muller, R. (1996). Reconstructing a woman’s experiences with AIDS. Family Community Health, 19(3), 49–56. Labov, W. (1982). Speech actions and reactions in personal narrative. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk (pp. 354–396). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (Eds.). (2013). Turns in the road: Narrative studies of lives in transition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Mishler, E. G. (1995). Models of narrative analysis: A typology. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5(2), 87–123. Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rossiter, M. (1999). Understanding adult development as narrative. In M. C. Clark & R. S. Caffarella (Eds.), An update on adult development theory: New ways of thinking about the

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life course (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 84, pp. 77–85). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., & Hamilton, H. E. (Eds.). (2001). The handbook of discourse analysis. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Westover, T. (2018). Educated: A memoir. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.

Chapter Eleven

Chandra’s Story An Adult Education Student Journeys From Fear to Gratitude This article presents the story of Chandra (her real name), a middle-aged, Guyanese-­American woman attending an adult education center in the Northeast United States. Chandra grew up in extreme poverty in Guyana, and was taken out of school at age eight to help meet the family’s basic needs. At age 22, she immigrated to the United States in hopes of better opportunities. Through narrative methods, Chandra’s story is constructed from 34, narrative and expository, written texts that she composed for a literacy tutoring program, as well as three, in-depth, oral interviews. The result is a moving account of Chandra’s childhood in Guyana, immigration and acculturation in the United States, and her determination to continue her education despite the obstacles she has faced. Keywords: Adult Education, Immigration, Narrative Inquiry “Just imagine if you couldn’t read, how hard it would be. And you would want to learn, but it’s hard. sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know how to read how hard it is.” – Chandra Byman (her real name, used with permission)

Immigration is life-changing in many ways, and often results in cultural-­ linguistic identity shifts (Pavlenko, 2004; Rumbaut, 1997). Many immigrants are faced with the challenge of acquiring a new language; however, even for those who speak some variety of the local language, living in a new cultural context requires shifting communication patterns to adapt to the subtler, social and behavioral cues surrounding language use. Additionally, for adult immigrants, participation in formal education (e.g., English classes, general education development (GED), or higher education), can play a key role in adapting to their new home, as well as increasing earning and employment opportunities. Throughout this process, there is the discovery – or perhaps, the (re)construction – of one’s own voice and identity as it exists in a new language and culture (e.g., ­Kinginger, 2004). Danzak, R. L. (2017). Chandra’s Story: An Adult Education Student Journeys from Fear to Gratitude.The Qualitative Report, 22(5), 1227–1236.

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These challenges, and others, are addressed here in the narrative of Chandra Byman, a tenacious, fifty-year old woman attending an adult education center in an urban area of the northeastern United States. Chandra grew up in a small town outside of Georgetown, Guyana, in a large, loving family living in extreme poverty. Her parents’ struggle to feed seven children meant that basic education was a luxury, and Chandra was taken out of school at age eight to help fulfill household needs. At age 22, she boarded a plane and started a new life in a completely different, faraway place: Queens, New York. After more than two decades of working as a housekeeper/caretaker in the tri-state area, Chandra, now a U.S. citizen, decided to return to school to earn her GED. In many ways, Chandra’s immigration narrative is typical: As a young adult, she took a bold risk and moved from Guyana to the United States in hopes of escaping poverty and increasing opportunities for herself and her family back home. This turning point was a first step in a series of huge transitions in her life. In other ways, however, Chandra is different. At the heart of her story is education: her deep sadness and longing for the basic education of which she was deprived as a child and adolescent, and her continuous struggle to recover, as a middle-aged adult, the schooling she missed. Chandra is hungry for knowledge, and - as she stated - having grown up without teachers or mentors to guide her, now serves as a role model for her nieces and nephews in Guyana and T ­ rinidad, encouraging them to stay in school and read as much as possible because, “knowledge is power.” Thus, Chandra’s narrative offers compelling insights into the experiences and feelings of an immigrant, adult education student who, daily, pushes herself beyond her comfort zone into new and challenging worlds while, in the process, reconstructing her sense of self, and moving from a place of fear to a place of gratitude. My roles in Chandra’s story include teacher, mentor, friend, and investigator. I am a university professor and researcher; however, foremost, I consider myself an educator. I am bilingual and, for the past twenty years, have been a language teacher in one way or another. Chandra participates in the language-literacy tutoring group at the adult education center where I volunteer. Due to my own experiences learning and teaching languages and living in other countries, I am particularly drawn to the immigrant experience. In my research, I work to promote others’ understanding of this experience through the voices of those that have lived it.

Methods Chandra’s story was co-constructed on the basis of narrative inquiry (Bassi ­ Follari, 2014; Clandinin, 2013; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), that is, “the study of experience as story” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 13). Her narrative was documented over the course of two years during which she attended small-group, English language and literacy tutoring at an adult education center, where I volunteer as a tutor. Since fall 2014, Chandra and four other women - all immigrants with diverse goals - participated in biweekly tutoring sessions of two hours each. As a tutor, my way of work with these women has been to use writing as a medium to advance language, literacy, and critical thinking skills (e.g., Klein,

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­ oscolo, Gelati, & Kirkpatrick, 2014), as well as to encourage the students’ expresB sion of personal experiences and opinions. Thus, Chandra and her peers have read and written narrative texts about their childhood and adolescence (inspired by Cisneros, 1991), and their immigration journeys (based on Vargas, 2011), as well as numerous expository texts in response to articles about women’s issues, education, poverty, racism, peace, the environment, etc. Due to the authentic nature of the students’ writing, we sometimes sent their work to relevant, outside audiences. In one such case, Chandra published an article (Byman, 2015) in The Change Agent, an adult education magazine for social justice, about her recollection of celebrating Diwali as a child in Guyana. After working with Chandra for one year, she and her classmates gave consent to use their writing and participate in a series of interviews for the narrative inquiry (the study was approved by my university’s IRB). Ultimately, Chandra’s story is comprised of 34 of her written texts composed for tutoring; two, hourlong interviews (December 2015); and a 32- minute follow-up (March 2016). The interviews, which took place in Chandra’s home, were unstructured and openended, in the style of oral history (Fontana & Frey,  1994), and recorded with her permission. After the recordings were transcribed (56 pages, double-spaced), Chandra reviewed printed transcripts and we met again for a follow-up, member check (Anfara, Brown, & Mangione, 2002), where we discussed questions about the interviews and clarified/expanded on certain points. The member check was also recorded and transcribed. I also should disclose that, in May 2016, I gave Chandra a printed version of her narrative, almost complete, to review. She returned the copy to me with various minor, editorial corrections to the text. However, I opted not to edit the text, but rather to preserve her voice by maintaining her original writing and oral language from the interviews. Thus, the account presented here is a tapestry woven from Chandra’s own stories, told both in writing and orally. The result is a rich narrative of Chandra’s journey, from struggling as a child in Guyana to immigrating to the United States, becoming independent and, finally, taking action to continue her education and development. In her own words, here is Chandra’s story.

Growing Up in Fear: “Sadness in One’s Heart” It is hard to be uneducated and have to struggle every day of your life to do something like reading, you know, a simple task. Sometimes, people should walk in other people’s shoes to feel how hard it is. Because, for me, it’s very frustrating when I can’t do something, and it’s not like I don’t want to learn. In my village, I never had a role model who I could look up to. I never heard anyone talk about education and the importance of it. For me, my greatest wish is to learn more each and every day. As a child growing up, I always feared and wondered where my next meal would come from. It was a scary feeling to see the night seeping in and you might not have any food to eat before going to bed. Can you imagine what this does to a child’s emotions? Only sadness in one’s heart. All I know is it was

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very scary for a child to bear these burdens. Actually, as an adult it is more or less the same. I’m the oldest out of the seven siblings. Growing up in Guyana, we were very, very poor. Because work was very scarce and money was scarce, I was taken out of school at a very young age and had to help out with the chores in the house: cook and clean and scrub the floor and fetch the water. Basically, your day would start out in the morning to get up, make breakfast for your dad so he can go to work and then, he would leave, and you would do all the household chores and then you would get ready to cook dinner and fetch the water, chop up the wood, and then get ready for the next morning. My house in Guyana was located in Wales, south of Georgetown. It was on a busy road with lots of taxis and buses. It was a small house with white paint. We didn’t have a bathroom or toilet inside our house. The bathroom and toilet was outside. We went outside for showers. We had a little small kitchen that they made out of whatever material that they could find. My mother and grandmother made a mud stove. It’s two holes so you can put the pots on the top and then, in the front, it has a hole. So you would stack the wood, and then you would light it, and then it would go up in the two sides so then you could cook. Food was very hard to get there when I was growing up. If you didn’t have the money, you would have to go without. Sometimes we wouldn’t have any vegetables to go with the rice, so my mother would buy a pint of milk, and then you would eat the rice with the milk with some sugar, so that would be your meal, and then you would go to bed. We never had TV, we never had any fancy dishes or anything like that. Everything was enamel plates and enamel cups. There were a lot of things that we could not afford to buy, like toothpaste, simple things like that to brush your teeth. So my father would, after they cooked with the fire, the coal, he would grind it up, and you would use that to brush your teeth because you couldn’t afford to buy toothpaste. My father was a cane cutter. He was very strict and, I guess they did not know any better or anything, they would spank you if you did something wrong. I remember sometimes two of my brothers used to like to go off and play in the woods or go searching for things. And in the cane field there was a big bridge and they would go there and dive from the top to the bottom and swim. Before my father would get home, my brothers would come home and pretend they didn’t go anywhere, but then my father would somehow find out and he would spank them. Sometimes after that, he would put the three of us outside to sleep for punishment. That was his way of punishing you: he would open the door and send you outside to sleep. So my mother would open the door for us after my dad fell asleep. My dad was a heavy drinker as well. But he was a great man looking back at it now. People respected him at the sugar factory. They all knew who he was because he was a hard worker during the week, and he would go to work if they would call him in the middle of the night. Then comes Friday when he gets his pay; he would start drinking: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That made me very angry because he never brought home the money because, back there, they would give credit, so if you want a bottle of rum, or a bottle of gin, or something like that,

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you can go to the shopkeeper and ask them for the bottle of rum, or beer or whatever, but when Friday comes, they would be at the sugar factory waiting to take the money from the people. So, my father would have to give them the money so then he brought home very little. My mom was a housewife, and then she went out to look for work just to help out in the household. My mother did all kinds of jobs to put food on the table. She was a very creative lady and tried to use whatever resources she had with little material to do things to make the house look homey and comfortable. Even though the house was very small and tiny, it was cozy. She made it that way. My yard was like a rainbow with lots of beautiful flowers. For example, all around our house were lined with bright red, deep blue and purple flowers. We couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning to see which color would bloom first. We also had lots of fruit trees. When the fruits were in season it was so much fun climbing up the trees to pick the fruits. The fruits were juicy and sweet. Our house had a hammock that was made out of a rice bag. It was a great feeling to rock back and forth, feeling the cool breeze rushing through your body. It was very relaxing. We would fight over the hammock because it was so many brothers and sisters to share it. Whoever gets there first would be the lucky one. We didn’t have many toys, so we had to find things in our yard to play with. For example, candy wrappers, we would use that for play money. We would also find things from the flowers and fruit trees to have a market. I couldn’t afford to buy clothes, so I would wear clothes that were donated to me. One time my aunt, who was living in Queens, New York, sent a little mirror, and I was very grateful because I was so excited. I was like, “Wow It’s from America!” It was just a little compact mirror. But not really, because the barrel of supplies from my Aunt was not coming for us. It went to her children, but I remember vividly that one time the little mirror, and I was very grateful for it. The life was very difficult and, because you were so poor, people sort of looked down on you. You can’t imagine waking up in the morning and you don’t have the kerosene to put in the fire to light the stove or light the wood -the wood would be so wet, so, what do you do? Sometimes my mother would say, “Okay, you can go to the neighbor’s house and knock on the door to see if you can borrow a little bit of kerosene or some matches or a little baking powder to kneed the flour.” But I would be so embarrassed to go because it was early in the morning, four o’clock in the morning. Who wants to go over to the neighbor’s house to beg for some baking powder or a match or kerosene or something? So sometimes we would just do without because I don’t want to go. They had dogs and the dog would bark. I remember I got attacked by the dog one time. So I was always afraid.

School in Guyana I remember my mom sent me to a kindergarten. There was a neighbor who ran a little kindergarten for just some students and I was going there just a little bit. Then I went to first grade, second grade, and then, because of my family being so poor, I had to leave school.

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So I just went to second grade, and I always felt very bad in school because all my friends were like bright and smart and they would get all A’s and B’s, and I would come in very far. At the end of the year, I would feel pretty bad about it because I try very hard and I would say, “Why can’t I get number 10 in class?” Because in Guyana they go first place, second place, third, fourth, fifth, and then those are the grade that you did very well. Like if you get first, you are very, very brilliant: you would go up and shake the headmaster or headmistress’s hands and stuff like that. On the other hand, if you get something wrong, they had a long cane and they would hit you on your hand because you didn’t do well -­especially this math teacher I knew, he was very strict and everyone was afraid of him because he would hit the kids. School in Guyana was traditional. It was pretty big classes. I remember wearing uniforms to go to school. My mom would make our uniform and it had to be ironed and stuff like that. The teacher would do the times table, you know, twoone two, two-two four, and they would write it and then you had the times table in the back of your exercise book so you had to learn all that stuff. And I remember vividly that they did present tense, past tense, and verbs, and stuff like that also, but because I left school at an early age, I forgot all those things, so it’s very hard. I truly believe if you come from a family that is not educated, you feel ashamed and frightened, and most important, tears in your eyes. If you cannot read, it is embarrassing to go places and to do things with friends. This behavior can create violence, ignorance, and people who don’t know how to speak their mind. Growing up in Guyana, I was so ashamed and embarrassed to leave our house. I was so sad when I saw my classmates going to school. I would look through the windows until everyone went by; then I would cry for hours. I believe education is the key to success because when you have knowledge you have power.

Avoiding Childhood Marriage I was I think 14 or 15, so very young, very naive and uneducated, and not knowing a lot of anything. My father wanted me to get married, so he would look for people to get me married at a young age. But I was very stubborn and didn’t want to get married. I remember one time my dad had a cousin and they came to visit my mom and my dad. He brought a friend with him, and the friend had a good job, and had cars and stuff like that. My dad wanted me to get married to him and I said, “I’m not going to.” I was very firm. So the guy then bent down to tie - I had an old, like Converse shoes that we wear, and he was bending down to tie it. So I gave him a good whack. When they left, my dad was very upset. He said, “Oh, you were getting a gold spoon and you refused.” After that, I continued to do my work and continued to do the chores. And then, my aunt knew someone also, another person in Venezuela, and this person came to Guyana and he was standing at the gate and he said, “Oh I like this girl for my son,” but his son was in Venezuela and they were arranging all the marriage. They brought me to the embassy to get my passport to go to Venezuela, and

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I was just praying and praying. I was like, “If this is not for me please don’t let me get my passport.” Everyone got their passport: my mom and my aunt and everyone else who were going got visas, except me. I didn’t get the visa and something was wrong with my passport, so I didn’t get the visa so I was not able to go. So that didn’t work out.

A Way Out I think was 17 or 18, my brother was working with these rich people in Georgetown. He was the gardener there. You had to get the bus from Wales to ­Georgetown and then they would pick him up at the market and bring him where they lived because they had cars and they lived in a very residential, a very nice neighborhood in Georgetown. I would write letters asking them to please help me, “I want to help my family.” After months went by, I got the interview by them, and they said I could work. They had a little café, and I was there selling ice cream and little pastries and little things like that. I did not like that job because I didn’t know how to interact with people when they came into the snack bar. To my surprise, one day I got a call and they asked if I could come to their office. They interviewed me again and asked if I would like to come to their home to take care of their four kids. I remember having a smile on my face, happy that I landed a good job caring for these kids. I went and I helped: made breakfast and stuff for the kids and cared for their uniforms, because they were all going to private schools in Georgetown. So they  would wake up in the morning and they got their breakfast and their uniform would be ready, and the driver would come and take them to school. The parents were business people in Georgetown and they had a house in Miami, Florida. I went there with them three times, to help with the children while they did their business in Miami in the summertime. I would stay home helping the kids, because they were rich kids so you had to stay home and cook and clean and wash their clothes for them. Those people were always good to me and my family. After the kids grew up and they went off to colleges -two of them went to Miami and I think one went to Canada- I asked the boss if he could get me a visa or write a letter to get a visa for me to come to the States. I brought the letter and with my passport and that was how I was able to get the visa to come to America.

The Transition: Growing Hope When I got my visa to come to America, I was happy and sad at the same time. The moment the plane took off was the most difficult: tears welling up because I knew there was possibility waiting for me. I said, “The risk I will be taking will only help me and my family. I don’t want them to forget me.” I was so worried that one day my sister and brothers will no longer remember what I look like.

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When I came here I was 22 years old, inexperienced, and did not know anyone or anything. It was a cold, bleak March day. Life had to start all over in a new country. I was lost and frightened not knowing what was ahead. Months and months went by before finding a job. I missed my family and wanted to go back home. I always reminded myself, “Never give up.” Even though when I arrived in America I was able to speak English, but not as good as the people who lived here. I had a very hard time adapting to the culture and the language. I didn’t know what to do and how to do things here. I had to pay very close attention and listen well. The culture here was very different than where I come from. I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Queens. I really did not know my aunt and uncle that much because they were from a different county in Guyana. To me, they were considered rich because they had everything, like a washer and dryer. They had a very nice, big house, and so, when they came to visit us in the country, I was thinking we were so poor cause we had nothing. We had this small tiny house. So I really didn’t not know them very well. As time went on, I was able to talk to my aunt and we would stay up for hours and hours talking about lots of things. So I got to know them and I got close to my aunt and uncle in that aspect. I stayed with them for about four or five months before I would get the job caring for an 89-year-old lady in New Jersey. There, I had a small room and I stayed with them during the week and then I went home on weekends. At my caretaker job, I was told many times how to do different chores. It was so hard. But I had access to healthier food. I could take medicine for cold and cough. My family don’t have that option. Some of my brothers and sister have never experienced life in America. I would go back to my aunt and uncle’s on weekends and we would do small activities like go to cricket, or go to the park and everyone would cook something and bring it. It was a Guyanese crowd, but I really didn’t know anyone because it was their family and friends: my aunt had all her sisters and her nieces. All the kids were like Americanized already, but I didn’t know what to wear, what to expect, what to say. I was always quiet and shy. You know, at 22, I was very young and naive and didn’t know a whole lot. I had no one. I did not know anyone. I just had the people I was working for and then, back to my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle had their friends, but they were not my friends. So it was pretty lonely. I would get phone cards and call my mom and my dad and my siblings home, maybe once a week or once every other week. I sent tons and tons of barrels to my family in Guyana- maybe over 300 ­barrels. I would buy a lot of things, anything I could find. I would send home things and send home money to build up our house. They bought material: nails, wood, and stuff to extend. My mother did an extension and put in a bathroom and then running water. She fixed up the kitchen, so we had a nice kitchen. When I went back home after several years, the house was much nicer. So what I did to help my family was send home money and send home the barrels. They had nice clothes and shoes and peanut butter and cheese and whatever I could put in the barrel.

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My two sisters I helped go to school. They were the youngest out of the seven siblings. All of the oldest had a very hard time.

Back to School When I came and was in New Jersey, I did not go to school. I was just working and going to New York and just working. And when I was in Connecticut also, I wasn’t going to school or anything. I didn’t know of any places where you can get help. And because I was so confined to just working and going to New York to stay with my aunt and uncle on weekends, I didn’t have any resources. I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t know where I could- I just didn’t know. It took me a long time from when I came to this country to get some help. After probably about 12 or so years, someone told me that it’s important to go and get some help. I can’t remember who told me that there was some help out there and I should go, but they said, “Go to the high school, and then you can apply to take your GED.” I remember working and then going to classes two nights a week. Back then, I just read functionally. Maybe today my reading is a little bit better because I know more and I am exposed to more things. But 10 years, 15 years ago was just like, basic little bit of reading, trying to cope with life. I was eager to go back to school, and I wanted to go and I wanted to learn. I was very happy when I went. However, the first year, I just sat in the classroom and I just didn’t know what they were talking about. The teacher, she would teach, she would write notes on the blackboard and I didn’t know. I couldn’t comprehend anything. I didn’t know what was a common denominator and all that stuff. So I basically sat there for the whole year, not just one semester, but for the whole year. Then, someone said they can help me get an English tutor. So that was how the education started. Reading is very difficult and hard for me. I don’t know if I have a learning disability, I’m not sure. But from what my mom said, when I was a baby, I had very high fevers, and they used to have to put me in a bucket of cold water constantly. I was never tested or anything for learning disability or anything like that. Still, I love to learn. I love school. I fight very hard to learn to read, but sometimes when I can’t pronounce my words, I get very frustrated because I want to understand. Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend certain things because if you don’t know the words and the meanings of the words, then it is hard to comprehend what you’re reading. I like writing. I like all the stories that we have written so far. There aren’t any words to express, to say thank you to all the tutors and people who helped me get this far in my life, because if not, I would just be working and making money, but not educating myself. When I go back home to my country or to Trinidad, where my sister lives, everyone looks up to me because I speak so well, and I’m knowledgeable, and I can say to them or to their children, “Please read a book; it’s important.” And they look up to me. I feel great, because even though I’m not highly educated – I have a lot to learn- I’m so amazed that the kids look up to me and think I’m a great person who is well educated and knows a lot.

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Looking to the Future: Gratitude Some of us have pain from childhood and cannot forget. I truly believe pain hurts more than anything you can imagine, but we have to let the past be in the past and not part of the future. I always tell my family, look at the beautiful side of things. It may not always be easy. I feel blessed and I feel lucky in some ways, and very grateful to this country for the opportunity that it has given me. I can work, and I can have money in the bank, I can own a home. When people ask me where I’m from, I would say I’m from Guyana, but I live in the United States. So I feel like I live here, I can identify it as my home. I feel more Americanized than more Guyanese, because I try to adopt the culture here and try do to the things here. Coming here has changed me a great deal because I was brought out of poverty. I can see what a different world is. If I was still in Guyana, I probably would have gotten married to an alcoholic maybe, or an abuser. I probably would have six or seven children. I would probably look like a granny, because when I went back home some of my classmates look very old, like they’re 60 or 70 and they are not even that old, but the life is so hard. If I was there, I would have been in poverty. I look at my brother: he’s never gone out of his surrounding village. And that’s his whole life: waking up in the morning, going across the street to take a shower, fetching the clothes, washing the dishes in the river. And that’s what they have to do. And so I am so blessed that I can have hot water. Sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know how to read how hard it is. And you think of all the other children in the world who doesn’t have that opportunity to go to school or read. If you can read and understand, it makes a big difference in people’s lives. Just imagine if you couldn’t read, how hard it would be. And you would want to learn, but it’s hard. I should put in more time, but I have to work to cover the bills. I wish I didn’t have to work, but I have to. My goal for right now, I’m hoping to get into the program to see if I can pass my GED or the NEDP [National External Diploma Program] so I can say to everyone and to myself that I graduated high school. So my main goal is to focus on doing that. I’m embarrassed sometimes to say to everyone that I’m going to an adult education center. But inside of me, I’m proud that I’m doing something to educate myself and help myself. I feel very proud of myself because I never gave up. I am sincerely grateful to my brother who had the job, and sincerely grateful to those people who give me the opportunity to come here to see a better way of life, and have knowledge, and try to get educated and learn. I’ve been so blessed to have met such nice people so far in my life. Many people in the past have told me that I am a positive person, and have a love for life. I truly believe this is so. This year I am turning 50. It is one of the scariest feelings ever. I will never be 20 or 30 ever again. Perhaps as we get older, we try to put our fears into perspective. Just this past year, I was thinking about all the bad things that had happened in my life and feeling sorry for myself.

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One day, I finally said I should start to think about all the good things that have happened to me. I should be grateful and thankful for all the many things that I have accomplished so far in my life. I decided that I am going to change my outlook on life. I am going to start by creating a happy place once again. Believe me, I started to feel so much happier and I’m not going to let anyone or anything put me down ever again. I am happy and excited to write and tell my stories for all of us to learn at any age despite the many setbacks we might have in our lives. I believe we should embrace each and every day with positive attitude in our life. It will help us to be better people. It doesn’t matter what age we are. We can all be encouraged by each other. I try to find meaningful purpose. One thing I can say for sure, I am still growing and learning every day.

Closing Thoughts Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Chandra faced the tremendous obstacles of poverty, hunger, and lack of a basic education. Leaving school at age eight left her with an experiential and emotional void, and a longing for education that only now, at age 50, she is beginning to mitigate. However, in spite of the challenges she has confronted in her life, Chandra’s optimism and resilience have allowed her to persevere, take risks, and actively participate in her growth and development. Indeed, without teachers or role models to scaffold her, it was Chandra’s own strength and determination that empowered her to find the means to escape poverty and begin the uncertain (and scary) journey to a more secure future. Years later, she was able to share the opportunities she forged by helping her extended family, both financially and as a role model for the importance of literacy and education. As demonstrated here, the method of narrative inquiry allows us to share the stories of those whose voices are often marginalized or ignored. As Chandra stated, “Sometimes people don’t think to understand if you don’t know how to read how hard it is.” We rarely know someone’s whole story. Revealing the ­complexities – both good and bad- of someone’s life can teach us a great deal. In this case, Chandra’s story may offer insight and inspiration to those serving adult basic education students or immigrants: teachers, counselors, social workers, healthcare workers, etc. Perhaps the wisdom she has gained, and the generosity with which she shares it, will inspire others to journey from fear to gratitude.

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Cisneros, S. (1991). The house on Mango Street. New York, NY: Vintage Press. Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of science. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 361–376). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kinginger, C. (2004). Alice doesn’t live here anymore: Foreign language learning and identity reconstruction. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 219–242). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Klein, P. D., Boscolo, P., Gelati, C., & Kirkpatrick, L. C. (2014). Introduction: New directions in writing as a learning activity. In P. D. Klein, P. Boscolo, L. C. Kirkpatrick, & C. Gelati (Eds.), Writing as a learning activity (pp. 1–14). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Pavlenko, A. (2004). “The making of an American”: Negotiation of identities at the turn of the twentieth century. In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 34–67). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Rumbaut, R. G. (1997). Paradoxes (and orthodoxies) of assimilation. Sociological Perspectives, 40(3), 483–511. Vargas, J. A. (2011, June 22). My life as an undocumented immigrant. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-asan- undocumented-immigrant.html?_r=4&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Author Note Robin L. Danzak, Ph.D., explores multilingual language and literacy and the relationships among language, culture, and identity, especially as expressed through writing, of bilingual adolescents and adults. From a sociocultural perspective and through collaborative, qualitative/mixed methodologies, Robin engages language learners in meaningful, authentic text composition to promote language and literacy skills, self-expression, and participation. An interdisciplinary, multilingual educator and researcher, Robin has published various articles and chapters and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award in 2014. She is an assistant professor of speech-language pathology at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut. Correspondence regarding this article can be directly addressed to: [email protected]. The author is deeply grateful to Chandra for her openness and enthusiasm, her storytelling talents, and her commitment to learning and personal growth. Many thanks also to Stephanie Ridge for her assistance with interview transcription and data processing. Copyright 2017: Robin L. Danzak and Nova Southeastern University.

Article Citation Danzak, R. L. (2017). Chandra’s story: An adult education student journeys from fear to gratitude. The Qualitative Report, 22(5), 1227–1236. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss5/2

Narrative Inquiry Good Things Take Time Robin L. Danzak Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT [email protected]

Once upon a time, in a land faraway, I had my first experience with narrative inquiry. I was 24 years old, and a graduate student of linguistics at the Universidad de Concepción, in Chile. I had no idea just how much what I experienced in the small city of Concepción, its surrounding forests, and glorious Pacific coast would influence my life as an academic, researcher, and writer. My partner at the time and I had been awarded a national grant for the arts to publish a book about two, locally well-known groups of women artesanas –­potters and embroiderers – living and working in small, rural villages in the region (Albornoz & Stockseth [my maiden name], 2000). He was Chilean and a sociologist. I was a foreigner, but had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Spanish, making the two of us perfectly qualified – or so we thought – to tell the stories of these women and their art. For months, we rode buses to tiny villages, then walked for miles on unnamed dirt roads to meet participating artesanas in their homes, where we proceeded to interview them for hours. My partner, trained in qualitative research, always took the lead. I never understood why he asked all the women the same questions. I remember hearing the same, extremely detailed process for making pottery many times: In short, the women collected clay in a nearby river, used traditional techniques to shape it into utilitarian objects, and cooked the pieces in an open fire. It was the same thing that their grandmothers, mothers, and aunts had done. Although they lived with financial hardship, the products they created helped sustain their households and families. Whenever we heard this story, I thought to myself, “But we already know all of this. Why are we asking these questions again?” I was always eager to finish the conversation so we could handle and photograph the beautiful art that the women had made. Of course, now I understand what those seemingly obvious and redundant interview questions were all about. I thought we knew what the story was, but that wasn’t the point. The point was hearing the story and, later, telling the

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story, through the voices of the women themselves. Indeed, for several more months, after we collected and painfully transcribed all those lengthy interviews, I watched my partner weave together the narratives of each of the women we had visited, integrating the quotidian processes of constructing pottery and embroidery with  rich stories of their lives: how they grew up, met their spouses, built homes and families, lost children, suffered abuse . . . and what all of this meant to them and their work. Like the colorful textiles the embroiderers created, their stories, once crafted, told not only the how and why of generations of artesanía in rural Chile, but also intricately illustrated these from the women’s own perspectives, based on each one’s personal experience and view of the world. I finally realized that it had not been our job to “figure out” the women’s stories. It had been our job to simply ask and listen to them. Fast-forward almost 20 years. My interdisciplinary, international education has landed me (and my husband, who is not the Chilean sociologist) in New England, where I am a faculty member in a Department of Speech-Language Pathology. I have made a small research niche for myself, using mixed methods to examine bilingual writing of adolescents and adults, quantitatively for language features (as related to linguistic complexity), and qualitatively for content (as related to participants’ multicultural identities). Thus, I am still reading and listening to stories: teens who were carried across the U.S.–Mexico border as babies, growing up in fear and uncertainty; adults who fled extreme poverty, political repression, or war at home, now struggling to adapt to new languages and identities in a foreign land. Chandra is one of these people. Two years of her writing and interviews resulted in an incredible story that needed to be told. Now, all these years later, as I participate as the co-constructor of people’s stories, I understand that doing so is both a privilege and responsibility. I now know why we went back to walk those dusty roads, to talk with the same women over and over again. It was to develop the kind of relationships and trust that would let rural artesanas feel comfortable enough to talk openly and deeply about their lives with a couple of young, urban, aspiring academics. With Chandra, I naturally developed this relationship because we met twice a week for two years for literacy tutoring. Still, one might think, two years is a long time to get to know someone and collect data. Narrative inquiry is not the type of research that can be completed quickly or follow a strict timeline. You have to be willing to put in the time: to build the relationship, to ask seemingly obvious questions, and, most importantly, to listen. In the end, it’s not your story; it’s their story. Interviewing Chandra was an amazing process. She invited me to her house, where we had tea and talked, with my laptop open with the audio recording. Chandra’s story was part of a larger project with a goal to shed light on the experiences of immigrant women, from diverse countries and backgrounds, by attending a language-literacy tutoring program at an adult education center. Chandra was open and motivated to share her life experiences, both in writing and in the interviews. I was so grateful for her time, candor, and willingness to revisit painful or scary moments. Chandra recognized that these difficulties had shaped her into the strong, resilient person she is today. Just as I was appreciative of her, she

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was thankful for the opportunity to share her story. She has been an inspiration to me and, hopefully, to others who read her narrative. In sum, like building a pot or embroidering a tapestry, narrative inquiry requires time and patience. With these tools, you will be able to co-construct a rich narrative, telling the story through the voices and perspectives of your participants.

Reference Albornoz, A. & Stockseth [Danzak], R. (2000). Las loceras y bordadoras de Quebrada las Ulloa y Copiulemu [The potters and embroiderers of Quebrada las Ulloa and Copiulemu]. Concepción, Chile: Andalién.

Chapter Twelve

Youths’ and Adults’ Stories Related to the Background for ADHD Assessment Youths and adults stand out in several respects as a particularly interesting age group in an investigation of the diagnosing of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). First, the diagnosis is a rather recent one. The term ADHD did not appear in the diagnostic manuals until the end of the 1980s.1 Furthermore, the medical definition of the condition has, traditionally, primarily been concerned with children. The description of the clinical symptoms in the diagnostic manuals is still colored by this tradition (The Norwegian Health Directorate, 2007). It was not until 1994 that the criteria for the diagnosis were altered, so that ADHD was defined as a lifelong condition. As a result of this, it became possible for adults to be diagnosed with ADHD. In 2005, adults in Norway were given the same access as children and youths to medical treatment with psychostimulants. The access to an effective pharmacological treatment may have contributed to the diagnostic assessment appearing more meaningful and attractive, which in turn may have contributed to a rise in the number of ADHD assessments among youths and adults. Adults (aged 19 years or older), thus, constitute a relatively new group among those who can be diagnosed with ADHD. In line with the immediate consequences of the above-mentioned changes, it turns out that the largest relative growth in the number of Norwegian users of ADHD medication between 2004 and 2014 has taken place in the age group “19 years or older.”2 The remarkable thing about those referred for a diagnostic assessment as youths or adults is that while they have already lived for a long time with this condition, they have lived without the ADHD diagnosis. As suggested above, there are several plausible explanations for this development. Similarly, there are theories on the interaction between the diagnostic categories and the people within a society that supply adequate explanations of such a development (Hacking, 2004; Latour, 1987).3 Newer empirical research has also Hannås, B. M. (2015). Youths’ and Adults’ Stories Related to the Background for ADHD Assessment. SAGE Open, 5(2), 2158244015579725.

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shed more light on different aspects of the diagnostic assessment of adults. This research includes descriptions of typical challenges for adults with ADHD, and underlines the importance of the diagnostic assessment and treatment for the adults’ self-image, and their ability to handle these challenges (­Fleischmann & Miller, 2013). It has been documented that the same symptoms and challenges are registered in the various life phases both in North America and Europe (Brod, Pohlman, Lasser, & Hodgins, 2012). It has also been proven that students may struggle to handle their “medicated selves” (Loe & Cuttino,  2008), that adults may learn how to take advantage of their ADHD idiosyncrasies in a positive manner (Fleischmann & Fleischmann, 2012), and that it seems difficult to develop an effective test or method to uncover instances of misdiagnosis (Musso, Hill, Barker, Pella, & Gouvier, 2014). It is, however, harder to come by empirical investigations that help describe specific events and courses of events in the individual processes of youths and adults, preceding and leading up to the diagnostic ADHD assessments. Among the questions that are especially salient for further attention are • When and how have any symptoms of the condition manifested in earlier stages of life? • In what way were the relevant symptoms and challenges perceived and handled? • How did the suspicion of ADHD become relevant, and what happened after? In my doctoral dissertation in sociology, I have previously examined various aspects of youths’ and adults’ everyday life and self-understanding before and after the diagnostic assessment of ADHD (Hannås,  2010). This dissertation is based on a comprehensive qualitative study. In this article, I would like to—based on empirical material from the same study—focus especially on particular experiences from the histories of youths and adults before they were referred for ADHD assessment. The main research question is as follows: Research Question 1: What is the background for youths and adults being assessed for ADHD?

Methodological and Analytical Approach The referred study is based on semi-structured interviews. This is a form of interviews characterized by open-ended questions, where the informants are given the opportunity to raise their own topics during the conversations. Both this interview form—explicitly and implicitly encouraging the sharing of personal ­experiences—and the subsequent analysis of the narratives in the autobiographical stories are strongly influenced by a narrative approach to the research question (Briggs, 1986; Riessman, 1993). In collaboration with the adult psychiatric and children and youth psychiatric clinics, the public educational psychology service and the Norwegian interest organization for ADHD, 19 respondents aged 14 to 57 years were recruited to the interview study. Two criteria were defined for participating in the study.

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First, the participants had to have been referred for a diagnostic ADHD assessment as youths or adults. Second, they should be aged 19 years or older. In three cases, I chose to include participants below the age of 19; specifically, two 14-yearolds and one 17-year-old. This was done at the request from the psychologists that helped recruit participants, as they felt that these youths would be well suited for participation in the study. The respondent group is comprised of 10 participants who had already completed their diagnostic assessment some time (on average about 2.5 years) before I interviewed them. These participants were interviewed once each. The remaining 9 participants were referred for ADHD assessment at the beginning of the interview study. These participants were interviewed both before and after their diagnostic assessments.4 In the analysis, the data material is handled as a whole, with no distinction between the two sub-groups of participants. The interview study spanned over a period of about 1½ years. At the time of completion, 15 of the 19 participants had been diagnosed with ADHD (see Table 1). One participant (Ida, 42) had her suspicion of ADHD disproved by her diagnostic assessment. Another (Carl, 23) elected to abort the assessment because it was too problematic to carry it out during working hours. A third (Hanna, 40) was still waiting for the final conclusion of her assessment. Finally, a fourth (­Therese, 19) had asked for an assessment to get rid of an ADHD diagnosis she had had for several years; an effort that proved successful. The analysis in the study is conducted on the data material in its entirety, that is, all of the interviews with everyone of the 19 informants. All of the interviews were audio-taped. The recordings have been transcribed into texts where other forms of meaningful expression, for example, gestures, pauses, intonation, and so on, are indicated as well. The empirical material consists of 33 interviews, each lasting between 1½ and 2½ hr. In addition, an interview log-book has been kept, and notes taken from individual telephone conversations, text messages, and emails from the participants. These notes have supported the Table 1  Respondents’ Participation in Work/Education. Not on sick leave/disability pension

On sick leave/disability pension

Pupil/student full-time

Working full-time

50%–60%

100%

Informant

Diag.

Informant

Diag.

Informant

Diag.

Informant

Diag.

Bjørn (14) Anders (14) Fanny (17) Nora (33)

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Ida (42) Carl (23) Daniel (19)

No No Yes

Mariann (33) Peter (53) Hanna (40)

Yes Yes No

Emilie (34) Geir (23) June (30) Kari (28) Linda (46) Oda (57) Rigmor (41) Sina (34) Therese (19)

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

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processing of the data material, which was conducted by the author. All of the participants have been supplied the results of this processing, and were invited to respond to the presentation of the data before publishing. Several participants replied that they felt represented correctly. None replied with critical comments or objections to the presentations. The narrative approach upon which the study was founded was clearly reflected in the transcribed texts. The transcriptions showed that each interview more or less consisted of an array of autobiographical narratives of shorter or longer duration. The narratives represented various personal experiences that referred to specific events—or sequences of events—at different times or phases in the lives of the individuals. Most of the narratives were easy to identify, in the sense that they, for example, had a clear beginning and a marked ending. This was, among other things, manifested through different forms of “entrance and exit talk” (Riessman,  1993, p. 58). All the narratives were characterized by the common overall theme of the conversations: “life with ADHD—before and after the diagnostic assessment,” a theme that the participants had been made familiar with prior to the interviews. This contributed to connecting different narratives within each interview to a personal life story. To gain an overview of the contents of the transcribed material, the different  narratives in the 19 life stories were first identified and classified using different codes. These codes were not pre-defined, but rather created as needed in the course of the classification process. After coding the whole raw material, I was left with 26 different codes. These codes had been labeled according to the actual content or plot in the narratives, for example, “movies/TV,” “brain damage,” “medication,” “clutter,” “different,” “conversations,” “distress,” “school,” “work,” “friends,” “family,” and so on. In actual life, different events and actions follow each other in chronological order. Over time, a string of such happenings may create—or seem to create—a certain course of events. The connections between the various happenings encompassed in such a course of events are, in reality, not necessarily of a deterministic or causal character. Still, it turns out that “earlier happenings are, however, often retrospectively seen as a precondition for later happenings” (Horsdal,  1999, p. 123, author’s translation). In the autobiographical narratives, the “story,” however, does not follow the actual or chronological order of the specific happenings or “events.” In autobiographical narratives, especially those dealing with the important experiences in life, the author tends to continually move back and forth in time. The author digresses, and supplies personal commentary and evaluations in the course of the narrative (Riessman, 1993). To gain an overview of the chronological order of events, the coded narratives were systematized based on the actual time of the various events in the life stories. The form of narrative causality described above contributed to some specific narratives from the time preceding the referral appearing, in retrospect, to constitute plausible explanations for the referrals for diagnostic assessment. In the same way, the narratives concerning the assessment and the result of this,

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appeared to be a natural explanation or consequence of the narratives concerning different sorts of difficulties and challenges. After identifying which narratives functioned as reasons or explanations for the narratives regarding the referral, the empirical material was reduced by keeping these narratives, whereas the other narratives, in this context, could be eliminated from further analysis. The remaining narratives were then systematized into different main categories and sub-groups, based on an analysis of the themes of the narratives. During this part of the analytical effort, one narrative could occasionally be placed several places at once. The final result of the analytical process uncovered three main themes emerging from the participants’ narratives of the background for their ADHD assessment. Autobiographical narratives may, for several reasons, often deviate from the actual events they refer to. One partial explanation for this may be that the narratives are situated interpretations of earlier experiences, and that insights gleaned from later events may contribute to a retrospectively founded interpretation of earlier events. The narrative of one specific experience may, in this way, change from one situation to another (Horsdal, 1999). The autobiographical narratives, in other words, do not reveal the past the way it really was. On the contrary, they reflect the meaning which the authors at any given point in time—consciously or unconsciously—attribute to earlier events in their own lives. Even if they do not represent any sort of objective truth, the autobiographical narratives are still required to have some sort of credibility. One of the main requirements of the autobiographical narratives is a level of consistency that makes them appear—and be accepted by others—as trustworthy: “The historical truth of an individual’s account is not the primary issue. . . . ‘Trustworthiness’ not ‘truth’ is a key semantic difference: The latter assumes an objective reality, whereas the former moves the process into the social world” (Riessman, 1993, pp. 64–65).5 As pointed out before, there are weaknesses, too, associated with a narrative form of analysis. In this context, the advantage is the ability to take the narrative’s creation of meaning more into account in the analytical work than a more traditional coding and categorizing of the textual material would allow.6 One of the main functions of a narrative is that, through both its form and its contents, it contributes to configuring or creating meaning in life (­Horsdal, 1999). A more traditional approach to the textual material, “.  .  . by taking bits and pieces, snippets of a response out of context” (Riessman,  1993, p. 3) would reduce the ability to take into account the participants’ interpretations of meaning: “Precisely because they are essential meaning-making structures, narratives must be preserved, not fractured, by investigators, who must respect respondents’ ways of constructing meaning and analyze how it is accomplished” (­Riessman, 1993, p. 4). There is no single specific method or approach to narrative analysis. On the contrary, there is a range of different approaches to texts of a narrative character. Furthermore, narrative methods combine well with other forms

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of qualitative analyses (Riessman,  1993). As can be gleaned from the above description, I have combined elements from a traditional form of cross-­sectional analysis (from Grounded Theory, cf. Glaser & Strauss, 1967), with elements of Labov’s method for analysis of personal narratives, in the course of processing the empirical data.7

Three Main Themes of the Autobiographical Narratives The analysis showed that three main themes dominate the background narratives of the youths and adults. The first theme refers to various types of health-related disorders and problems. This is a main theme in 14 out of the 19 life stories. The second theme is a sort of diffuse sensation of not being quite like everyone else, and that “something” must be wrong. This is a main theme in 10 out of the 19 life stories. Last, the third main theme is identification. This theme covers the way the participants themselves, at a certain point, started identifying with the ADHD diagnosis. Identification is a main theme in every one of the 19 life stories. In 8 of the 19 life stories, both health-related disorders and problems and diffuse sensations show up as parallel main themes. In 2 of the life stories, identification is the sole main theme. In these cases, the participants emphasized that they had not experienced any specific difficulties or challenges prior to their referral for a formal ADHD assessment. A more detailed presentation of the three main themes is given below. The in-text quotes are supplied as representative examples of how different aspects of the three main themes were expressed throughout the empirical material.

Health-Related Disorders and Problems Health-related disorders and problems turned out to be a pronounced theme in 14 out of the 19 life stories. Common for these 14 life histories are the descriptions of longer periods of time characterized by various sorts of illness and healthrelated issues and problems. The analysis shows that, in most cases, the respondents’ problems started a long time before an assessment for ADHD became a relevant question. The narratives include descriptions of numerous health-related issues, and the diverse consequences of these. In one respect, the narratives refer to the participants’ personal experience of their own ailments, spanning a broad specter; from different somatic complaints like fever or pains, to problematic mood swings and feelings of total exhaustion. A recurring experience in these narratives is spoken of as “hitting the wall” or “having a breakdown.” Kari (28): So I had a—. I hit the wall, as they put it. . . . It was just that I couldn’t, uh—both be a mother, and a housewife, and be a wife at the same time! . . . That was how I felt. At my lowest point. And then they [medical professionals] started with the manic depressive and all that sort of stuff. (­Hannås, 2010, p. 100)

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In another respect, the narratives refer to how other people, especially physicians and medical professionals, perceived, interpreted, and defined these challenges in different circumstances: Linda (46): I don’t know if there’s anything they haven’t assessed me for, let me put it like that. . . . But there’s been—yes, brain tumor and arthritis several times—and MS—and he [the regular GP] started talking about this ME and fibromyalgia. (Hannås, 2010, pp. 103–104)

Upon meeting with the health care services, the participants’ issues have been interpreted as symptoms of several different disorders, but among the most frequently mentioned are depression, bipolar disorder, burnout syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Several of the participants have received other diagnoses, and tried different treatments, such as lithium, antidepressants, or tranquilizers, before being referred for ADHD assessment. June (30): Because, you know, I’ve had “type two bipolar,” and I’ve had “borderline,” and I’ve had “personality disorder,” and then I’ve had—. Yeah, because every time I’ve been in contact with the psychiatrists, I’ve ended up with a new diagnosis. (Hannås, 2010, p. 109)

The participants often seem to have been skeptical toward—or disagreed with—the doctors’ assessments. Several informants neglected to try out medication that they were prescribed based on diagnoses that they were basically skeptical of: Rigmor (41): I went to my regular GP. . . . he gave me happy pills. . . . I did not feel depressed. And I did not have any fear of going out for coffee or any of those things. . . . I did not take that medication. (Hannås, 2010, p. 121)

Others, like June (30), said that they had tried the prescribed medication, but rejected it as it did not do them any good: “. . . I said from the beginning that I wanted out of the lithium, because it didn’t help my depressions” (­Hannås, 2010, p. 109). The first and foremost characteristics of the many stories of illness, however, are the comprehensive and dramatic consequences these health-related issues had for the individuals. Periodically, they made the participants quite incapable of functioning adequately in everyday activities, both at home and at work. They were drained of energy, and consequently many had to take sick leaves. Several participants told they had been more or less bed-ridden—in some cases up to a full year. An overview showing how many of the participants who ended up on sick leave or disability pension illustrates both the degree and the magnitude of their challenges tied to health-related issues. Table 1 gives an overview of the respondents’ participation in education and work at the time when the interview study

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finished. The bracketed numbers following the names indicate the age of the informants at the beginning of the study. The columns marked “Diag.” indicate who had or had not been diagnosed with ADHD by the end of the study. Table 1 shows that 12 out of the 19 participants were either on sick leave or disability pension, and that 9 of them were completely out of education or work life. Furthermore, it shows that 7 out of the 19 informants were neither on sick leave nor disability pension. However, it should be pointed out that most of the participants who were neither on sick leave nor on disability pension (4 out of 7) were under education. As some of these participants also spoke of health-related problems, this might indicate that the educational system is more tolerant or flexible with regard to individual adaptation needs, compared with work life. It should also be noted that the table shows that just 3 out of the 19 participants were working fulltime, and that 2 out of these 3 were among those who were not diagnosed with ADHD by the end of the study.8

Diffuse Sensations The majority, that is, 10 of the 19 life stories, contained narratives of various childhood experiences, circling the topic of being set apart and feeling different from other people. No analytical categories had been pre-defined before the study, and neither was this a theme that the participants were encouraged to illuminate in the course of the interviews, unless they broached the subject themselves. Still, diffuse sensations emerge as the second main theme of the narratives of the background for ADHD referral. The recurring theme of these narratives is the diffuse, but nevertheless constant feelings in the participants that something had to be wrong with them. Many of these narratives start out with memories from early childhood. They may be tied to very different practical situations. The common denominator is the experience of being different, and coming up short—most often as a consequence of some sort of deviation or breach between their own or others’ expectation (general norms) and their own social performance. In some narratives, this description is specified as difficulty controlling their own behavior in a socially acceptable way in certain situations or contexts. Typical of other narratives is that the respondents themselves do not really understand what it is they are doing “wrong.” For example, Hanna (40) told me that she noticed a long time ago that others—interacting with her—tended to react with raised eyebrows or shrugs, and subsequently withdrawing from her; however, she had no idea why they did this. Hanna was one of several respondents who told me she had struggled to gain and keep friendships in the way her peers did, both in her childhood and her youth. When Hanna started telling me about the background for finally being referred for ADHD assessment, she began her story thus: Hanna (40): I was seriously starting to wonder if I was retarded, you know! . . . And the way people reacted to me, I was wondering: Is my head muddled? . . . Am I stupid!? (Hannås, 2010, p. 116)

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In other instances, however, the participants had managed to put together some of what it was that others were reacting to. Not uncommonly, this tends to be about the participants, in various contexts, behaving too actively, engaged or energetically compared with general norms of social interaction. This was expressed in different ways, but often, as exemplified by Sina’s (34) story below, there was some sort of observable physical activity. In this excerpt, Sina casts light on a childhood memory, introduced by a little story about her own daughter: Sina (34): My youngest daughter is very active. . . . And it hurts me so damn much when people comment: “Can’t you get her to shut up? Can’t you make her sit still? Man, that girl of yours is active!” . . . Because I remember those comments from when I was little. Like when mom and they were in the kitchen smoking when they had guests: “Are you kidding me, you haven’t had that girl of yours checked yet!” And then I wondered if I was actually a mongoloid—and they hadn’t told me. Because I was definitely different! (Hannås, 2010, p. 116)

The narratives in this category are often about the participants finally wondering whether their brain is not working the way it should. This interpretation can be said to be strangely consistent with the medical assumption that ADHD is caused by a neurobiological failure in brain function. The medical explanation for ADHD thus turned out to represent a reasonable rationale in the selfunderstanding for some of the participants. Mariann (33), for example, began our conversation with some reflections on the following memory: Mariann (33): When I was about 12–13 years old, I was going around thinking I had a brain injury, but that no one dared tell me. I probably felt that something was not quite right, but I didn’t understand what was wrong. (­Hannås, 2010, p. 112)

After a long conversation, she finished her story by telling me about her own reaction when she was diagnosed: Mariann (33): It was a relief to get it. . . . ‘Cause I got . . . uh, like . . . this feeling that I had a brain injury—that they wouldn’t tell me about—I had it! . . . In a way. . . . The fact that I was going around feeling different and . . . that things were . . . were odd. Like, . . . I felt a little bit good about finally knowing that there actually was a reason. It wasn’t because I uh—[pretended]. Like: I was different! And it was a good feeling [to get this confirmed]. (­Hannås, 2010, p. 114)

Along with the narratives above referring to descriptions of concrete suspicions of disorders and brain impairment, there are other examples of less specific descriptions and more direct statements, such as this, Nora (33): . . . since I was really young, I’ve felt that [drawing a deep breath]: I’m not like them! I’m not like the others! I’m not! (Hannås, 2010, p. 118)

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Identification The background narratives about identification deal with how the participants at some point themselves identified their challenges with the ADHD diagnosis. This event turned out to have taken place at very different times in the various life stories. All of the 19 life stories contain narratives with this main theme. An eyecatching feature about these is that, generally, the participants themselves were the ones who asked to be referred for assessment. Only in 3 of the cases it was a worker in the specialist health service who first suggested ADHD assessment. For most participants, then, the process of identification with the diagnosis in other words started well before—and completely independently of—the diagnostic assessment of the individuals. From the narratives about health-related disorders and problems, it was evident that most participants contacted their regular general practitioners (GPs) because of various types of somatic or psychological symptoms or complaints. The fact is that several participants were actually diagnosed with and treated for various other disorders before ADHD was ever suspected. In many cases, the ­follow-­up of their own children, already in the process of being diagnosed with or treated for ADHD, seems to have had a crucial role in a process where the parents eventually related their own problems to their children’s diagnosis. For example, Hanna (40), who had a son diagnosed with ADHD 2 years prior to our first encounter, supplied the following background for her asking for ADHD assessment for herself: Hanna (40): When [he got his diagnosis] we enlisted him in the ADHD association, and received a lot of brochures and such. Among those was one about girls and women. I put that aside, because I thought that this has nothing to do with him! Heh! . . . And then I stumbled upon that brochure again later while cleaning. And I thought I would just have a look in it, before throwing it out. And then I had one of those—. “Wow, what is this,” I thought. “This is just so like me it’s scary!” (Hannås, 2010, p. 117)

Instead of throwing the brochure out, Hanna put it aside. The next time she happened to come across it, she plucked up her courage, and asked to be assessed for ADHD. All in all, 12 (eventually, 13) of the 19 participants in the study had children of their own. Some of the children were still babies; however, out of these 12, there were 7 participants who had at least one child with an ADHD diagnosis before they themselves were referred for assessment. In most cases, the parents identified with some descriptions of ADHD in women or adults, supplied by the specialist health care services. These descriptions were conveyed either by educational material or through courses following the assessment and treatment of their children. Linda (46) was one of these informants. She had several children with the ADHD diagnosis. She also had many years of various kinds of sick leave, assessments, and treatments behind her, before asking to be assessed for the same diagnosis as her children had. Linda aptly characterized the process

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these 7 participants had gone through: “I guess the way it works is . . . that I have inherited this diagnosis from my children, then?” Even though several of the participants, for different reasons, had been familiar with the descriptions of clinical symptoms in diagnostic manuals for a long time, it was still not until they were acquainted with a kind of alternative description of the diagnosis that their suspicion of having ADHD themselves was raised.9 Along with the official information that was disseminated through courses and brochures, alternative descriptions based on other people’s personal experiences with ADHD had spread through the participants’ social networks of family members, friends, and acquaintances. The participants’ requests for assessment often seem to have been motivated by a sense of affiliation with “significant others.” The many examples of Linda’s (46) narrative of “inheriting the diagnosis from her children” indicate that their own children often seem to perform as the “significant other.” There are also examples of siblings and other family members playing an important role in the identification process of the adult informants. In one case, the participant’s own study work, and in another case, the mother’s study work seems to be the trigger for the participants identifying with the diagnosis. For the young people, it seems that friends are often the most important “significant others.” In the absence of problematic experiences, close relations with other young people with ADHD diagnoses appear to be a key factor in the process leading to formal assessment. An example of this is the following excerpt from Carl’s (23) narrative: Carl (23): A friend of mine—uh [who is] a bit older than me—went and got diagnosed with ADHD. And he, like me, reads a lot. He had read quite a lot about ADHD—and saw himself and also a lot of me in it, you know, as he read, . . . (I) sat down and started reading a bit—and I saw that it fitted. (­Hannås, 2010, p. 122)

In the continuing process—that is, in the effort of obtaining a referral for an assessment by the specialist health care services—the network of friends and family members with the diagnosis appears to be an important and useful tool. For example, Carl (23) told that he had simply “stopped by a therapist in a psychiatric youth team”: Carl (23): I contacted him [the therapist] first. My friend, who was already getting treated there, had mentioned me to him. Because my friend and I are very much alike, in many ways. And he [the therapist] told me to just stop by, and we could have a chat. And after talking to him for a bit, he took me in for a proper assessment. (Hannås, 2010, p. 123)

As it turned out, many of those who had contacted their regular GPs because of their problems earlier, faced a kind of resistance when they asked to be assessed for ADHD. Not uncommonly, this resistance resulted in the participants having

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to go through a period of negotiation with their regular GPs before finally getting the referral they sought.10 In cases where these negotiations appeared especially difficult, or even completely deadlocked, the participants solved their problem by bypassing their GPs. Like the participants who wanted an assessment without any previous health-related issues, they utilized the networks of their respective friends or family members to contact the specialist health care services directly. Rigmor (41), in this vein, told that she—after seeing one of her own children, one brother and several other family members diagnosed with ADHD—contacted her regular GP to get referred for ADHD assessment. About the following events, she told this, Rigmor (41): I went to my GP. And then I asked for a referral for an assessment. And he started laughing at me. And he told me that “No, you don’t have [ADHD]” . . . He thought I was manic depressive, so he gave me happy pills. (Hannås, 2010, p. 121)

The GP explained to Rigmor, who was already on disability pension, that he regarded her chronic pain as a symptom of her depression. This, however, was a judgment Rigmor could not agree upon. As the GP had, practically speaking, denied her request to be referred, she tried an alternative approach to assessing whether or not she had ADHD: Rigmor (41): So then, I rang the children and youth psychiatric service, and talked to the people I’m dealing with there because of my child. Because we have discussion groups, and we have—. I got an appointment there. . . . And then she did one of those—. And she said, “I can do a—, a straightforward, easy screening to see whether you have—, if you’re depressive.” Anyway, it was—, I think it was four or five sheets on one of those forms. Then she said, “You’re—, you’re nowhere near being depressive!” And NN [name of therapist at the clinic] did the same test then, before he started the ADHD assessment, to make sure I wasn’t depressive. (Hannås, 2010, p. 121)

In several narratives, the regular GP seems to have been reluctant to comply with the participants’ request for a referral, because, he had a different opinion of what the underlying cause of the problem might be. By directing the request directly to the specialist health care services, this kind of remonstrance seemed to be avoidable or possible to overcome.11 The participants’ narratives about identification also contain examples of reflection on why ADHD was not suspected at an earlier stage in their lives. The relevant explanations are closely tied to the question of how well their difficulties conformed to the various notions of the ADHD diagnosis at any given time. Many participants have experienced symptoms that could fit several diagnoses, and there seems to be a variation in terms of which diagnoses and which symptoms that have been most prominent at different times. In many cases, the participants’ problems have been perceived and described as something other than ADHD. The data material contains examples of the participants’ problems being

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treated as eating disorders, self-harm, depressions, bipolar disorder, allergies, learning disabilities, different types of social difficulties, and so on. Several of the participants grew up in a period when the diagnoses ADHD (or minimal brain dysfunction [MBD]) were frequently associated with aggressive, violent, or criminal (generally) boys, who were often referred to as “delinquents” or “hooligans.” Except from the youngest ones, a striking number of the participants pointed out that only children very different from themselves had been diagnosed with ADHD (or MBD) when they grew up. An example of this is Mariann’s (33) narrative: Mariann (33): Um—we have, in our family, an extreme case of MBD. He got the diagnosis when he was 8, and he’s now 27. So he uh—he took all the attention for anything resembling MBD and ADHD. He was all over the place, and gets full score on every symptom—and heh! And so, all the focus—in the entire family—was on him. . . . “Uh—and my dad was in the MBD association. I think he was a member of the board. And my primary school teacher was also—, is on the advisory board for the ADHD association now. And no one had ever any idea that I could have anything like that!” (Hannås, 2010, p. 112)

Others, especially among the older participants, meant that they had always been considered as perfectly ordinary children. Some suggested that they from time to time—at the most—might have been seen as “troublesome” or “impossible” children. Instead of justifying their request for assessment by telling stories of diffuse sensations of being different, some of these participants, conversely, emphasized and explained which factors they believed might have contributed to them never experiencing any specific difficulties earlier in life. Peter (53) told about a good life, first as a child—both at home and at school—and then through years of working as an adult, before any difficulties emerged. He pointed out that he, for example, had never been aggressive while growing up. He also emphasized that he was both an only child, and belonged to a generation growing up with housewife-mothers, in a period of “proper conditions” and stricter demands on discipline at school. Carl (23), who represents the next generation, believed that his teachers may have considered him a fidgety or distracted pupil. At the same time, he pointed out that this was a common phenomenon in the school, and not something that would raise any suspicion of ADHD. Carl (23), also, added that his mother had facilitated things so well for him that his problems never became apparent at home. He guessed that this also contributed to “it not being discovered before he became that old.”

Key Events and Courses in the Stories In the model shown in Figure  1, different events and courses in the various life stories are illustrated. The model is based on identifying seven different key events that were recurrent in the participants’ stories. A key event, in this respect, is an event that turns out to be especially significant for the understanding of the events, and the way they are connected; that is, the course of events in the

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Figure 1  Key events and courses in youths’ and adults’ stories.

1 Diffuse sensations

2 Health-related dis. & problems

Regular GP

Var. diagnoses/ treatments

3 Identification

Negotiating referral

Referral to specialist

Note. GP = general practitioner.

respective background narratives.  12 In the model, the relevant key events are labeled “diffuse sensations,” “health-related disorders and problems,” “regular GP,” “various diagnoses/treatments,” “identification,” “negotiation referral,” and “referral to specialist.” The arrows between the boxes in the model illustrate typical courses of events in the different types of stories about the background for the youths and adults being referred for ADHD assessment. The stories have different courses of events. The numbers 1, 2, and 3 (by each oval) refers to the starting point for the different stories, whereas the arrows between the ovals indicate what direction the course of events in the various narratives took. In the first variety, the stories start out with narratives of different sensations of something being wrong. The next key event in these histories, “identification,” represents the stories of how the participants ended up identifying with the ADHD condition. From this point, there are two separate courses. One, proceeding by the key event “negotiating referral,” represents the stories where the participants contacted the primary health care services. In most cases, this led to their having to negotiate with their regular GP before their referral to a specialist finally came through. The other course illustrates the development of the stories where the participants bypassed negotiations with the primary health care services, and—sometimes through middle men—directed their request for ADHD assessment directly to (a representative of) the specialist health care services. The second variety of the typical courses of events starts out at Step 2 of the model, with “health-related disorders and problems.” The stories continue with narratives of the participants turning to their GPs for help with their issues, starting off a period of time characterized by assessment and trying out different

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diagnoses and treatments. From there, the stories continue with narratives linked to the subsequent key event, “identification.” These often proved to be connected to other close acquaintances or family members of the participants receiving an ADHD diagnosis. Onward, the stories take one of the same two paths as the stories starting out with “diffuse sensations.” In the third variety, the stories start out with narratives of the key event “identification,” at Step 3 of the model. From here, these stories also take one of the same alternate courses as the other two varieties; continuing on either through negotiations for referral in the primary health care services, or directly (alternatively through a middle man with some sort of personal connection) into the specialist health care services. These stories stand out from the two former varieties in the sense that they represent a type of stories that does not refer to previous experiences, neither of distressing healthrelated problems nor of diffuse sensations. The lack of health-related issues may partially explain these participants inclination to bypass primary health care services, and instead direct their request for assessment directly to the specialist health care services. It should be emphasized, however, that there were only 2 out of 19 instances of this kind of story in the empirical data material altogether. The purpose of the above-mentioned model is to sketch a sort of analytical representation of three different courses of histories that stood out in the data material. The dashed arrow in the model’s top left corner illustrates that the different narratives may also be part of one and the same life story. A life story might start out with a narrative of a diffuse sensation, continue with a narrative of health-related disorders and problems, before moving on to a narrative about a sort of personal identification with ADHD. The objective, in this context, is not primarily to quantify the different key narratives, but rather to display the different courses of events that emerged, based on the analysis of the participants’ life stories. Table 2, however, provides insight as to how the three different main themes are distributed over four different varieties of histories in the data material. The column on the far left distinguishes four different courses of events in the life stories. In the three following columns, “X” indicates which main theme is represented in the different types of life histories. The row labeled “Type 1” shows that diffuse sensations was the main theme in 2 life stories where health-related disorders and problems did not come up as a main theme. The row labeled “Type 2” shows that health-related disorders and problems was the main theme of 7 life stories where diffuse sensations were not a main theme. “Type 3” shows 2 life stories with identification as a main theme, without any of the other main themes being represented. Identification, as previously mentioned, was a main theme in all of the 19 life stories. The row labeled “Type 4” shows that, in 8 of the life stories, both diffuse sensations and health-related disorders and problems were main themes. The numbers in the bottom row of the table shows that diffuse sensations was a main theme in 10 of the 19 life stories. It is also apparent that health-related disorders and problems was a main theme in 15 of the 19 life stories, in total (including one describing problems with violence).

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Table 2  Narratives With Different Main Themes in Different Types of Life Histories. Course of story

Diffuse sensations

Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Total

X

Health-related disorders and problems

Identification (alone)

Number of life stories

X

2 7a 2 8 19

X X 10

X 15

2

a  One of the seven participants referred to problematic and violent behavior. All the others refer to healthrelated disorders and problems.

The Search for an Explanation Seventeen of the 19 life stories contain narratives in which the actions of the participants can be interpreted as an expression of their search for an underlying explanation or reason for their challenges. In the narratives of health-related disorders and problems, this is often expressed by a steadily seeking for medical help and advice. The problems are perceived as symptoms of various diagnoses, and the participants are receiving various treatments, before ending up with ADHD as the final explanation of their disorders. The narratives refer to problems that are usually widely accepted symptoms of some sort of illnesses or health-related disorders. The problems appear unquestionable; the challenge is finding their root cause. In the narratives of diffuse sensations such references to obvious, visible signs and widely accepted symptoms of illness or health-related disorders are lacking. Instead, this vague feeling of not being like everyone else is reported. As a consequence of repeated experiences of failure and social rejection, the participants however feel that something must be wrong. For lack of better options, some start wondering if they are suffering from some sort of brain impairment. The lack of obvious manifestations as well as reasonable explanations is a common characteristic of these narratives. Hence, the participants’ search for an explanation is primarily motivated by a need for confirmation that their problems are real—and that there is an underlying reason for their problems. By the end of the interview survey, 17 out of the 19 participants had finished their ADHD assessments, and received their conclusions. Fifteen of these 17 had the diagnosis confirmed, while 2 had their ADHD suspicions disproved. All of the 15 that were given the diagnosis described this as a major relief. This is in accordance both with results from other studies on ADHD in adults (Fleischmann & Miller, 2013), and with theories in the field of medical sociology (Frank, 1995). Interestingly, however, the same applied to the 2 participants that did not receive the diagnosis. One of these had asked for an assessment to get rid of the diagnosis (Therese, 19). The other one (Ida, 42), however, had strong hopes of confirming

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her ADHD suspicions.13 Ida (42) had two children, both of whom had already received the ADHD diagnosis, and she herself had struggled with comprehensive health-related issues all of her adult life. In the same way that those who had received the diagnoses, she also, after a period of contemplation and confusion, expressed that having her ADHD suspicions disproved had come as a relief.

The Significant Others All of the 19 life stories contain narratives describing how the participants ended up identifying with the ADHD diagnosis. In 2 of the 19 life stories, identification was the only one represented out of the three main themes identified in the study. The fact that the participants did not describe experiences with any kind of problems or difficulties, and seemed to have identified with ADHD solely because of their acquaintances with the diagnosis, clearly makes these two life stories stand out from the others. It is similarly quite interesting that several of the older participants felt they had not been perceived as different from other children while growing up. In the narratives of identification, several factors that in different ways seem to have contributed to the individual processes finally leading to a referral for ADHD assessment, are described. Some of them are related to a kind of availability. The sort of availability in question, however, has nothing to do with the geographical distance to diagnostic competence. Several of the participants had to travel quite far, repeatedly, to complete their assessments. Still, no one brought up this issue during the interviews. The analysis rather showed that the availability of “significant others” seems to have had a decisive impact on the participants’ decision to request an assessment for themselves. Among those who most frequently appear as significant others are own children, siblings or other close relatives, and—especially with the younger ­participants—close friends. The knowledge possessed by the participants about ADHD from other contexts seldom led them to identify their own problems with the diagnosis, and ask for an assessment. Along with the significant others, the opportunity for a kind of informal or direct contact with the specialist health care services appears to make the diagnosis a more available one. Social networks and relations to others with the diagnosis stand out as important factors helping adults to seek and obtain assessment for ADHD. The significance of having children of their own with the diagnosis and the significance of the adults’ own ability and will to persist in finding the cause of their problems are also pointed out by other researchers (Fleischmann & Miller, 2013).

Concluding Remarks The key questions of this article deal with how the ADHD condition is manifested, and which factors, at different points in time, seem to have affected the course of the lives of the youths and adults prior to their referrals for ADHD assessment.

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The analysis shows that the youths’ and adults’ life stories are especially characterized by three themes: healthrelated disorders and problems; diffuse sensations that “something” is wrong with them; and by identification with the diagnosis. Healthrelated disorders and problems seem to cause comprehensive problems in the everyday lives for the individuals. Even if this appears to be the most dramatic theme, the individual life stories also contain narratives of the other main themes. The course of events in a life story that contains all of the three main topics typically starts out with narratives of a diffuse sensation that something is wrong. Next, there are narratives of health-related disorders and problems. Finally, there are narratives of identification with significant others’ modified descriptions of the diagnosis. This identification motivates the youths and adults to seek and negotiate their referral for ADHD assessment. Furthermore, the study indicates that close, personal relations with others with the diagnosis may be of great significance for adults getting assessed for ADHD. This study has some obvious limitations. First, the analytic work is conducted by the author alone. All of the participants have, however, been sent the results of the analysis, and no one has made any critical objections. Second, the study was conducted in a very limited sample, thus, the results are not readily generalizable to a larger population. Despite its limitations, the study does reveal some issues  that could be considered pursued in professional practice, as well as some  questions that could warrant further research. One such question is whether the ADHD diagnosis will remain the final explanation of the questions raised by the youths and adults, namely, “why they are the way that they are” or “why things turned out as they did.” Through the interviews, it became clear that several of the participants and many of their close acquaintances were relatively familiar with the diagnosis long before anyone suspected that the participants’ own issues could be related to ADHD. The knowledge they possessed was based on the descriptions from the diagnostic manuals. It did not comply well with the adults’ experiences of their own problems. This may indicate a basic lack of knowledge in the general public about the manifestations and consequences of this condition in adults. In addition, several adult participants faced resistance when requesting ADHD assessment from their regular GPs. This may indicate a lack of competence on ADHD in adults, as well as a lack of possible common comorbid problems, in the primary health care services as well. This is another question that might warrant a closer examination. If this should turn out to be a widespread issue, increased efforts in raising the competence level in the primary health care services could be useful. If no such efforts are made, we may be at risk of a continuing under-diagnosing of adults with ADHD. Only a minority of the participants (2 of 19) in this study got the diagnosis without experiencing any specific problems or difficulties beforehand. These were two of the younger participant in the sample, emphasizing themselves that the diagnosis has become very common, and that their friends had it, too. The study sample is rather small, and these two constitutes a small share of the sample (less than 1:10). Still, it might be of interest to investigate how common this

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phenomenon actually is. A relevant question in this context is how one might explain that youths can be diagnosed with ADHD without fulfilling the formal criteria of significant distress or interference with functioning. If this should turn out to be an established practice, the consequence may be an over-diagnosing of youths with ADHD. Perhaps Therese’s (19) story, describing a request for assessment to disprove her ADHD diagnosis, could be interpreted as an example of this kind of over-diagnosing? A research question that could cover all of the above-mentioned questions is whether we are witnessing a diagnostic practice that may lead to an over-diagnosing of youths and an under-diagnosing of adults with ADHD.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Notes 1. Different sources alternate between quoting 1988 and 1987 as the year when “ADHD” (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) was introduced as a term for a specific diagnosis in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; cf. Baughman & Hovey, 2006; Brante, 2006). 2. The largest number for users of ADHD medication in the age group 10 to 19 years (i.e., 15,180 of 29,433 users in total), according to the National ­Prescription-Based Medication Register. Calculations based on figures from this register yields an average growth in the total number of users of 147.82% between 2004 and 2010. The corresponding growth in the age group 10 to 19 years is 103.62%, whereas the average growth for the age groups over 19 years of age is 361.40%. 3. In his description of “the looping effect of classifying human beings,” Ian Hacking (2004), for example, points out that diagnoses and conditions not only confirm each other but also seem to mutually reinforce each other (p. 279). 4. For a more thorough description of the sample, and so on, see Hannås (2010). 5. The quote is retrieved from a paragraph that speaks of validity in relation to narrative analysis. In my interpretation of the author, the truthfulness requirement is as relevant both with respect to the informants’ narratives and to what may be called researchers’ narratives or meta-narratives, that is, my own interpretations, reconstructions or analyses, based on the narratives of the informants. 6. Compare, for example, Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). 7. A more thorough description of Labov’s method is found, for example, in ­Riessman (1993) and Fleischmann and Miller (2013).

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8. The table may be subject to some inaccuracies. The categories are defined and bounded, based on the terms the informants themselves utilized in relevant narratives from their own lives. It is primarily the terms and explanations of the informants, not the formal definitions of the corresponding administrative categories that form the basis for the categorization. Despite eventual inaccuracies that this may have caused, I believe the main features and tendencies that are uncovered in Table 1 cannot be characterized as misleading. 9. In the network theory of Bruno Latour, which among other things describes how the knowledge of any given phenomenon is confirmed and spread through a network of diverse actors (“agents”), such descriptions are described as different “translations” of the phenomenon under study (Latour, 1987). 10. In studies of chronic illnesses, a phenomenon called “medical merry-go-round” is described. This term is related to a type of activity connected to patients’ and next of kin’s search for the maximum amount of information possible with regard to their own illness and treatment. After hours of dedicated information gathering through every available channel, the patients appear to be experts on their own condition, able to negotiate specific details with their doctors, both with regard to their own illness, and relevant forms of treatment. Bury (1997) describes this phenomenon in connection with the very outbreak of the illness, especially related to the activity that takes place after the diagnosis is given, and the treatment commenced. Furthermore, he claims that the activity decreases, and the patients and next of kin usually calm down after a certain amount of time. In terms of ADHD in youths and adults, however, the “medical merry-go-round” seems an appropriate description of a process that takes place prior to the diagnostic assessment for ADHD. The informants in this study, by all accounts, could not settle down, neither with the diagnoses nor with the treatment options they were prescribed before being assessed for ADHD. This led to new rounds of sick leaves, assessments, diagnoses, and treatments (cf. “medical merrygo-round”) before finally being assessed for ADHD. 11. According to Latour’s network theory, the specialists in this respect appear to be more effective agents than the general practitioners (GPs) in the primary health care services with regard to recruiting new members to the ADHD category. The network of agents for the diagnosis is growing as a consequence of more members being recruited to the category. However, Latour points out another, unavoidable effect of the same process. This shows that every new—and unique—case of a phenomenon identified, simultaneously implies a modification of the phenomenon itself. Each new group of members included in the ADHD category contributes to a need for change in the category itself. Correspondingly, the knowledge of the category must be subject to change—or “translation”—so that it at any point includes every new and unique variety of the phenomenon (cf., for example, the information brochures from the specialist health care services; Latour, 1987). 12. Riessman employs the term key aspect when describing both Labov’s and Gee’s models of narrative analysis. She states that, in both models, the analysis implies a “reduction to the core narrative” by using a “selection of key aspects.” “Key aspects” are, practically speaking, excerpts from the interview transcripts that represent specific functions in a narrative (Riessman, 1993, p. 60). 13. Ida (42) was one of the informants who were interviewed both before and after the assessment. In this context, it is interesting that she, unlike some of the informants who received the diagnosis, did not go on sick leave after the assessment.

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References Baughman, F. A., & Hovey, C. (2006). The ADHD fraud: How psychiatry makes “patients” of normal children. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Trafford. Brante, T. (2006). Den nya psykiatrin: exemplet ADHD [The new psychiatry: The ADHD example],. In G. Hallerstedt (Ed.), Diagnosens makt. Om kunnskap, pengar och lidande. [The power of the diagnoses.About knowledge, money and suffering.] (pp 73–111). Göteborg, Sweden: BokförlagetDaidalos AB. Briggs, C. L. (1986). Learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science research. Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press. Brod, M., Pohlman, B., Lasser, L., & Hodgins, P. (2012). Comparison of the burden of illness for adults with ADHD across seven countries: A qualitative study. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 10, Article 47. Bury, M. (1997). Health and illness in a changing society. London, England: Routledge. Fleischmann, A., & Fleischmann, R. H. (2012). Advantages of an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood: Evidence from online narratives. Qualitative Health Research, 22, 1486–1496. Fleischmann, A., & Miller, E. C. (2013). Online narratives by adults with ADHD who were diagnosed in adulthood. Learning Disability Quarterly, 36, 47–60. Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine de Gruyter, New York. Hacking, I. (2004). Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: Between discourse in the abstract and face-to-face interaction. Economy and Society, 33, 277–302. Hannås, B. (2010). Den urolige kroppen. [The Restless Body] (Phd thesis). Norway: ­Høgskolen i Bodø. Horsdal, M. (1999). Livets fortællinger: en bog om livshistorier og identitet [Narratives of life: Of life stories and identity]. København, Denmark: Borgen. Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. Loe, M., & Cuttino, L. (2008). Grappling with the medicated self: The case of ADHD college students. Symbolic Interaction, 31, 303–323. Musso, M. W., Hill, B. D., Barker, A. A., Pella, R. D., & Gouvier, W. D. (2014). Utility of the Personality Assessment Inventory for detecting malingered ADHD in college students. Journal of Attention Disorders. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1087054714548031 The Norwegian Health Directorate. (2007). IS-1224: “Veileder i diagnostikk og behandling av ADHD. [Guidelines to diagnosing and treating ADHD]. Oslo, Norway: Norwegian Health Directorate. Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

Author Biography Bjørg Mari Hannås is an associate professor at the Faculty of Professional Studies at University of Nordland in Norway. She holds a PhD in sociology and her teaching and research interests are within the field of inclusive education.

Reflections on a Narrative Approach to Autobiographical Stories Bjørg Mari Hannås Nord University, Bodø, Norway [email protected]

As my intention was to study autobiographical stories, my first challenge was to get in touch with persons in the right age group who had been referred for diagnostic assessment. In Norway, where the specialist health services are responsible for the bulk of ADHD diagnosing, I approached six regional clinics, requesting their assistance toward recruiting participants for a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews. Five clinics responded in a positive manner to my request. The professional staff seemed very interested in my project, and had a positive attitude toward contributing to participant recruiting. I attended personnel meetings where any questions and clarifications regarding the recruitment process were discussed in plenum. Each clinic received an agreed-upon number of envelopes, containing information and participation requests, to be handed out to patients deemed eligible to participate in the investigation. At each clinic, the professional staff reported receiving many referrals for ADHD assessment, and based on our conversations I expected the recruiting process to move quickly. As it turned out, my work with the clinics failed to yield a sufficient number of eligible participants. More than half a year – and several rounds of requests and reminders to the ­clinics  – later, I had recruited no more than five participants. Reports from the clinics indicated that, with some exceptions, the staff did not share the requests as had been agreed upon beforehand. The turning point in the recruitment process came quite unexpectedly when I happened to sign up as a participant at a course arranged for members of the local branch of ADHD Norway. As I was not a member of the organization, I felt I needed to let the course administrators know, and so I informed them about my research project and my desire to attend the course. This resulted in a request

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for me to spend a few minutes informing my fellow course participants about my project. On that day I told them about my study intention of investigating the background of youths’ and adults’ referrals for ADHD assessment, while also casting light on how this condition manifests and affects their daily lives. After careful consideration, I had decided to finish by saying that if anyone present would be interested in participating in this investigation, they could contact me directly sometime during the two-day course. The moment I finished speaking, the secretary general of ADHD Norway, who (unbeknownst to me) attended the course as a guest, spoke up, emphasizing that this kind of study could prove to be of great significance, and stated that he would encourage participants to take part. This led to the recruitment, within the two-day span of the course, of the remaining 13 participants for my study. While the secretary general may be described as a door opener, the psychiatric staff members at the clinics seem to have assumed gate-keeping roles in this instance. There are several possible explanations for why this may have been the case. One likely explanation for why so few participants were recruited through the clinics may be that the staff had a busy work schedule, focusing on their own primary tasks, and that their thoughts of the study and the participation requests were drowned out by more urgent tasks. Another possible explanation may be that the staff acted as representatives and defenders of what they considered to be their own professional domain.

The Interview Situation Upon meeting the participants, I made a priority of explaining that their experiences could give a valuable contribution to a broader scientific knowledge base of ADHD, independently of how their stories would be evaluated or assessed in other respects. I was careful to ensure that the participants felt confident that they could share both their achievements and their disappointments or defeats without any risk of losing face or feeling any threat to their self-respect or social standing. The stories people tell of their daily lives may sometimes seem rather prosaic and trivial compared to the significance these experiences may actually turn out to have in their life histories. This may lead to researchers overlooking the importance of some topics that the participants focus on during interviews. Despite my efforts to be an alert and sensitive listener during interviews, I experienced difficulty living up to my own ideals in practice and came to realize how easily one can lose vital information. With the first two adult women I interviewed, both of them tried, in different ways, to steer the conversation towards clutter in their homes. Kari (28), my first interview subject, for example, stated the following: I can’t really deal with all of that housework. (. . .) Our house is honestly a total mess. (. . .) And it really doesn’t feel good, like; you don’t really want any visits from all and sundry, when you think of how their homes look. We choose . . . well, who we want to be around.

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One of the last things Kari said to me, as we stood outside my hotel saying our goodbyes, was that I really should have come over to her house, so that I could “witness the chaos,” as she put it. During the interview with Oda (57), she told me that when she went on sick leave, she thought she would finally be able to clear out the “mountain” of clutter at her house, but she never succeeded in doing this. The previous Christmas she had to find a place for the Christmas tree by hanging it from a hook in the ceiling. She added that she carried an eternal shame inside, but that “it [the clutter and the shame] must be concealed at any cost.” It was not until I met the third woman, when it was not practical to carry out the interview anywhere else but in her home, that it dawned on me that these women had quite a different idea of the term clutter than I did. In the stories these women told, the term referred to the conditions in their homes where they employed several unorthodox and creative solutions to the clutter challenges. What these stories of clutter had in common for these women – who struggled with health-related problems for a long time – and now were on sick leave or temporarily receiving disability benefits – was that their household responsibilities were more pressing than ever. The fact that they were not able to clear out the clutter, even as “stay-at-home housewives,” filled them with a great sense of shame, which also affected their social lives. It turned out that men also told stories of similar challenges, but instead of talking about clutter, they consistently conceptualised the phenomenon by the expressions started or unfinished projects (Hannås, 2010). These narratives referring to problems with clutter and cleaning stood out as an interesting finding in the study. In hindsight, it may be difficult to comprehend how the initial attempts by the participants to thematize these issues could possibly have gone unnoticed by me. My expectations and advance knowledge of ADHD were most likely colored by the official descriptions in the diagnostic manuals, which apparently did not really match the stories I heard about clutter. At least, this experience may serve to illustrate and remind us of an important aspect of this type of investigation in qualitative studies.

Reference Hannås, B. M. (2010). Den urolige kroppen [The restless body]. (PhD thesis). Norway: ­Høgskolen i Bodø.

Arts-Based Research Traditionally, art and science have been set as opposing endeavors, but as Leavy (2015) notes, art and science are intrinsically similar in how they can be used to explore, represent, and help us to understand aspects of human life, as well as our social and natural worlds. Take for example Leonardo da Vinci. During the Italian Renaissance, he spent countless hours observing the beauty and mechanics of birds in flight. His notes, drawings, and observations are captured in Codex on the Flight of Birds. Leonardo utilized the arts in science to create new ways of seeing, thinking, and communicating ideas for future human flight. This is the essence of arts-based research, which, according to Lawrence (2015), is “any form of art (visual art, music, poetry, dance, etc.) in the data collection, analysis and/ or reporting of research” (p. 142). Arts-based research is often associated with critical or postmodern inquiry. The design challenges widely held conventions and assumptions about what constitutes research, and it is no surprise that arts-based research is embraced by those who welcome a more pluralistic attitude toward research (Leavy,  2015). Compared to more traditional qualitative research methods, arts-based research is more likely to be ambiguous and creative and more evocative (Barone & ­Eisner, 2012). Combining the principles of the creative arts in research contexts (Leavy, 2015), arts-based research is a qualitative research design where art forms play a primary role in any or all of the research process (Austin & Forinash, 2005). These art forms may include one or more of the following: literary such as poetry, short stories, novellas or novels, experimental writing, and scripts; performative like music compositions, lyrics, theater, and dance or creative movement; visual art including drawing and painting, collage, photography, sculpture, comics, handiwork (i.e., needlepoint); and multimedia that combine audio and video production. Such art forms are most common both as data collected for a study or as a representation of the findings of a study. In traditional qualitative designs, interviews, observations, and the use of documents/artifacts are common forms of data collection, but in arts-based research the researcher uses such traditional data to supplement the primary art form, or simply uses the art form as the sole data. Created by participants, this

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data allows them to express “their situation, experiences, concerns, challenges or obstacles in daily life” (Coemans, Wang, Leysen, & Hannes, 2015, p. 34). This was the case with a study by Linder (2015), who examined the impact of childhood sexual abuse through arts-based research with abuse survivors through the creation of mandalas. Conversely, when used as a representation of the research findings, the art forms in arts-based research serve as a means of moving away from traditional written formats like journal articles (Foster, 2012). This is often more challenging for scholars who are required to publish for tenure and promotion, but some like Bruce et al. (2013) have found methods to represent the research in artistic and authentic ways and still report those efforts in academic journals. And in other cases, the representation stands on its own, as is the case with a short story (a form of fictional ethnography) about teaching poor and working class students by Bloom (2013). Using “data” from her experiences through a social justice lens, the story shows how the school system treats students from poor backgrounds, capturing the reader’s attention in a way that a traditional representation cannot. Whether it is data, or representation of data, these “art forms . . . are essential to the research process itself and central in formulating the research question, generating data, analyzing data, and presenting the research results” (Austin & Forinash, 2005, p. 458–459). The two examples of arts-based research in this section illustrate these characteristics. In the study by Antonelli et al. (2014), the authors (including researchers, students, and parents) present what they called performance autoethnography, which is used to explore the student-participants’ experiences as children with dyslexia. Through this form of arts-based research, which uses both art as data and art as representation, the authors show how the lived experiences and performances of individuals are shaped by numerous forces (Denzin,  2003). As ­Falzon and Mifsud noted in their reflection, the artistic process was inclusive and had positive, therapeutic effects that built trust, respect, participation, and reciprocity among the research team. Dell’Angelo’s (2016) study of teachers preparing to work in high needs schools also relied on a form of ethnodrama. Using the steps consistent with an inductive analysis in a phenomenological study, she examined interviews with participants and their classroom journals and derived four emerging themes: idealistic, pragmatic, cynical, and realistic outlooks on the teacher’s position in the school. Those themes and the supporting data serve as the dialogue for four composite characters – each a teacher who stands and faces  the audience as they share “similar circumstances, but through different lenses” (Dell’Angelo, 2106, p. 1731).

References Austin, D., & Forinash, M. (2005). Arts-based inquiry. In B. Wheeler (Ed.), Music therapy research (2nd ed., pp. 458–471). Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers. Barone, T., & Eisner, E. W. (2012). Arts-based research. Washington, DC: Sage. Bloom, E. (2013). The Scrub Club. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Fiction as research practice: Short stories, novellas, and novels (pp. 95–146). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

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Bruce, A., Makaroff, K. L. S., Shields, L., Beuthin, R., Molzahn, A., & Shermak, S. (2013). Lessons learned about art-based approaches for disseminating knowledge. Nurse Researcher, 21(1), 23–28. Coemans, S., Wang, Q., Leysen, J., & Hannes, K. (2015). The use of arts-based methods in community-based research with vulnerable populations: Protocol for a scoping review. International Journal of Educational Research, 71, 33–39. Denzin, N. K. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Foster, V. (2012). The pleasure principle: Employing arts-based methods in social work research. The European Journal of Social Work, 15, 532–545. Lawrence, R. L. (2015). Dancing with the data: Arts-based qualitative research. In V. C. X. Wang (Ed.), Handbook of research on scholarly publishing and research methods (pp. 141–154). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Leavy, P. (2015). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: ­Guilford Press. Linder, J. (2015). Exploring soul loss through arts-based research. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 34(1), 20.

Chapter Thirteen

Drama, Performance Ethnography, and Self-Esteem Listening to Youngsters With Dyslexia and Their Parents The messages given to students with dyslexia, due to a lack of understanding of their abilities and needs, may be negative and need to be offset with positive messages (Burden, 2008; Burden & Burdett, 2005, 2007; Humphrey, 2002, 2003). Research findings and a series of events inspired us to create a series of workshops and performances for youngsters with dyslexia. This research intended to explore the effects of drama and PE on these 12 youngsters as perceived by themselves and their parents, in the context of a highly academic and competitive Maltese educational system. The aims of this research project were to (a) provide a safe environment where participants with dyslexia could find their voice and gain confidence in their abilities, talents, and challenges (Burden & Burdett, 2005); (b) provide the opportunity for participants to, through drama and PE, address self-esteem as this affects their quality of life and effective living in the community (Eaden & BDA, 2005); (c) compile qualitative evidence-based research to explore the meaningfulness of such experiences on students with dyslexia as, through drama, children can provide themselves and audiences with greater insight into possibilities and challenges (Burden & Burdett, 2007; Eaden & BDA, 2005); (d) in a context where Burden (2008) notes a lacuna of research in this area, create public debate to affect policies and practices; (e) give audiences the opportunity to see students with dyslexia in a different setting (Davis & Braun, 2010; West, 1997); (f) to raise awareness that the Maltese National Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education and Employment,  2012) tends to marginalize the creative aspect in learners, and that these experiences can be used to promote this concept (Birdwell, Grist, & Margo, 2011; Robinson, 2001). Antonelli, L., Bilocca, S., Borg, D., Borg, S., Boxall, M., Briffa, L., ... & Formosa, M. (2014). Drama, Performance Ethnography, and Self-Esteem: Listening to Youngsters With Dyslexia and Their ­Parents. SAGE Open, 4(2), 2158244014534696.

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This research project was inspired by a performance held in February 2009 to launch an autobiography (Scurfield, 2008). One of the authors of this article, Falzon, attended this book launch and witnessed such a powerful message from the author - Matthew Scurfield, who was also the main actor in the performance, that she invited him to repeat the performance. Following five runs of this performance for an audience of more than 1,000, the idea of drama workshops to address self-esteem for youngsters with dyslexia arose. Matthew was one of the three leaders for these workshops and eventually one of the co-researchers. We wanted to give the opportunity to 12- to 15-year-old youngsters with a profile of dyslexia to have a better understanding of themselves, their coping mechanisms with their environment and culture, and their potential and creativity through self-expression, as well as empowerment through the processing of feelings and experiences (Falzon & Muscat, 2009) to be more self-aware of their profile of abilities and challenges (Matthews, 2006; Steiner, 1997). Performances (held in October 2011 and July 2012) were intended to promote the importance of self-confidence, self-expression, self-esteem in children’s education and development, particularly for children with dyslexia.

The Terminology Self-esteem refers to a sense of personal self-worth - the sense of one’s own value as a person - and abilities that are fundamental to the development and maintenance of one’s identity, whereas self-confidence is the belief in one’s ability to succeed. These develop in oneself as one relates to and receives feedback from one’s environment and also affect self-concept. In turn, self-concept is a system of beliefs in oneself, which, in themselves, follow “similar patterns and trajectories” (Cole et al., 2001, p. 2). A person’s self-concept is therefore affected by selfesteem and self-confidence, as these develop during childhood (Harter,  1996; Stone & May, 2002). A profile of dyslexia refers to a language processing disorder [which] can hinder reading, writing, spelling and sometimes even speaking. Dyslexia is not a sign of poor intelligence or laziness. It is also not the result of impaired vision [or hearing]. Children and adults with dyslexia .. . . process and interpret information differently. (National Center for Learning Disabilities, n.d., para.1)

Self-Esteem, Self-Concept, and Profiles of Dyslexia Self-esteem affects learning and performance, and outcomes of learning and performance affect self-esteem (Lawrence, 1996). A profile of dyslexia, or rather how students with dyslexia are supported or not supported at school and in general, may affect the learning, performance, self-worth, and quality of life of students with such a profile (Humphrey, 2002, 2003). In some cases, the feeling of low selfesteem can be so severe that suicide or revenge is seen as the last and only option (Riley & Rustique-Forrester, 2002). Self-esteem is influenced by what is valued within society and culture. Persons with dyslexia tend to see themselves as less competent academically due to

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these societal demands - the emphasis placed on literacy to access learning, given that literacy is for them a challenge (Burden,  2005). Consequently, students with dyslexia tend to perceive school as a negative experience (Burden, 2005). In his meta-analysis on dyslexia and self-worth, Burden (2008) concludes that “in a society such as ours, where literacy is a highly valued skill or commodity, a perceived inability to acquire that skill is highly likely to have a negative effect upon any individual’s conception of themselves as competent” (pp. 188–189). Furthermore, Glazzard (2010) concludes that such students tend to get mixed feelings from their school experience. Most of these feelings arise when students with dyslexia compare themselves with their peers. They see that they struggle more to comprehend teachers and to express themselves. Most of the time, although these students work as hard as they can, they still feel a step behind their class mates, resulting in feelings of “giving up” (Riddick, Sterling, Farmer, & Morgan,  1999). Older children start questioning their ability to comprehend academic material, losing motivation as a consequence (Palombo, 2001; Riley & Rustique-Forrester, 2002). Riley and Rustique-Forrester (2002) note that students with dyslexia in their study found school a profoundly sad and depressing experience, emphasized by shouting and retributions: “isolated children and shouting teachers. A recurring image is of school as a prison from which children continually try to escape . . . small voices crying for help, caught in a cycle of circumstances they felt largely unable to influence” (p. 33). Burden (2008) indicates that, although there are enough research findings to conclude that self-esteem is affected by literary failure and challenges, findings “tell[s] us very little about why particular individuals or groups feel the way they do about a particular field of endeavour” (p. 193). Dyslexia does not only affect the academic component of learning - l­iteracy but also affects emotional well-being (e.g., Batshaw, 1997; Connor, 1994; Gross, 1997; Humphrey,  2003; Humphrey & Mullins,  2002a,  2002b; National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, 1990). Webb (1992) indicates that for children to feel successful, they need to become aware of their unique learning strengths, so that they may apply them effectively while working to strengthen the l­agging areas. Humphrey and Mullins (2002a) conclude that children with dyslexia attribute success to external factors rather than internal ones. Some perceive the source of the problem outside of them, whereas others perceive their profile and experiences as an implication of their limitations (Scott, 2004). Burden (2005) notes that when children with dyslexia were asked to visualize their dyslexia, most used metaphors representing obstacles or barriers interfering with the learning process. Humphrey and Mullins (2002a) explain that students with dyslexia in their study did not feel in control of their successes when it came to learning because of their profile. Burden (2005), in the context of Ajzen’s (2005) theory of planned behavior, which explores the control one has over oneself against being driven by an external force, notes that what might restrict students with dyslexia from raising their academic self-esteem is (a) lack of intention and determination to overcome their difficulties, (b) the lack of belief that their future success lies in their own hands, and (c) the kind of learning environment in which others with a similar set of goals work together to help each other succeed.

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Glazzard (2010) notes that many students with dyslexia feel isolated: “[I] thought there was only me in the classroom that was struggling and finding it really hard” (p. 65, Student no. 9). Zeleke (2004) and Gerber et al. (1990) note that students with dyslexia distinguish themselves from their peers, and this affects their academic self-concept. Humphrey and Mullins (2002b) describe how students with dyslexia are often ridiculed by peers when they try to give explanations about their learning difficulties and their need for help. When learning disabilities (LD) are mistaken for stupidity, students with dyslexia develop a negative self-esteem due to experiences encountered, especially at school (Burden, 2008). The very anxiety experienced leads to heightened self-awareness and self-­ consciousness, in turn increasing clumsiness, errors, and anxiety levels (Rome, 1970). Scott (2004) finds better experiences, performance, and behavior when there is less self-consciousness. Furthermore, although persons with dyslexia experience a great deal of anxiety and frustration at school, they may not have the means to express themselves in the school environment and many end up misbehaving or becoming the class clown (Bender, 2001; Riley & RustiqueForrester, 2002). Scott (2004) concludes that misbehavior becomes a way of getting recognition from peers. Bandura (1997) describes that when appropriate support is not offered, students with LD tend to discourage themselves further, and when support is given, they feel encouraged (Burden, 2008). Once they admit and accept their profile (Burden, 2008; Falzon & Camilleri, 2010), they learn how to overcome their difficulties and manage to cope, seeing positive results and adequate achievement, thus increasing their self-esteem. Falzon and Camilleri (2010) note that Maltese school counselors express that once students with dyslexia accept their dyslexia and become more confident, they elicit their potential more and feel better. Braden (1997) notes that for improvement to occur, the person must achieve. Research findings prove a correlation between literacy interventions and emotional adjustment, where effective literacy intervention is likely to result in optimistic emotional adjustment (Burden,  2005; Connor, 1994). Research findings indicate that academic self-concept, self-concept, selfworth, and self-esteem may be improved, especially if effective coping strategies are implemented. Scott (2004) finds that, in most research studies, most coping strategies suggested are based on social support and encouragement, effort, parental modeling, and using the adversity as a tool to feel stronger and more in control. The decision of accepting dyslexia is up to the child, yet society can be of help to facilitate this process (Burden & Burdett, 2005; Falzon & ­Camilleri,  2010; Scott,  2004). Adults with dyslexia who manage to accept and overcome their challenges manage to build effective coping strategies that come handy in work settings and gain emotional recompense in adulthood (Everatt, Steffert, & Smythe, 1999; Fitzgibbon & O’Connor, 2002; McNulty, 2003; Taylor & Walter, 2003). Some view their issue with dyslexia as a learning difference, helping them accept their individuality more easily. McNulty (2003) notes that there

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is a tendency that those who accept their dyslexia manage to nurture their selfesteem as they grow older. Furthermore, parents with dyslexia who have children with this profile revise their self-concept while helping their children adapt. Gross (1997) concludes that frustration and failure are experiences in learning activities that lead to feelings of disappointment and a lowered sense of selfworth, especially in academic environments. Humphrey and Mullins (2002a) note that students with dyslexia experience significant challenges and difficulties with regard to self-esteem and self-perception. It is possible to address these with a more respectful inclusive curriculum and pedagogy and through the use of drama (Eaden & BDA, 2005; McNulty, 2003).

Drama and Self-Esteem Martin (2004) reports positive effects of drama on children in several studies carried out in the United Kingdom. and Roche (1996a, 1996b) suggest that it is important that performing arts become an effective tool for understanding, monitoring, and maintaining or enhancing self-concept in specific domains in education. The different activities involved in drama offer the opportunity for students to become more in touch with themselves, thus becoming more aware of who they are and of their feelings. Being in touch with one’s reality is the first step toward building one’s selfesteem and self-concept (Braden, 1997). Social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills are especially promoted in socio-dramatic play (Smilansky & Shefatya,  1990). Smilansky (1968) insists that socio-dramatic plays need to include imitative role-play, make-believe objects, make-believe actions and situations, interactivity, verbal communication, and persistence. Socio-dramatic play provides situations of controversy and hot discussions that in most cases lead to conflict. Using improvisation, children must think for themselves, be creative, and improvise (Noble, Egan, & McDowell, 1977). The enhanced creative skills can be useful during everyday conversations. Greene (1971) notes that creativity skills are sometimes taken for granted, but it takes commitment and hard work to gain mastery over them. Improvisation also helps children become more expressive and use less the dimensions of pretence, formality, or shyness (Buss,  & Briggs, 1984; Goffman, 1959). Smilansky (1968) notes that the skill of fantasizing scenery and acting impulsively to it as if it were real life is very helpful for full personality development. Thus, socio-dramatic play also helps in understanding, expressing, and processing emotions (Dayton, 1990). Socio-dramatic play promotes cooperation skills and teamwork. Participants must work together and, as a group, feel that they own the play. If the end product is good, participants are rewarded through a strong sense of achievement. Smilansky (1968) concludes that persons participating in socio-dramatic play experience increased creativity, heightened concentration, more abstract thought encoded in language, greater flexibility and empathy toward others, improved imitation of models, and enhanced self-awareness and self-control. Through these invented situations, participants can live new experiences with

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opportunities for development. Thus, socio-dramatic play becomes a “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1978) and a vehicle for emotional literacy to develop. As Tew (2008) notes, effective and well-facilitated groupwork needs to be at the heart of all emotional literacy curricula. Erikson (1940) also proposes that socio-dramatic play - imaginative play - can be a tool to increase the child’s sense of mastery over what is unknown, such as unfamiliar roles and relationships, thus reducing anxiety. Mead (1934) further argues that the characteristics used during social interaction become part of the individual identity - e­ xperiences in socio-dramatic play provide the cognitive system with new patterns of interaction that in turn control behavior. Kennedy (1990) notes that adolescents in his study felt proud and successful after interpreting their unique role in front of the school. Such experiences help develop speaking and listening skills and further support and help develop selfconcept and self-esteem. Kennedy concludes that such drama activities include a cognitive academic component and an affective, social component. This provides great opportunities for children to experience a variety of emotions and learn to deal with them. Pradier (1990) adds that the live performance itself involves a simulation of everyday behavior, using the biological component, making the simulation a physical experience. Whether drama is really effective needs to be addressed taking into consideration theories that distinguish domain specific self-esteem from the global selfesteem. Drama self-concept in relation to drama leads to domain specific self-esteem, and one queries whether this also affects global self-esteem. Marsh (1990) finds that the self-concept in main school subjects is more highly correlated with general school self-concept and self-esteem than the self-concept in non-core subjects such as drama, art, music, and physical education. One reason behind this may be that in schools, the non-core subjects are given less credit (Turner et al., 2004). The basic goals of drama are to encourage creativity and independent thinking, provide opportunities for social cooperation, develop empathy and understanding the self, allow for controlled emotional releases, and develop clear expression of ideas (e.g., Arts Council England,  2003; Department of Education and Science, 1989; Department for Education and Skills, n.d.; Dickinson, Neelands, & Shenton Primary School, 2006; Somers,  1996). Such opportunities in the school setting may be limited due to the great focus given to academics (Birdwell et al., 2011). During drama sessions, a trusting environment is ensured enabling students to feel at ease (Crimmens, 2006; Eadon, 2005; Turner et al., 2004). Eadon (2005) points out different factors that might help students with dyslexia bring out their potential during drama. In a drama setting, teachers promote self-discipline but do not interfere too much to let imagination and creativity lead, resulting in more freedom for self-expression (Eadon, 2005). Students with dyslexia can strongly benefit from this because many have strong visual skills and creativity (Davis & Braun, 2010). Story-drama allows room for peers to interact and work alongside each other to achieve a goal (Crimmens, 2006).

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Turner et al. (2004) conclude that students like the flexible, inclusive, and notso-ruled approach. Children with LD benefit from the active plots as they are allowed to freely express themselves in safe surroundings (Scott, 2004). Furthermore, group games such as mirroring, trust exercises, freeze frame, still pictures, and tableaux help establish this safe environment and trust, awake minds and bodies, help develop physical coordination and memory, and encourage confidence in speaking up and the ability to think as much as they can (Turner et al., 2004). Most students with dyslexia have high creative skills (West, 1997), and drama has a range of possible activities in which the students can take part (Crimmens, 2006). The activity in which dyslexic students might struggle the most is when they have to work from a set script. This is because they would be more focused on reading and understanding it rather than the performance itself (Eadon, 2005). Eadon (2005) suggests that one way of working through this is to verbally introduce the new script by summarizing the whole plot and then reading through all of it with the group, as well as using dyslexia-friendly measures to access the printed text. In their study, Turner et al. (2004) find that children learn very complicated texts and concepts unconsciously while working with mini scenes of various plays. When considering other factors of drama, persons with dyslexia tend to excel in oral skills, mimicry, timing, and longterm memory for lines and movement. They also tend to be very aware of the environment and thus are highly intuitive and perceptive, very good at relating movement to speech, and very keen in observation skills (Dyslexia Scotland, 2007). Research results on the effects of drama on the self-esteem of children with dyslexia are very scarce. The research findings available conclude that the main factor that limits students from embracing their full potential is lack of self-esteem and confidence (Eadon, 2005). Artists working with such students do their best to maximize hope, confidence, and encouragement for success so that failure that contributes to low self-esteem, and vice versa, can be avoided (Eadon, 2005). For example, when persons feel tense due to lack of self-­confidence, there is a tendency to “hunch up,” bending forward with head down. In drama, the person is made aware of when this happens. Participants are shown the correct upright posture, which also helps in efficient and appropriate breathing. This technique helps gain self-control, thus leading to improved self-confidence (Eadon, 2005). Drama also leaves room for reflective learning. This is based on exploring the conditions (the situation) that lead to particular thinking influencing the behavior (Eadon, 2005). For instance, in drama, children are taught different ways of saying a word. Then they explore the different reactions to the tonality, emphasis, and pitch used. However, to be good at reflective learning, through the use of storytelling, participants are also made aware of the importance of listening skills through powerful themes such as jealousy, rivalry, revenge, and reconciliation to encourage children to talk about their own feelings and emotions (Turner et al., 2004).

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Eadon (2005) notes that children perceive drama as helping them gain selfconfidence, coordination, and social skills. In drama, they do not experience the frustration felt in class because they can express their abilities more freely and in a “safer” non-judgmental environment (Turner et al., 2004). Children are able to express themselves more through facial expressions and became less shy; whereas with their teammates, they may learn to accept others’ mistakes and develop their communication skills, concentration, enthusiasm, cooperation, dedication, responsibility, ability not to lose control, and even literacy skills. Some learn that they are skilful at looking after each other. The main gains, however, are drama literacy and self-confidence. A Maltese study (Debono,  2011) exploring whether persons with dyslexia who have experienced drama managed to improve their self-esteem concludes that being artistic was not just about being creative: but a wholesome activity in which they truly committed themselves and revealed who they were. The group work offered in drama was seen as a great opportunity to reveal to peers their creativity . . . [D]rama [which] helped them gain self-confidence . . . [and] become more confident . . . When comparing the effects of drama and the self-concept . . . it was noted that drama had a longterm effect and helped the core of self-confidence which led to improvement in other areas . . . more limited to a domain specific self-esteem. Thus a broader perspective of drama and its therapeutic aspects emerged as part of the results. (Debono, 2011, pp. 45–46)

Experiencing the Research Process-The Conceptual Framework of the Method Socio-dramatic drama is then taken a step further in Performance Ethnography (PE). Pelias (2007) explains that PE takes as its working premise that a theatrical representation of what one discovers through participant-observation fieldwork provides a vibrant and textured rendering of cultural others. Performance for the performance ethnographer is typically understood as an aesthetic act within a theatrical tradition. In Western cultures, this artistic endeavor calls on actors through their use of presentational skills to evoke others for the consideration of audiences. Pelias cautions that one should not confuse PE with the ethnography of performance which in turn “examines cultural performances as objects of investigation” (p. 3391). Pelias (2007) defines PE as relying on the “embodiment of cultural others” (p. 3391) and is therefore a method of inquiry that enshrines the body as a “site of knowing” akin to other standard ethnographic practices where performance ethnographers use the same ethnographic methodological strategies: qualitative research design. This is used to explore cultural phenomena that reflect the knowledge and system of meanings of a cultural group, attempting to explore the social, behavioral, and linguistic patterns of a chosen cultural group (Hays & Wood, 2011) and trying to understand “social action . . . within a discrete

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location  .  .  .  from first-hand experience” (Pole & Morrison,  2003, p. 17). The difference is the mode of representation - performance - supported by written reflection. Ethnography allows for understanding the meaning subjects give to their experiences (Chang,  2008) and how “motivated actions arise from and reflect back on these experiences” (Brewer,  2000, p. 11). This also allows readers to empathize, learn, and be sensitized to the specific cultural group (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011; Michelson, 2011; Tillmann, 2009), also giving space for minority groups to narrate the otherwise untold stories (Smith, 2005). In the case of this research, autoethnography was also utilized because youngsters and one of the adult authors of this research (Matthew Scurfield) were not only involved but also had a profile of dyslexia. Personal experiences were given a voice through Matthew and the youngsters for better sociological understanding (Ellis,  2009; Ellis et al., 2011; Wall, 2006, 2008), and then also validated through the parents’ voices. In a context where Ellis (2009) describes ethnography as “unruly, dangerous, passionate, vulnerable, rebellious, creative-in motion, showing struggle, passion, embodied life, and collaborative creation of sense-making” (p. 360), we feel privileged to form part of this process. Ellis (2009) comments on Chang’s (2008) work and notes that stories presented are “evocative, dramatic, engaging . . . concrete [with] . . . layered details . . . [and] heart-breaking” (p. 360) and engage the readers aesthetically, emotionally, politically, and also ethically (Tillmann, 2009). Our aim was to give these 12 youngsters and their parents the space and the opportunity to contribute with a narrative that is untainted, reflexive, emotional, and real (Denshire, 2006; Speedy, 2008), where we were aware that, as Winterson (2004) poetically expresses, “the stories . . . will light up part of [our lives] and leave the rest in darkness. [We] don’t need to know everything. There is no everything” (p. 134). Performance ethnographers do not reflect the experience of others based on observations or participation but strive to represent cultural findings based on experiences through the enactment of cultural others. Pelias (2007) notes that “By doing so, they believe they add flesh to the dry bones of traditional ethnography” (p. 3391). In the context of this research, we created a model where the drama experience and performance autoethnography were blended together for the experience to be both enriching and empowering, as well as a research process in itself.

Logistics of the Project A series of workshops building toward an end production to celebrate the 2011 International Dyslexia Week (November 2011) were planned. The aim of these workshops was to create a safe environment of trust so the young participants with dyslexia could find their voice through a creative medium. These workshops were facilitated by director Lena Scurfield, Matthew Scurfield, and Maltese actress Clare Agius. Participants were also supported by group processing sessions to enable and empower them to understand themselves and this experience.

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These sessions were co-facilitated by qualified counsellor and co-author Mifsud, and by co-author, personal and social development trainer, and project coordinator Falzon. Following the November 2011 performance, workshops continued in preparation of another presentation (July 2012) during a summer school for university students and professionals organized by the Department of Counselling of the University of Malta, where the 12 youngsters’ and the professionals’ experiences were used to present the effects of performance autoethnography through audiovideo clips of the children’s experiences and their participation in an interactive session with the audience.

Participants During the third week of May 2011, an e-mail was sent to members of the Malta Dyslexia Association explaining the project. The target audience were youngsters aged between 12 and 15 years with a profile of dyslexia. A first-come-first-served basis was used. Relevant information letters and consent forms were then sent to parents and youngsters, indicating also that this was a research project, and the project started during the first week of July 2011. As the project developed, the 12 youngsters began expressing the wish for their names not to be changed in the research. This led to challenging reflections and research by the adult m ­ embers of this project, particularly within the concept of emancipatory research and Speedy’s (2011) work on collective biographies. Oliver (1992) explains that trust, respect, participation, and reciprocity should underpin emancipatory research that focuses on understanding the meaning of individuals’ experiences. As Speedy (2011) notes: We [were] caught between two ways of “capturing” this experience. We [were] stuck between the proliferation of strategy documents, generalizations . . . and statistics . . . and the “real-life stories” . . . at the other. None of these genres is making the difference we want it to - our thinking is familiar, unchallenged and well-worn (p. 139).

In this context, and after ensuring consent from the parents and processing their decisions and consequences thereof, it was agreed that the names of the youngsters would not be changed and that they now were effectively co-authors. This decision was processed a number of times with the group to ensure empowered informed decision making (Speedy, 2011).

Ethical Considerations Wiles, Heath, Crow, and Charles (2005) note that principle-based approaches to ethics in research involve “adherence to moral principles.” All ethical considerations as proposed by the American Psychological Association (APA, 2009) beneficence and non-malfeasance, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, respect for rights, and dignity-were taken into account.

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Data Collection and Presentation The project presents the participants and their parents and embraces Speedy’s (2008) argument that narrative inquiry and therapeutic work have quite a powerful affinity. Speedy (2008) argues that narrative inquiry should “illustrate and suggest [not] explain and evaluate” (p. 142) and, as in therapeutic work, should evoke surprise and perceive events and experience with a different lens that can act as an agent for change. Similarly, Bochner (1997) believes that stories should “compel . . . [and] touch[ing] readers . . . offering details that linger in the mind” (p. 434). In the context of this research, the presentations of the narratives “are not so much academic as they are existential, reflecting a desire to grasp or seize the possibilities of meaning which is what gives life its imaginative and poetic qualities” (Bochner in Denzin & Lincoln, 2002, p. 262). The parents sent e-mails to the project coordinator, whereas the children either sent e-mails or dictated to one of the adult authors or their parents. In spite of being aware of the option to communicate in Maltese, all communications were in English. Bochner (1997) and Speedy (2008) inspired us to present the findings using the co-researchers’ own words and transforming them in poetic form, whereas Zeeman, Poggenpoel, Myburgh, and Van Der Linde (2002) enthused us to consider the “the existence of alternative stories on one event, the existence of more than one interpretation of the world and the thought that the self has more than one view” (para. 2). In our attempt to present these narratives, we are both interpreting and allowing the readers to create their own meaning of the youngsters’ experiences through the voices of the youngsters and their parents.

The Parents Reflect Stanza 1 I feel a privileged parent I have witnessed your presentation My eyes welled up with tears as labels were peeled off1 Very moving for me till the very end Whether one has dyslexia or not, we are all being labelled, labelled negatively I have no worries for Mike’s future He will all make it in his own different ways. I am sure What about those children who were not here? Those parents in denial? Those parents who think a problem will go away? We need more awareness We need more empowerment So parents can support and help their children This hill ahead is long and tough The academic rewards are great The non-academic rewards are great

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Stanza 2 My 12-year-old attended My 12-year-old enjoyed At first very reluctant Very secretive about what goes on Whatever it is, it is working well with him Stanza 3 Helping our kids defend themselves Giving them courage Bringing back their self esteem No one at home believes that what I’m doing is right Yesterday I felt it in every one of the other parents Continue helping our kids Please also help us parents Don’t stop the project I dreamt about our kids making a song about Dyslexia!!! Each of them sang about their talents and hobbies Stanza 4 Valentina has changed Valentina used to be very shy Valentina used to be very quiet The summer workshop came She opens up She speaks her ideas in front of strangers No longer that quiet girl who sits and listens She has become assertive She knows when to say NO She explains the reason for her NO She looks forward to the workshops The day at the field - A one-time experience For me a very good sign Her friends’ experiences disturbed her Her friends’ experiences shocked her Why do teachers and friends not understand? Compared, she has been lucky “You know, Ma, I now know I know why I used to be very angry Before going to school Because I was frightened She [the language teacher] would tell me to read in class She knew I did not want to read She thought she was helping! ’Come on try!’ Then when I made an error She used to lift her eyebrows.”

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The joy of seeing her happy No words can express She is looking forward to meet her new friends They accept her as she is She does not have to prove herself like she has to do at school These are friends whom she trusts They showed her that she is loved They showed her she has abilities They showed her it is the society that is a failure and not her We always tell her so We always show her so Hearing and seeing it from others made for her the difference Stanza 5 Before he attended the sessions He was able to dream Express what he thought But what about what he dreamt? But nowadays! Now I see more POWER in him He believes in what he dreams He insists to be heard too Day by day Session after session I began to see I began to hear Sentences he had never spoken before The session is over He comes home excited He tells me how he shall be going strong He won’t let anyone stop his dream He pains for his friend He does not want to be misunderstood The strength in his voice “Mum now I NEED to rest I’ll do my room later but NOW I need to rest” And he keeps his word He does all he needs to do BUT in his own time in his own way As a mother I cry a lot when I remember I see people who don’t understand Like most mummies

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I am the only one who is behind my son I cannot explain how frightening it is to feel alone I cannot explain how frightening it is that I’m not for eternity He has to be on his own, without being understood These sessions are sure to be remembered The kids must keep on meeting These keep our children’s inner strength steady They need you more than they need us Matthew you understand them most Lena you give our kids all the attention a “mother” instinct Clare you taught them to relax and release their tension The power is created They know there’s power which they can use Stanza 6 Encounter loads of difficulties We accept our children’s way of learning We accept our children’s “life” Dyslexia-a wild flower Few admire it for its strength Few realize how it faces the cold The rain. The wind. The heat We most appreciate those sensitive and difficult to grow What about the others out there? The wild flower survives The wonderful house plant dies easily

The Youngsters Share Stanza 7 Meeting Matthew and Clare Made a big difference in my life. Through the sessions I’ve learned what life has to give you And that no matter things seems, We MUST never give up. (Gary Lee) Stanza 8 Dyslexia is something to be proud of. (Sasha) Stanza 9 This group helped me not to be shy to tell others that I am dyslexic. (Dario) Stanza 10

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It was a really good experience for me. I learned not to be shy. I learned that there are more people who have dyslexia and I am not afraid to talk about it anymore. And I made new friends. (Mark) Stanza 11 I know there are many others Who managed to reach the top I am asking them to help us Give us the push we need Committee please go Go to our government Tell them that in other countries There is so much more help It seems that I cannot stop Still have so much to say You are playing with our lives This is not a joke! Give us what we deserve This would surely not cost much Do not let this mistake grow Do not throw our lives away Why do you drag your feet? Why do you forget us? If we were your children Would you have the heart to throw us away? (Shane, translated excerpt from his poem-Why such a system?) Stanza 12 The workshop helped me by: Building my self-esteem. Made new friends. I am not the only one. My feelings and anger are the same like those of my friends. (Valentina) Stanza 13 I was shy Now I am more confident that there are more dyslexic children like me and I know more things about dyslexia. (Liam) Stanza 14 Me entering this group helped me because I shared my feelings with people who have

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the same difficulties like I do. It helped me in my self-confidence. It also taught me to never give up in the future. (Leah) Stanza 15 I learn about school what they don’t like and they like. Like Maths, science, Maltese, arts and religion. But everyone don’t like at school. So I tell the teachers and tell them what they like. I don’t like religion, me and English literature. But I like Maths, English language, science and arts. I like the group we learn about school I like it and my brother likes it too. (Luke) Stanza 16 Seeing stuff in different ways. Dyslexia makes me feel proud of myself and not ashamed of it. Why can’t I get a reader in O-levels? (Kurt) Stanza 17 It’s fun and exciting, Find it difficult to explain what we do but usually we get to talk about dyslexia and we discuss how we can make school a better place for other dyslexic children. We play games, pretending we are in court and accuse each other of mistakes such as spelling and slow writing. We also pretend to “kill” our teacher because he does not make it fair on us kids and does not try to teach us in a way we can learn. I now know more about dyslexia I feel I can adapt my brain to remember things for a longer time. I feel that I am not alone in this situation Now that I have met so many other dyslexic children and adults like Matthew I am sure I can reach my dreams. I am more confident now. I can speak up for myself at school when I don’t get the help I need.:) (Mike)

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Reflection The voices of the youngsters and their parents reflect the literature with regard to the positive effects of drama (Eaden & BDA, 2005) (stanza 3, line 3), the therapeutic value of the narrative (Speedy, 2008) (stanza 4, line 5) - the empowerment voicing and sharing of experiences have on individuals (stanza 5, line 6) (e.g., Burden & Burdett, 2007; Eaden & BDA, 2005; Scott, 2004; Turner et al., 2004) - and the benefits of performance autoethnography (Brewer, 2000; Pelias, 20 (stanza 2, line 5). The youngsters provided a “vibrant and textured rendering of cultural others. . . [and] through the use of presentations skills” (Pelias, 2007, p. 3391) managed to evoke feelings in others (Speedy,  2008) (stanza 1, lines 2–18). The youngsters further allowed us to understand the meaning of their experiences (Brewer, 2000) allowing us to empathize, learn, and be sensitized to their specific experience as evidenced in their and their parents’ voices (stanza 3, line 4). The parents’ perception and the youngsters’ voices clearly resonate the literature and are a valuable witness for practice and research. As Bandura (1997) and Burden and Burdett (2007) note, when appropriate recognition and support are given, youngsters with dyslexia feel stronger and more able and empowered to overcome their challenges (stanza 10, line 4). The youngsters speak about the experience as empowering and giving them the strength to both accept their profile and themselves, and to be more ready to confront challenges (stanza 4, lines 1–10). This is akin to the positive effect of drama (Martin, 2004) and Erikson’s (1940) concept that drama can be a tool to increase a sense of mastery of the unknown leading to a reduction in anxiety. In line with the literature, an increase of self-confidence and self-esteem resonates from the parents and the youngsters (stanza 5, lines 7–8). Four themes can be gleaned from these experiences: selfworth, empowerment, resilience, and need for support from each other. Self-worth. The youngsters perceived school as a negative experience (­Burden, 2005) (stanza 1, line 7) and also tended to compare themselves with their peers (Glazzard,  2010) (stanza 11, lines 13–16). During their workshops, they were able to create scenes that were helpful to translate in real-life situations such that they utilized their role-plays in their school life (Dayton,  1990; Smilansky,  1968) and could narrate these experiences in their workshops ­ (stanza  10). These improvisations helped them become more expressive and empowered them to understand their self-worth (stanza 3, lines 1–3; stanza 9). These youngsters echoed Smilansky’s (1968) conclusion on the positive effects of socio-dramatic drama with regard to self-worth (stanzas 12 and 14). Resilience. In a context where they were aware that they needed to put in more effort than their peers and that at times they feel like giving up (Riddick et al., 1999) (stanza 4, lines 14–16; stanza 6, line 1), the youngsters felt that the workshops empowered them to feel more motivated to try (Braden, 1997) (stanza 4, line 36) and that they could confront and explain their needs to their teachers (stanza 4, lines 4–7; stanza 13; stanza 15, line 5). This is a very important finding with reference to motivation and insecurity with regard to academic achievement

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(e.g., Palombo, 2001; Riley & Rustique-Forrester, 2002). Their pride and success when performing in front of each other and others affected their resilience and their determination to cope and succeed (Eaden & BDA, 2005; Kennedy, 1990) (stanza 5, line 40). Empowerment. The workshops also had an effect on the youngsters’ locus of control. Humphrey and Mullins (2002a) note that such experiences are an empowering tool to offset attributions of success and failure to external rather than internal factors (stanza 5, line 6; stanza 7). This sits well with Ajzen’s (2005) theory of planned behavior and Burden’s (2005) concern that lack of intention and determination to overcome challenges is the major obstacle to academic selfesteem (stanza 4, line 7). The youngsters felt empowered by their shared experiences, role-plays, and mutual affirmations (stanza 17, lines 6–10). They felt empowered to take their future in their own hands (Burden, 2005; B ­ urden & Burdett, 2005) (stanza 14). Whereas the decision to accept one’s profile of dyslexia is always up to the self, such workshops can help facilitate this process (Burden,  2005; Burden & Burdett,  2005; Humphrey & Mullins,  2002a,  2002b; Scott, 2004) (stanza 1, line 4; stanza 4, lines 37–40). Need for support from each other. Glazzard (2010) reports feelings of isolation in children with dyslexia. This was also expressed by the youngsters. They also felt misunderstood and at times laughed at (Gerber et al., 1990; Humphrey & ­Mullins,  2002b; Riley & Rustique-Forrester,  2002) (stanza 5, lines 36 to 37). These negative and anxious experiences (Rome, 1970) were shared, role-played, and processed during workshops and support sessions and led to both relief and resolution (stanza 17, lines 4 to 12). The youngsters were relieved that they found others with similar experiences, and this gave them the power to resolve their anxiety about their profile, to accept their challenges and limitations, and to be able to express themselves with class peers and tutors (stanza 17, line 13). In line with research findings, increased selfworth and self-esteem were referred to (Bandura,  1997; Burden,  2008; Falzon & Camilleri,  2010). This also reinforces Scott’s (2004) meta-analysis of research findings that suggests that such social support is a tool to feel stronger and more in control (stanza 3; stanza 5, lines 38–40).

Research Implications These findings yield a number of implications for research and practice: a. As recommended by the youngsters and parents themselves, similar workshops should be available for students with dyslexia; b. As also recommended by the participants, youngsters with dyslexia who participated in such workshops should then also create other workshops with youngsters who have and do not have dyslexia to create more awareness and thus allow this profile to be better understood. The youngsters also suggested that professionals should attend such workshops; c. Parental support groups should be created to help both parents and their children;

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d. We also recommend the inclusion of drama across the curriculum. This then needs to be taken a step further to reflect PE. In the Maltese National Minimum curriculum, there is space for this through Personal and Social Development (PSD), locally a statutory subject (Falzon & Muscat, 2009) and through drama. The Maltese PSD Model allows for processing (Bond, 1986; Egan, 2013; Nelson-Jones, 1991), also leading to emotional literacy (­Camilleri, Caruana, Falzon, & Muscat, 2012); e. As recommended by the youngsters, publications on their experiences for children and adults are needed. One of the youngsters has already published a book of poems (Borg, 2009) and has motivated the group to express their thoughts to others. This experience and the lack of enough research in the area (Burden, 2008) lead us to encourage others to embark on similar research. f. Longitudinal studies of such experiences will help us understand the effects of drama and performance autoethnography, and how this can be linked to professional support, when needed, such as counselling (Falzon & ­Camilleri, 2010) and other psychotherapeutic practices (Scott, 2004). g. Pre- and post-self-esteem inventories may be used to provide standardized measures for the effectiveness of such workshops.

Conclusion This team effort combined PE (the youngsters, Clare and two of the authors), written narratives (the parents and the youngsters), and the application of research and writing skills (Debono, Falzon, and Mifsud) to let “the stories [and experiences] themselves make the meaning” (Winterson,  2004, p. 134) in the knowledge that these “stories [we] want to tell you will light up part of [our] lives” (Winterson, 2004, p. 134). The findings speak for themselves. The readers are invited to make meaning of these youngsters’ and their parents’ experience. The parents’ and the youngsters’ narratives echo the results of other research findings and further highlight our responsibility toward ensuring that our children and youngsters have positive experiences at school as this has long-lasting effects with regard to self-concept, self-esteem, and quality of life. Furthermore, these narratives highlight the need to allow participants to voice their experiences and become co-researchers as this not only has a therapeutic effect but also embraces trust, respect, participation, and reciprocity, focusing on understanding the meaning of individuals’ experiences where researchers and participants become one team addressing the research and making meaning. The pain, anguish, hurt, bewilderment, shame, and frustration experienced can easily be transformed into enriching experiences of growth if educators and society appreciate and respect these children’s profile of abilities and challenges. Furthermore, experiences of drama and performance autoethnography empower youngsters to cope with the adversities and negative experiences that life throws at them and can also support the counselling experience (Falzon & Camilleri, 2010). As Scurfield (2009) notes,

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This is by no means the end, but as sure as day gives way to night, the sands of the hour glass have turned. While the wind may crack its tune and the sun beat a torrent drum, I will endeavour to go to the blood heart of the undying, unfathomable now and sit at ease with my sceptre of dust and crown of stars (p. 391).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Note 1. Labels on T-shirts were peeled off as part of the October 2011 performance.

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Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), 1–18. Erikson, E. H. (1940). Studies in the interpretation of play. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 22(4), 557–671. Everatt, J., Steffert, B., & Smythe, I. (1999). An eye for the unusual: Creative thinking in dyslexics. Dyslexia, 5, 28–46. Falzon, R., & Camilleri, S. (2010). Dyslexia and the school counsellor: A Maltese case study. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 10, 307–315. doi:10.1080/14733140903370228 Falzon, R., & Muscat, M. (2009). Personal and social development in a small island community: Presenting the Maltese democratic model. Journal of the European Teacher Education Network, 4, 9–26. Fitzgibbon, G., & O’Connor, B. (2002). Adult dyslexia: A guide for the workplace. Chichester, UK: John Wiley. Gerber, P. J., Schnieders, C. A., Paradise, L. V., Reiff, H. B., Ginsberg, R. J., & Popp, P. A. (1990). Persisting problems of adults with learning disabilities: Self-reported comparisons from their school-age and adult years. Journal of learning disabilities, 23, 570–573. doi:10.1177/002221949002300907 Glazzard, J. (2010). The impact of dyslexia on pupil’s self-esteem. Support for Learning, 25, 63–69. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Greene, M. (1971). Curriculum and consciousness. Teachers College Record, 73, 253–270. Gross, A. H. (1997). Defining the self as a learner for children with LD [Electronic version]. Their World 1996/1997 National Center for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from LD online: http://www.ldonline.org/article/6152/. Harter, S. (1996). Historical roots of contemporary issues: Involving self-concept. In B. A. Bracken (Ed.), Handbook of self-concept: Development, social and clinical considerations (pp. 1–37). New York, NY: John Wiley. Hays, D. G., & Wood, C. (2011). Infusing qualitative traditions in counseling research designs. Journal of Counseling & Development, 89, 288–295. Humphrey, N. (2002). Teacher and pupil ratings of self-esteem in developmental dyslexia. British Journal of Special Education, 29, 29–36. Humphrey, N. (2003). Facilitating a positive sense of self in pupils with dyslexia: The role of teachers and peers. Support for Learning, 18, 130–136. Humphrey, N., & Mullins, P. M. (2002a). Personal constructs and attribution for academic success and failure in dyslexia. British Journal of Special Education, 29, 196–203. Humphrey, N., & Mullins, P. M. (2002b). Self-concept and self-esteem in developmental dyslexia. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 2(2). doi:10.1111/j.14713802.2002.00163.x Kennedy, J. K. (1990). Student empowerment through on-stage theatre. Journal of Adlerian Theory, Research & Practice, 46, 184–186. Lawrence, D. (1996). Enhancing self-esteem in the classroom (2nd ed.). London, ­England: PCP Ltd. Marsh, H. W., & Roche, L. A. (1996a). Academic self-concept: Theory measurement and research. In J. M. Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 4, pp. 59–98). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Marsh, H. W., & Roche, L. A. (1996b). Structure of artistic selfconcepts for performing arts and non-performing arts students in a performing arts high school: “Setting the

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Stage” with multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 461–477. Martin, J. (2004, October 6). Drama improves pupils’ self-esteem, study finds. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/oct/06/schools.primaryeducation March, H. W. (1990). A multidimensional, hierarchical model of self-concept: Theoretical and empirical justification. Educational Psychology Review, 2(2), 77–172. Matthews, B. (2006). Engaging education, developing emotional literacy, equity and co-education. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. McNulty, M. A. (2003). Dyslexia and the life course. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36, 363–381. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviourist (C. W. Morris, Ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Michelson, E. (2011). Autobiography and selfhood in the practice of adult learning. Adult Education Quarterly, 61, 3–21. Ministry of Education and Employment. (2012). A national curriculum framework for all. Floriana, Malta: Salesian Press. National Center for Learning Disabilities. (n.d.). What is dyslexia? Retrieved from http:// www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dyslexia/what-is-dyslexia National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities. (1990). Retrieved from http://www .ldonline.org/about/partners/njcld/archives Nelson-Jones, R. (1991). Lifeskills: A handbook. London, England: Cassell Educational Limited. Noble, G., Egan, P., & Mcdowell, S. (1997). Changing the self concepts of seven year old deprived urban children by creative drama or videofeedback. Social Behavior and Personality, 5 (1), 55–65. Oliver, M. (1992). Changing the social relations of research production? Disability Handicap and Society, 7, 101–114. Palombo, J. (2001). Learning disorders & disorders of the self in children and adolescents. New York, NY: Norton. Pelias, R. J. (2007). PE. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Encyclopedia of sociology VII (pp. 3391–3396). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Pole, C., & Morrison, M. (2003). Ethnography for education. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=114763877 Pradier, J. M. (1990). Towards a biological theory of the body in performance. New Theatre Quarterly, 6, 86–98. Riddick, B., Sterling, C., Farmer, M., & Morgan, S. (1999). Self-esteem and anxiety in the educational histories of adult dyslexic students. Dyslexia, 5, 227–248. Riley, K., & Rustique-Forrester, E. (2002). Working with disaffected Students: Why students lose interested in school and what we can do about it. London, England: Paul Chapman. Robinson, K. (2001). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Chichester, UK: Capstone. Rome, H. D. (1970). The psychiatric aspects of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia Journal, 21, 64–70. doi:10.1007/BF02663711 Scott, R. (2004). Dyslexia and counselling. London, England: Whurr Publishers. Scurfield, M. (2008). I could be anyone. Għarb, Gozo: Monticello Publishing. Scurfield, M. (2009). I could be anyone (2nd ed.). Għarb, Gozo: Monticello Publishing. Smilansky, S. (1968). The effects of sociodramatic play on disadvantaged pre-school children. New York, NY: John Wiley. Smilansky, S., & Shefatya, L. (1990). Facilitating play. Gaithersburg, MD: Psychosocial and Educational Publications.

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Smith, C. (2005). Epistemological intimacy: A move to auto ethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(2), 1–7. Somers, J. (Ed.). (1996). Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research. North York, Ontario, Canada: Captus Press. Speedy, J. (2008). Narrative inquiry & psychotherapy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Speedy, J. (2011). All googled out on suicide: Making collective biographies out of silent fragments with “the unassuming geeks.” Qualitative Inquiry, 17, 134–143. Steiner, C. (with Perry, P.). (1997). Achieving emotional literacy. London, England: Bloomsberry Publishing. Stone, C. A., & May, A. L. (2002). The accuracy of academic self-evaluations in adolescents with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 370–384. Taylor, K. E., & Walter, J. (2003). Occupation choices of adults with and without symptoms of dyslexia. Dyslexia: An International Journal of Research and Practice, 9, 177–185. doi:10.1002/dys.23910.1002/dys.239 Tew, M. (2008). School effectiveness: Supporting student success through emotional literacy. ­London, England: SAGE Publications Ltd. Tillmann, L. M. (2009). Speaking into silences: Autoethnography, communication, and applied research. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 37(1), 94–97. Turner, H., Mayall, B., Dickinson, R., Clark, A., Hood, S., Samuels, J., & Wiggins, M. (2004). Children engaging with drama: An evaluation of the National Theatre’s drama work in primary schools 2002–2004. London, England: Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. London, England: Harvard. Wall, S. (2006). An autoethnography on learning about autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(2), 1–12. Wall, S. (2008). Easier said than done. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(1), 38–53. Webb, G. M. (1992, February 19). Needless battles on dyslexia. Education Week, p. 32. West, T. G. (1997). In the mind’s eye: Visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images, and the ironies of creativity. New York, NY: ­Prometheus Books. Wiles, R., Heath, S., Crow, G., & Charles, V. (2005). Informed consent and the research process (NCRM Methods Review Papers NCRM/001). Retrieved from http://eprints.ncrm .ac.uk/85/1/MethodsReviewPaperNCRM-001.pdf Winterson, J. (2004). Lighthousekeeping. Toronto, Canada: Vinage Canada. Zeeman, L., Poggenpoel, M., Myburgh, C., & Van Der Linde, N. (2002). An introduction to a postmodern approach to educational research: Discourse analysis. Education, 123(1). Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000653082 Zeleke, S. (2004). Self-concepts of students with learning disabilities and their normally achieving peers: A review. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 19, 145–170.

Author Biographies Liam Antonelli, Sasha Bilocca, Dario Borg, Shane Borg, Mark Boxall, Luke Briffa, Valentina Farrugia, Leah Gatt, Mike Formosa, Kurt Mizzi, and Gary Lee Vella are secondary school pupils. They are a group of young teenagers with dyslexia who chose to attend workshops during the summer of 2011 and then

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continued to meet monthly until the summer of 2012 and are still meeting. They have come to embrace their profile of strengths and weaknesses, and look forward to addressing the challenges of school and learning. They feel that they are ambassadors who now need to empower other youngsters who have not yet had the opportunity to attend such workshops. They have now decided to call themselves dyslexic teens Dialogus (DTD), have a facebook page https://www .facebook.com/DTDMalta, and have just completed a video called We Want to Start a Conversation - which is their motto - to raise awareness on dyslexia and to help empower other youngsters with dyslexia. Charlene Debono is a psychology graduate from the University of Malta and is currently a care-worker in a children’s home. She has extensive experience in various voluntary settings such as summer schools for children with difficult backgrounds and emotional and behavioral difficulties. Such experiences inspired her to focus her undergraduate dissertation on selfesteem and persons with a profile of dyslexia. Following more work experience, she intends to further her studies at a postgraduate level. Ruth Falzon is a lecturer within the Department of Counselling at the University of Malta. Her areas of expertise include personal and social education, and specific learning difficulties. She coordinates personal and social development (PSD) teacher-training programs and courses at the University of Malta. She is treasurer of the International Association for Counselling (IAC) vice-secretary of the Malta Association for the Counselling Profession (MACP), on the executive council of the Malta PSD Association, and the president of her local primary school council. Her research interests include topics around PSD, dyslexia, quality of life, and counselling. Dione Mifsud is head of the Department of Counselling at the University of Malta and president the IAC. He is also a former head of the Department of Psychology, a former head of the University of Malta Counselling Unit, and a former president of the MACP. He designed and presently coordinates the first master’s in counselling programme offered by the University of Malta. He also codesigned and co-coordinates an international master’s program in transcultural counselling previously in conjunction with the University of Maryland (College Park) and presently with the Unviersity of New Orleans, the United States. His research interests include topics around counselling ethics, counselling supervision, and transcultural counselling. Lena Scurfield is retired. Her role as a director was born out of her frustration and inspiration supporting a dyslexia project, from the seeds of a book, to the performance that grew out of it. In addition, it gave her a great opportunity to move from a supportive role to one where she can legitimately ‘suggest’ what the the players, especially Matthew, might do. Her passion is connected to the very real emotional responses the three participants in the performance engage in and continue to evolve with. Matthew Scurfield is a free-lance professional actor. He is proud of his dyslexia, which he says has helped him immeasurably to live a spiritual and creative life. As well as appearing in numerous films and television productions, he has

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traversed the far corners of the stage, from the pantheons of Berkoff’s L ­ ondon Theatre Group, to Shakespeare’s New Globe, the Royal National Theatre, to a world renowned tour with the groundbreaking Complicite. Since moving to Malta, he has written and published two books. He, along with his wife Lena, and the Maltese actor and TV producer Clare Agius, adapted his first book I Could Be Anyone into a play that follows his schooling nightmares and the tangled threads that made up his bohemian, intellectual family background, compelling PE. His passion is bringing attention to the way in which we can so easily inadvertently create a hostile environment for certain of our schoolchildren to fail in.

When Participants Become Researchers Ruth Falzon and Dione Mifsud University of Malta, Msida, Malta [email protected] [email protected]

Our experiences with youth with dyslexia led to a need to offset their frustrations and failures through a drama project organized with the local Malta Dyslexia Association. Through this project, youth with dyslexia were led to better understand their profile, potential, and creativity through self-expression. The end production, performed in front of family, friends, and members of the public, promoted the importance of self-confidence, self-expression, and self-esteem in youth with dyslexia as well as to those in children’s education and development. We believe that through drama, children can provide themselves and others with greater insight into possibilities and challenges (Burden & Burdett, 2007; Eaden, 2004), as human intelligence is richer and far more dynamic than formal academic education. This project aimed to provide a safe environment where youth with dyslexia could find their voice and gain confidence in their abilities, talents, and challenges through performance arts (Burden & Burdett,  2007). The project also intended to provide the opportunity for youth to improve and/ or gain self-esteem through performance autoethnography, which positively affected the quality of life and effective living in the community. The youths’ insistence to share the positive effect of their experiences then motivated the research. The research itself was a serendipity effect following the drama workshops and autoethnographic performance. As co-researchers on performance autoethnography, these Maltese youth provided very insightful experiences for themselves and for research purposes, while their parents noted changes in attitude and behavior. Participant-chosen written or orally shared narratives (Beverley, 1989; Penn & Frankfurt, 1994) of their experience during the drama workshops and the performance necessitated an initial meeting with the group of youth-participants and their parents. We met in our office boardroom and started explaining the process, presenting researchers’ obligations,

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and researchers’ and participants’ rights. We discussed informed consent forms using Maltese and English interchangeably to ensure understanding. We did all this as we sat in a fishbowl’s inner circle with the youth and their parents in the outer circle. During the discussion anonymity was presented and one youth commented: “Hang on, why should my name be changed? I have nothing to hide and do not want to change my name. I want other youth and those university big guys to know my story.” The rest quickly agreed and insisted they wanted to use their real names. We are not usually at a loss for words, but this floored us. We needed time to reflect on the ethical implications of this request since not all the participants had celebrated their 18th birthdays. We decided to meet in two months to give them time to reflect and discuss among themselves, and with their parents, their decision to use their own names and for us to formulate a response. We scrambled to our own writings and literature on ethics, emancipatory research, Standpoint Theory (Harding,  2004; Moreton-Robinson,  2013), feminist research, narratives, anonymity, and balance of power (Speedy, 2011). In our review we found that “[d]espite anonymity being . . . core . . . [to] . . . research ethics, it is a contested and criticized concept” (Vainio, 2013, p. 686). It “stand[s] out because it involves a conscious modification of the empirical data” (p. 695). Within the context of loyalty to participants’ voice, Vainio’s (2013) reflection served as beacon, allowing us the opportunity to steer away from “anonymity [which] grants a researcher a space in which to conduct an independent analysis and to draw conclusions about data that may also be unfavorable to the participants and stakeholders” (p. 694). Researchers and participants were equally important in the final product and we came to understand that we needed to address the repercussions of ethical errors if we were to accede to the request of our participants. In retrospect, we realized that using “accede” implied that we were the wise ones whom others needed to follow. Who were we to even question their request? Why did we not say yes immediately? Were we afraid of the unknown? Were we protecting ourselves? We realized that all the participants needed to be identified and listed as co-authors. We could process the qualitative research from a new perspective where participants’ contributions were being weighted equally with ours. As scheduled, our next meeting was held two months later. Time had not changed their minds, but had changed our team. We became a team of 17; it was a very enriching experience for all. This new way of thinking and working is consistent with standpoint theory, which assumes (a) mutual concern and trust throughout research processes; (b) total commitment to data produced and sustained; (c) temporary and nonfixed social identification; (d) researchers as part of participants’ project, not the other way around; and (e) research as basis for experiences to legitimize existence and history of involvement, not personal attributes (Moreton-Robinson, 2013; Olesen, 2005). Our new standpoint was important in determining author ordering. Should we, the researchers, be first followed by the youth? We preferred alphabetical order to truly reflect the trust, respect, participation, and reciprocity that

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underpin emancipatory research (Oliver,  1992). Each of us played an equally important role, and synergy was the basis of success (Doh, Husted, Matten, & Santoro, 2010; Jagosh et al., 2015) rather than serve as a measurement of individual identity and how much we each did. This was congruent with our principles of equity and social justice (Freire, 1998; Milani, 2004). This experience had a few outcomes. First, there was a serendipitous effect. Research findings consistently conclude that students with dyslexia often have negative school experiences (Novita, 2016). We realized that full inclusion as co-authors had a positive effect: They may not get high examination marks (Kannangara,  2015), but they would have a publication to their name. This in a small way could counter negative learning experiences and demonstrate their ability to be successful. The experience also led us to better appreciate the importance of art-based experiences in one’s life, education, and selfdevelopment. Drama workshops and the opportunity to perform their story in public empowered this group of youth with dyslexia, while disclosure made them proud of and secure in their identity as humans with a baggage of competencies and challenges. These enriching experiences led them to want to share their experience and to encourage other youth to participate in artsbased projects. The youth’s insistence motivated us to coordinate this research and effectively helped us grow as researchers, particularly with regard to concepts of anonymity, rights of the researcher, and acknowledgement of participants in research.

References Beverley, J. (1989). The margin at the center: On testimonio (testimonial narrative). MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 35(1), 11–28. Burden, R., & Burdett, J. (2007). What’s in a name? Students with dyslexia: Their use of metaphor in making sense of their disability. British Journal of Special Education, 34(2), 77–82. Doh, J., Husted, B. W., Matten, D., & Santoro, M. (2010). Ahoy there! Toward greater congruence and synergy between international business and business ethics theory and research. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(3), 481–502. Eaden, H. (2004). Dyslexia and drama. Abingdon, UK: BDA Fulton Publication. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom. Ethics, democracy and civic courage. Lanham, MD: ­Rowman & Littlefield. Harding, S. (2004). Introduction: Standpoint theory as a site of political, philosophic, and scientific debate. In S. G. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies. London, UK: Routledge. Jagosh, J., Bush, P. L., Salsberg, J., Macaulay, A. C., Greenhalgh, T., Wong, G., . . . Pluye, P. (2015). A realist evaluation of community-based participatory research: Partnership synergy, trust building and related ripple effects. BMC Public Health, 15(1), 725. Kannangara, C. S. (2015). From languishing dyslexia to thriving dyslexia: Developing a new conceptual approach to working with people with dyslexia. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1976. Milani, L. (2004). Una lezione alla Scuola di Barbiana. Florence, Italy: Libreia Editrice Fiorentina.

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Moreton-Robinson, A. (2013). Towards an Australian Indigenous women’s standpoint theory: A methodological tool. Australian Feminist Studies, 28(78), 331–347. Novita, S. (2016). Secondary symptoms of dyslexia: A comparison of self-esteem and anxiety profiles of children with and without dyslexia. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 31(2), 279–288. Olesen, V. (2005). Early millennial feminist qualitative research – challenges and contours. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 235–278). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Oliver, M. (1992). Changing the social relations of research production? Disability Handicap and Society, 7(2), 101–114. Penn, P., & Frankfurt, M. (1994). Creating a participant text: Writing, multiple voices, narrative multiplicity. Family Process, 33(3), 217–231. Speedy, J. (2011). All googled out on suicide: Making collective biographies out of silent fragments with “the unassuming geeks.” Qualitative Inquiry, 17, 134–143. Vainio, A. (2013). Beyond research ethics: Anonymity as “ontology,” “analysis,” and “independence.” Qualitative Research, 13(6), 685–698.

Chapter Fourteen

Voices From the Field Preparing Teachers for High Need Schools It is generally accepted that many new teachers leave the profession within just a few years. The numbers of leavers increase in historically underperforming and under resources schools. This study examines a group of new teachers from a phenomenological perspective. Their experiences are presented through ethno-drama as a way to interact with the data and learn from the experiences of these teachers. Keywords: Teacher Preparation, Urban Education, Ethno-Drama

The purpose of this study is to take a critical look at the experiences of beginning teachers who have completed a five-year program focused on preparing teachers for high need districts. Twelve graduates at various stages in their teaching careers were interviewed. They were asked about the process of finding a teaching position and transitioning into their new career as well as reflecting on their preparation and offering ideas and advice for the program from which they graduated. Through their stories we learn about the connections and disconnections between their preparation and the reality of their positions. This article provides insights into the teacher education program and its philosophy and then compares that to the lived experience of its graduates. Insights from the alumni offer valuable information about where we may see gaps in teacher preparation and suggest some areas for preparation and development.

Analytical and Theoretical Perspectives This project utilizes an arts based research approach (Levy, 2009). Research findings were translated into performance texts as a way to challenge and disrupt the conventional ways that teacher education has been informed. Research on teaching is often fraught with problematic representations of teachers and their practice. This method allows the teachers to speak for themselves and thus is a more direct way of communicating participants’ words and meanings. As Worthen Dell'Angelo, T. (2016). Voices from the Field: Preparing Teachers for High Need Schools.The Qualitative Report, 21(9), 1727–1738.

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(1998) explains, performance can be both an investigation and a representation. For this presentation, the performance will be both a way to represent and investigate the data. The lived experience of these new teachers are represented and at the same time the audience can make meaning of these data by experiencing word, image, gesture and sound (Leavy, 2009). Denzin (2006) writes about the ways in which performance can be employed as critical pedagogy because it can be used as a form of instruction that helps people think “critically, historically, and sociologically.” Discussions about how to best prepare teachers for positions in historically underperforming, low resourced, and largely minority districts have been a staple in the education literature for many years. Haberman (1995) outlined the qualities needed to be a great teacher for children in poverty, Ingersoll and May (2011) discuss the reality of shortages and the graying and greening (­Ingersoll, 2010) of the teaching force. Geneva Gay (2010) and Christine Sleeter (2009) remind us of the importance of cultural responsiveness, Ladson-Billings (2007), Duncan-Andrade (2009) and others challenge teacher education to be critical educators for social justice, Noddings (2010) highlights the importance of ethic of care and Antonia Darder (1991) calls for a pedagogy of love, and Cochrane-Smith and Lytle (2009) know that valuing the knowledge that classroom teachers have and produce is key to sustained and meaningful change. As we work to create teacher education programs that prepare future teachers for success in under resourced and over-burdened classrooms, it is important to include a myriad of p ­ erspectives—all of which are important and deep and sometimes difficult to synthesize and understand in ways that translate into solid classroom practice that serves all children well. This project seeks to help the participants and audience engage critically, historically, and sociologically with some of the realities of the transition from a teacher education program into the early years of teaching. It also asks new teachers to reflect back on both their teaching experience and their preparation and offer insights and suggestions about what would have helped them be more prepared for the urban contexts in which they teach. The work is presented as enthno-drama because it allows us to explore multiple, simultaneous, and overlapping dimensions of this experience in ways that representation in traditional text does not allow.

Personal Perspective I have multiple roles in this work. The teachers who participated in this study are all graduates of a program that I coordinate. My relationship to them and to the program lead to both a personal interest and a professional one. Professionally I am hoping to learn more about the teacher preparation program and what we are doing well as well as areas we can improve. Making programmatic improvements based on interviews and observations with these teachers is a priority. Additionally, I have a personal interest in reconnecting with each of the teachers. Our program is quite small and built on a foundation of seeing each

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other as “academic siblings.” We look out for each other, cheer for one another, and have a conscious goal of building a long term network of support. My colleagues and I make a conscious effort to support the development of “ridas” (­Duncan-Andrade,  2009). Ridas have a critical consciousness about teaching, they will risk emotional involvement with their students, and would sooner die than let their people down (Duncan-Andrade, 2009). My closest colleagues and I try to model this behavior and be “ride or die” partners (ridas) with our students. Our sincere hope is to produce teachers who are also ridas. Therefore, my connection to this project is intensely personal. While it is about training, recruitment and retention of teachers in high needs schools more generally, it is also about these specific teachers, the promise I have with them, and my emotional connection to their successes and challenges.

Methodology The type of qualitative design used in this study is a phenomenological approach. This approach seeks to explore the unique experiences of the participants as they are lived. A phenomenological approach in this case provides a lens into the subjectivity reality of new teachers as they prepare for and enter their first classrooms.

Participants This study took place in a small liberal arts college in the Northeastern, US. This college began an “Urban Education Program” in 2009 with one student. The program is five years long and spans both undergraduate and graduate work. Graduates finish with a Master’s and multiple certifications. Interviews for this study were conducted in 2014 with the 12 people who had graduated from the program since 2010. All of the study participants are female (2 Latina, 1 Asian, 1 Black, 8 White) and teach in grades 1–8. All but one of the alumni interviewed are currently working teachers. The one who is not a working teacher moved out of state and is working as a substitute while she updates her credentials for her new state. Institutional review board approval was obtained through the author’s home institution and all names found in this text are pseudonyms. The program from which these teachers graduate was both new and small. The author of this article is the creator and coordinator for the program and the academic advisor for all of the students. As such, close bonds were formed between and among students that lasted beyond graduation. This allowed for relatively easy recruitment of participants for this study. I sent out an email to all participants letting them know that I would be reaching out about scheduling interviews, once the IRB approval was obtained from my institution I created an electronic survey asking for basic information, availability and consent for participation. Our program also maintains a presence on social media and I sent prompts for responses via our Facebook page as well.

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Data Collection Procedures Two main sources of data inform this work -- interviews and classroom ­journals. The interviews were designed to capture the transition from college to ­teaching including the job search process as well as classroom experiences that ­demonstrate both what is going well for these new teachers and the stories that illustrate challenges they face. Lastly, we asked all participants to reflect on their teacher preparation program. The second data source were the classroom journals that these teachers produced when they were still pre-service teachers. All of these teachers took a course in their undergraduate career called, “Introduction to Urban Education.” In that course they explored their own cultural identity, engaged with scholarship related to critical pedagogy, and volunteered in a local after school program. They maintained weekly electronic journals. The content of the journals were used along with the interview data as dialogue in the script.

Interviews An interview protocol was created to capture several main ideas. These included the process of searching for and finding a teaching position, stories of successes and challenges, and advice for the program from which they graduated. We utilized semi-structured interviews that included 9 open ended questions. Semistructured interviews were chosen because they allow for a more free flowing conversation (Drever, 1997). Interviewers were instructed that the questions were a guide and that they could diverge from the questions if the respondent introduced an idea or topic that they wanted to pursue. The questions were grouped thematically to help reduce the possibility of getting too much extraneous information. However, we allowed for slight diversions from the question so that we could learn from the ideas the respondent presented and consider revision of the interview protocol at a later date if necessary. All of the interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Classroom Journals All of the participants took a class during their undergraduate program where they delved into their own cultural identity development, read and discussed white privilege, critical race theory and applied these concepts to both current events, their own lives, and the practicum sites in which they worked. During this course each student wrote weekly reflections. Some of the data for this work comes from the reflections of the students’ written reflections. In some cases lines in the script were derived from these journals.

Data Analysis As with all qualitative research, the raw data go through a data reduction process. Saldaña (1998) discusses how data are reduced for ethno-drama and describes that in performance studies researchers attempt to create dramatic

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impact by retaining material that will likely elicit an affective response from the audience—“the juicy stuff” (Saldaña, 1998). In this study we began with a phenomenological approach (Reid, Flowers, & Larkin, 2005). A phenomenological approach allows the analysis to focus on the subjective experiences of the participants and the ways in which they interpret their experiences. In the analysis I utilized an inductive coding process in which data from each interview was read and analyzed and codes were generated directly from the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). I used utilized in vivo coding—the participants’ own words were used as coding labels during the first few rounds of the analytic process. These codes helped determine categories and which passages might be retained for dialogue. The categories and themes that emerged were then each considered to become scenes in the script. In this case, four composite characters were created based on major themes that emerged.

Drafting a Script The beginning stages of drafting the script included thinking about who the audience would be and the purpose of this exercise. The participants were not involved in drafting the first attempt at the script. However, after the first draft was written I used member checking and shared it with participants who were available to review it as a way to find out if they felt that it communicated the reality of their lived experience (Lincoln & Guba,  1985). Of the five teachers who reviewed the script only one suggested a change. We discussed what I wrote and what I hoped to communicate as well as how she received it. After our discussed that passage was removed. I wanted the piece to easily be received by a non-­exclusive audience that might include non-educators. However, my purpose was to provide an opening to have serious and frank discussions with teacher candidates about what their first few years of teaching might be like. Teacher candidates are at a dynamic developmental place where they are transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, changing the nature of the responsibility they have for themselves and others, and having to see themselves as the adult in the room, even though they may still feel like the student. It was my hope that helping preservice teachers enter the profession with clear wide open eyes will aid in a more successful transition into the field. One main purpose was also to be entertaining. While pre-service teachers can read a range of scholarly work focusing on becoming a teacher, I hoped that this medium would feel more authentic and resonate with them (Leavy, 2009). The program in which they all studied is one that puts me as both their academic advisor and in some cases their course instructor. While I knew all of them quite well, it wasn’t until I looked closely at their interviews that I realized the distinct voices that were evident. I played with the idea of creating dialogue and scenes but ultimately decided on four characters that corresponded with the points of view that seemed evident in the interviews. In all twelve of the interviews a myriad of emotions and perspectives arose. However, through the coding a few themes continued to arise. These were idealistic, pragmatic, cynical, and realistic outlooks on the teacher’s position in the school, their choice to become a teacher, the profession of teaching more generally and their outlook toward the future.

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I  decided to take statements from the interviews and journals and categorize them based on those four themes. I then took all of that data (interview dialogue and journal entries) and created dialogue representing four composite characters. The four distinct points of view were; the idealist, the pragmatist, the cynic, and the realist. The reality is that each participant communicated multiple points of view. Every individual is multi-dimensional and complex and offered nuanced and sometimes conflicting ideas. However, I decided to parse out these points of view so that each one was clear and unapologetic in its stance. The stage is set with just four teachers standing and facing the audience telling about similar circumstances, but through different lenses.

Results and Preliminary Discussion Twelve interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Initial coding suggested a set of themes as program alumni told stories of successes and challenges in their lives as teachers and as they reflected back on their teacher education program. Since the results of this project are presented as an ethno-drama the framework and results are the storyline itself. However, as the process of script writing the original themes began to morph. This second set of more focused coding revealed more nuanced themes were bubbling to the service (Charmaz, 2006). Therefore the themes that are evident in the script are culture, successes and failures, and work satisfaction. The composite characters share stories related to each of these three themes. Stories sometimes seem to reveal feelings of empowerment and other times a sense of failure. These reflections deal with the reality of being a classroom teacher and how that reality may not match the expectations that existed about teaching.

Culture In this section I will include and discuss parts of the script that fit into the particular themes. The first theme is that of culture. This is particularly significant because these teachers completed a program with a special focus on teaching in high need schools, confronting culture and privilege, and maintaining a social justice orientation in the classroom. It is the intention of this program to prepare teachers for the realities of teaching in contexts that differ from the ones in which they are accustomed and to be effective teachers in those contexts. In this opening of the play we are introduced to all four characters. It is important to note that the excerpt you are about to read has some words and phrases that are offensive. In some cases they are from journals where students reflected on ideas that they [or friends or family members] held. In some cases they are comments that were shared with them by other teachers or colleagues at the schools where they work. And, in some cases these were ideas that the participants admitted occur for them, often unexpectedly and unintentionally. Still, they wanted to share the reality of the thoughts that they and their students may encounter.

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ASHLEY: MARIA: ASHLEY: ERICA: AMANDA: MARIA: ASHLEY: ERICA: MARIA: ERICA: AMANDA: ASHLEY: AMANDA: MARIA: ASHLEY: AMANDA: MARIA: ERICA:

Faggot. Colored. Indian Giver. Kind of dumb for an Asian kid. Lazy Mexican. Little thugs. Fatty. They smell like curry. I Jewed him down. Slutty little 5th grader. What language do they even speak? I got gyped. What do I even say to Muslim parents? I have a Jehova’s Witness in my class, forget Halloween now! Stupid, close minded, Christian bible thumpers. The good kind of black. Retard. I’ve said or thought all of these things. How can I possibly be a good teacher of other people’s children. I am a fraud. AMANDA: Me too. The play opens with the above exchange. It is meant to hook the audience in and to expose the thoughts that some of the audience may have had previously or even now. The comments made came out in interviews with the teachers although not all of them admitted to saying or thinking them. As stated earlier some of these statements were attributed to others but shared by the participants. Still, all of the comments were either spoken or unintentional thoughts that occurred in relation to school aged children. For instance, a colleague of one of the respondents referred to one of her Kindergarten students as a “little thug” because he wore his hair in locks. I wanted to include statements like this because it demonstrates the difficulty and resistance that exists in some high need schools in terms of working with children whose culture is different and sometimes not respected. It is also important that the participants in this study were willing to openly discuss the biases that they have. They sometimes expressed disappointment that negative thoughts ever pop into their heads. But, they are willing to acknowledge those thoughts and interrogate them. This was an important point for both the White and nonWhite participants. What follows are reflections about what brought these teachers to high need schools as a career path. This section also comes from data that were coded as culture although this part of the script begins to move away from the individual looking inward and more toward thinking about the bidirectionality of one’s own culture and the context in which they work. The quotes in the script are all verbatim directly from either the interviews or classroom journals.

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ASHLEY: ERICA: AMANDA: MARIA: AMANDA: MARIA: ASHLEY: ERICA: MARIA: ERICA: ASHLEY: AMANDA: ERICA: MARIA: AMANDA: ERICA:

 s an undergrad I did a lot of volunteer work in a local urban district A and found that I really enjoyed working with inner city populations. I decided urban education was a good choice for me because I wanted to do something impactful and rewarding. I thought it would be the perfect way to get exposed to the differences between just teaching and then teaching in an inner city. Coming out with a Master’s was big. Coming out with extra certs was big. Elementary jobs are not easy to find so having an extra certification was a route towards a job. As soon as I had my first placement I knew this was the right fit. The children were engaged and motivated and very hard workers. I didn’t see the sense of entitlement that I sometimes see in other districts. Oh yeah, those little suburban kids have no idea how good they have it. I definitely know that my kids are aware of the fact that I am white. Ya think? It’s been more difficult than I ever could have imagined. These kids are so out of control. I am White, young looking, stressed out, overwhelmed and I don’t know how to handle them. Damn, these white girls love to play the race card. I hate talking about behavior challenges, I don’t want to seem like I am stereotyping. But, challenges do exist and I was not prepared for them. Is it a stereotype if it’s real? I’m good at building culture, establishing relationships and classroom management. I am not that great at teaching the actual content. Great, that’s what I’m looking for in a teacher! I think I can connect a little more with their culture because I am Latina, so I understand the language. She’s Portugese.

The section above highlights some of the cultural disconnect between how teachers may have idealized teaching in high needs contexts and the reality of teaching in these schools. As the participants reflected on their original intentions for choosing this path we hear them say that they, “really enjoyed working with inner city populations” and “wanted to do something impactful and rewarding.” Comments like these are not uncommon and are often very well intentioned. However, it can be problematic when one chooses to pursue a high need district because they feel they can “save the children.” In our program we actively work against both deficit model thinking and a missionary type orientation toward teaching. Deficit model thinking in teachers is sometimes expressed as negative beliefs about student ability and parent engagement in historically marginalized communities. If teachers enter the profession with this type of bias they may feel that their role is to save the children from their circumstance. This view is extremely problematic and therefore when students make statements like  the  ones in this section we as a faculty open up critical dialogue to help unpack the meaning behind their words. Still, engaging in the discussions in class

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is only a start. The reality of being in the classroom often creates a one step forward, two steps backward scenario. We seem to make progress in our coursework but then when the students get to the classrooms and encounter difficulty they have quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. Certainly this is the case for White teachers who choose to teach in schools where the majority of students are non-White. Many of these teachers, while perfectly competent to have a meaningful and candid discussion about White privilege in a classroom find themselves surprised that they are not immediately trusted and accepted in a school setting where they are the minority. They expect that their good intentions will earn immediate trust and they are not used to having to earn credibility in this way. Conversely, some of the non-White teachers in this sample grew up with a fair degree of economic privilege and while the urban high needs schools are as foreign to them as they are to their White counterparts they are surprised that they seem to be taken into the fold more quickly. For all of the participants they found themselves sometimes feeling uncertain about how to discuss their challenges. For instance, quite a few of them reported that they felt unprepared to deal with classroom management issues related to student behavior. However, they were apprehensive to discuss it for fear it would be received as having deficit model thinking. In the exchange between Ashley and Amanda we see this played out: ASHLEY:

I hate talking about behavior challenges, I don’t want to seem like I am stereotyping. But, challenges do exist and I was not prepared for them. AMANDA: Is it a stereotype if it’s real? Ashley is a White student and did a lot of hedging when discussing anything that could be perceived as negative regarding her students. Amanda and some other non-White students were more open in discussing challenges and would sometimes open the door to these conversations when the White students seemed to be avoiding these conversations. In this section I also wanted to communicate the positive community that has been built among these participants. From the first meeting as undergrads and throughout their time at the College our faculty promote a familial atmosphere. The pre-service teachers are encouraged to think of themselves as academic ­siblings – they will go through a lot together, they may not always get along, but they will always have each other’s back. Most all of the alumni stay in touch via social media and personal visits. In fact, three of them who have been teaching two and three years live together. In two exchanges between Erica and Maria and Amanda and Erica, I attempted to show the ways in which these women can joke with each other and bring some lightness to serious discussions. When Erica laments that she is finding success classroom management even though some of her fellow teachers are not but struggles with teaching content, Maria teases her. ERICA: MARIA:

I ’m good at building culture, establishing relationships and classroom management. I am not that great at teaching the actual content. Great, that’s what I’m looking for in a teacher!

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And, when Amanda brags a little bit about her ability to connect with her ­Spanish speaking students, Erica takes the opportunity for a little dig. This exchange is particularly interesting because all of the students in the program are required to take three semesters of a foreign language. During their time in the program there is a range of commitment to obtaining fluency in the language. However, as they get out in the field it becomes apparent how much capital that skills carries. AMANDA: I think I can connect a little more with their culture because I am Latina, so I understand the language. ERICA: She’s Portugese.

Success and Failures The interview included two questions that were directly related to the theme of successes and failures. The participants were asked to tell about something that went well or that made them proud and a story of something that went wrong and how they dealt with it. This comment from Maria was part of a description of one of her teaching observations. After the observation she debriefed with her principal. She reported that while her principal did give her some encouragement, she found that most of the comments were not helpful and suggested that the principal was out of touch with the reality of her classroom. MARIA: My principal told me I had to do more hands on activities. Ha! Some of my kids don’t even show up with a pencil. If they do, they want to throw it across the room. The administration wants me to do full blown experiments with chemicals? I don’t think so. This comment was made during Maria’s third year of teaching. When she was a preservice teacher her second major was an integrated Math, Science, and Technology program. Maria is one of the participants who entered the teaching profession with a great deal of enthusiasm about inquiry based science teaching. However, as evidenced by this comment, in just a few years she is avoiding the teaching methods that she was most excited about when she began her career. In further conversation she expressed some embarrassment about admitting how few hands on activities she does. She blames this shift on difficulty keeping students engaged and safe during this type of activity. Maria reported that she told her principal that she would try if she could get some support like an aid during those periods. However, she was told that they did not have the extra personnel for that and she would have to manage it herself. Some of the other participants shared stories of challenging situations that turned around for the better and other situations that were more disheartening. ERICA:

I reached out to help this little girl who had been struggling. She was smart but she seemed so angry and out of it. I wanted to make sure she

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knew she had someone who cared. I sat next to her, softly told her that I believed in her, I walked her through her writing prompt. She turned to me and said, “Get away from me ugly!” So that happened. AMANDA: I told this kid that he needed to believe in himself. I don’t know what I did, but this kid just sat down and started crying. This was a tough kid. I wanted to put my arm around him but. . . I really felt he just needed some time. He changed after that. His work wasn’t great, but he put more effort in. He never said anything about that day, what I said, why he cried. But, he worked harder after that. (Pause). There are days I go home and I cry and I don’t want to go to work the next day. Both Erica and Amanda shared stories of reaching out to students who seemed to need an extra push. Both of them expressed how much they cared about their students and that they wanted the children in their classes to know, above all else, they had someone on their side who believed in them and wanted them to succeed. In Erica’s case she experienced resistance from the student that quite frankly, hurt her feelings. She shared that when the student called her ugly she felt her face flush and an immediate feeling of “wanting to get away.” Her experience highlights the reality of wanting to feel competent and successful in your position. When a student continuously struggles or pushes you away more explicitly like Erica’s student, it may be hard to stay engaged with them. It feels so much better to help the children who want to be helped, who say “thank you,” who you see improve. However, teachers must push through the discomfort and engage the students whose performance or disposition makes them feel like failures. ­Erica’s story continues with weeks of this same kind of push back from the student. Then, when the winter break was upon them the student told her that she would miss her over the break. Erica was incredibly surprised as she had never thought the student had anything but negative thoughts about her. Amanda’s story is similar in that she sought to support a student who seemed to be having difficulty except her student seemed to respond in a way that was more reassuring. Still, Amanda shared that while she is finding success at her job she often leaves work and cries when she gets home. This feeling of exasperation was shared by quite a few teachers who shared that tears were a common occurrence. A teacher who was interviewed recently [not included in this study] shared that she cries at least once a week. I asked her if she thought she might look for another job or transition out of teaching. She said, “No way, I love teaching.” “But you cry everyday,” I said. She told me that she gets frustrated and overwhelmed but there is nothing else she would rather do.

Work Satisfaction I am still considering this theme and whether what is happening here is really about work satisfaction. The mismatch between the expected and reality of teaching is evident and sometimes discouraging for the participants. However, ­Ashley shares,

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ASHLEY:

 our first year is just a lot of trial and error. You just have to expect that Y and not give up and keep working and trying new things.

Ashley’s comment is encouraging because it suggests that she does not expect that she will always be successful. She expects that some ideas and strategies she has will not work and is comfortable with failing and “trying new things.” Ashley later shares that she feels supported by her administration. She states, “They are supportive and I definitely feel like I have help and resources when I need it.” Having that level of support buffers the stress of making mistakes and encourages new teachers to employ creative strategies in their teachers. On the other hand, some teachers shared stories that suggested that they did not feel supported by administration or colleagues. For instance, Amanda shared the many times when teachers would joke about why she would choose her district. AMANDA:

 hen I started working in this district all of the older teachers would W say, (sarcastically) “Welcome to Trenton! You sure you want to do this?”

When Amanda discussed this she shared that she felt immediately deflated by these comments. While some of the veteran teachers were good mentors, there seemed to be equally as many who openly told her she was making a mistake and should start looking for another job in a “better” district. Although Amanda expressed that she was still committed to teaching in high needs schools at one point in her interview she wavered, saying, “I am not sure if I want this job even if it is offered to me for next year.” A few of the other teachers shared stories of perceived lack of support from administration. These comments came in the form of lack of resources, lack of time to do their jobs well, and uncertainty about job security. MARIA: ERICA: JESSICA:v

 hey gave me, what they called a classroom. It was a closet. Literally, it T had been used as a storage closet for years. I don’t know, my job is a little iffy right now. At this moment . . . I don’t know if my department is even going to be around much longer. I am the ELL teacher for K-8 and have about 100 students in my caseload. To be in compliance I am supposed to see them for 90 minutes every day. Hmm. . .so let me see—I mean I wasn’t a math major, so maybe have this wrong but, let’s see—if have 100 students for 90 minutes each that is about 150 hours of instruction that I need to pack into a 6.5 hour workday. If I can just figure out how to fit 23 days into one day I can get caught up.

Discussion This work is significant because it draws parallels between the lived experiences of new teachers, the social and political context of teaching, and how we can best prepare teachers for urban contexts. The data, presented through dialogue and

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monologue, offer a window into the lives of new teachers in these early years when many choose to leave the profession of teaching. Listening to their stories, discussing, and making meaning of them has the potential to create supports to better prepare and sustain a strong teaching force in high need contexts. This work has been performed twice as of this date. Once it was performed at a local play festival to a diverse public audience. The second time it was read as part of a seminar course for student teachers. After the first performance I was approached by several audience members who either are currently teachers or were formerly teachers. They all shared that the text spoke to them and they felt they really understood the perspectives being shared. The public audience laughed in some places and shook their heads in agreement in other places. However, the reading in the student teaching seminar class went much differently. After that reading I asked the students to turn to a partner and discuss something from the script that stood out for them. It could be something they agreed with, could relate to, or thought was not relatable. The conversation that followed was largely about how to stay encouraged and motivated to take on the challenge of being a teacher. It seemed to be a reality check for these pre-service teachers and open up a conversation that they had not yet had. While I missed the laughter that accompanied the first reading I believe that the reading with the student teachers was important. It is possible that being forced to confront the reality of working hard and still failing sometimes, meaning well but still being rejected by your students, and admitting the bias that you may hold is a good step in preparing to become a teacher. Perhaps engaging with these topics before you enter the field will buffer the stress of experiencing these realities once you are out there and make it easier to cope with the challenges.

References Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Darder, A. (1991). Culture and power in the classroom: A critical foundation for bicultural education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Denzin, N. K. (2006). The politics and ethics of performance pedagogy: Toward a pedagogy of hope. In D. S. Madison & J. Hamera (Eds.), The Sage handbook of performance studies (pp. 325–338). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Drever, E. (1997). Using semi-structured interviews in small-scale research. Edinburgh, ­Scotland: The Scottish Council for Research in Education. Duncan-Andrade, J. R. (2009). Note to educators: Hope required when growing roses in concrete. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 181–194. Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gay, G. (2010). Acting on beliefs in teacher education for cultural diversity. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 143–152. Haberman, M. (1995). Star teachers of children in poverty. Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi Publications.

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Ingersoll, R. (2010). Who is teaching our children? Educational Leadership, 67(8), 14–20. Ingersoll, R. M., & May, H. (2011). Recruitment, retention and the minority teacher shortage. CPRE Research Report # RR-69. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Ladson-Billings, G. (2007). Pushing past the achievement gap: An essay on the language of deficit. Journal of Negro Education, 76(3), 316–323. Leavy, P. (2008). Performance-based emergent methods. In S. Nagy (Ed.), Handbook of emergent methods (pp. 343–357). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Leavy, P. (2009). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Lincoln, Y., & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Noddings, N. (2010). Moral education and caring. Theory and Research in Education, 8(2), 145–151. Reid, K., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2005). Exploring the lived experience. The Psychologist, 18, 20–23. Saldaña, J. (1998). Ethical issues in an ethnographic performance text: The “dramatic impact” of “juicy stuff.” Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Press. Sleeter, C. (2009). Developing teacher epistemological sophistication about multicultural curriculum: A case study. Action in Teacher Education, 31(1), 3–13. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Worthen, W. (1998). Drama, performativity, and performance. Post Modern Language Association, 133(5), 1093–1107.

Author Note Tabitha Dell’Angelo is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Urban Education Program at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: [email protected]. Copyright 2016: Tabitha Dell’Angelo and Nova Southeastern University.

Article Citation Dell’Angelo, T. (2016). Voices from the field: Preparing teachers for high need schools. The Qualitative Report, 21(9), 1727–1738. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/ tqr/vol21/iss9/11

Dramatizing Data, Creating Art, and Finding Community Ethnodrama/Arts-Based Research Tabitha Dell’Angelo The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ [email protected]

In a traditional academic field, the decision to use arts-based research can be tricky. Arts-based research uses various forms of artistic process as a way to make meaning of and understand the phenomena being examined. In my case, I decided to use theater as a way to communicate both the context and the findings in a study of new teachers. In ethno-drama, a script is developed and sometimes performed using the data collected. In some cases, scripts are verbatim transcripts of interviews. In other cases, pieces and parts of interviews, field notes, and other artifacts are used to create a script. While I can clearly see the value in this work, I worried that my department or my school’s tenure and promotions committee would not take this kind of research seriously. On the other hand, I have always been frustrated with how scholarly articles and conferences are often inaccessible to in-service teachers, parents, and community members. I wanted to create something that used the data and told a story that everyone could understand. Using ethno-drama allowed me both to provide common ground from which lots of different people could discuss what they see, how they feel, and what they think it all means, as well as to entertain an audience.

Personal Connection and Positionality My positionality in this work was important. The participants were all former students from the pre-service teaching program that I coordinate. Our program is relatively small and we all know each other and keep in touch. In the original article, I use the term “academic siblings” to describe the students in my program. This term comes from my own graduate school experience. My mentor referred to our group of students and research assistants this way and it had an impact.

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Twenty years later many of us still keep in touch regularly. Much like my own “academic siblings,” these pre-service and in-service teachers see each other as connected and act accordingly. We take our “ride or die” relationship seriously. Therefore, approaching this work with care and authenticity was a high priority. I also have a long background in theater, improvisation, and storytelling. My personal connection to telling stories this way is also an important component of this work.

Collecting and Presenting Data In this work, I used traditional methods of data collection. Semi-structured interviews and journals were the main data sources. The challenge was interpreting the data. In part, my positionality made it difficult to be completely objective. It was sometimes difficult when I found myself writing an analytic memo that I thought might make one of the teachers (siblings) look bad. I had several drafts of plays in which the characters had a one-to-one relationship to the study participants. In the process of writing a play, there are often table reads. At a table read, actors sit around a table and read the script. After the reading, they may give feedback and ask the writer questions. I found myself feeling defensive when feedback was shared that felt like a personal attack on one of the teachers. On the other hand, I could see the usefulness in sharing the challenges and obstacles that were faced even when they were not handled perfectly – or perhaps even badly. Finally, in the process of coding and recoding – I almost titled the play An ­Iterative Nightmare – I realized emerging themes that could become characters. While each respondent was multidimensional, each also had a particular style. I decided to stay true to the data and still use direct quotes from the interviews and journals to create the script. But instead of each respondent being a character, I collapsed respondents with similar dispositions together and made them a hyper version of their dominant transactional style. This created four composite characters. Each of the four characters in the play had lines that were taken from more than one respondent. And each character represents a more extreme version than any of the real-life participants. In this way, I was able to highlight the realism, idealism, cynicism, and pragmatism that existed throughout all of the interviews. Composite characters meant that they were more one-dimensional. That approach allowed me to communicate the range of responses without “outing” any single person. This felt safer and more respectful to the teachers in the study who are still in the process of developing their own identities, both as teachers and as people.

Inspiration and Finding Community Choosing to examine and present the data through an arts-based lens was influenced by my personal connection to the participants, my love for storytelling, and my genuine desire to have these ideas shared beyond the traditional academic

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circles. There are so many great examples of theatrical work that examine social realities. Writers who use artistic methods to communicate big ideas and make their audiences wonder both about problems and possibilities have inspired me. Anna Deavere Smith (1997) expertly tells stories of children and teachers and the sociopolitical realities that surround schooling. The real-life struggles of refugees come alive in Crocodile Seeking Refuge by Sonja Linden (2005). Nilaja Sun (2008) takes us inside an inner-city classroom with No Child. I also found inspiration in the work of Johnny Saldana, Charles Vanover, Jim Mienczakowski, and Kakali Bhattacharya. These names represent just part of the list of inspiring work. In fact, just when I thought I had no allies I met Kakali Bhattacharya at a conference. She encouraged me to keep going and even gave me ideas about where to publish. Two years later, I had published this piece, had several public performances, and was working on another play. While presenting at a conference I met Charles Vanover. He encouraged me even further and we shared ideas. I mention these connections because, while there are many people doing this work, it is not the norm. You may have an experience like mine, where no one at your institution does this kind of work and some of your colleagues think it is nonsense. Finding allies and mentors and collaborators is important. And the community of arts-based researchers is incredibly supportive.

References Linden, S. (2005). Crocodile seeking refuge. London, UK: Aurora Metro Press. Smith, Anna Deavere. (1997). Fires in the mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and other identities. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service. Sun, N. (2008). No child. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service.

Qualitative Action Research Many in academia, as well as practitioners in business, education, and nonprofits, are familiar with the concept of action research. This is because the approach is often derived from “real world needs” based on collaborative problem-solving between researcher and participants that generates not only new knowledge, but action that results in changes to policy, programs, and practices. It is “a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes, grounded in a participatory worldview” (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, p. 1). In the 1940s Kurt Lewin brought an action research approach to the United States and promoted its potential for personal liberation and social change through collaborative research with stakeholders. He described a cyclical process that is still used today involving: diagnosing a problem, and then planning, gathering data, and taking action, followed by fact-finding about the results of that action in order to plan and take further action (Lewin, 1946). Today action research and its companion designs (action anthropology, action learning, appreciative inquiry, critical action research, and participatory action research/PAR) are applied in a variety of disciplines, from education and human resource development to community development and tourism, but the central tenets remain: Action research (a) generates new knowledge; (b) achieves action oriented outcomes; (c) educates the researcher(s) and participants; (d) results in findings that are relevant to the local setting; and (5) uses appropriate and intentional methods (Herr & Anderson, 2014). Although action research can include quantitative as well as qualitative data, the focus of action research in this volume is qualitative. Qualitative action research fits well within an interpretivist tradition in that it “challenges the claims of a positivistic view of knowledge which holds that in order to be credible, research must remain objective and value-free” (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire, 2003, p. 11). For many, qualitative action research operates from constructivism (Hansen, 2004) – recognizing that knowledge is socially constructed and shaped by human interaction and often, but not always, through a critical

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lens because it employs reflexivity to expose interests and enable emancipation (Reason & Bradbury, 2001; Torres, 2009). Moreover, qualitative action research shares similarities with other qualitative designs, including the search for meaning and understanding and an inductive investigation strategy, but varies in two ways. First, it not only calls for the researcher as instrument, but in the case of participatory designs, the participants themselves collect and analyze data. Second, unlike other designs that result in an end product that is richly descriptive, action research results in taking action based on that description. Action research has suffered at times from a reputation that describes it as lacking rigor, but it should be noted that what separates this design from consulting or daily problem-solving is the emphasis on systematic, scientific study informed by theoretical considerations. Moreover, action research is sometimes regarded as too practical or too specific to a particular group to contribute to a larger body of scholarship. Its generalizability is questioned and thus it is not published at similar rates as other qualitative designs. This is unfortunate because much can be learned from a particular case (Yin, 2017). Some have argued that in single cases, like those presented in action research, there is value in the general lying in the particular (Erickson, 1986; Simons, 2015). Action research addresses the gap between theory and practice since it seeks to find practical solutions for a specific problem. Readers of action research learn from a particular setting or group of participants and can assess the transferability to similar contexts. For example, take the youth participatory action research (YPAR) study by Irizarry (2012). As a guest teacher at a local high school he embedded a YPAR project into the curriculum that “engaged Latino youth in urban schools in meaningful, co-constructed research while enhancing their academic skills” (p. 294). While Irizarry and the students acted on the research conducted in their own school, the study sought to inform the personal and professional trajectories of Latino high school students in general by addressing issues related to the sociocultural and sociopolitical realities of their lives. Their action research has value for anyone studying educational policy and practice as it provides a unique perspective that informs Latino matriculation into higher education as a whole (Irizarry, 2011a, 2011b). There are two action research studies included in this volume. Glanz (2016), a scholar in educational administration, along with stakeholders including teachers and administrators, sought a systematic approach at a Midwestern, urban high school for improving the school-wide instructional program. This first selection raises interesting questions for discussion in that the study was not initiated (or at least welcomed) by the participants, as is often the case with action research. Instead, participants were required to engage with Glanz as part of ongoing organizational change processes. Glanz struggled with this and contends, “if action research is to play a significant role for practitioners, then their involvement should be as genuine as possible” (p. 15). The second selection is a participatory action research (PAR) project from Williamson and Brown (2014). It’s a collaboration of Latino, African, and ­Caribbean American residents working with research educators from the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut, to improve several issues

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in the community including: economic opportunities and training for Spanish speaking residents; the social, environmental, and physical conditions of the neighborhoods; and the educational outcomes of the city’s schoolchildren. It is interesting to note that in the Williamson and Brown study, Williamson was the research educator on the project and Brown, a social worker born and raised in the Upper Albany neighborhood in Hartford, was recruited along with her mother to participate in the project as resident researchers. An unintended consequence of her experience working with young academics/researchers of color on the action research study was that Brown was inspired to pursue her doctorate, graduated in 2015, and now conducts her own research.

References Brydon-Miller, M., Greenwood, D., & Maguire, P. (2003). Why action research? Action Research, 1(1), 9–28. Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. C. Whittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119–161). Old Tappan, NJ: Macmillan. Hansen, S. (2004). A constructivist approach to project assessment. European Journal of Engineering Education, 29(2), 211–220. Herr, K., & Anderson, G. L. (2014). The action research dissertation: A guide for students and faculty. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Irizarry, J. G. (2011a). Buscando la libertad: Latino youths in search of freedom in school. Democracy and Education, 19(1), 1–10. Irizarry, J. G. (2011b). The Latinization of U.S. schools: Successful teaching and learning in shifting cultural contexts. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishing. Irizarry, J. G. (2012). Los caminos: Latino/a youth forging pathways in pursuit of higher education. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 11(3), 291–309. Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4), 34–46. Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (Eds.). (2001). Handbook of action research. London, UK: Sage. Simons, H. (2015). Interpret in context: Generalizing from the single case in evaluation. Evaluation, 21(2), 173–188. Torres, M. E. (2009). Participatory action research and critical race theory: Fueling spaces for “Nos-otras” to research. Urban Review, 41(1), 1060–1120. Yin, R. K. (2017). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chapter Fifteen

Action Research by Practitioners A Case Study of a High School’s Attempt to Create Transformational Change Purpose I worked with one mid-western urban high school for two and a half years (2009– 2012) to create a systematic approach to improving its school-wide instructional program. Among the primary goals was to create a sense of a learning community in which practitioners would become stakeholders and undertake some research  in order to reflect upon and to ultimately improve their professional practice. My work with this one school, let’s call it Seaman’s High, emphasized cutting-edge supervisory practices (clinical supervision, action research, lesson studies, differentiated supervision, intervisitations, peer coaching, etc.) as an alternative to traditional teacher supervision and evaluation (see Glanz, 2011). This article will focus, for the most part, on the attempt to incorporate action research by practitioners in the school.1

Context for this Research and the School Context The research study reported in this article was made possible through work I  undertook as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for University School Partnership at Yeshiva University. The core of my involvement focused on ways to assist schools to improve instruction in the classroom. More specifically, my work assessed instructional quality in schools in three areas: teaching practices, curriculum development, and professional development (supervisory) initiatives. Schools participated voluntarily in Institute work with Yeshiva University in order achieve higher levels of success in their schools thereby attempting to effect transformational school wide change. My work in this particular school covered Glanz, J. (2016). Action research by practitioners: A case study of a high school’s attempt to create transformational change. Journal of Practitioner Research, 1(1), 3.

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examining school-wide professional development initiatives, enhancing professional skills of the administrative staff, and working with teachers to break the prevalence of frontal teaching, a common concern in many high schools (see, e.g., Quinn, 2002). This article will focus exclusively on the latter effort. Seaman’s High School located in the mid-west is an urban school with 65 teachers and 990 students in grades 9–12. Ninety-nine per cent of the students go on to college. Among its peers, the school is considered to be academically rigorous, but it does offer leveled learning experiences for its diverse student body. The average years of experience among teachers is 15, with about 5 new teachers entering each year due to faculty retirements. The school is administered by four individuals, each with a different focus: e.g., general, overall school administration (principal), student support (assistant principal), school-community liaison (assistant principal), and instructional coach. I worked, primarily, with the latter individual. The initial agreement between the school (as well as other schools in the network) and Yeshiva University’s Institute centered on the mutual interest of transformational change regarding various aspects of the school’s functioning including, among others, strategic planning, financial and budget analyses, organizational arrangements, and instructional improvement. Instructional quality, the focus of this article, occurs, according to the literature on school reform and change, gradually and when capacity is developed, nurtured, and sustained in the school building based upon extant, cutting-edge educational practices (Fullan,  2005,  2006,  2007; Hargreaves,  2005; Levin & Fullan,  2008; Shulman, ­Sullivan & Glanz, 2008). Educational quality is achieved to the extent to which those educators who work within the school are empowered to focus on instructional matters. For instance, even though the mentoring of new teachers is clearly supported by research and best practice (Manna,  2010), this school as well as many others in the network of school partners did not have a mentoring program in place for new teachers during their first three years in the school. Schools joined the network in order to transform the way they provided assistance to new teachers through support mechanisms aimed to build teacher capacity (see, e.g., King & Newmann, 2001; Marks, Louis, & Printy, 2002). Teachers in Seaman’s High were informed in advance of the strategic association with Yeshiva University’s Institute and were apprised of the objectives of the project, as alluded to earlier. Teachers were divided, traditionally, by academic departments, each supervised by a chairperson. The academic culture in the school was traditional as personified by some of the following practices: curricula created in a top-down fashion, teacher evaluation based on yearly observations and write-ups, monthly faculty meetings focusing on disseminating information, and professional development opportunities primarily outof-school, with occasional in-house workshops developed and conducted by administrators. My role, initially, was to visit in order to gain acceptance among the teachers. Long visits getting to know the staff and sharing my professional experiences eventually led to cordial professional relationships with teachers and administrators.

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After the first year of visits, about eighteen teachers in three distinct academic departments volunteered to examine their teaching practices through the use of instructional leadership initiatives such as action research (Altrichter & Posch, 2009), peer coaching (Truesdale, 2009), critical friends (Bambino 2002), book studies (Sullivan & Glanz,  2014) and instructional walk-throughs (City, Elmore, Fiarman, & Teitel, 2009), all of which aim to deepen the school’s commitment to a culture of instructional excellence.

Action Research by Practitioners In order to actively engage teachers in non-threatening ways to examine their practices in the classroom I decided to provide the teachers four options, initially, for reflective practice: Book studies, walk-throughs, peer coaching, or action research. Whatever approach teachers would select, it would occur through selfinitiation without oversight by a school administrator. Participants, though, would be asked at faculty or departmental meetings to share their reflective experiences without divulging any confidential matters among the teachers involved. I provided workshops on each option and allowed teachers to decide upon one or more option (but no more than two at a time). Although I will relate some of the experiences among the faculty with some of the options, I will concentrate discussion for this article on action research because, among all the approaches, abundant literature exists on it, and faculty at the Seaman’s High were most willing to attempt to implement its practice in their classrooms, at least initially. Aside from book studies, it was the most popular choice. My experiences in working with these teachers in this particular school reveal some intriguing notions about the implementation of innovative instructional practices that, I believe, have implications for other school contexts as well.

Study Design Once the program was initiated, I decided to utilize case study research in order to monitor progress of the various initiatives and determine the impact, if any, on the primary goals of transforming classroom teaching practices away from primarily frontal teaching. This effort, as stated earlier, was part of an overall attempt to foster school wide transformational change. Since the school board, along with the administrative staff of the school were quite interested in determining the efficacy of stated initiatives, I needed to provide, according to them, “concrete, quantifiable evidence.” Initially there was reluctance by non-educator school board members to rely on single case study methodologies, as they were perceived by some members as lacking rigor. I spent a significant amount of time in discussions with board members and school administrators explaining reasons I felt such a methodological approach would be warranted in this context. Since the data collected from this aspect of the study only partially represented the overall impact of the stated initiatives, agreement was reached.

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I served as a participant observer (see, e.g., Iacono, Brown, & Holtham, 2009) consultant hired by the school to assist in implementing and assessing various instructional improvements in the school. I based my research design on the work of several prominent figures in the area of single case study design (e.g., Bennett & Elman, 2006, 2010; Kazdin, 2011; Willis, 2014; Yin, 2013). Although usually used to monitor individual progress, I used this methodology to track progress of the action research initiative that included several teachers. According to Willis (2014), single case study research “provides a nuanced, empirically rich, holistic account of specific phenomena” (p. 14). Although researcher subjectivity and external validity are two of the more significant limitations of such research, I countered by including as the mainstay of the research baseline data/­assessment (i.e., surveys), repeated or continuous assessments (i.e., questionnaires, interviews), and an analysis of the variability of the data (i.e., the degree to which the treatment, primarily action research used by practitioners, changed behavior of the teachers). Data on two separate occasions were also verified by an outside observer. This individual was a member of my assessment team with other schools and he visited this particular high school only occasionally. A word about the research instruments that were employed is important. I personally interviewed board members, school administrators, department chairs, and teachers, using a semi-structured interview protocol, to assess the extent to which stated plans at transforming practices were accomplished. No one was interviewed without prior consent. Many interviews were audio recorded and then transcribed. At times, audio-recording was not feasible given the nature of this ongoing project in a bustling, fast-moving urban high school. Coding of interview data occurred (Creswell,  1998; Weston et  al.,  2001). Questionnaires, anonymous in nature, were distributed as well. The school (board and administrators) approved this research since, as stated earlier, they contracted my university to undertake an analysis and assessment of the school’s instructional program. Participants were eager to receive feedback about their program and its implementation. All participants were informed that all identities would be concealed in reporting results of the study. The classic works of Denzin and Lincoln (1998) and Merriam (1998) guided this qualitative case study. Since I, as the researcher, was a participant in the school change efforts, every attempt was made to verify data analysis and interpretation through the use of my doctoral assistants and colleagues in the Institute.

Four Questions this Article will Address: The following questions guided my research; they form the focus of this article: 1. What are some factors that support instructional change at the classroom level? 2. What is action research and its potential for fostering faculty participation in reflective practice? 3. How did the teachers in this initiative react to the use of action research and to what degree did it transform their teaching behavior?

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4. What challenges did the school face in its attempt to transform its instructional program? The article will conclude with a summary of lessons learned as well as possible future directions needed in order to promote practitioner research on their practice.

Question #1:  What are some factors that encourage instructional change at the classroom level? Given the plethora of literature in this area I will try to be somewhat concise. Research is clear that instructional change at the classroom level occurs within the context of a positive school culture that promotes a professional learning community in which professional development is primary (see, e.g., Klar, H ­ uggins, & Roessler, 2016; Sullivan & Glanz, 2006). According to advocates, when all these domains work together then all those involved in the change become committed and motivated. Slavin (2005) discusses three types of school cultures and the likelihood of change taking place. The first is a Seed School where the staff is cohesive and very excited about teaching. They are led by a visionary leader where the entire staff is involved in decision making and is aware of the research and ideas being implemented. The second is a Brick School where the staff would like to do a better job and is willing to engage in a reform process if they were convinced that it would work. There are good relationships among the staff and a positive orientation towards change, although they do not perceive the need to develop new curriculum or instructional methods. The third school is a Sand School that is doomed to failure. It is complacent. The staff feels that it is doing and has always done a fine job. There are poor relationships between the principal and the staff and there is incompetent leadership. Obviously no school fits entirely into one category, but by studying the school culture you can predict how smoothly the change will take place. In many schools a culture of isolationism that deters change exists. Professional learning communities are difficult to form and collaboration norms among teachers are often weak or, at least, undeveloped (Fullan, 2007; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006). “There is almost no opportunity, in these schools, for teachers to engage in sustained or deep learning about their practice in the settings in which they actually work, observing and being observed by their colleagues in their own classrooms” (Elmore, 2004 cited in Levin & Fullan, 2008, p. 296). Moreover, it has been shown that top down change does not work because there is no ownership and commitment to the reform and bottom up beginning with the teachers also does not work. Top down and bottom up together with a bias for action is what leads to change (Fullan, 2007). The ideal stage for change, however, is described in the following way: School improvement is most surely and thoroughly achieved when: teachers engage in frequent, continuous and increasingly concrete and precise talk about teaching practice (as distinct from teacher characteristics and failings;

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the social lives of the teachers, the foibles and failures of students and their families and the unfortunate demands of society on the school). By such talk, teachers build up a common language, adequate to the complexity of teaching, capable of distinguishing one practice and its virtue from another. Teachers and administrators frequently observe each other and provide each other with useful if potentially frightening evaluation of their teaching, Only such observations and feedback can provide share referents for the shared language of teaching and both demand and provide the precision and concreteness which makes the talk about teaching useful Teachers and administrators plan, design research, evaluate, and prepare teaching material together. . . . Teachers and administrators teach each other the practice of teaching (Little, 1981, cited in Little, 1990, pp. 97–98).

Researchers have indicated that one of the most important principles of change is that although the school, writ large, is the center for change, student achievement will not improve without a focus on the classroom (Hopkins,  2005; Fink & Stoll,  2005). “The heart of improvement lies in changing teaching and learning practices in thousands and thousands of classrooms” (Levin & Fullan, 2008, p. 289). Real change is considered successful when it has become part of the natural behavior of teachers in the school (Hopkins, 2005). It involves changes in three areas: new and revised materials and technologies, new teaching approaches, and an alteration in belief and pedagogical assumptions (Fullan, 2007). Studies have demonstrated that professional community, had the largest significant unique contribution to teachers’ instructional practice (Louis et  al.,  2010); to which principal leadership contributes significantly (Bryk, ­Camburn, & Louis, 1999; Marks, Louis, & Printy, 2002). This finding is consistent with previous research that showed that professional community is related to instructional improvement and is correlated with teachers’ adoption of new practices (King & Newmann, 2001; Louis & Marks, 1998; Marks, Louis, & Printy, 2002; Smylie & Wenzel, 2003; Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008). Teachers are more likely to develop when they work with other teachers and not the principal (Zepeda & Ponticelli, 1998). “When the focus of the teachers’ conversations is on the quality of student learning.  .  .teachers adopt pedagogical practices that enhance students’ learning opportunities” (Wahlstrom & Louis,  2008, p.  463). Teachers practice changes when they feel trusted to work alone or with colleagues to improve their practice (Smyth, 1988). The principal should be involved in this community of learners, not just support it, since there are linkages between principal learning, teacher learning and student learning (­Hallinger & Heck, 2010). It is interesting to note that a prominent study (Louis et  al.,  2010) found that reflective dialogue, which is characteristic of clinical supervision, was one of the main constructs of professional community. Some of the other components of professional community identified in the research are receiving meaningful feedback on performance from a colleague, visiting other teachers’ classrooms to observe instruction and having conversation with colleagues about what helps

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your student learn best (Louis et  al.,  2010; Wahlstrom & Louis,  2008), which although are not found in the clinical supervision model, are included in differentiated or alternative models of supervision (Glatthorn, 1984). So although principal modeling and observation had only a very small effect on teachers’ classroom practices, there were other supervisory practices that were strongly correlated to changes in teachers’ instructional practices. Professional development provided to teachers has also been shown to have a relationship with changes in instructional practice (Blase & Blase, 1999; R ­ obinson, Loyd, & Rowe, 2008; Rous, 2004). Case study data from 20 schools indicated that when principals wanted to develop teaching capacity, instead of working directly with teachers, they provided strategic professional learning programs (Penlington, Kington, & Day, 2008). Support for professional learning of teachers is also included in the alternate supervision model. It seems that professional community has the largest relationship with changes in teachers’ instructional practices. Professional development also is correlated with changes in teacher practice. However, it is important to note that there are many components of professional community and professional development included in the more recent supervisory models, such as action research.

Question #2:  What is action research and its potential for fostering faculty participation in reflective practice? Practitioners often assert that much educational research has a minimal effect on their practice (see, e.g., Dick, 2004; Hord, 2004; Pajares, 1992; W ­ illemse & Boei, 2013). Educational practitioners, in general, are suspicious by claiming that “research can be made to support anything” (Calhoun, Allen, H ­ alliburton, & Jones, 1996, p. 54). Breaking such stereotypical thinking based on erroneous assumptions and beliefs is difficult, although not impossible. The many attempts to involve teachers and principals in action research projects attest to its efficacy (see, e.g., Glanz, 2005; Gordon, 2008a; Gordon, S ­ tiegelbauer, & Diehl, 2008). Although originally developed primarily for the professional development of teachers (Zehetmeier, Andreitz, Erlacher, & Rauch, 2015), action research is a kind of research that has reemerged as a popular way of involving practitioners, both teachers and supervisors, as well as professionals in other fields (e.g., health care practitioners) so that they better understand their work (see, e.g., Acosta, Goltz, & Goodson, 2015; Altrichter & Posch, 2009; Beaulieu, 2013; Glanz, 2014; Gordon, 2008b; Ioannidou-Koutselini, & Patsalidou, 2015; Zuber-Skerritt, 2002). Corey (1953) explained that action research is undertaken “by practitioners in order that they may improve their practices” (p. 141). Corey was the first educator to include supervisors as they “attempt to solve their practical problems by using the methods of science” (p. 141). Action research, a type of applied research, is a form of deliberate inquiry that is conducted by practitioners to improve practices in educational settings. Action research, like other types of research, utilizes an array of methodologies

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and approaches. Action research, however, differs with traditional research in three ways: 1. Action research doesn’t rely on advanced statistical techniques to analyze data. 2. Action research is utilized primarily by practitioners to solve specific problems. 3. Findings from action research are often not generalizable to other groups and situations. These three differences do not minimize its importance and relevance for educators. Action research is not merely defined as a narrow, limited practice, but can utilize a range of methodologies, simple and complex, to better understand one’s work and even solve specific problems (Acosta, Goltz, & Goodson, 2015; Bergold & Thomas, 2012; Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2014). Educators apply action research to “systematically study and reflect on their work and then make informed changes in their practices” (Zepeda, 2012, p. 269). Properly used, it can have immeasurable benefits such as creating a system-wide mindset for school improvement, promoting reflection and self-improvement, among many others (Hallinger, & Heck, 2010; Oolbkkink-Marchand, van der Steen, & Nijveldt, 2013; Rodgers, 2002). Sullivan and Glanz (2014) suggest a range of benefits that action research can provide, including empowering teachers, creating a focus on school improvement, improving decision making, fostering reflection, promoting ongoing instructional improvement, enhancing the school environment, and supporting professional development. Glanz and Heinnman (in press) have conceptualized five forms of engagement involving action research. For purpose of this literature, I will focus on the form that was most relevant for this case study research: participative. Participative action research, which was the form I primarily introduced to the faculty at the high school, focused on banding several teachers, primarily in the same discipline, around a common, seemingly intractable issue; i.e., finding alternatives to frontal teaching. As will be emphasized later, this was a perceived problem among teachers given the fact that high school periods were confined to 37 minute segments. As one representative teacher put it, “How can I do anything else but teach frontally with such little time to convey the material they need?” Nonetheless, teachers rallied around this form of action research engagement that fosters a “bottom-up” process that has the potential transform a school’s staff into a professional learning community (Arredondo Rucinski,  2012; Jacobs & Yendol-Hoppey, 2010; Mitchell & Sackney, 2011). Within such an approach, the opportunities for staff engagement are high. The ultimate goal in this form of engagement is to facilitate an environment for reflective inquiry and professional development (Sagor,  2000). One’s praxis is elevated by the encouragement of team involvement and collaboration. Participative inquiry raises critical questions among those involved in the process. Questions may include, “Who is included/excluded and why?”; “What are

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the group dynamics of the team?” “Who are the natural leaders?; “What impact would power struggles have on the effectiveness of the research inquiry process?”; “What factors encourage or impede the development of a community of learners in solving mutually agreed upon problems in order to improve the school?”; “What is the role of the supervisor or school principal in this process?”; “How can s/he deliberate the inquiry and, at the same time, remain a significant partner without dictating priorities?” (Bergold & Thomas, 2012; Boothroyd, Fawcett, & Foster-Fishman, 2004; Isenberg, Loomis, Humphreys, & Maton, 2004). Yet, we felt that working in this one high school, given the nature of the teaching staff (described below) and the support proffered by school administrators, that participative action research had a good chance of accomplishing its goal. This form of engagement, we felt, was ideal given the willingness of participants within a school to work together to solve or understand a pressing issue. Challenges existed, though as readers will discover, in terms of conflicting individual personalities, political constraints, and social dynamics among organizational members as a whole.

Question #3: How did the teachers in this initiative react to the use of action research and to what degree did it transform their teaching behavior? For this particular article describing this one school intervention, I will not focus on the overall strategic vision and goals that were meticulously charted early on in the project (for more details on the larger effort, see Glanz, 2011). In spite of the fact that Seaman’s High invited our team to work with them on school wide transformational change, in large measure due to a charismatic and popular principal who sought “to do better,” we began our research efforts by undertaking baseline data. Extant surveys of teacher (and student) satisfaction, board and community participation in the school were examined. Informal, and later formal semi-structured interviews were conducted with school administrators, board members, teachers, and upper-grade students (grades 11–12). Visits to classrooms were undertaken using an observation protocol to monitor the instructional core (see City, Elmore, Fiarman, & Teitel, 2009; Marzano, 2009). Thick anecdotal descriptions were of classroom interactions were taken and transcribed, for the most part. Initially, observations were conducted by two individuals to achieve a sense of consensual validity. Once a baseline was obtained, I conducted subsequent observations of classrooms over a two year period (selected excerpts of these reports will be noted below briefly). Educational and curricular materials were also examined. A perusal and summary of the schools instructional program was prepared in terms of a formal baseline, report. My comments that follow center only on aspects of the report that are relevant to classroom teaching, as they are my focus in reporting this study as well as the fact that, as mentioned above, instructional quality is a key factor to achieve significant transformational change. Our general finding that although frontal teaching does have a role to play in a school’s pedagogical approach, it is overused in many classrooms at Seaman’s

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High; in fact, many teachers even use a lectern or podium to lecture. Recitation was evident in many situations wherein the teacher was most active, guiding lessons, posing questions, in rapid succession and calling randomly upon selected students. Many students during choral recitals (i.e., repeating in unison words or phrases uttered by the teacher first) were not engaged. The teacher’s attention was focused on approximately 40% of the students of the class with most students’ educational needs not attended to, a common problem with overuse of frontal teaching (see the classic study by Hoetker & Ahllbrand, 1969). Formative assessment, in general, was rarely applied. Use of pair and shares and other forms of formative assessments were not observed. Teachers at Seaman’s High have not, for the most part, been effectively prepared in more recent pedagogies and technologies that allow for differentiation and alternate modalities or approaches of teaching including among others, pairs and shares, cooperative learning, small group projects, reciprocal teaching, etc. Following the report, long discussions ensued among faculty, especially with departments. Most interest was generated about teaching practices, not necessarily because most teachers felt it sorely needed improvement, but they seemed intrigued with the finding that teaching was overly frontal. One teacher explained, defensively, “How else is one to teach?” Another joined in, “We have large classes, a short amount of time, and much material to cover.” Teachers in the English department, on the other hand, didn’t seem perturbed by the recommendation because they felt their classes were not overly frontal. ‘We incorporate active learning by encouraging students to read aloud and to role play,” one English teacher explained. Our report alluded to specific departments such as science and mathematics in which the prevalence of frontal teaching was marked. One teacher reacted somewhat harshly. “What do you mean we teach in frontal manner, we conduct experiments with the students?!” Findings, though, demonstrated that although experiments were indeed conducted, they were, for the most part, performed by teachers themselves with most students looking on most of the time. It was after these discussions about the study’s findings that we introduced action research as a means for teachers themselves to gather data to determine realities in the classroom, to see for themselves the manner in which they were teaching, and to possibly discover teaching alternatives, if they deemed them necessary. At this point in our work, administrators expected teachers to select some sort of instructional option towards improving teaching. Some selected book studies (i.e., a group of usually no more than 4 or 5 teachers were to select a book to read and then discuss its implications among themselves), while others preferred collegial walk-throughs (short visits to classrooms that focus on student work), or lesson studies, in which a team would create a lesson and then observe a colleague teach it. A post-conversation would later ensue among lesson participants. The action research group, albeit small to start (6 teachers; one later dropped out for health reasons) took their work seriously. The focus of our attention in this article will be on their work.

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At first, teachers in the action research group were eager to participate in learning about action research as it was a concept they were somewhat familiar with it in that some of them had attended previous seminars at local and national conferences on the subject. “Yeh,” said one of the teachers, “at the conference there were a bunch of sessions on action research and it really sounded useful. . . . I mean, you get a chance to frame your own questions and ultimately see what is working, . . . or not.” Another teacher posited, “A colleague at another school had mentioned that her principal gave teachers an option to either be observed formally by her or to do an action research project on your own. I think I’d opt for the latter.” None of the volunteers for the action research group, though, had actually ever used it to solve a real problem they faced in the classroom. School administrators designated specific times for teams to meet. Two times were most common: one, during common lunch periods, and two, during daily preparation periods. Teachers in the action research group began to review the steps in action research: 1. Reflection Group members discussed at length the ‘claim’ from the report that teaching was primarily frontal and that the needs of all learners weren’t necessarily met using such an approach. Some representative comments included: “They [the administrators] are telling us that we have to focus on this perceived problem.” “I think we have some leeway here to come up with an action research inquiry as long as it relates in some way to improving teaching.” “No, we have to focus on the issue of overly frontal teaching.” “The bottom line is what do we need to know to do a better job at teaching?” Much time was spent by the group reflecting and deciding on a focus for their action research projects. During this first phase, they also decided to examine some of the literature for ideas about alternatives to frontal teaching or ways to ensure that all students learn optimally in a given lesson. 2. Select a Focus This step included discussion in three areas: (a) “Knowing what we want to investigate,” (b) “Developing some questions about the area we’ve chosen,” and (c) “Establishing a plan to answer these questions.” Representative comments included, “Let’s come to an agreement on what aspect of our teaching we should focus on.” “Do we all have to focus on the same aspect like our questions and students answers and how we react?” Much discussion continued without a clear focus agreed upon. They called the instructional coach for assistance. In the end, they reached consensus that they’d focus on teacher-student interaction during questions-answers. They also came up with what they thought was a “novel, interesting investigation.” Based on material they had read from a Marshall Memo, they examined the literature about the ecology of a classroom (e.g., table-chair arrangements impacting on student-teacher interaction during the lesson). “Yes,” one of the teachers said, “let’s focus on that aspect as well.” One said, “I read that the way the desks and chairs in the room

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are set up influences, to some degree, the manner in which a teacher presents info.” “Now that we have some focus, we need to phrase research questions and structure our study.” They were discussing, and correctly so, the design phase of action research. 3. Collect Data Once teachers had narrowed their focus to a few specific areas of concern, and had developed some research questions (e.g., “What impact does less lecturing and more student engagement (e.g., working in cooperative learning groups, problem-based learning, etc.) have on student motivational levels and achievement?” and “What impact do alternative seating patterns to traditional rows have on teacher teaching behavior and student attentiveness?”), as well as made a plan to answer them, they appeared ready to gather information to answer their research questions. They decided to work in pairs; one teaching, while the other observing in order to collect data. They decided to audio-record transactions, to be kept in confidence between them, and to video-record portions of the lesson to capture seating arrangements and other related interactions. 4. Analyze and Interpret Data Once they collected relevant data, they began the process of analysis and interpretation in order to arrive at some decision/conclusions. At this juncture much reflection and discussion occurred to make meaning of the data. First, pairs discussed each other’s findings. Then they joined the others to compare data. Some representative comments included, “I tried to shorten my lecture to allow for more student input”; “I noticed that by seating them in groups rather than common rows that such an arrangement was more conducive to discussion, and, . . . very interesting, I tended to talk less seeing them sitting in groups”; “It seems a seating arrangement does break frontal teaching somewhat”; “But I still need to cover ground!” 5. Take Action Finally, they reached the stage at which a decision had to be made. They answered their research questions about the effectiveness of their teaching in terms of limiting ‘frontalness.’ They found that talking less did encourage and engage students “more than ever before.” They still had reservations, however, about the manner in which they would “cover ground, . . . complete the course of study . . . cover the curriculum.” They also gathered some information about the seating arrangements in their rooms and their impact on teaching and students. They did find that seating students in horseshoe patterns or traditional groups proved more conducive to student-teacher engagement. At this point in their deliberations, four possibilities existed in terms of the overall project: (a) They could somewhat modify their teaching based on their reflections and insights gained; (b) They could greatly modify their practices; (c) They could be somewhat dissatisfied with the results and therefore might reexamine their research questions and collect fresh data; or (d) They could disband the action research project, or modify it greatly.

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Action research, they knew, is cyclical and ongoing. The process didn’t necessarily have to stop at any particular point. Information gained from previous research may open new avenues of research. At this point, we encouraged teachers to consider some of the questions below that made most sense to them: 1. What concerns me about the process? 2. Why am I concerned? 3. Can I confirm my perceptions? 4. What mistakes have I made? 5. If I were able to do it again, what would I do differently? 6. What are my current options? 7. What evidence can I collect to confirm my feelings? 8. Who might be willing to share their ideas with me? 9. What have been my successes? 10. How might I replicate these successes? 11. In what other ways might I improve my teaching? These five teachers engaged in action research as practitioners for the 2009– 2010 school year. During one of my visits, I spent time with the team, responding to their questions, and at times, “putting out fires.” Most of the troublesome areas focused on administrative logistics, rather than interpersonal conflicts. Prior to this particular visit, and the reason for my urgent attendance, was that I received an email from the instructional coach as follows: “Action research teams had their recent meeting last week. Some grumbling about time and responsibilities.  .  . .  Should I disband the team?” I discovered that the team’s complaints had essentially to do with administrative logistics and constraints on their time to do the job they wanted to do “to make it right.” Parenthetically, similar issues arose among other teams including the PD team and the clinical supervision team (although with the latter they had difficulty debriefing each other with sufficiently appropriate supportive language). The mentor program and the book studies group seemed to continue without any issues. In the fall of 2010, my work continued with these teachers and although they  still complained about “finding time to engage in reflection and the like,”  they mentioned, “curiously” to one of them, that the “process, even though flawed at times, in the end proved a useful means to examine their teaching.” One team member reported, “I try to talk a bit less and engage students more with questions.” Still another reported, “Before I lecture on a topic, I do a K-W-L activity with them first to engage them for my talk.” “I think I am less frontal; I don’t know.” No teacher could point to anything specific to demonstrate substantive changes in their teaching or in student achievement levels. Most of their comments focused on some benefits of action research

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study such as, “This sort of research enabled me to see my classroom in ways I hadn’t before.” Three of the five reported that they “enjoyed planning and sharing with my colleague.”

Question #4: What challenges did the school face in its attempt to transform its instructional program? Based on an analysis of data, we derived the following two areas of concern: Premature Initiation of Initiatives The administration and department chairs at Seaman’s High were excited about developing alternatives to traditional supervision and evaluation. Several ideas were discussed. As consultant, I was able to provide the school with an explanation and some PD in the interested areas: Book studies, intervisitations, peer coaching, lesson studies, instructional rounds, action research, etc. In their eagerness, more than one model was initiated often causing confusion. One AP explained as follows: PD teams had their first meetings. Mentors and book study look like they are going to be crackerjack teams. Clinical rounds may be a social and logistical nightmare, but they could be productive with the right protocols and guidance. Teams of protégés found it helpful to talk with one another, even if sometimes for the “misery loves company” – to know there is not something wrong with you if you are not a seasoned teacher right out of the gate. Have we bitten off more than we can chew here?

Another example of not providing sufficient PD preparation before initiating a strategy occurred in instructional rounds. Teachers seemed not to be able to distinguish between focusing on the process, rather than on the individual teacher: Hi, Dr. Author. The clinical rounds team met today and they wanted clearer guidelines on what they were looking for. They also were talking a language of evaluation even as they were aware that it was verboten. My gut is that despite the potential benefits of rounds, culturally we are not ready for them yet. I can talk a good game about observing “teaching not teachers”, but there are agendas built into observation protocols (e, g., lessons should have beginnings, middles, and ends or student participation is important, or the content should be correct) that will lead to judgments no matter how polite we are. What should we do?

I suggested that they step back and have more discussion prior to implementation. The action research team must be considered within this overall context of various initiatives. I surmise (confirmed by my research partner) that the action research group may also have suffered from premature initiation but only because we initiated too many projects at once.

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My interviews with department chairs and teachers at Seaman’s High indicate that, as the literature demonstrates (see, e.g., Hallinger, 2003; Leithwood & Day,  2007; Reeves,  2009), without preparing participants with requisite knowledge and skills for a given initiative, the instructional reform effort is likely to be met with resignation, if not outright resistance. One teacher said, “I felt I just had to go along, . . . you know, don’t rock the boat, . . . after all, other were enthusiastic; I just didn’t feel that way.” Also, as indicated in the literature review, without attending to and transforming the school’s culture that promotes a learning community and willingness to take risks, new instructional approaches are not anchored for success. Several interviewees’ reports led to this conclusion: “We are just used to the administration telling us what to do.” I think these findings are quite relevant to anyone who attempts to implement an action research initiative at any school. The major implication is not to rush head-long and ensure that all t’s are crossed and i’s dotted before proceeding. Morale Issues Instructional improvement is not made in isolation of other variables affecting a school, as highlighted in the earlier literature review. Context is key, so is economics. AP1 reported: Reviewed results of faculty satisfaction/culture survey with AP2 and think about what is next . . . We run a risk on morale both from tone set by the head and from the change in PD expectations while salaries are frozen and no new contract has been agreed upon. We are also burning out well-meaning faculty on issues like dress code.

During my interviews a number of faculty members reported that morale “was at times high, but at other times low.” Another stated, “We are uncertain what is going to happen. . . . all these changes are frightening.” Perhaps this latter comment also reflected by others could be attributed to moving along radical transformations in instruction and supervision too quickly.” After listening to the teachers and administrators, moving deliberately and slowly as long as progress is being made makes the most sense. AP1 said it best, “Change isn’t easy . . . you don’t change a school overnite . . . It’s fine to strategically plan like we are but we must always keep in mind the morale of the faculty as well as our own.” There were issues the school’s administration had to grapple with as well (e.g., finding time in their schedules to handle instructional leadership initiatives) but discussion of these concerns are not relevant here because the focus in this study is on the teacher practitioner.

Some Reflections and Lessons Learned Although the aforementioned challenges were apparent, our sense was that Seaman’s High (faculty and administrators) acknowledged the challenges they faced. Yet, they were willing to forge ahead. Administrators were particularly

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thrilled to witness teachers engaged in activities such as action research in which they would monitor their own professional practices in a thoughtful, measured manner. The principal said, “I hope we can continue such work with our teachers. After all, it’s the practitioner that makes all the difference in the classroom.” Regarding my aforementioned allusion to teacher and principal enthusiasm, I think we can learn an important lesson and caveat for those engaged in the effort to initiative action research initiatives. Teacher involvement in action research (along with the other initiatives) at Seaman’s High did not emerge due to a groundswell of teacher interest and support, at least initially. Involvement in action research, as one alternative to instructional improvement at Seaman’s High, was essentially required, if not coerced. Teachers were indeed expected to be involved in some meaningful way in the overall project. As I reflect on my own work in the school as a participant researcher, I wonder about the role I played to encourage teachers to join the action research, a particular interest of mine. I also wonder about the degree to which we can offer teachers opportunities for action research engagement without having to compel their participation. Teachers I worked with at Seaman’s High, though, were professionals who, by in large, accepted the opportunities presented in order to examine and possibly improve their teaching practice. One of the tasks I did not undertake in writing this article was to discern the degree to which, if at all, these teachers continued to use action research as a means for self-reflection and improvement since my involvement ended. Regardless, if action research is to play a significant role for practitioners, then their involvement should be as genuine as possible. I try to proffer some suggestions for accomplishing such an objective below, along with other conclusions. What lessons can we learn from this report? In closing, here are a few lessons divided into two categories: 1. General lessons about the nature of school reform: • Schools that are encouraged by their boards to improve are more likely to remain steadfast even as they encounter challenges and setbacks along the way. • Principals who provide sufficient support leadership are best at sustaining faculty interest in the specific reform. • Instructional improvement initiatives should be supported or nested within a larger strategic planning effort. • Resistance to change is common and should be expected. • Success is a multi-layered, gradual process not always assured, but improvements even though incremental do occur. • Implement new changes slowly (even one at a time) and provide participants enough time to fully understand expectations and time to build requisite skills to ensure success of strategy (e.g., use of action research). 2. Specific lessons about the use of action research by practitioners: • Action research naturally flows from the daily work of teachers because teachers inquisitively pose questions about the efficacy of their practice.

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• Although natural and based on common sense strategies, action requires does require specific professional preparation in order to use it properly. • Teachers should read some of the abundant literature on action research work with practitioners at other schools. • Teachers should spend sufficient time (six months to a year) learning about action research prior to implementing it in their classrooms. • Support personnel should be readily available for teachers to consult when questions or problems arise. • When actually working on action research projects, teachers, working in teams, should brainstorm questions for inquiry. • Data should be collected from several different sources. • Data interpretation, among teachers, needs to be guided by an action research specialist. • When actions are taken by teachers in the classroom, their impact should be monitored carefully. • Forums at which practitioners meet to share insights should be regularly planned. • Reflection is the key skill and disposition most valuable in action research. Changing and building a new culture of learning and improvement certainly takes time and continuous commitment. Remaining focused or as one interviewee said, “Keeping your eye on the prize,” makes good sense. Positive instructional change in any school is inevitably fraught with challenges. This school is still in process of developing new ways of learning and improving. The results of the action research initiative in this study are tenuous because transformational change does not occur quickly. It is clear that the teachers involved in action research took it seriously and began to seriously reflect upon their teaching, perhaps, in ways they wouldn’t or hadn’t before. Still, it is also clear that action research is no panacea to transform practice in the short run. Teachers, as practitioners, will have to forge ahead by continuing to phrase and rephrase their research questions, gather still more data, and reflect on them all, again and again.

End Note 1. Many details and specifics of this school have been omitted in this article, so as to maintain the anonymity of the school and study participants.

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Zepeda, S.J., & Ponticelli, J.A. (1998). At cross purposes: What do teachers need, want, and get from supervision. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 14(1), 68–86. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/jcs/fall1998/At_Cross-Purposes@_What_ Do_Teachers_Need,_Want,_and_Get_from_Supervision%C2%A2.aspx Zuber-Skerritt, O. (2002). A model for designing action learning and action research programs. The Learning Organization, 9(3), 143–149. doi: /10.1108/09696470210428868

Reflecting on Taking Action Three Suggestions Jeffrey Glanz Michlalah-Jerusalem College, Bayit Vegan, Israel [email protected]

Several years after my work in Seaman’s High School was complete, I was in touch with the assistant principal, and I am happy to report that the initiatives we began have continued, probably in large measure because the administrative staff is still in place. Although I ended my article with some personal reflections and lessons learned, and posed as well several questions about my role as a participant researcher, I want to reflect more deeply here about several specific suggestions I can proffer for those interested in engaging in action research. One of the more challenging tasks I had was meeting the expectations of both teachers and the administrative staff. Although they were interested in the project, they were still somewhat skeptical about my ability to lead them in action research. The following suggestions might have alleviated some of my apprehensions.

Expect the Unexpected A fellow working in a large city would leave the building each day for lunch. He would pass the pretzel stand on the corner and place a quarter on the cart, but would never take a pretzel. This continued every day, week after week. Finally, the woman running the stand spoke up as the fellow put his daily quarter down. “Sir, may I have a word with you?” she asked. The fellow said, “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to ask me why I give you a quarter every day and don’t take a pretzel.” The woman responded, “Not at all, I just wanted to tell you that the price is now 35 cents!”* A researcher must expect the unexpected because research is a slippery, unpredictable process. Resistances came from the least expected sources, as did *Some of the following stories were culled from The Executive Speechwriter Newsletter (802-748-4472) and from Oracle Service Humor Mailing List ([email protected]).

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my successes. I have learned that action research is not a neat, uncomplicated process of applying “four easy steps.” When I first presented my research proposal to the faculty at Seaman’s High School they seemed enthusiastic. Silence, I learned, is not a good indicator that everyone is on board. Two teachers dropped out unexpectedly because they came in with preconceived notions that they were going to be evaluated. I couldn’t allay their apprehensions. I was caught off guard, but, after reflection, I knew it would take some time for teachers to realize I was there as a collaborator and facilitator, not an evaluator. You should also expect to defend action research methods. Among my first encounters at the school was one with a teacher who questioned the utility of action research, or more particularly qualitative research methods. She asserted, “This kind of soft research is unscientific.” Qualitative methods are sometimes viewed less favorably than quantitative approaches. She had earned a PhD many years earlier utilizing quantitative research.

Give It Your All Although it is good advice for life in general, “giving it your all” also has relevance for action research. Action research requires persistent effort over time. Even though identifying problems, posing critical research questions, collecting and analyzing data, reporting initial results, monitoring progress, and offering research-based solutions are essential elements of action research, they are difficult to accomplish and sustain. Yet, reflective practitioners know that their efforts will pay off, in the long run. Persistence and hard work are critical, especially for reporting your research findings through written reports that communicate your results and offer recommendations. Your diligence in conducting the study is worthwhile only to the extent that you’ve taken the time to write the report carefully and accurately. I  once submitted a report to a superintendent based on an evaluation of the district’s gifted program. My written report could have been more thorough and precise and the superintendent wasn’t happy. The problem here was that I had rushed to submit the report rather than taking my time to explain my recommendations thoughtfully. Haste, in this case, certainly made waste. Happily, though, the project was only set back for a short period of time until I submitted a more thorough report. In order to do your best action research, you must take your time, while taking action. As educational leaders, we are often asked to respond to problems and “do something.” One night at sea, a ship’s captain saw what looked like the lights of another ship heading toward him. He had his signal man blink to the other ship: “Change your course 10 degrees south.” The reply came back: “Change your course 10 degrees north.” The ship’s captain answered: “I am a captain. Change your course south.” To this the reply was: “Well, I am a seaman first class. Change

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your course north.” This infuriated the captain, so he signaled back: “Dammit, I say change your course south. I’m a battleship!” To which the reply came back: “And I say change your course north. I’m in a lighthouse.”

As this story illustrates, we can’t always expect others to take action. To take action now and meet the challenges we face is our greatest task. Armed with action research, we are in an optimal position to effect fundamental and positive changes in the school organization. But take note: Action researchers sometimes think that because “action” is required, one must hurry to make a decision. I’ve learned from my work with Seaman High School that I shouldn’t make snap judgments and rush to a decision before all the information is in.

Keep Lines of Communication Open and Clear This reminds me of the story of the young man who made deliveries in college. He was to pick up six penguins and deliver them to the local zoo before closing time, but was delayed by a flat tire. With no time to spare, he was lucky to see a friend drive by and was able to wave him down. The young man said, “Look, I have to get these penguins to the zoo before it closes and it will take too long to fix this flat. I’ll give you $10. Will you take them to the zoo?” The friend agreed, which was fortunate for the young man since it took longer than expected to change the tire. In the evening the young man sat in a diner and noticed his friend, followed by the six penguins, all in a row, walking down the street. The young man ran out to find out what was going on. “I thought I gave you $10 to take them to the zoo!” The friend was puzzled, “I did take them to the zoo and they enjoyed it very much, but that cost only $4, so I figured that with what was left I’d take them to the movies.” The point of this story is to say that throughout my action research project keeping all parties alert to the progress of the project was essential. Teachers at Seaman’s High were very busy, as you might imagine. In retrospect, I had assumed, incorrectly it turned out, that teachers were sharing data collection methods with each other. In one instance, a questionnaire to assess student reaction to the new pedagogical approach implemented was distributed multiple times by different teachers to the same class. “Well, I didn’t know she was going to distribute them,” one teacher charged. I later stepped in and took charge of the data collection process. Later, I assigned one chairperson, who agreed to collect all data, and I was sure to let everyone know of the new procedure. Action researchers, I  learned, need to value exact communications to prevent misunderstandings that can result.

Conclusion Action researchers are thoughtful, reflective practitioners who question, reflect, and make sense of their situations. They are committed to inquiry and scholarship.

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They mediate ideas, construct meaning and knowledge, and act upon them. Still, like any researcher, they must be cognizant of potential pitfalls while engaging in action research. Had I been cognizant of some of the suggestions I outline here, it would have, perhaps, alleviated some stress associated with my work at Seaman’s High.

Chapter Sixteen

Collective Voices Engagement of Hartford Community Residents Through Participatory Action Research The article details a Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project that partnered Latino and African and Caribbean American residents with research educators from the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, CT. PAR has been used to engage marginalized people in the process of knowledge production and take action to change the oppressive structures affecting them. Project participants worked together to design research projects on economic opportunities and trainings for Spanish speaking residents, the social, environmental and physical conditions of neighborhoods, and the educational outcomes for Hartford schoolchildren; together they conducted research, analyzed and disseminated the results, and planned and implemented action strategies. This article discusses the process of developing a PAR project with different groups over a sustained period of time, reviews the results of from the overall project, and examines the impact of PAR for the participants. The critical results were the development of individual and collective voice, crossneighborhood understanding and collaboration, and capacity building at individual and collective levels, as well as research and action results by residents. Keywords: Participatory Action Research, Collaboration, Collective Voice

This article details a 3-year Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project in which Latino and African and Caribbean American residents partnered with research educators (REs) from the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in Hartford, CT.1 Four different groups of residents researchers (RRs) began by meeting with REs once a week, for 16 weeks, to select an issue, receive training in research methods, conduct research, analyze and disseminate the results  We call researchers from the Institute for Community Research REs, or research educators, to distinguish them from resident researchers (RRs); though we were all partners and collaborators, there are critical differences in our respective subject positions. Williamson, K. M., & Brown, K. (2014). Collective Voices: Engagement of Hartford Community Residents through Participatory Action Research. The Qualitative Report, 19(36), 1–14. 1

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and design action strategies. Throughout the project, groups continued to meet with researchers and work on their issues. Project participants worked together to design research projects on economic opportunities and trainings for Spanish speaking residents, the social, environmental and physical conditions of neighborhoods, and the educational outcomes for Hartford schoolchildren. Once one of the richest cities, Hartford ranked as one the poorest cities in the nation with a population of over one hundred thousand. Surrounded by fairly white, wealthy towns, Hartford has a population that is forty-four percent Latino, thirty-eight percent African American and Caribbean American, and roughly eighteen percent white. Though increasingly Latinos have been moving into the African American North End of the city, and African Americans have moved into the Latino South End, the perception is still of the North End as A ­ frican American and Caribbean American and the South End as Latino, predominantly Puerto Rican. Both African Americans and Latinos perceive each other as more organized and able to gain more in city investments than the other, leading to deepening mistrust between the groups. These misperceptions lead to increasing distrust between Latinos and African Americans in the city; in reality they are both marginalized and share similar issues. Huge public investments are made in downtown luxury housing to lure young, primarily white middle-class professionals and divestments in public affordable housing continued across the city. Overcoming misperceptions, bringing groups from different ends of the city together for discussion and focusing on identifying structural factors were also objectives of the project. This article discusses the process of developing a PAR project with different groups over a sustained period of time, reviews the results of from the overall project, and the impact of PAR on the participants. In addition to engaging residents and taking action to change their communities, the project also had critical impacts on the development of individual and collective voices of residents. The increased popularity of PAR has led to the name being coopted and used in ways that fail to address the structures that oppress and marginalize people (Fals-Borda, 2006; Reason, 1994). The article refocuses the utilization of PAR to address issues of inequality and oppression on behalf of marginalized groups, through the work of Paulo Freire and Orlando Fals-Borda, who were instrumental spreading PAR to international audiences.

Literature Review By placing research and methods in the hands of those most directly affected, PAR attempts to democratize knowledge production and utilization in addressing and attempting to change local problems (Appadurai, 2006; Fals-Borda & World Congress of Participatory Convergence in Knowledge, 1998; FalsBorda, 1987; McTaggart, 1991, 1997; Schensul, Berg, Schensul, & Sydlo, 2004; Schensul, Berg, & Williamson, 2008). The roots of PAR go back to social scientists seeking alternative approaches to traditional social science approaches and ways to create change through action research (Lewin, 1946; McTaggart, 1997). In the traditional model, the objective researcher conducts research on subjects

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in communities and returns to the university to reap benefits by publishing research in obscure journals, while the research subjects would neither read, hear about, nor benefit from the research (Blakey, 1999). In Participatory Action Research, participation expands throughout the entire research process and the knowledge production becomes democratized; the theoretical influences of Paolo Freire, Orlando Fals-Borda and other social scientists remain critical to Participatory Action Research (Fals-Borda & Rahman, 1991; Freire, 2001, 2004; Minkler, 2000). Freire tied pedagogy to the development of political consciousness and critical reflection about structures of oppression and domination; instead of the banking model of education that was used to disempower, Freire utilized pedagogy for liberation (Freire, 2001). While others have critiqued the class basis of Freire’s political consciousness, Freire later acknowledged the sexism within his work and argued for the elimination of all forms of oppression (Collins, 1998; Freire,  2004). Freire’s pedagogy of liberation centers on critical reflection, problem-posing education, and the investigation reality in order to transform it; popular education shares with Participatory Action Research the commitment to create change by directly involving those affected by issues through critical readings and understanding of oppressive conditions and actions to change those conditions (Reason, 1994). PAR has been used particularly within education to examine and address inequalities. Education researchers have critiqued the way that schools function within Western societies function to maintain and reproduce class inequalities (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Giroux, 1983). Yet and still in these early critiques of education, the role of students themselves were largely absent from the works (Levinson & Holland, 1996; Willis, 1977). Other researchers extended analysis of cultural production of student resistance and social and cultural reproduction through critical race and intersectionality theory, examining the multiple ways in which oppression, privilege and disadvantage are reproduced across race, gender and class, locally and globally (Bourgois, 2003; Crenshaw,  1991; Fine,  1991; Foley,  1990; Holland & Eisenhart,  1990; Levinson et al., 1996; Willis, 1977). Utilizing the same theoretical critique of education, another group of scholars extended their critical analysis by utilizing participatory action research to actively engage students—particularly marginalized, urban poor youth of color—in changing their schools and communities (Cammarota & Fine,  2008a; Schensul et  al.,  2004). Bringing Freire’s critique of the banking model of education and the utilization of literacy to inform the critical consciousness of the structures that maintain inequalities in the lives of poor, illiterate people, these scholars utilized Participatory Action Research as the tool to engage youth in investigating their reality in order to change it (FalsBorda, 1979; Freire, 2001). Fals-Borda initiated early international promotion of PAR projects that moved beyond Lewin’s articulation with a radical critique of objectivity in science (Fals-Borda,  2006; Haraway,  1988; Rahman,  2008). Fals-Borda (2001) led

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a group of scholars in organizing the spread of PAR through the organization of the first World Symposium for Action Research and subsequent other meetings that globalized PAR theory and practice. PAR increased in popularity and ­Fals-Borda warned of co-optation of PAR by development projects and others (Fals-Borda, 2006; Reason, 1994). Fals-Borda (1979) advocated sustained commitment on the part of PAR researchers. Since 1988, the Institute for Community Research has had a long history of and commitment to Participatory Action Research. Two of the initial projects were the Urban Women’s Development Project and the Urban Women Against Substance Abuse (UWASA) project, which resulted in the curriculum Empowered Voices: A Participatory Action Research Approach Curriculum for Girls. Various PAR projects involved working directly with youth: the Summer Youth Research Institute: the Teen Action Research Institute: the Sexual Minority Youth Action Research Project: Youth Action Research for Prevention: Diffusing Youth-Based Participatory Action Research for Prevention. ICR’s history of over twenty-five years conducting community-based research with various partners of residents and community organizations—with PAR as one of the main avenues— helped facilitate the current project by building upon past connections and relationships, even as new relationships needed to be formed with new partners (­Schensul et al., 2004; Schensul et al., 2008). Despite challenges to creating radical, structural change, PAR, situated in particular social contexts, remains critical to emancipatory social science (Schensul et al., 2008). The popularity of community participation in research has spread across academic disciplines and funding agencies as well. In part, this growth also stems from community resistance to particular interventions in their communities in which they did not have active participation. The growth in PAR is in line with the growth in other community based research approaches such as Participatory Research, Action Research, CommunityBased Participatory Research, Community Based Appraisal, and  Community Based Evaluation (Zubaida et al. 2007). We argue that PAR is dedicated to work with oppressed and disenfranchised people, to lead to critical understandings of the world, and to the highest degree possible to include participation in research design, collection, analysis, dissemination and action (Reason, 1994). In our model, residents engaged in all aspects of research process: selecting issues that affect them, choosing appropriate methods, collecting data, conducting analysis, disseminating results and designing action strategies. Research educators acted as facilitators—adding knowledge of research methods and data analysis—as part of the group’s collective decisionmaking process and co-­ construction of knowledge. PAR, then, is an approach to research, a process and a goal. The methods of research are still qualitative and quantitative methods, though negotiation and adaptation of methods occur; the approach emphasizes active participation and shared control of throughout all stages of research (Schensul et al., 2008).

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Role of Researchers Critical to the development of PAR project is the establishment of relationships between research educators and community residents. REs initially began to form these relationships—as well as increase their own understandings of community dynamics—through exploratory ethnography. While one of the research educators, a Latina, had grown up in Hartford and had an educator and counseling background, she had not worked as a researcher previously.2 The other research educator, an African American, was new to Hartford but a graduate student in anthropology. The REs took lead roles in different ends of the city, with the North End being traditionally African American and ­Caribbean American and the South End being Latino, predominately Puerto Rican. REs walked the streets of particular neighborhoods, mapped key institutions, and interviewed leaders of the community and of neighborhood organizations. This served as an introduction of the REs and the project to neighborhood leaders and provided background information on key neighborhood issues, as well as generated some support for the project locally. Additionally, these leaders were often contacted later by residents seeking additional information or assistance with their issues. Equally important to the project was the history of collaboration that ICR developed with various community partners over the years, which demonstrated a commitment to participation, community empowerment, capacity building of neighborhood institutions and the development of local knowledge. Additionally ICR’s Institutional Review Board members had deep roots in the city. This history leveled some mistrust of research in the community but not totally; new groups of residents had themselves not worked directly with ICR, and their trust had to be developed through their relationships with the research educators; this continued engagement and collaboration with residents, organizations and communities led to greater internal validity, rigor and trustworthiness of findings (Schensul & LeCompte, 2012).

Methods Following the work of PAR theorists Freire (Freire, 2001) and Fals-Borda (1979), the groups “read” the world around them—through existing local knowledge and new knowledge produced through data collection and analysis—identified the ways in which they were disadvantaged or oppressed, and sought ways to alleviate problems for themselves and for their community. Various research methods were used to investigate issues: interviews, surveys, focus groups, pilesorting, mapping, photography, and secondary data collection. The methods employed depended upon the issue and the skills and interests of  For the third year of the project, the Latina RE left the project. Her replacement was a Latino male with local community organizing experience.

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the group. Resident researchers selected the issues to investigate and came up with many of the questions to pursue. One of the challenges in participation was to be open to individuals with various skills and literacy levels—to be as democratic as possible—but also to include some people already connected to local institutions, in order to develop other linkages of support for developing projects. Beyond this loose desire for a group with mixed skills levels, there was no other expectation for participation other than a desire or interest in creating change in their communities. Everyone participated in the construction, development, and conduct of the research project, including data analysis, even with differences in skill levels. There were four different groups of resident researchers (RRs). The first South End group had 8 RRs, the second South End group had 12 RRs, the first North End group had 10 RRs, and the second North End group had 15 RRs. The resident researchers were recruited primarily through two different methods: through referrals by agencies in the community such as the Family Resource Centers—run by a local non-profit organization—located within two elementary schools or contacted directly by the REs. The first South End group of RR were all Puerto Rican, with some invited through referrals from interviews by the REs with key informants from community organizations or social service agencies, while others came through REs participating in local community health fairs and events; this group was primarily in their late 20s-early 30s, several with some college and mostly bilingual, and most of this group had not been active in the community. The first North End group, primarily African American, was also invited through a combination of referrals from community organizations and neighborhood leaders, as well as from presentations at community events and block clubs. This second group tended to be an older group, with four members in their 30s and 6 over 50, and had been active in community organizing in their neighborhood. Karen Brown, the coauthor, was a member of this group and the rest of the group was split between those who had a high school diploma and those with some college. Several in this group owned their homes, so they were economically secure. The third and fourth groups were both invited through Family Resource Centers within neighborhood elementary schools, with very different results. The third group was a primarily monolingual Spanish-speaking group, with greater diversity than the primarily Puerto Rican first group, with many of the residents being immigrants from various Latin American countries; they were all parents in the 20s–30s with young schoolchildren and were less educated, with many not having a high school degree, less connected to community agencies, and economically poorer. The fourth group was also a fairly younger group, all parents in the 20s–30s with young schoolchildren, primarily African American and ­Caribbean American, most with high school degrees and more connected to two elementary schools; they were a group who realized that their previous parental involvement led to greater opportunities and better education and treatment for their children within the schools and who had just begun to think about advocating for and organizing other parents.

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Through consultations with participants, the research educators arranged meeting spaces at schools or other key institutions in the community. Meeting for three hours, one night per week, over the course of sixteen weeks, participants discussed issues affecting their communities, integrated their personal histories with histories of communities and migration, selected research issues, created research models, received trainings in research methods, collected data on their issue, analyzed the results and designed action strategies. The research models outlined the variables affecting the research issue and served as ground level theory to guide the research project (Schensul & Lecompte, 2012). Meetings began with dinner catered by a local restaurant or a local agency working with people in recovery. After dinner, children were taken to a separate room with a childcare worker provided by the project, while adults worked together. The first South End Cohort of mostly young Puerto Ricans included six members who either worked for local agencies or had some experience in activism. Of the eight total residents, only two were monolingual Spanish speakers and the rest were bilingual. The group selected student outcomes for public school students as their issue, and in particular focused on how school resources and parental involvement affected student performance and outcomes. They conducted two focus groups, one in Spanish and one in English, with parents from the elementary school about parental involvement and school resources. They also conducted pilesorting to refine their research model and to determine the cognitive models for resources and whose responsibility it is to provide them: families, schools, or government. They examined school district inequities through secondary data sources from the State Department of Education. Research educators transcribed the recordings of the focus groups and explained the process of coding data with resident researchers. RRs then color coded data, utilizing their research models as an initial coding scheme to which they added as they went along. The first North End cohort, which included some older African American activists, chose to investigate how homeownership and involvement affected the physical and social conditions of the neighborhood. They observed, photographed and mapped the social and physical conditions on four blocks and combined the mapping data with secondary data from the city’s assessor’s files to determine owner-occupied houses. Resident researchers interviewed block residents on their perspectives of the block, relationships with neighbors, and feelings about ownership and involvement on the block and in the community. RRs and REs created a large map on which they overlaid data, which included photos of houses, the observation notes of the houses, interviews from residents, and data on owner-occupied houses from the City’s Accessor’s files. The second South End cohort was predominantly monolingual Spanish speakers, with much less formal schooling than the first South End group. Many were unemployed, with children attending the local school where we met. Despite the presence of their children at the school, the group selected how the quality

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and quantity of trainings available in Spanish affects the economic conditions of community residents. The group conducted a survey of parents of the school to determine the types of trainings people desired, a map of key institutions that offer programs and trainings in the neighborhood, and interviewed key informants who identified the school as a key resource that could be developed further into a community school. The survey instrument was developed in Spanish by the RRs and REs, and the RRs surveyed parents before and after school. The REs explained the data entry process to RRs, who assisted in imputing data in SPSS. Together the group ran calculations for the survey results, with the REs providing translations of data into English.3 The second North End group, similar to the first South End cohort, focused on how family involvement affected student achievement. They worked to increase families’ access to and knowledge about resources as a way to increase family involvement. The group conducted 25 individual interviews and a survey of parents. The research educators transcribed the individual interviews and explained coding to the resident researchers. RRs and REs then color coded the interviews, utilizing the research models as an initial coding tree, to which they then added as they coded. Codes were then analyzed for particular themes. Similarly, REs explained SPSS to RRs, who helped input data into SPSS. Additionally, several times during the projects, groups from the North and South Ends came together to share information of their respective research projects. Individuals across groups also began to form friendships and connections through these meetings. The idea was to build PAR groups working in particular neighborhoods but also to create PAR networks across neighborhoods through the city.

Results The results of Participatory Action Research extend far beyond the research results. PAR is also process for raising the consciousness of oppressed people and then taking action to address inequalities (Fals-Borda, 1979; Freire, 2001). The results of the PAR project included the development of cross-­neighborhood understanding and collaboration, individual and collective voice, capacity building at individual collective levels, as well as action results by residents that emerged from their data analysis. PAR is a cyclical process involving reflection, research, and action. The first South End conducted two focus groups, one in English and one in Spanish, with 28 parents of one elementary school in Hartford, CT. The focus group questions centered on two of the main independent variables, parental involvement and school resources, from the groups’ research model.  The majority of the residents who participated in the project were women, despite numerous invitations to male residents to participate by the REs. Males who stayed connected to the projected generally participated alongside their female partners.

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RRs recruited participants for the focus group, developed the questions and facilitated the focus group discussion. REs provided logistical support and child care for focus group participants and RRs. RRs analyzed the transcripts from the focus groups and discovered the ways in which parents felt the school’s climate discouraged parental involvement, as well as the additional services and resources parents felt the school should provide. The parents detailed stories of miscommunication between parents and teachers and staff at the school, the lack of trust between parents and the school, and the cultural conflict between predominantly Latino parents and the school, all of which impacted the level of parental involvement. The focus group also indicated the ways that parents felt that the school was under-resourced, in terms of tutoring, transportation and services, which were confirmed using secondary data for the State Department of Education. As the themes began to emerge the group also began to think about action strategies they would use based upon the data they collected. The first North End group observed, photographed and mapped the social and physical conditions on four blocks and conducted interviews with 16 residents’ perspectives of the block, relationships with neighbors, and feelings about ownership and involvement on the block. RRs conducted and recorded the interviews in the homes’ of block residents, REs did the majority of the transcriptions of the interviews, and RRs and REs together color coded and analyzed the interview transcripts; the research models again served as an initial coding tree to which they added as they went along. Surprisingly the First North End group found through analyzing the interview data that several residents felt positively about the connections between neighbors on the block—though they also expressed that the block had lost some of its neighborliness. Many people knew their neighbors, spoke to them regularly, and visited them. Several had been involved in block club activities before and perceived that people were less unified today. The residents who were homeowners felt that renters were not as committed to maintaining property and were less involved. However, the group discovered that renters were more involved in the local community, only their involvement was with the local neighborhood schools as opposed to the block activities. The group confirmed through observations, photography and mapping that owner-occupied homes were better maintained physically. Based upon these results, the group also began to examine ways to encourage greater neighborhood involvement and improve conditions on the block. At meetings with city of Hartford officials, the group argued for street level improvements for neighborhoods after documenting the physical and environmental conditions of their neighborhoods and block parties to promote social bonds on their blocks. They applied for and received a block improvement grant from the City from Hartford. The second South End group conducted interviews with key informants and surveyed 149 parents of one elementary school about levels of English proficiency and the effect of the quality and quantity of training affect the economic

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conditions of parents at the school. They discovered found that a majority of parents were young (26–35), spoke little or no English, were unemployed, felt they missed job opportunities because of their inability to understand English and would prefer to attend trainings conducted in Spanish. There was a wide variety of classes that people were willing to take to improve their possibilities for employment, with mechanics/electrical work and culinary arts ranking highest. The group discovered that while most parents recognized that the lack of English was a barrier to employment, they also wanted to improve their skills while they were learning English. Building upon this discovery, one resident took the lead and applied for received a small grant to offer culinary classes in Spanish. The group continued to advocate in Hartford, with the support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, for full service community schools that would offer trainings and services to families after school hours. The second North End group, through their analysis of interviews with 25 ­parents, found that previous experiences with teachers and school staff negatively affected parents’ involvement in the school. Only one of the twenty five parents interviewed had positive experience with school administration. Parents felt cut off and rushed in meetings and felt that teachers and school staff were uncooperative. As one parent added, “It’s the attitude of the staff. I feel they do not even want me in the building.” This sentiment was also confirmed through surveys, where 45% of parents indicated that negative experiences with school staff and teachers had diminished their involvement in the school. For their action strategies the group wanted to encourage more parental involvement by having parents view the school as more of a resource for parents. The group identified resources available for children and families in the community and prepared a resource packet for parents. The group organized meetings for parents where they discussed issues that parents had with the school and detailed and distributed resource packets. The group also confirmed that parents who were more involved in the school or community were more aware of and took advantage of extracurricular programs available for children. Based upon their research, the second North End group formed a school store at an elementary school. The store—run by parent and student ­volunteers— increased the level of parental involvement in the school and became a vehicle for funding other school activities and increasing resources available to parents. Each group produced new knowledge through their research, presented the results of their research in the local community, and designed and conducted action strategies. “Here comes another group wanting to research our neighborhood,” one resident initially responded, echoing the general consensus of the cohort groups in the North End of the city. The residents expressed frustration over how several organizations, both locally and nationally, came into the neighborhood over the years conducting surveys and interviews with residents about neighborhood conditions, the effect of community based organizations (CBOs) on resident involvement, and resident opinions on various issues and projects. Residents were left with nothing to show for their participation: no data,

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no reports, articles and no positive change. These experiences contributed to the initial suspicion of North End residents about the project. A key component in working with the residents on this project was developing trust and assurance that their work and efforts would be heard. The REs constantly repeated to residents that this effort was resident-driven and that they were only facilitators who provided technical assistance in this project. Setting up the weekly meetings in a warm atmosphere in the neighborhood where resident researchers lived helped the residents engage with each other and assisted in forging relationships that would continue after the initial work of the project was completed. Having dinner together at every meeting helped to reinforce that the project was a team effort and gave a sense that people were sharing a common, yet unique experience together. Over time, resident researchers and research educators developed close, supportive relationships. They celebrated birthdays, graduations, and visited each other’s homes, as well as supported each other through job losses and illnesses. The unfolding of relationships beyond the research project was pivotal to overcoming mistrust of research, as well as continued commitment to the research projects beyond sixteen weeks. The close collaboration between REs and RRs led to greater internal validity, rigor and trustworthiness of the findings (Schensul & LeCompte, 2012). As part of the project, the research educators facilitated cross-­neighborhood meetings between North and South End resident researchers. Alternating ­Spanish and English, RRs came together to share their issues and were surprised to discover that they shared concerns for many of the same issues: academic achievement, neighborhood conditions, parental involvement, and resources for parents, children and schools. At one of these meetings, RRs together constructed a banner that had images and stories of children and families, culture, neighborhoods, and involvement. In other joint meetings, RRs presented and discussed issues that they were working on and explored ways that the groups could support each other. The striking moments in these cross-neighborhood sessions were the discoveries of similarities in the issues that people were facing; RRs repeatedly expressed surprise over this fact. Each one saw the other as having a more organized community and more capable of handling issues because of the high degree of  organization. North and South End cohorts strongly identified the education  of students, parental involvement and resources for schoolchildren and parents as a high priority. While both, to varying degrees, saw the structural problems facing their communities in urban education—inadequate funding, greater staff turnover, more substitute teachers, a curriculum designed to score higher on standardized tests, and high numbers of suspensions, dropouts and children in special education—they also knew that parental involvement in neighborhood schools meant better treatment from school staff for children, more accurate placement, and better access to resources and knowledge that would help their children and ultimately lead to a better education. The residents found common ground and communicated even though some of the residents from the South

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End were monolingual Spanish speakers only and the North End residents were mostly monolingual English speakers. One of the incredible results of PAR are the particular changes that one witnesses throughout the process, in finding individual and collective voice, moving towards an understanding of the research process and building capacity in individuals, groups and community organizations. The difficulty of quantifying these results for reports to funders remains a challenge for the expansion of PAR projects. We want to attempt to qualitatively highlight these positive changes that do not often go into reports. Mrs. Rose, an older resident and already an established leader who had been involved in community organizing and demanding accountability from local officials talked about one the impacts that came out of their research project. I never thought I could do research. But we did it. And I was in a meeting, and someone was talking about their research. I asked ‘who did the research, how many people did you talk to, what questions did you ask, how did you get people, how did you ask the questions’, and I thought about it, and it was all that I learned from doing research. Now whenever someone comes into our neighborhood trying to do something, I ask them about their research.

Previously, the presentation of research results was a form of knowledge she felt she could not question. She could still question them on her own knowledge and experience, but now she could also question on research knowledge grounds. The use and abuse of research on minority populations has a long and storied history. Even today, most decisions about the future of communities are made outside of those communities, and research plays a part in those discussions. And while power influences and shapes knowledge (or ignores it entirely), one of the positive developments of researchers committed to doing community-­ based research, as well as researchers continually coming into communities in traditional ways, is the familiarity that distressed communities can develop  in relation to researchers, in understanding research, as well as the politics of research (Blakey, 1999). Communities and individuals can and do demand further exchange and community benefits through the process, as well as question the process and results of the research. The individual and collective sense of power is real. Jammie was not as adept as Mrs. Rose at public speaking and, in fact, was terrified of addressing audiences. The combination of speaking in public and speaking as an authority on her concern about parental involvement in education, while frightening, was critical to her, particularly in her not native English. And for many, events where they presented their research to families, other parents and community residents, as well as representatives from public schools, service agencies and community organizations, were their first times speaking as authorities in this country. For those who never finished high school, this was a particular powerful moment because not only had each gone through a process of seeing their individual self as an actor, but they also came to see themselves together as

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actors who organized and advocated on behalf of others, who were silent and oppressed. Even for people who were somewhat active in their communities, these were particularly powerful moments. The residents in the North End cohort who performed research by mapping were amazed at how much fun they had observing homes in the neighborhood and could appreciate the beautiful architecture of the homes, the majority of them being built in the 1920s and 1930s. The biggest surprise to them was that their data collection disputed citywide data, which stated that twenty-five percent of the homes in this neighborhood were owneroccupied. After doing their research, they discovered that the percentage of owneroccupied properties on their blocks was significantly higher, fifty-one percent. While they could not identify the reason for the discrepancy, they continued to advocate for increased City resources for the poorer neighborhoods, and not simply downtown. The process of building and establishing trust and relationships, caring, concern and commitment, time and emotional investment to each other extended beyond the life of the project. The process was transformative in the ability to create small scale social change. Individual transformation and new networks formed. Resident researchers began to see themselves as change agents and ambassadors for their neighborhoods. They began to form alliances and networks with providers in the community. For one cohort, as a result of their weekly meetings at an area dance school, a couple of the elder participants were invited by the school leaders to participate in the school’s annual “rites of passage” program as recognized community elders. The networks that were formed with the participants in the groups were invaluable. Social movement theorists often talk of the varied activisms and networks of individuals, as people move around and between New Social Movements—peace, environmental, feminist and racial justice movements (Escobar & Alvarez, 1992). Similarly, for those whose activism began in the PAR project, several expanded into other areas. One couple began to get involved deeply in local environmental organization, with one eventually becoming a board member of the organization. Informally, members of one cohort formed their own mutual aid society, with each member contributing some form of assistance to those in need. Several expanded their involvement with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Making Connections efforts in the city, serving as member of various committees, well beyond the support for our PAR project. Three became editors of a local community newsletter, and one of them continued and helped expand a pilot small grants program that began at ICR. Each group felt that the completed a research project was an enormous success. Resident educators discovered more about issues central to them, attained new skills and had their voices heard; for residents with limited English or formal education this was particularly important. After participating in this project, residents felt that they did have the power to make changes in their community. They were able to better scrutinize research efforts presented by others and had more confidence in asking questions about

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the process. Several of the residents involved in this project went on to participate in other community research projects, and some had the opportunity to participate further in MC’s Resident Leadership Participation training. At the group level, residents saw themselves together as advocates for others who were silenced and oppressed in their communities. While a few already saw themselves as advocates, for many it was their first experience. Additionally, through the process, the different groups of Latino and African American/­ Caribbean residents saw that issues such as quality education for school children, and neighborhood conditions and economic opportunities unified their respective communities. They drew upon each other to bridge traditional divisions in the city to support efforts across the Latino and African American/Caribbean communities. Resident researchers identified critical community problems—quantity and quality of trainings for Spanish speaking residents, the social, environmental and physical conditions of neighborhoods, and the educational outcomes for ­schoolchildren—and took actions to provide more trainings and increase the resources to their schools and neighborhoods. Both resident researchers and research educators would have liked to further project ideas by increasing their scale and partnering with effective coalitions to support residents’ ideas. The project succeeded in creating individual and group level change, as well as achieving projects with community impact. Individuals became actors in their communities and increased their own skill levels and their capacity for conducting and understanding research. Residents expanded their own networks and participated in various other efforts in their communities. Residents saw themselves and acted as advocates for other residents. Both the processes and products of PAR were critical to the successes of the project.

Discussion The process of conducting PAR, as well as the tangible products or outcomes from PAR, are critical at individual, group and wider community levels. At the individual level, the poorer, less educated residents, who often did not speak English, saw themselves as actors and change agents in their communities for the first time. They stood before audiences of school administrators and other officials and advocated for others in their community. The process of PAR allowed for the integration of residents’ existing knowledge and skills with new knowledge and skills they gained through participating in inquiry and action. To shift from being silenced and battered by the world to believing that one can, together with others, change the world and attempting to do so is a tremendous feat. Even greater still is the ability to advocate not solely for your own interests, but seeing yourself as one of many, and advocating on behalf of others as well. Even for more experienced residents, who had been active in their communities previously, the process of research became demystified for them as they conducted their research projects (Appadurai,  2006; Borda,  1979; Reason  &

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Bradbury, 2006; Schensul et al., 2004; Schensul et al., 2008). Their research contributions, together with their own existing knowledge of their communities, provided a more authoritative platform to speak about issues affecting their communities and propose and enact action strategies for changing their communities. Most critically, PAR was useful for engaging residents, no matter their levels of English, education or activism. While the results of PAR projects are not generalizable in the manner of probabilistic sampling techniques, PAR has the ability to engage residents across various intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, education, language, age and neighborhood (Crenshaw,  1991; Levinson & Holland,  1996; Schensul  & LeCompte, 2012; van der Meulen, 2011). These results are consistent with PAR projects that focus on education, on health, and other issues (Cahill,  2007; ­Cammarota & Fine, 2008a, 2008b; Fals-Borda & World Congress of Participatory Convergence in Knowledge, 1998; Fals-Borda,  1979, 1987; Faridi, Grunbaum, Sajor Gray, Franks, & Simoes,  2007; McTaggart,  1997; Minkler,  2000; Schensul et al., 2004; Schensul et al., 2008). The implications of the PAR project suggest continued support and commitment on behalf of academically trained researchers, universities and funders to the expand democratic participation in research and the production of knowledge (Appadurai, 2006; Fals-Borda, 2006; Reason, 1994; van der Meulen, 2011). This version of PAR encourages higher degrees of participation, longer term funding and support for PAR projects, and a sustained focus on oppressed people critically investigating the world in order to change it.

References Appadurai, A. (2006). The right to research. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 4, 167–177. Blakey, M. (1999). Beyond European enlightenment: Toward a critical and humanistic human biology. In A. H. Goodman & T. L. Leatherman (Eds.), Building a new biocultural synthesis (pp. 379–405). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Borda, O. F. (1979). Investigating reality in order to transform it: The Colombian experience. Dialectical Anthropology, 4, 33–55. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society, and culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bourgois, P. I. (2003). In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge, MA: ­Cambridge University Press. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Cahill, C. (2007). The personal is political: Developing new subjectivities through participatory action research. Gender, Place & Culture, 14, 267–292. Cammarota, J., & Fine, M. (2008a). Revolutionizing education: Youth participatory action research in motion. New York, NY: Routledge. Cammarota, J., & Fine, M. (2008b). Youth participatory action research: A pedagogy for transformational resistance. In J. Cammarota & M. Fine (Eds.), Revolutionizing education: Youth participatory action research in motion (pp. 1–12). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Collins, D. E. (1998). Review essay: From oppression to hope: Freire’s journey toward utopia. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 29, 115–124. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299. Escobar, A., & Alvarez, S. E. (1992). The making of social movements in Latin America: Identity, strategy, and democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Fals-Borda, O. (1979). Investigating reality in order to transform it: The Colombian experience. Dialectical Anthropology, 4, 33–55. Fals-Borda, O. (1987). The application of participatory action-research in Latin America. International Sociology, 2, 329–347. Fals-Borda, O. (2006). Participatory (action) research in social theory: Origins and challenges. Handbook of Action Research: Concise Paperback Edition, 27–37. Fals-Borda, O., & Rahman, M. A. (1991). Action and knowledge: Breaking the monopoly with participatory action research. New York, NY: Apex Press. Fals-Borda, O., & World Congress of Participatory Convergence in Knowledge, S. (1998). People’s participation: Challenges ahead. New York, NY: Apex Press. Faridi, Z., Grunbaum, J. A., Sajor Gray, B., Franks, A., & Simoes, E. (2007). Communitybased participatory research: Necessary next steps. Preventing Chronic Disease, 4. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1955426/ Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts: notes on the politics of an urban public high school. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press. Foley, D. E. (1990). Learning capitalist culture: Deep in the heart of Texas. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Freire, P. (2001). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Freire, P. (2004). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 53, 257–93. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14, 575–599. Holland, D. C., & Eisenhart, M. (1990). Educated in romance: Women, achievement, and college culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Levinson, B. A., Foley, & Holland, D. C. (1996). The cultural production of the educated person critical ethnographies of schooling and local practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Levinson, B. A., & Holland, D. C. (1996). The cultural production of the educated ­person: An introduction. In B. A. Levinson, D. E. Foley, & D. C. Holland (Eds.), The cultural production of the educated person: Critical ethnographies of schooling and local practice (pp. 1–54). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2, 34–46. McTaggart, R. (1991). Principles for participatory action research. Adult Education Quarterly, 41, 168–187. McTaggart, R. (1997). Participatory action research international contexts and consequences. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Minkler, M. (2000). Using participatory action research to build healthy communities. Public Health Reports, 115, 191–197. Rahman, M. A. (2008). Some trends in the praxis of participatory action research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of action research (pp.  49–62). London: SAGE Publications.

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Reason, P. (1994). Three approaches to participatory inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. ­Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 324–339). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2006). Handbook of action research: Concise paperback edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schensul, J., Berg, M., Schensul, D., & Sydlo, S. (2004). Core elements of participatory action research for educational empowerment and risk prevention with urban youth. Practicing Anthropology, 26, 5–9. Schensul, J. J., Berg, M. J., & Williamson, K. M. (2008). Challenging hegemonies: Advancing collaboration in community-based participatory action research. Collaborative Anthropologies, 1, 102–137. Schensul, J. J., & LeCompte, M. D. (2012). Essential ethnographic methods: A mixed methods approach. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Van der Meulen, E. (2011). Participatory and action-oriented dissertations: The challenges and importance of community-engaged graduate research. The Qualitative Report, 16, 1291–1303. Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR16-5/ vandermeulen.pdf Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Author Note Kenneth M. Williamson is currently an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Geography and Anthropology and the Interdisciplinary Studies Department at Kennesaw State University. Correspondence for this manuscript can be made to Kenneth M. Williamson, PhD at the following: Department of Geography and Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies Department, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144. Karen Brown is currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut. This project was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, through their Making Connections Initiative. Marlene J. Berg served as director of this project. Kenneth Williamson, Nelba Marquez-Greene and Reinaldo Rojas served as the principal REs on the project. Karen Brown was one of the RRs and served in various levels of the Annie E Casey Initiative. Federico Cintrón-Moscoso, Robert Rooks, Franklin Torres, Bildade Augustin and Maritza Lopez provided critical support and insight into the project. Copyright 2014: Kenneth M. Williamson, Karen Brown, and Nova Southeastern University.

Article Citation Williamson, K. M., & Brown, K. (2014). Collective voices: Engagement of Hartford community residents through participatory action research. The Qualitative Report, 19(72), 1–14. Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR19/williamson72.pdf

Trust the Process Reflections on Participatory Action Research Karen Brown McLean Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT [email protected]

Kenneth Williamson Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA [email protected]

We are thrilled to be a part of a growing interest in participatory action research (PAR), which strives to be the most democratic and participatory of a number of similar approaches (action research, community-based research, communitybased participatory research). PAR allows community members, experts, researchers, and other players to work together and merge their shared knowledge to address community problems. Ken, a researcher from the Institute for Community Research, was one of the “research educators” (REs) who joined community residents like Karen, whom we identify as “resident researchers” (RRs). Community residents, leaders, and researchers conducted research and implemented action strategies together in partnership. To be successful, first and foremost, we needed to build trust and rapport – both are critical to good qualitative research, but even more so to PAR. When conducting PAR, listening to community residents and validating their experiences are integral to both establishing a trusting relationship and empowering them to fully participate in the research. Community residents must be supported and have a sense that the knowledge they bring is as valuable as the knowledge they will acquire in becoming RRs. Several older residents had limited knowledge about research but lots of life experience. Less formally educated residents may feel less competent in working with younger, more educated researchers. African Americans and other people of color often distrust researchers due to the atrocities from Tuskegee experiments and historical abuses by the medical community (Engel & Schutt, 2009). Some residents shared painful memories of researchers who came in “peddling hope” about neighborhood change and ultimately offered nothing. Some older people may be resistant to engage in

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the research because they doubt their ability to learn new material. Many shared their fears around speaking in public, particularly those who were not fluent in English. The REs needed to be cognizant of these concerns and consciously work together with residents to overcome them. To establish rapport and build trust, we began by recognizing the local knowledge of the group. We shared stories about residents’ experiences and histories in their neighborhoods, schools, and communities. REs encouraged RRs to identify the focus of the research and take the lead on that research; subsequently community residents were not only eager to participate, but also carried out the data collection and action strategies. We were impressed by the inclusive process and by the fact that the REs were young people of color who had connections with communities in Hartford. Additionally, for REs like Ken who had training in qualitative methods, humility was extremely important to building trust. Because graduate school training emphasized carefully designed research proposals before research began, REs had to guard against their academic training in directing research projects, give up control, and instead facilitate the research process. They had to trust in the organic nature of the process where the group would determine the topic and the direction of research and subsequent actions. It was fun for everyone to collaborate, go out together, and meet folks in the neighborhood that you often saw but never had the opportunity to meet. In doing so we forged relationships with those who took part in our interviews, but who were not involved with neighborhood groups, and some of them began to show up at neighborhood meetings following the interviews. People were empowered through the process of taking ownership of the research and through the connections made with other residents. The sense of community was key and REs had to be particularly mindful of group interactions and process. REs noted absences or lack of participation and followed through with residents. Oftentimes, these were related to life events, such as illnesses, job losses, or changes. We worked together to help support each other during difficult times. REs also had to be open about sharing their lives and experiences with the group as part of the trust building. REs were also mindful of group momentum, balancing short-term action strategies to build momentum and efficacy and long-term social change. The result of our work went beyond published research findings. Resident researchers spoke confidently about their ability to conduct research on their own neighborhoods and develop relevant results, not “fancy numbers” imposed by some researchers to whom they had little or no connection. Residents met and shared dinners, activities, and results with residents from other neighborhoods. African American and Latino residents, who often do not engage with each other because of the polarization of communities in Hartford along racial and ethnic lines, enjoyed coming together, sharing research and experiences, and supporting one another in their action strategies. The PAR project produced a richness of knowledge and connections among city residents. Through the efforts of building trust, being engaged in all aspects of the project, and building capacity, we worked together to carry out the research.

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For example, we accomplished the task of analyzing the impact of home ownership and involvement on the physical aspects of our community; this experience demystified research, minimized mistrust, and empowered residents who took actions to improve their neighborhood. Many of the RRs discovered that they were conducting research in their daily lives, whether through observations of the people around them or tracking criminal activity on their blocks by tagging license plate numbers. There were many connections made through our collaborations, with interesting intersections: seniors working with younger people, homeowners with renters, Latinos collaborating with African Americans, longtime residents learning from recent immigrants. We found that the collaborative nature of PAR promoted change in the neighborhoods and schools. The methodology offered a way to build upon local knowledge, establish connections between people, and jointly engage in research and action that was relevant for people’s lives, schools and communities.

Reference Engel, R. J., & Schutt, R. K. (2009). The practice of research in social work (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mixed Methods In this edition of Qualitative Research in Practice, examples of what is known as a  mixed-methods research design are included because they contain a qualitative, as well as a quantitative component. Mixed methods is an approach to research in the social sciences and applied fields of practice wherein “the investigator gathers both quantitative (closed-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data, integrates the two and then draws interpretations based on the combined strengths of both sets of data to understand research problems” (Creswell, 2015, p. 2). For some time now researchers have “mixed” qualitative and quantitative research designs. Take for example, the questionnaire in a survey study that has some open-ended questions: Responses to these open-ended questions may be analyzed as qualitative data; or, informal interviews may be conducted to better understand a phenomenon before constructing and administering a survey ­instrument—­understandings that then inform survey construction. Despite the growing use combining quantitative and qualitative, it is only in the last twenty years or so that many, but not all, have accepted mixed methods as a research design in its own right. There is still some debate whether you can “mix” methods that draw from very different philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality (are there multiple realities constructed by individuals, or is there one reality that can be measured?). There are scholars who contend that researchers should not mix quantitative and qualitative methods because of these incompatible epistemological underpinnings. Others take a position that researchers can “adapt their methods to the situation,” and others still are very pragmatic in believing “that multiple paradigms can be used to address research problems” (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011, p. 26). Greene (2007) for example, suggests there is “way of thinking” specific to the mixed-method approach: A mixed methods way of thinking involves an openness to multiple ways of seeing and hearing, multiple ways of making sense of the social world, and multiple standpoints on what is important and to be valued and cherished. A mixed methods way of thinking rests on assumptions that there are multiple legitimate approaches to social inquiry, that any given approach to social inquiry is inevitably partial, and that thereby multiple approaches can generate more complete and meaningful understanding of complex human phenomena. (p. xii)

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Patton (2015), known for writing about and engaging in qualitative research and evaluation methods, thinks mixed methods might be particularly appropriate, “even preferred” for program evaluations (p. 317). While acknowledging the arguments “against methodological mixing” he points out that in program evaluations “human reasoning is sufficiently complex and flexible that it is possible to research predetermined questions and test hypotheses about certain aspects of a program while being quite open and naturalistic in pursuing other aspects of the program” (pp. 319–320). It seems mixed methods are now a viable design option with resources available to those who raise complex questions about aspects of social practice. There are handbooks on mixed methods, journals devoted to reporting mixed methods studies, and funding sources calling for mixed methods proposals. Although there are numerous possibilities for combining qualitative and quantitative components in the same study, Creswell (2015) identifies three of the most common designs, which he labels: convergent, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential. In a convergent design both qualitative and quantitative data are collected more or less simultaneously. For example, in trying to assess residents’ needs in a community development project, researchers might interview community leaders while at the same time administering a survey to a cross-section of community residents. The interview and survey data are analyzed somewhat simultaneously with the goal of deriving a set of findings that represent the perspectives of both community leaders and residents. In an explanatory sequential design (Creswell, 2015) quantitative data are collected first, most often through a survey, but an experimental component is also possible, followed by a qualitative data collection component, usually i­nterviews with selected respondents from the quantitative component. These interviews are intended to better explain the quantitative data. The third design, the exploratory mixed methods research design, reverses the order of data collection of the explanatory sequential design; that is, qualitative data are collected first, and then a survey is created based on an analysis of the qualitative data. The three designs proposed by Creswell highlight the order in which qualitative and quantitative data are collected. In reality, often one form of data in a mixed methods study is more prominent than another. In acknowledging this unevenness in data collection, and the presence of primary and secondary research questions, Plano Clark et al. (2013) prefer instead the label “embedded designs” (p. 223), in which one type of study is “embedded” within the other. Each of the mixed methods studies in this volume illustrates a different mixed methods design. Clark-Gordon, Workman and Linvill’s (2017) study of college students’ use of Yik Yak, a short messaging app, employed what Creswell calls an exploratory mixed method design. In this design, qualitative data are collected first, followed by a quantitative component. The researchers first interviewed 12 students and derived tentative themes. They then conducted a quantitative content analysis of thousands of Yaks (messages) from students at 24 colleges. They found that the quantitative component generally confirmed the qualitative findings.

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Abdul-Razzak, Sherifali, You, Simon, and Brazil’s (2015) study of patient perspectives on physician behavior during end-of-life (EOL) communications used a “convergent” mixed method design. The authors employed both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods more or less simultaneously. In their study, 16 patients were interviewed in the same period as they administered the quality of communication (QOC) instrument to 132 patients. Both data sets were analyzed simultaneously in the data analysis stage. Figure 1 in their article is a helpful diagram of the “flow” of a mixed methods study. In their reflection on this method, the researchers felt that this convergent mixed methods design yielded a “more holistic understanding” of the phenomenon than could be gained from a single data collection method.

References Creswell, J. W. (2015). A concise introduction to mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V. (201l). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Greene, J. C. (2007). Mixed methods in social inquiry. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Plano Clark, V., Schumacher, K., West, C., Edrington, J., Dunn, L., Harzstark, A., & Miaskowski, C. (2013). Practices for embedding an interpretive qualitative approach within a randomized trial. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 7(3), 219–242.

Chapter Seventeen

College Students and Yik Yak An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study “Fave game to play while driving around Emory: not hit an Asian with a truck,” was just one of many controversial statements posted on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak since its 2013 debut (Mahler, 2015). But is this sort of inflammatory statement truly reflective of the typical student experience using Yik Yak? This study explores both student’s self-reported experiences with the smartphone application Yik Yak and content posted by student users in the app to develop a better understanding of how and why the platform is employed. Findings from this study will be essential to university administrators in understanding Yik Yak culture and community building on campuses across the United States. Yik Yak differs from other social media platforms in how it combines anonymity with a location-based user experience. Yik Yak enables users to post short messages, or “yaks,” anonymously to a twitter-like feed that can be viewed by other online users within a close geographic proximity while affording users the opportunity to “peek” at other campuses’ feeds. Users also have the ability to determine a yak’s success by upvoting or downvoting content. A yak that receives more upvotes results in a higher position on the feed, and a yak that receives more downvotes results in a lower position or removal from the feed. In 2016, Yik Yak has added new features in an attempt to keep its user base engaged and garner more profits (Perez, 2016). Such new features include the option to include a handle, or username, with posts and the ability to send private messages to other users. Since its creation, media attention surrounding Yik Yak has focused on negative examples of students using the app (Bailey, 2014). Media coverage has focused on the app being used for bomb and shooting threats on high school and college campuses (Glum,  2014) to the sexual harassment of students and teachers (Mahler,  2015). The creators of Yik Yak have responded to concerns about abuse and misuse by allowing school administrators to request a geofence that will disable the application around a campus and by releasing user identification information to law enforcement authorities for investigation purposes. Clark-Gordon, C. V., Workman, K. E., & Linvill, D. L. (2017). College Students and Yik Yak: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study. Social Media + Society, 3(2), 2056305117715696.

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Despite these corrective steps, however, the app remains controversial with the public (Magid, 2015). Although the app has received an abundance of media attention, little scholarly research has yet been conducted examining the platform. The app’s popularity continues to grow on school campuses, and as it becomes a part of students’ daily lives, further research could offer a more comprehensive understanding of the role of anonymous communication technologies that are embedded within campus communities. To more fully understand the role of Yik Yak on campuses and in students’ lives, we must first understand the ways in which the app is used. This study triangulates qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the question, “How do students use Yik Yak?”

Anonymity Within the communication discipline, research on anonymity has varied from its role in whistle blowing (Near & Miceli,  1985) and its contribution to identity management (Erickson & Fleuriet, 1991) to its effect on group polarization online (Sia, Tan, & Wei, 2002). Overall though, research on anonymity has been carried out in very specific settings (Rains & Scott, 2007) and has been criticized for the lack of available theoretical models (Williams, 1988). Scott (1998) defined anonymity as “the degree to which a communicator perceives the message source as unknown or unspecified” (p. 387). In other words, anonymity is not considered a binary, but rather it can operate as a construct on a continuum. Studies demonstrate that anonymous communication platforms result in an increase in disinhibited behavior (Joinson, 2001; Pinsonneault & Heppel, 1997; Suler, 2004). Social networking sites like Whisper and Secret afford user anonymity because users are more likely to disclose personal information when they can do it anonymously (Joinson, 2001). Anonymous communication allows users to stray from social and cultural norms (Schoenebeck, 2013) which can, therefore, affect the content that is produced. Correa et  al. (2015) further examined the complex relationship of anonymity and content in a comparative quantitative content analysis of Whisper and Twitter. The study found that individuals on Whisper did not only exhibit disinhibiting behavior because of his or her anonymity but also used anonymity to express wants, needs, and wishes. Correa et al.’s (2015) study demonstrates the complexities of anonymous communication specific to two social mediums. Birnholtz, Merola, and Paul (2015) examined the role of anonymity on yet another social media platform, Facebook confession boards (like Yik Yak, a tool popular on some college campuses). These researchers found users willing to ask about taboo or stigmatized topics and, despite characterizations to the contrary, little evidence of cyberbullying or negativity. Omernick and Sood’s (2013) case study of a social news site which moved from allowing anonymous comments to disallowing them, however, found more swearing, anger, negative affect, and negative emotion words with anonymous comments than with real identity comments. Yik Yak has received limited scholarly attention. Northcut (2015) conducted a quantitative study on Yik Yak that explored the percentage of Yaks that are

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location dependent (i.e., carry meaning that is location specific) and the rhetorical purpose of yaks at a Midwest university, defining four categories for yaks, including shock, joke, inquire, and emote. Northcut (2015) found 20% of the yaks were coded as shock, while 25%-33% were coded as a joke. An additional study of Yik Yak across different college campuses over a 3-day period of time found that nearly half of content featured revolved around campus life and announcements or proclamations (Black, Mezzina, & Thompson,  2016). Quantitative analysis by McKenzie, Adams, and Janowicz (2015) supported these findings and, further, compared how Yik Yak is used relative to Twitter. This research found that the topics addressed on these two platforms differ greatly. Yik Yak was shown to have a greater range of topics, and these topics tended to be more localized and geographically dependent than those found on Twitter. Unsurprisingly for the researchers, Yik Yak was also dominated by themes that matter to young adults. This research employed exploratory mixed-methods approach that utilizes phenomenology and quantitative techniques in order to explore the question, “How do students use Yik Yak?” Results will offer insight into the experience students have engaging with the platform and the nature of the content generated. This knowledge will allow us to better understand how anonymity and a locationspecific user experience, features fundamental to Yik Yak, shape how a platform is employed.

Research Design An exploratory mixed-methods approach was chosen for this project in order to capture a well-rounded understanding of the phenomenon. According to Creswell (2013), “a mixed methods design is useful to capture the best of both quantitative and qualitative approaches” (p. 22). This analysis of Yik Yak employed two sequential studies. Study 1 sought to qualitatively understand students’ experiences with Yik Yak, while Study 2 quantitatively examined Yik Yak content. Creswell (2013) defines this method as a sequential exploratory approach; quantitative data are intended to explain and develop a deeper understanding of the qualitative findings. Together, these studies can more fully explore how and why the Yik Yak social media platform is employed by users.

Study 1 Study 1 asks the question, “How does the student user experience Yik Yak?” To examine ways in which students use Yik Yak, we interviewed students to ask them to self-report their experiences.

Participants for Study 1 Twelve individuals who had experienced using the smartphone application Yik Yak were asked to self-report their experiences in an interview. Polkinghorne (1989) suggests that phenomenological studies should be conducted using interviews, with anywhere from 5 to 25 separate individuals. Criterion sampling was

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employed to recruit 12 individuals with experience using Yik Yak. Participants for this study were recruited from general education communication courses at a large Southeastern university. This sample was purposefully chosen so that students from a diverse array of majors and backgrounds were involved in the study. The ages of the participants varied from 18 to 21 years. There were seven female and five male participants. Students’ years in college varied from freshman to senior. Ethnicities of the participants were predominantly Caucasian, but included African American and Hispanic students as well. Students had a wide variety of areas of study, ranging from Biology to Industrial Engineering to Computer Information Sciences. Overall, the interviews lasted 30-40 min per participant, and the researcher did not utilize any follow-up sessions.

Methods of Analysis for Study 1 This transcendental phenomenological study was conducted following Moustakas’ (1994) modifications of the Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen method. Open-ended, one-on-one, semistructured interviews were conducted with the participants. The interviews were audio and video recorded and then transcribed. After the interviews were transcribed, all participants were given pseudonyms. Each participant was asked 10 primary interview questions. Students were asked to describe how they used Yik Yak, describe the experience of reading others’ Yaks, describe how they felt when they read yaks that they did or did not agree with, and what the use of Yik Yak meant to each student. As outlined by Creswell (2013), this process began with the researcher listing all experiences with the phenomenon. Then, those experiences were set aside throughout the data analysis phase to successfully bracket the information so that the focus was on the participants of the study. Next, a list of significant statements was developed, horizonalizing the data, treating each statement as equal. Once the list of significant statements emerged, the final list of “non-repetitive, non-overlapping” statements was created (Creswell, 2013). The statements were then turned into units of meaning or themes, and from these themes, a textural description of what the participants of the study had experienced with the phenomenon using verbatim examples was developed. Next, the researcher wrote a structural description of how the experience happened. The researcher reflected on the setting and context in which the phenomenon was experienced. The last stage of analysis was writing a combined description of both the textural and structural descriptions, therefore describing the overall essence of the phenomenon. According to Creswell (2013), the essence is typically a long paragraph that tells the reader “what” the participant’s experiences with the phenomenon were and “how” they experienced it (i.e., the context). Moustakas (1994) argues that the goal of this synthesis is to successfully illustrate the meanings and essences of the experience.

Results of Study 1 A concise list of all results from Study 1 can be found in Appendix Table 1.

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Textural Description The descriptions of what students experienced were deduced into six themes through the process of horizonalization: information seeking, entertainment, external dissemination of information, and moderating. The theme entertainment also takes into consideration the subtheme of time occupation or the phenomenon that the app is used to procrastinate or take up time by users. Under the theme of moderating, it was found that there was a subtheme of prevention of and reaction to cyberbullying. Information Seeking. All participants spoke of Yik Yak to seek out information. Particularly during inclement weather, participants spoke of Yik Yak as a primary source for finding details on school delays and cancellations. Another area of information seeking stems from the college environment in which Yik Yak is used—looking for information on meeting times for classes and organizations, class cancellations, or warning incoming students of pop quizzes: I primarily use it [Yik Yak] to see what time things are on campus, like when there is a speaker or a concert or a related campus event. If you forget what time something is, everyone is really helpful when you ask.

Students also spoke of the spread of information that can unite the student body, such as wearing the school’s color on a specific day when rallying together over a student who had passed away. One student said that they like to watch out for sales that are going on at local restaurants or stores, or “where the puppies are” when others are walking their dogs on campus or a student organization is having a stress-relief event that brings animals to campus for students to play with. Entertainment. Another primary use of the app for students is to seek entertainment. Every one of my participants said that they “enjoy the humor,” are “looking for a laugh,” “upvote clever and witty comments,” or “like the relatable, funny ones [yaks].” Topics considered humorous that get a fair amount of attention in the app, according to participants, were relationships, dining hall food, jokes about football games, relatable college experiences and throwback jokes, or jokes that bring out nostalgia from childhood relating to toys, food, popular television shows, and so on: Most of the time you can see some amusing stuff, and sometimes I’ll think of something funny that I want to share to a greater audience than my Twitter followers. I try to keep it clean and not offensive because I feel like some people hide behind the anonymity of the app and call out other groups or specific individuals.

A recurring topic was Yaks that were “relatable,” generally meaning that users are making humorous statements about situations that everyone might go through or can relate to: When I participate, I usually will try to answer someone’s question, ask a question myself, or say something that I think is funny, specifically something that

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related to my own life. For example, my most upliked Yak was “Struggle as a class, fail as a class, get a large curve as a class.” Obviously, people will enjoy things they relate to so that’s what I’ll yak.

Time Occupation. All participants said they used Yik Yak as a “time killer,” as a means to “procrastinate,” when they are “bored,” to “occupy time,” or “when class is boring.” Many mentioned scrolling through Yik Yak during times such as waiting for a teacher to start class, at dining halls, or when procrastinating from doing homework. Several also mentioned that they scroll through Yik Yak right before bed to fall asleep. External Dissemination of Information. Many participants spoke about taking a picture of the screen with their phone, or taking a screenshot, of Yaks that they thought were particularly relatable. A screenshot is generally taken on a smartphone by holding down two buttons in unison, such as the home button and the lock button on the iPhone. They do this so that they can either show it to friends or send it to them in a text message. This phenomenon gains complexities when the message in a Yak is directed at a specific person and a group of friends come together to try to figure out who the subject of the Yak is: I like to screenshot the funny ones. When I find ones that are relevant to friends or people I know, I will screenshot them and send them to them in a text or in a GroupMe chat. It is especially funny when you think one [a Yak] was about a person so you send it to them to see.

Some participants reported that when they thought they were the subject of a Yak that they liked the attention, depending on the context, while others reported that it was embarrassing to be on Yik Yak at all. Moderation. All 12 participants described the urge to serve as a moderator of the content that appears on Yik Yak. When a yak is posted, it can get upvotes to gain popularity or downvotes to lose it. Once a yak receives five downvotes, it is removed from the app and the list of recent yaks. Participants spoke about feeling the need to downvote content they find “annoying,” “insensitive,” “ignorant,” “crude,” and “downright mean”: It really brings up red flags as to the people who surround you everyday. When a yak makes me angry, I will often downvote it and comment on it, but I try not to get involved in any arguments or attacks. I usually just post “be careful of what you say” or something like that.

Other students mentioned that racial and religious debates on Yik Yak are often unproductive, and if there is a dissenting opinion, it often gets downvoted “into oblivion,” making it hard for everybody’s voice to be heard. Certain participants specifically spoke of the frustration when that happens and feelings of helplessness: When I see something that makes me really mad, particularly, like, ignorant jokes about race or the gay community, or people trying to shove religion down

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your throat, it has gotten to the point where I don’t bother trying because I know what I say will be downvoted, so I just exit out of the app instead and cool off.

Another aspect of moderating stems from an issue of originality— many participants stated that there are repetitive posts on Yik Yak, or content that is stolen from another source, such as Reddit. Many reported that when they have seen something before on Yik Yak, if they see it again they downvote it because they know the person is copying from an original poster or an “OP,” a term which is used frequently in comments on Yik Yak to refer back to the individual who originally posted the yak. Another phenomenon that participants frequently spoke of was the “−4.” Once a yak has five downvotes, it is removed from the app. Because of this, many participants felt that it was their personal responsibility to extinguish yaks forever by being the fifth person to downvote them or, in converse, save them by upvoting and changing the number of downvotes to “−3” and hoping that others will do the same. Cyberbullying. A last major theme spoken about by participants is cyberbullying. While only about half of participants used that specific word, all the participants spoke of cruel comments made within the app and how certain individuals can be singled out. Participants stated that they thought people who posted on Yik Yak about others who had an accident like falling down the stairs or throwing up in public was demeaning and making the humiliation even more public, albeit anonymously: Sometimes you’ll see things that are offensive and you’ll be surprised at how many people upvoted the Yak instead of downvoting them, and those are usually racially charged.

Participants also spoke about how, especially when “out” at a party or a bar, people will post particularly hurtful things on Yik Yak using the actual names of people and that certain individuals have unfortunately become “memes” in the campus community because everyone posts about them. While participants cited very specific examples, direct quotes were not included here to protect the identities of participants and potentially those in the surrounding college community.

Structural Description The structural description of the “how” or the context of students’ experience with Yik Yak included three major contextspecific locations: in the classroom, in the dorm room or apartment, or out on the town or at a party-type social situation. It is worth mentioning that a smartphone, Internetenabled mp3 player or tablet running Apple’s iOS, or a version of Android software was required to experience this phenomenon. Specifically, students have been using location-aware smartphones to post to the app, and the availability and access to a smartphone would

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play a major role in one’s ability to participate in the online, in-app community of Yik Yak. In the Classroom. All 12 participants noted that they ultimately use Yik Yak in the context of the university, specifically in the classroom. Many of the students spoke about utilizing the app when they arrive to class early or are waiting for a teacher to arrive. One student specifically mentioned which class they like to use it in, and another mentioned that you frequently see students utilizing the app at dining halls on campus. In the Dorm Room. The dorm room or campus apartment was another common context in which to use Yik Yak among participants interviewed. Everyone cited roommates and friends as those they talk to about Yik Yak on campus and particularly like to share humorous ones with each other. Out on the Town. Partying culture and students has always been a large topic at universities, and many students spoke on how Yik Yak perpetuates that. Because of its anonymous nature, participants stated that people were not afraid to post the location of parties. A common theme would be to exchange Snapchat or Kik usernames so that there could be a private conversation about where the location of the party or gathering was. Because the service is location-based, participants also stated that they liked to use Yik Yak to see what was going on at certain places, like if a “certain bar was dead” or if there were any specials at restaurants that weren’t advertised elsewhere.

The Essence of Student Experience With Yik Yak By combining both the textural and structural descriptions of users’ experience of Yik Yak, it can be concluded that all Yik Yak users go through the themes of information seeking, entertainment, external dissemination of information, and moderating. Under the themes of entertainment and moderating, it was found that there were subthemes of time occupation and prevention of and reaction to cyberbullying, respectively. As far as how the student participants experience Yik Yak, location-aware smartphones or Internet-enabled tablets/mp3 players are a requirement for downloading and using the application, as well as three central themes of context: in the classroom, in the dorm room, or out on the town. These locations are primarily where students engage with the app, and the way in which they engage generally falls under one or more of the aforementioned themes. Generally students seek information or humor in using the app, particularly while trying to kill time, but the use of the app could result in the moderation of content or screen capturing and sending “relevant” posts to friends via text messages or email messages outside of the app.

Discussion of Study 1 The results of this study suggest that Yik Yak serves as an anonymous forum for public discussion on college campus. Study 1 findings initially support those of McKenzie et  al. (2015) in that users reported engaging on topics that are

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predominantly specific to their campus location as opposed to, for instance, discussing national or international politics. It has been suggested that Yik Yak is a platform that is used for cyberbullying (Whittaker & Kowalski, 2015). Participants of this study acknowledged that while they primarily use Yik Yak to look for entertaining, witty, or relatable quotes and comments while killing time, there may be other users who engage in cyberbullying and other hateful speech, particularly in regard to religion and race. It is important to take the voices of users into consideration when considering such messages on Yik Yak. When reflecting on these qualitative results, it is also important to recall that these experiences are both self-reported and originate with students at a single university, hence the importance of gathering content-related data from many universities to explore what additional information quantitative data may indicate and whether this differs from the experiences expressed by users.

Study 2 While Study 1 focused on how students self-reported using Yik Yak, Study 2 employed content analysis of yaks from 24 different schools. The purpose of Study 2 was to further explore student experiences with Yik Yak by examining the nature of the content posted on the platform and triangulating these results with the results of Study 1. The combination of quantitative results with the qualitative findings of Study 1 offers more complete insight into this unique anonymous social media platform. It should be noted that before undertaking Study 2, the researchers attempted to set aside, or bracket, the results of Study 1. Data analysis for Study 2 was done with no a priori assumptions about how the data should be interpreted. As Jick (1979) contends, “triangulation may also help uncover the deviant or off-quadrant dimension of a phenomenon” (p. 609). Study 2 explored the following research questions: RQ1. What types of messages (yaks) appear most often in both the “hot” and the “new” bulletins on the social media platform Yik Yak? RQ2. What differences, if any, exist between the “hot” and the “new” bulletins on the social media platform Yik Yak?

Sample of Study 2 The sample institutions were chosen from US News & World Report’s 2014 rankings of best colleges and universities (Best College Rankings and Lists,  2014). Every ninth school was chosen from the top 50 national universities and the top 50 liberal arts colleges to produce a sample that had 12 colleges from each list. Every ninth school was chosen as opposed to every tenth because it resulted in a more diverse sample, as when every tenth school was chosen, our sample was limited because 9 of the 12 national universities were in California. An additional requirement for inclusion in the sample was an active Yik Yak feed that could be read and collected via the “peek” feature of the app.

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Procedure of Study 2 Content analysis is used for classifying large amounts of data in order to find meaning (Krippendorf,  2013). In all, 10 yaks from the “new” bulletin and 10 yaks from the “hot” bulletin were collected using the “peek” feature in the app. Researchers collected screen captures from the feeds of the 24 different schools using smartphones on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every other week for a 6-week period. Yaks were collected at 10 a.m., 3 p.m., or 9 p.m. each week and rotated to ensure that at the end of the data collection period, yaks were collected once at each time on each day. This sampling method allowed for a maximum sample size of 4,320. It should be noted, however, that in the process of taking screenshots some yaks were only partially recorded. In cases where a yak could not be seen in its entirety, it was removed from the data set (often first or last yak in the sampling attempt would be cut off by the screenshot). This resulted in a total final sample of 3,903, of which 1,985 yaks were from the “new” bulletin and 1918 yaks from the “hot” bulletin. Due to the nature of this study as an exploratory mixedmethods study, with the goal of triangulation, once the yaks were collected the researchers created a codebook through open coding (Flick, 2008). Per Flick, open coding enables a researcher not only to break down and understand a text but also to develop categories to which those texts can be assigned. Open coding is the process by which “similar events and incidents are labeled and grouped to form categories” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 74). This process is not meant to be used for large narratives and blocks of text, but rather it is meant to be used for smaller units such as sentences and should result in codes and categories (Flick, 2008). Open coding was an appropriate choice for this study because our unit of measurement, the yak, is limited to 200 characters. Due to this limit, yaks are often only one or two sentences, like that of a “tweet” on Twitter. Previous coding schemes for anonymous social media content analyses were deemed unfit for various reasons. Correa et  al.’s (2015) coding scheme was based on condensed categories available for users to post under in anonymous app Whisper, and because Yik Yak has no preset categories, such codes would not have been fitting or useful for this study. In Northcut’s (2015) content analysis, coders had difficulty reaching consensus on categorizing yaks, so it was decided among researchers that it would be best for a new coding scheme to be developed. To perform open coding, we began with the categories that emerged from Study 1. However, many yaks could not accurately be placed into the initial categories. Due to this, we began emergent coding, separating the yaks into exhaustive, clearly defined groups, based on the perceived intent of the yak author. As researchers methodically categorized yaks, different categories and meanings began to emerge. Researchers then discussed differences and definitions of each category until we had a comprehensive codebook and reached saturation, a point where all yaks could clearly fit into a single category. The codebook included

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clear definitions as well as multiple examples of yaks from each of the seven different categories. The descriptions of the categories and a few examples from this study can be found in Appendix Table 2. After the codebook was completed, two researchers coded a random subsample of 200 yaks to test for intercoder reliability. Yaks were only coded into one category, as the codebook was exhaustive. These codes, totaling 400, where then brought into SPSS software and compared for reliability, finding a Cohen’s κ value of .90, which has been previously reported as above acceptable values (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, & Bracken,  2002). The remaining sample of yaks on both bulletins was divided evenly between two researchers for coding. The yaks on the “new” (n=2,160) bulletin and the yaks on the “hot” bulletin (n=2,160) were coded on separate spreadsheets, and the yaks from the national universities (n=1080) and the yaks from liberal arts colleges (n=1080) were kept separate within each spreadsheet.

Results of Study 2 The total number of yaks for each category recorded for both the “new” and “hot” bulletins can be seen in Appendix Figure 1. We observed significant differences between categories employed in the new bulletin relative to the hot bulletin, χ2(14) = 4,125.74, p < .01. Information sharing was the most commonly employed category of yak comprising nearly 39% of all new yaks. This category was less popular on the hot bulletin but still comprised nearly 24% of these yaks. The second most common category of yak was the lament category which comprised just over 18% of all new yaks. This category was also less common in the hot bulletin, making up about 13% of these yaks. Humor yaks comprised roughly 15% of all new yaks but were relatively more common on the hot list, comprising over 28% of these yaks. The relatable category also had a disproportionate representation on the hot list, making up 11% of all new yaks but more than 18% of the hot bulletin. The context-specific, grievance, and trending topics categories each represented at or below 10% of both the new and hot yaks.

Discussion of Study 2 The results of this content analysis allow us to better understand how Yik Yak is being used around a sample of college campuses. The categories identified in the quantitative results generally confirm the qualitative findings, with some possible discrepancies. Given the wide range of themes identified and the locationspecific nature of many yaks, Study 2’s findings reinforce those from Study 1 in supporting previous research by McKenzie et al. (2015). Users were not discussing cultural or political issues as they might on other social media platforms, but engaging on a wide range of topics specifically important to their campus community and to individuals of a similar age.

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Students seem to be employing the platform for entertainment, as they reported, both through humorous and relatable posts as found in the content analysis. Other research has indicated other platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are commonly used for humor. Carr, Schrock, and Dauterman (2009) found in a content analysis of students’ Facebook and Myspace posts that humor was used 20% of the time, similar to the results of this study. Other research has looked at humor in the context of breaking news on Twitter. Highfield (2015) found that individuals use tweets to modify and appropriate punchlines of jokes in attempts to receive increased attention and to create new jokes, raising questions of authorship and attribution, a phenomenon which may also carry over to Yik Yak. The use of Yik Yak for information seeking and sharing was also supported through yaks found in the content analysis. Additionally, the interviewees from Study 1 reporting acting as moderators of posts containing objectionable content, including cyberbulling, were partially supported in Study 2. No content that could be construed as cyberbullying (i.e., directly targeting an individual by name, rude or hateful remarks directed an individual, etc.) was identified in any university’s “hot” list explored. However, those yaks classified in the context-specific category could have been aggressive or akin to bullying in nature, but because they were outside of the researchers’ frame of reference and realm of understanding, they were not coded as such. The quantitative findings also identified ways in which Yik Yak seems to be utilized which were not previously discussed by users. Yik Yak seems to be a tool for students to express grievances or to lament issues they have with both the personal life and the campus community. Together, these yaks accounted for 22% of all new posts, yet this type of use was not addressed by the participants in the interview data. It is notable that information sharing was the most popular category on the new list and still prevalent on the hot list. This suggests that Yik Yak serves as a platform for community building because students upvoted Yaks seeking or giving information to move them higher up on the feed for others to see and engage with. This aligns with other research that claims Yik Yak is “benign” for college students, unlike media portrayals (Black et al., 2016). Another notable difference on the hot versus the new list is the prevalence of yaks that fall into the humor category. Humor only comprised 15% of new yaks but comprised 28% of hot yaks. This suggests that students are more likely to respond positively to a yak intended to entertain than they are to a yak in any other categories. These results, while similar to previous findings, provide a more indepth look at why and how students engage with Yik Yak, in terms of their lived experiences and content found within the app. Similar to Northcut’s (2015) reports of 25%-33% of yaks coded as a joke, this study reports up to 28% of yaks as humor. However, unlike previous studies, this content analysis offers greater depth and breadth in what content is posted in the app, as well as what has greater salience in measuring the differences between the “new” and the “hot” yak feeds.

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Conclusion The combined results from Studies 1 and 2 facilitate a better understanding of the role Yik Yak plays on college campuses. Although both media (Bailey, 2014; Glum,  2014; Mahler,  2015; Shontell, 2015) and student respondents in Study 1 reported the existence of cyberbullying on Yik Yak, no example was identified in the quantitative data examined in Study 2. Because cyberbullying and deviant behavior were mentioned among interview participants frequently in Study 1, it is most likely that some yaks were miscoded due to misinterpretation or coded into the “context-specific” category. Location is an inherent factor to understand the context of the posts made on Yik Yak (Northcut, 2015), making coding the intent of a user when posting challenging. Conversely, the lack of cyberbullying yaks in the data set of Study 2 suggests that many students are not endorsing the activity and utilizing the “downvote” feature of the app, just as they reported in Study 1. Furthermore, this disconnect could indicate larger social misconceptions of Yik Yak. It is possible that students who have not truly witnessed much cyberbullying on Yik Yak, if any at all, assume that greater amounts of cyberbullying exists because of portrayals in the popular media. Yik Yak is the first anonymous social media platform that allows users to regulate the content feed as opposed to just interact with it or view it. Even though users had the ability to endorse acts of cyberbullying without consequence, it seems they may still be reframing from doing so and may, in fact, be actively downvoting such content. The most commonly endorsed yaks were humor and information sharing and seeking, suggesting that Yik Yak serves as a source of entertainment for college students as well as a platform for campus community building, which aligns with the self-reported use of Yik Yak in Study 1. The role of “moderation” as described by participants in Study 1 also explains the differences in the content of the “new” and “hot” feeds found in Study 2. Those yaks that are moderated and upvoted make it to the “hot” feed, while those that get downvoted or no attention cease to exist. The only theme found in Study 1 that cannot be explored in Study 2 is that of “external dissemination of information”—there is no way of considering how yaks are being shared outside of the app in a content analysis. While not specifically mentioned by Study 1 participants, the use of a lament or grievance, as found in Study 2, provides social support for individuals, which strengthens the effect of campus community building. Chen (2004) indicates that for students to have a strong sense of community on a college campus, they need an open environment where free expressions are encouraged and individuality is accepted and respected. Yik Yak may serve as the platform to provide this environment to college students. Future research should look further at the concept of social support on Yik Yak and specifically how it aids in campus community building. In addition to the need for social support, because Yik Yak users feel free to complain on the app it raises questions on the idea of perceived anonymity. Drawing from Scott’s (1998) definition of anonymity, which considers perceived

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anonymity as a spectrum, Yik Yak users feel that there is enough anonymity afforded by the app to disclose complaints, grievances, and laments without fear of self-presentational concerns. Rains and Scott (2007) posit that anonymity allows individuals to focus more on the content of a discussion rather than the identities of individual contributors. This could be explained by Walther and Parks’ (2002) idea of “cues filtered out” during computer-mediated communication, in conjunction with social identity/deindividuation (SIDE) (Spears & Lea,  1992), concepts that explain communication without nonverbal cues promotes greater group identification. Because student users of Yik Yak feel like they are a part of a community on the app, they follow the group’s social and communicative norms— habits that were formed because of the pseudo-anonymity provided by the app.

Limitations and Future Research While this study took a triangulated approach to minimize drawbacks, it recognizes limitations are associated with any study. For this research, specifically, Study 1 was conducted with participants at one Southeastern university, so the demographics represent the population of this university, and uses and perceptions of Yik Yak may vary from school to school. While Study 2 utilized a diverse sample of yaks, future quantitative research could focus on collecting a more diverse, far-reaching sample to understand Yik Yak culture at varying universities. Additionally, the data collection for both Studies 1 and 2 was cross-sectional in nature, and longitudinal data collection, outside the span of 6 weeks, could paint a fuller picture of what content can be found within the app. One other major limitation of our method of data collection was the timing of collecting screen captures of yaks for different schools’ feeds. None of the times of data collected represented any “late night” talk that may happen within the app, potentially excluding provocative data. This study also recommends several directions for future research. Yik Yak has recently added a function that allows users to upload photos to the app, which adds complexity to the app and could put it into a visual category with apps like Snapchat. Another feature recently added by the app is the ability to create a handle, or username, and either turn that function “on” or “off,” affording users the ability to be anonymous or pseudo-anonymous at their discretion. These new features of the app provide areas for future research to consider. Another avenue for potential research is further exploring the role of the theme of “moderation” of other users on Yik Yak, found in Study 1. Participants in Study 1 reported that they would downvote undesirable content. Therefore, cyberbullies may avoid Yik Yak because of its self-regulating nature and understanding that their attempts may backfire. To further understand this phenomenon, future research could look at other anonymous platforms to explore the presence of cyberbullying, which would aid in understanding if the upvote/downvote system of Yik Yak plays a role in the decision to post certain types of content.

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Yik Yak combines anonymity and a location-based user experience in a unique way relative to other major social media platforms. This study has attempted to explore and understand the Yik Yak user experience and user-generated content so that we can better understand how these features interact. After 3 years of consistent growth, Yik Yak has seen declines (Mannes, 2016). Only time will tell whether there is a permanent place in the online eco-system for this specific platform. Regardless of the Yik Yak’s future, however, the affordances which have made it popular will continue to be important to understanding how we use and engage with social media.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article.

References Bailey, L. (2014, November 6). “Yik Yak” app facilitates cyber abuse. The Phoenix. Retrieved from http://swarthmorephoenix. com/2014/11/06/yik-yak-app-facilitates-­ cyber-abuse/ Best College Rankings and Lists. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/ best-colleges Birnholtz, J., Merola, N. A. R., & Paul, A. (2015, April 18-23). Is it weird to still be a virgin? Anonymous, locally targeted questions on Facebook confession boards. CHI 2015—­Proceedings of the 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Crossings, Seoul, Republic of Korea. doi:10.1145/2702123.2702410 Black, E. W., Mezzina, K., & Thompson, L. A. (2016). Anonymous social media—Understanding the content and context of Yik Yak. Computers in Human Behavior, 57, 17-22. doi:10.1016/j. chb.2015.11.043 Carr, C., Schrock, D., & Dauterman, P. (2009, June). Speech act analysis within social network sites’ status messages. Conference Paper. International Communication Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 1-38. Chen, D. X. (2004). Students’ sense of campus community: What it means, and what to do about it. NASPA Journal, 41, 216-234. doi:10.2202/1949-6605.1331 Correa, D., Silva, L. A., Mondal, M., Benevenuto, F., & Gummadi, K. P. (2015, April). The many shades of anonymity: Characterizing anonymous social media content. Ninth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, Palo Alto, CA. Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among the five approaches (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: SAGE. Erickson, K. V., & Fleuriet, C. A. (1991). Presidential anonymity: Rhetorical identity management and the mystification of political reality. Communication Quarterly, 39, 272289. doi:10.1080/01463379109369803

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Flick, U. (2008). Managing quality in qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Glum, J. (2014, November 10). In growing trend Yik Yak users post anonymous bomb threats—And get caught. International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www. ibtimes.com/growing-trend-yik-yak-users-post-anonymous-school-bombthreats-getcaught-1721543 Highfield, T. (2015). Tweeted joke life spans and appropriated punch lines: Practices around topical humor on social media. International Journal of Communication, 9, 2713-2734. doi:1932-8036/20150005 Jick, T. D. (1979). Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: Triangulation in action. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 602-611. doi:10.2307/2392366 Joinson, A. N. (2001). Self-disclosure in computer-mediated communication: The role of self-awareness and visual anonymity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 177-192. doi:10.1002/ejsp.36 Krippendorf, K. (2013). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., & Bracken, C. C. (2002). Content analysis in mass communication: Assessment and reporting of intercoder reliability. Human Communication Research, 28, 587-604. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x Magid, L. (2015, March 1). Banning Yik Yak from college campuses is counterproductive. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-magid/ banning-yik-yakfrom- coll_b_6779168.html Mahler, J. (2015, March 8). Who spewed that abuse? Anonymous Yik Yak app isn’t telling. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/technology/ popular-yikyak- app-confers-anonymity-and-delivers-abuse.html Mannes, J. (2016). Fading anonymous social network Yik Yak is laying off most of its employees. Techcrunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/­ fadinganonymous-social-networkyik- yak-is-reportedly-laying-off-most-of-its-employees/ McKenzie, G., Adams, B., & Janowicz, K. (2015, November 3). Of oxen and birds: Is Yik Yak a useful new data source in the geosocial zoo or just another Twitter? ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Location-based Social Networks, Seattle, WA. doi:10.1145/2830657.2830659 Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Near, J. P., & Miceli, M. P. (1985). Organizational dissidence: The case of whistle blowing. Journal of Business Ethics, 4, 1-16. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4126-3_8 Northcut, K. M. (2015, July 12-15). Dark side or insight? Yik Yak and culture on campus. 2015 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), Limerick, Ireland. Omernick, E., & Sood, S. O. (2013, September 8-14). The impact of anonymity in online communities. 2013 International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom), Alexandria, VA. Perez, S. (2016, April). Yik Yak tries to make a comeback with launch of private chat. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/yik-yak-tries-to-makea-comeback- with-launch-of-private-chat/ Pinsonneault, A., & Heppel, N. (1997). Anonymity in group support systems research: A new conceptualization, measure, and contingency framework. Journal of Management Information Systems, 14(3), 89-108. doi:10.1080/07421222.1997. 11518176

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Polkinghorne, D. E. (1989). Phenomenological research methods. In R. S. Valle & S. Halling (Eds.), Existentialphenomenological perspectives in psychology (pp. 41-51). New York, NY: Plenum. Rains, S. A., & Scott, C. R. (2007). To identify or not to identify: A theoretical model of receiver responses to anonymous communication. Communication Theory, 17, 61-91. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00288.x Schoenebeck, S. Y. (2013, June). The secret life of online moms: Anonymity and disinhibition on YouBeMom.com. International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM), Boston, MA. Scott, C. R. (1998). To reveal or not to reveal: A theoretical model of anonymous communication. Communication Theory, 8, 381-407. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.1998.tb00226.x Sia, C. L., Tan, B. C., & Wei, K. K. (2002). Group polarization and computer-mediated communication: Effects of communication cues, social presence, and anonymity. Information Systems Research, 13, 70-90. doi:10.1287/isre.13.1.70.92 Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1992). Social influence and the influence of the “social” in computer-mediated communication. In M. Lea (Ed.), Contexts of computer-mediated communication (pp. 30-65). London, England: Harvester-Wheatsheaf. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research (Vol. 15). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE. Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 7, 321-326. doi:10.1089/1094931041291295 Walther, J. B., & Parks, M. R. (2002). Cues filtered out, cues filtered in. In G. R. Miller (Ed.), The handbook of interpersonal communication (pp. 529–563). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Whittaker, E., & Kowalski, R. M. (2015). Cyberbullying via social media. Journal of School Violence, 14, 11-29. doi:10.1080/15388220.2014.949377 Williams, R. (1988). Reflections on anonymity. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 67, 763-766. doi:10.2466/pms.1988.67.3.763

Author Biographies Cathlin V. Clark-Gordon (MA, Clemson University, 2016) is a PhD student in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University. Her research emphases revolve around computer- mediated communication and instructional communication, and she is presently interested in the affordances of anonymity and pseudo-anonymity, studying their implications in social media and online learning environments. Kimberly E. Workman (MA, Clemson University, 2016) is a PhD student of Applied Health Research and Evaluation at Clemson University. Her primary interest area rests at the intersection of health communication, health, and identity. Darren L. Linvill (PhD, Clemson University, 2008) is Basic Course Director and an associate professor of Communication at Clemson University. His research interests include instructional communication and the impact of political and ideological biases in higher education.

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Appendix Table 1.  Phenomenological results from Study 1 Textural Information seeking

Entertainment

Time occupation

External dissemination

Moderation

Cyberbullying

“. . . to see what time things are on campus, like when there is a speaker or a concert or a related campus event. If you forget what time something is, everyone is really helpful when you ask.” “When I participate, I usually will try to answer someone’s question, ask a question myself, or say something that I think is funny, specifically something that related to my own life. For example, my most upliked Yak was ‘Struggle as a class, fail as a class, get a large curve as a class’. Obviously, people will enjoy things they relate to so that’s what I’ll Yak.” All participants said they used Yik Yak as a “time killer,” as a means to “procrastinate,” when they are “bored,” to “occupy time,” or “when class is boring” “I like to screenshot the funny ones. When I find ones that are relevant to friends or people I know, I will screenshot them and send them to them in a text or in a GroupMe chat. It is especially funny when you think one [a Yak] was about a person so you send it to them to see.” “It really brings up red flags as to the people who surround you everyday. When a Yak makes me angry, I will often downvote it and comment on it, but I try not to get involved in any arguments or attacks. I usually just post ‘be careful of what you say’ or something like that.” “Sometimes you’ll see things that are offensive and you’ll be surprised at how many people upvoted the Yak instead of downvoting them, and those are usually racially charged.”

Structural In the classroom

In the dorm room

Out on the town

“I have an Econ [economics] class that is really boring, so I like to scroll through it under my desk during that lecture. I will also scroll through it in other classes when I’m waiting for the teacher to get there, or just in between classes.” “My roommates and I all look over it before bed. We just lay there and scroll, and when one of us finds one [a Yak] that is funny or relevant, we read it out loud and all laugh about it together.” “I like to look and see if anyone has mentioned any parties or specials that are happening at other bars. It’s also funny to see who is Yaking downtown to see if my friends and I can find them or have seen them or the situation the Yak is describing.”

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Table 2.  Open codes for Yik Yak content analysis Primary code Context specific

Information sharing

Lament

Grievances

Relatable

Humorous

Trending topics

Description and example Context Specific yaks focused on inside community jargon, comments about a specific situation that is not easily interpreted or understood by someone from outside the community, thus making it hard to determine the yak’s intent. Examples from this category include “#nobluecrossblueshieldbabies” and “Follow the buzzards.” Information sharing yaks included the seeking and giving of information about anything, such as local events, current situations, and lost and found. Examples from this category are “Holy shit some guy went postal in southern MO . . . 9 people dead in 4 different houses and they are still finding bodies. . . bad day at blackrock,” “Does anyone have a charger?,” and “32 treebook lane, partys on.” Lament yaks are complaints and grievances about personal life and individual situations. Emojis, hashtags, and capitalization are taken into consideration when determining the tone of the yak. Examples in this category include “Losing the perfect girlfriend just because she is too busy to date is the worst feeling in the world and so hard to get over,” and “No girls wanna cuddle?;( ” Grievances yaks included complaints that are administration or school community specific. Examples in this category are “Whenever Albion says they’re fixing the internet, they make it worse . . .,” and “I feel like prospective students were misled regarding the wifi.” Relatable yaks are statements that aren’t necessarily humor but made to relate to people going through certain or similar situations. Examples in this category are “Shoutout to everyone pulling all nighters,” and “When you open yik yak but then close it because it was the last app you procrastinated on and there’s nothing new.” Humorous yaks are statements made in an attempt to be funny. The use of “haha” or “lol” and the like denotes use of attempted humor. Examples in this category are “To the window, to the wall. To my 8 am I crawl,” and “You can call me Nemo because I’m never afraid to touch the butt.” Trending topics are yaks that refer to social media or news buzz surrounding current events. Examples in this category are “What color is the dress?” and “RIP to the three students at UNC. I’m sorry the media won’t cover it because of your religion and that a white man pulled the trigger.”

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Figure 1.  Results of Study 2: Distribution of “hot” and “new” yaks. 45% 39%

40% 35% 30%

28% 24%

25% 20% 15% 10%

19%

18% 11%

10% 7%

4% 5%

5% 0%

15%

13%

Context Specific

Information Sharing

Lament

3% 4%

Grievances

New Yaks

Relatable

Humorous

Trending Topics

Hot Yaks

It illustrates the differences in percentages among the two different feeds studied and the categories of yaks.

The Best of Both Worlds Mixed Methodologies Cathlin V. Clark-Gordon West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

A mixed-methods study can give a researcher the best of both worlds when it comes to the types of questions that can be answered, the relative rigor of the process, and the flexibility it can afford. However, like any method, there are certainly challenges that need to be addressed when taking on such an endeavor. Below, I will discuss the process behind choosing to combine qualitative and quantitative methods, the resulting experiences in data collection and analysis, and things to keep in mind specifically when engaging in social media research.

Choosing Your Method(s) With any mixed method approach, the researcher is going to have to choose two methods: most commonly, one that is qualitative and one that is quantitative. Creswell and Creswell (2017) discuss in-depth how to choose these methods, as well as what order they should go in your study. For example, our research analyzed Yik Yak use through two studies. Study 1 sought to qualitatively understand students’ experiences with Yik Yak through an interview process, while Study 2 quantitatively examined Yik Yak content through a quantitative content analysis. Creswell and Creswell define this method as a sequential exploratory approach; quantitative data are intended to develop a deeper understanding of the qualitative findings. That said, the quantitative method could come first, and later qualitative data could be collected to explain the findings – an approach that is considered more explanatory than exploratory in nature. So the researcher not only has to decide which methods to use but also has to choose in which order the methods will be employed – and both decisions will impact how the data is interpreted and what conclusions or generalizations can be drawn from the results. Most importantly when choosing methods, the researcher should consider his or her own training and comfort level with various methods before choosing them, as well as the time investment using mixed methods also takes. For example, for a researcher familiar with types of thematic analyses, conducting a quantitative content analysis would

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not be that difficult. Coding can happen with any scheme the researcher wishes to use, but each unit of analysis (in our study, a single post on Yik Yak called a “Yak”) must be tallied to come up with total percentage representations in each category. Researchers must determine what they believe they can feasibly do, and in such a way that the two chosen methods complement one another.

Collecting and Analyzing Mixed Methods Data Once you’ve decided on your methods, and their order of appearance in your study, data collection will follow. In our study we first used a phenomenological approach to interviews with students, so we could understand better the essence of their experience with Yik Yak. Later we decided to collect screenshots of actual posts on Yik Yak, across 24 different schools, to further develop an understanding of what actually goes on in the app. However, because Yik Yak was app-based and had no version available via a web browser, data from Yik Yak could not be scraped or collected by any data crawling software. Therefore, the research team had to take individual screenshots from each of the different colleges. This process occurred over a 6-week period, was relatively time consuming, and was not without error. We took screenshots of Yaks at 10 a.m., 3 p.m., or 9 p.m. each week day and rotated to ensure that at the end of the data collection period, Yaks were collected once at each time on each day. This sampling method allowed for a maximum sample size of 4,320. However, in the process of taking screenshots (since they are only picture files) some of the posts got cut off. In cases where a Yak could not be seen in its entirety, it was removed from the data set, which resulted in a total final sample of 3,903. In addition to that time commitment, the research team needed to code, as well as to categorize, all of those messages. While this is only one approach to one method, the time commitment required is not small; this is one factor to consider for those interested in mixed methods.

Social Media Mixed Method Research Utilizing mixed method research for social media–based data can be beneficial for a few reasons. In the age of “big data” and data scraping, using a mixed methodology can provide what most data scraping tools lack: context. Without context, software can easily misclassify information from a social media post, such as instances of sarcasm, and code/classify them incorrectly. Using a mixed methodology would allow for these clarifications with participants, or at least it would add the context that can be missing when extracting large amounts of data from disparate individuals. By additionally adding in qualitative methodologies to social media–based data, contexts such as intended audience, posting habits, perceived norms within an environment, and other individual-level perceptions can all be taken under consideration with the content that has been posted. Ultimately, mixed method research allows for researchers to explore, explain, and triangulate among findings, making it a very rigorous way to conduct research.

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The quantitative and qualitative methods chosen must suit the researchers’ skillset, as well as complement one another. Contexts such as social media are particularly important to study through mixed methods, as both breadth and depth are necessary to completely understand such phenomena.

Reference Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chapter Eighteen

“Talk to Me” A Mixed-Methods Study on Preferred Physician Behaviors During End-of-Life Communication from the Patient Perspective Introduction With an ageing population, there is a pressing need to understand more about how to effectively communicate with people about their future health-care wishes in a manner that preserves their dignity and autonomy and is satisfactory from the patient perspective. High quality end-of-life (EOL) communication has been associated with reduced costs and improved quality of care in the final days of life,1,2 and terminally ill patients have identified a physician’s ability to communicate about topics such as death and dying as a major priority to good EOL care.3 Previous studies suggest that two of the greatest opportunities to improve EOL care relate to patient–physician communication and patient engagement in EOL decision making.4,5 There is currently no standard definition of EOL communication, but previous work has focused on the distinction between advance care planning (i.e. anticipatory planning for future personal and healthcare decisions in the context of one’s values), vs. more immediate ‘in the moment’ decision making about treatment preferences in the context of a serious illness.6 In addition, a conceptual framework of EOL communication was recently developed by means of literature review and a survey of multidisciplinary Canadian experts using a modified Delphi method. This framework includes three domains: (i) advance care planning, including conversations about values and appointment of a substitute decision-maker; (ii) goals of care decisions, including treatment preferences; and (iii) documentation, including personal directives and documentation of resuscitation preferences in medical charts.7 For the purposes of this study, EOL communication can be understood to broadly encompass the advance care planning and goals of care decisions Abdul‐Razzak, A., Sherifali, D., You, J., Simon, J., & Brazil, K. (2016). ‘Talk to me’: a mixed methods study on preferred physician behaviours during end‐of‐life communication from the patient ­perspective. Health Expectations, 19(4), 883–896.

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activities described in these papers and may also include related informationsharing processes. Despite the recognition of its importance, studies indicate that the extent and quality of EOL communication is low. For example, a cross-sectional survey conducted in the Netherlands showed that patients with advanced CHF or COPD were able to state their preferences on many EOL decisions, but that most had never discussed these items with their physician.8 Similarly, in a multicentre audit of EOL communication at 12 Canadian hospitals with 278 seriously ill patients and 225 family members, participants endorsed low levels of engagement in EOL communication with physicians and high levels of discordance (70%) between patients’ stated preferences for EOL care and the preferences documented in the hospital chart (e.g. full cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) vs. comfort care).9 The value of high-quality EOL communication and the apparent paucity of such conversations creates an impetus to further study and understand how this situation can be improved. The objective of this study was to understand patient perspectives on physician behaviours that help or hinder EOL communication. End-of-life communication is a complex topic that involves psychological, social and contextual factors that are well suited to examination using qualitative methods to understand why certain behaviours are important and in what contexts. However, given the widespread implications of good EOL communication for patients, healthcare providers and the healthcare system at large, data that are representative of a typical population with life-limiting illness are also desirable. Given these two competing needs, we conducted a convergent parallel mixed methods study10 in which the qualitative and quantitative strands each contribute unique knowledge that, in combination, provide a more comprehensive understanding. The objective of the quantitative strand is to measure which behaviours appear to be most predictive of satisfaction with a physician’s EOL communication skills, as rated by seriously ill inpatient participants. The objective of the qualitative strand was to more broadly understand seriously ill inpatients’ perspectives on physician behaviours during EOL communication. Finally, during a separate mixed methods phase, we merged the qualitative and quantitative data for the purpose of elaboration and comparison – to examine how the data from each strand might complement or diverge from one another. This paper will focus on the quantitative and mixed methods analyses, as previously published work has described the qualitative strand in more detail.11

Methods In this convergent parallel mixed methods design, we simultaneously conducted the qualitative and quantitative strands. The study design can be described as having independent implementation of research questions, data collection and analyses, with merging of the quantitative and qualitative results during a separate mixed methods analysis (see Fig. 1). The quantitative and qualitative strands were given equal priority in this study: data from both strands were considered to have equal weight and were merged for the purposes of comparison and elaboration.10,12

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Figure 1.  Mixed methods study flow diagram, which provides pictorial representation of the study design and conduct.

Recruitment We recruited medical inpatients from three academic tertiary hospitals in ­Hamilton, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta from October 2012 to August 2013. We recruited patients to the quantitative strand (cross-sectional survey) of the mixed methods study using inclusion criteria that identify a population of seriously ill medical inpatients aged 55 years or older with an estimated 6- to 12-month mortality risk of 50% (see Table 1), similar to criteria used in previously published ­studies.4,5 Patients were excluded from the quantitative strand if they were cognitively impaired (dementia or delirium as documented in health records, or healthcare team or research nurse assessment), unable to speak or read English, too fatigued or sick to participate, admitted for