This study aimed to explore both the reported patterns of smoking and the meaning that smoking has for young African-Caribbean women. As very little is known about the prevalence of smoking and the motivation for smoking among African-Caribbean young women, I decided to adopt a multi-method approach utilising quantitative and qualitative methodologies to address the research questions since no one research method could examine both patterns and meanings of cigarette smoking adequately. In order to deal with both, I undertook a cross-sectional survey among year 10 pupils, aged 14 – 15 years-old in
selected schools, and at a later stage focus groups with African and African- Caribbean young women in year 11, from two of these schools. I also adopted a feminist perspective. This meant that I privileged gender as a category of
experience and focused on young women. Adopting an intersectional approach meant recognising that gender does not exist as an independent category but is always connected to ‘race’, class and ethnicity (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006).
My research design drew on a black feminist research tradition; by this I mean a way of knowing which brings black women to the centre of the analysis and examines black women’s experiences in terms of ‘race’, class and gender (Mullings, 2000). Mirza argues that:
Black British feminists reveal other ways of knowing that challenge the normative discourse. In our particular world shaped by processes of migration, nationalism, racism, popular culture and the media, black British women, from multiple positions of difference, reveal the distorted ways in which dominant groups construct their assumptions. As black women we see from the sidelines, from our space of unlocation, the unfolding project of domination. (Mirza, 1997: 5)
In the 1980s there were extended debates about what constitutes feminist research. Several second-wave feminists challenged quantitative research
methodologies as being inherently ‘male’ (Oakley, 1981; Harding, 1987; Haraway, 1991; Stanley and Wise, 1983), arguing that such methods were positivist and reductionist and perpetuated male privilege and male perspectives. Quantitative methods were further critiqued because of the exclusion of women as research respondents and the notion that such research was supposedly objective, neutral
and value free (Roberts, 1981). This early debate on positivist traditions versus interpretative traditions and reaction against quantitative methods, led to the promotion of qualitative methods which came to be viewed for a while as the orthodox feminist methodology (Hughes and Cohen, 2010). However, Reinharz (1992), while reviewing feminist methods in social research, argued that feminism was a perspective, not a method, and depended on what use one made of the methods and how one went about one’s research.
…. feminist researchers do not consider feminism to be a method. Rather they consider it to be a perspective on an existing method in a given field of inquiry or a perspective that can be used to develop an innovative method. The fact that there are multiple definitions of feminism means that there are multiple feminist perspectives on social research methods. (1992: 241)
Despite the continuing debates about the ontological and epistemological differences between qualitative and quantitative paradigms, Hughes and Cohen ‘challenge the simplistic, and consequential, presumption that to do feminist empirical research one has to use qualitative methods’ (2010: 190) and argue that methods should be chosen that are most appropriate to addressing the research question.
These debates about quantitative and qualitative methods were in turn critiqued by black feminist researchers for ignoring the interaction between ‘race’, class and gender (Davis, 1981; Crenshaw, 1989; Collins, 1991; Mullings, 2000). Developed by black feminists, intersectionality theory tries to address the complexity of social life by recognising that individuals simultaneously occupy multiple social locations. However, trying to develop an intersectional approach for social research presents a challenge. Denis (2008) comments that the practice of developing appropriate intersectional methodologies has not caught up with the theory.
The challenge of integrating multiple, concurrent, yet often contradictory social locations into analyses of power relations has been issued. Theorising to accomplish this end is evolving, and we are struggling to develop effective methodological tools in order to marry theorising with necessary complex analyses of empirical data. (2008: 688)
lives intersect to present different choices, different decisions, and manufacture different outcomes even among similarly situated groups’ (Manuel, 2006: 188).
This is particularly relevant for my research since I analyse the differences between African, African-Caribbean and white young women who appear to be in the same socio-economic location and yet make different choices about cigarette smoking. Cole (2009: 170) proposes that ‘an intersectional framework does ask researchers to examine categories of identity, difference, and disadvantage with a new lens’ and that researchers adopting an intersectional approach should ask three questions: ‘Who is included within this category? What role does inequality play?
Where are there similarities?’ (Cole, 2009: 172). In my research process and in my
analysis of the findings I addressed these three questions, paying particular attention to the differences and similarities between African, African-Caribbean and white young women and the role that disadvantage plays in their lives. Cole (2009) sets out the implication for research when adopting an intersectional approach to research. These are outlined in Table 4 below.
Table 4: Implications of Cole’s three questions for each stage of the research process. Question Research stage Who is included within this category?
What role does inequality play?
Where are the similarities? Generation of hypothesis Is it attuned to diversity within categories? Literature review attends to social and historical contexts of inequality. May be exploratory rather than hypothesis testing to discover similarities. Sampling Focuses on neglected groups. Category memberships mark groups with unequal access to power and resources. Includes diverse groups connected by common relationships to social and institutional power. Operationalization Develops measures from the perspective of the group being studied. If comparative, differences are conceptualized as stemming from structural inequality (upstream) rather than as primarily individual-level differences. Views social categories in terms of individual and institutional practices rather than primarily as characteristics of individuals. Analysis Attends to diversity within a group and may be conducted
separately for each group studied.
Tests for both similarities and differences. Interest is not limited to differences. Interpretation of findings No group’s findings are interpreted to represent a universal or normative experience. Differences are interpreted in light of groups’ structural positions. Sensitivity to nuanced variations across groups is maintained even when similarities are identified.
Source: Cole, 2009: 172.
These stages of the research process were relevant to my study where I used quantitative and qualitative methods to explore diversity within the category
‘gender’ in relation to cigarette smoking. Whereas current research has focused on gender and class, I introduce ‘race’, ethnicity and culture to the analysis. In
Chapter I, I have outlined the social and historical context of the lives of African- Caribbean young women in the UK and I have linked this to my literature review on cigarette smoking in Chapter 2, thereby examining the social and historical
differences in cigarette smoking in relation to ‘race’, ethnicity, gender and class, recognising that these dimensions intersect. MacKinnon (2013) argues that in terms of method:
Intersectionality both notices and contends with the realities of multiple inequalities as it thinks about ‘the interaction of’ those inequalities in a way that captures the distinctive dynamics at their multidimensional interface. (MacKinnon, 2013: 1019)
My research demonstrates that although all young women in the schools involved in my study have a common relationship to the social and institutional power within the school, the experience of young black women is racialised as well as
gendered. Intersectionality is therefore a key perspective which informs my research design.