Ontology and epistemology
My ontological position is one of critical realism, in that I believe the natural world exists outside of human experience and subjective meaning making. To contextualise this within my research topic, humans are distributed across the globe and it is a fact that people have moved from a home location elsewhere to an NZ location. All else is a construction, whether it be the creation of national states, ‘immigration’ as theory, policy and process, or the immigrant acculturation experience itself. Therefore, I am a social constructionist in my epistemology because I believe that knowing about the world is a social construction with meaning making through sensory and cognitive constructs that are interpreted via socialisation within a culture. Crotty (1998) contends that such an ontological and epistemological positioning makes sense, because social constructionism is comfortable with a world
that is “at once natural and social” (p. 57). Maxwell (2012) names this stance ‘critical realism’, a label I accept because his understanding of the term fits the nature and spirit of this research.
Furthermore, within the social sphere, I agree with Crotty’s (1998) view that each of us operates at two levels. First, we are inextricably bound in the ways of knowing (worldview) of our culture group, reflected in values, behaviours and interpretation of experience as part of that group’s way of ‘being’. Crotty terms this collective meaning making ‘constructionism’ in contrast to ‘constructivism’, which he holds to be individual meaning making. I take a critical stance on constructivism, believing that individuals can have a transformed or altered consciousness following insight into their socialised beliefs and behaviours, as in the case of false consciousness. Maeve’s (1997) argument that human beings can self-reflect and critique their perceived reality as the knowers of that reality further supports this constructivist position, which accords the individual a degree of fluidity within culture. I follow the advice of Gubrium and Holstein (2014), who suggest that the terms constructionism and constructivism are used interchangeably, and for pragmatic reasons one should be selected and used consistently. I will therefore use the term constructionism to cover both group and individual social construction of meaning.
In applying this social constructionist approach to the research, I believed that the immigrant participants would reflect their group-level cultural ways of knowing and interpreting the NZ learning environment, while they demonstrated individual meaning making of their unique immigrant acculturation experiences within the microsystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1993) of the higher education learning environment. Furthermore, I acknowledge that as a white South African-New Zealander I bring my group cultural way of knowing as well as my individual interpretation of my perceived reality, expressed through my experiences and assumptions. This is the social construction of reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1967) within which I aim to understand and explain the immigrant learner’s acculturation experience.
Figure 3.1 depicts the organisation of this chapter, reflecting a coherent flow from ontology and epistemology through axiology, to theoretical perspectives and into methodology and methods.
Researcher Positionality
Bricolage of methods
Figure 3.1: Research design
Axiology
I agree with Greenbank (2003) that research is value laden. My research design reflects my professional values of respect for immigrant learners and social justice for their inclusion in curriculum and pedagogy in recognition of their potential contribution to interculturalism. I acknowledge my belief that immigrant learners are invisible because of assimilation into the dominant group through the concept of assimilation as false consciousness, and I therefore hold open-mindedness and critical reflexivity as important values to question this assumption, particularly during the analysis phase. I am mindful of the potential power position I hold and the influence I may hae through my network of relationships with strategic leaders across in the university in my position as Head of School of Education, and Associate Dean Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Culture and Society. I believe this influence can be positive in the dissemination of findings and influence on policy and practice,
Ontology and Epistemology Social Constructionism
Critical Realism
Axiology
Respect, social justice, open-mindedness, reflexivity, transparency, faithfulness
Theoretical Perspectives Interpretivism Critical Inquiry Methodology Qualitative Moderate Hermeneutics Methods Rich Pictures Interviews Questionnaire Card Sort
however I am equally aware of the need to maintain the highest ethical standards in my research conduct, as such power can be open to abuse. Furthermore, as an insider researcher at AUT, I am aware of my perception of a distance between espoused and enacted values regarding diversity in university policy, and that transparency of this bias is necessary. While I acknowledge an epistemology of acceptance and respect of knowing and knowledge associated with social constructionism, my acknowledgement is tempered by a critical interpretation of culture with its constructed hegemonic discourses of power, structural inequities and social reproduction processes. My positionality is reflected in the theoretical perspectives underlying the research.
Theoretical perspectives: Interpretivism and critical inquiry
According to Gubrium and Holstein (2014), most constructionist research attempts to address the question of how social reality is constructed or experienced, or what the experiences (often hidden elements and organisation) of that reality might be. As reflected in the research questions, I move between the how and what as I explore the individual immigrant acculturation experience within a university context, which reflects the broader sociocultural and historico-political context of NZ.
Constructionism as an epistemology incorporates a wide range of theoretical perspectives for understanding the social world, ranging from interpretivism through critical inquiry to postmodernism, each in turn becoming more critical and subjective in their focus on the object of study. The philosophical stance that informs my methodology is interpretivism, through a moderate hermeneutic approach (Gallagher, 1992).
Crotty’s (1998) description of interpretivism suggests an approach that is uncritical of culture, and cultural norms and practices are unquestioned in relation to understanding and explaining the “social life-world” (p. 67). He identifies three main streams of interpretivism: symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and hermeneutics. In light of my research purpose, symbolic interactionism and its related methodologies of ethnography and grounded theory are developed from assumptions different from those I hold. These both seek to understand and
represent the participant’s interpretation of experience without the subjective involvement of the researcher. Phenomenology also does not fit my epistemology because it seeks the participant’s lived experiences (Creswell, 2007) with the researcher in an objective role, ‘bracketing’ the researcher’s interpretation in favour of the participant’s interpretation of a phenomenon. I am interested in understanding what lies behind the narrative to explain the immigrant’s experience rather than the phenomenon of acculturation itself. The interpretivist approach I follow is that of hermeneutics expressed in a broad view of text as spoken, written, art and action, and with the purpose, as articulated by Grant and Giddings (2002), to understand the subjective ‘truth’ of the participant as well as the interpretation of the researcher, who may perceive the participant’s self-understandings in ways that might not be apparent to the participant. The relationship is intersubjective and therefore requires critical reflexivity and transparency by the researcher of what could be regarded as her dominant interpretive position. Interpretivism serves the status quo because it seeks to understand and explain the social world from the viewpoint of the participant. The interpretive approach has value for my research, but in my view, does not go far enough to critique the culture within which the experience is situated. As my topic has a social justice driver, I also at times reference a critical inquiry lens.
Critical inquiry challenges the perceived norms of the social world and assumes we live in an unjust world characterised by social inequities, such as those of race and ethnicity. It seeks change for (and by) those who are oppressed and marginalised by the hegemonic discourses imposed by those with power (Freire, 1993; McLaren, 1994). Grant and Giddings (2002) support Cocks’s (1989) argument that critical social theory shifts from the interpretivist focus on lived experience, towards a level of abstraction because the truth of a participant’s experience may be the result of a false consciousness of an imposed hegemonic reality. The relationship between researcher and participant in this approach moves towards co-construction, collaboration and power sharing, with the researcher expressing her beliefs about the social structure needing change to raise awareness for transformational insight and action. My justification for selecting this approach to my topic rather than any
other arises from my informal professional observations that immigrant students bring rich cultural resources to their learning; however, they become invisible in the formal curriculum and pedagogy because higher education reflects the hegemonic forces of acculturation through assimilation.
Berry’s (1997) acculturation theory has been commonly used for immigrant groups using a positivist approach and quantitative methods; however, the theory can equally accommodate constructionism and interpretivism if applied at the individual immigrant level, such as in this qualitative research study. The intentional use of two contrasting methods—a structured questionnaire juxtaposed with rich picture drawings—purposefully aims to challenge assumptions and identify contradictions in the data across the quantitative–qualitative divide of interpretivism.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) socio-ecological theory fits well with a critical realist ontology because his whole system rests on social relationships within a context (including culture) and time. The interactions between elements of the socially constructed systems and the immigrant student may suggest a deterministic interpretation of social structure; however, the agency of the student through bidirectional relationships in the mesosystem displaces a deterministic or predicted outcome.
The research findings in this regard bring together both Berry’s (1997) theory of
integration and Bronfenbrenner and Morris’s (2006) theory of person and process in
what I will argue is a constructionist space that neither theories have adequately covered.