ELECCIóN muNICIpAL 2008-2011

I draw on a number of relevant archival documents both to set the context for this study and as sources of evidence to triangulate with the findings from my CDA of policy documents and interviews. Wharton (2006) says that archival documents give the analyst insights into the historical and social context at the time of policy production and

interpretation. The selection of multiple sources of data allows for triangulation or ‘converging lines of inquiry’ (Yin, 2003, p. 98) in order to enhance the validity of the study (Campbell and Fiske, 1959). The basic premise is that if research is conducted using two or more methods or sources of data and arrives at the same conclusion, it is more likely to be valid. Olssen, Codd and O’Neill (2010) describe Fairclough’s CDA as an attempt to triangulate three forms of analysis, description of text, interpretation of discourse and explanation of social context within one model.

5.5.3. Interviews

According to Yin (2003), interviews are an important source of data as they help to

corroborate other data, provide new insights and add life to a study by bringing forward the voices of those being studied. Interviews are particularly important in this cda of policy as they bring depth and nuance to the CDA of policy texts which can be viewed as overly subjective and influenced by the analyst’s own biases. However, interviews will still be influenced by the analyst as the voice of the participants will necessarily be influenced during the interaction with the analyst and the interpretation and reproduction of the interview discourse through the analyst’s MR. As Kvale (2007) summarizes, in an interview, knowledge is being socially constructed and interpreted rather than simply transmitted and recorded.

Mishler (1986) rejects the need for interviews to be highly structured with standardized questions, uniform delivery and similar settings. Rather, Mishler sees interviews as discourses that rely on the social and situational contexts of the interview such that the meanings of questions and responses are co-constructed by the researcher and research participant. To facilitate a co-constructed discourse, I used a semi-structured interview process. All questions (Appendix 3) were open-ended and untimed. It was my hope that this format would allow the research participants more latitude in their responses and a greater feeling of participation in the research process. Further, I hoped that allowing flexibility in the interview process would decrease the constraining influence of my biases towards the topics being explored.

I selected 10 provincial policy developers (producers) and 15 school district policy

implementers (interpreters) as potential participants in the study. I made these selections in two different ways. For the policy developers, I approached two contacts I have with the BC Ministry of Education for their suggestions about who would be suitable to contact with a formal request to interview policy developers for this study. I took this approach because there is very little information available publicly or even within the education system about who is actually responsible for developing the various policies that the

Ministry produces. Both assured me that those who are at the level of policy developers do not require permission to take part in research studies and provided me with two sets of

potential candidates for interviews based on my request that they have significant experience in developing policy and preferably Aboriginal education policy. I emailed each of these candidates with an initial request to participate (Appendix 4). For the policy implementers, I selected the candidates based on my understanding of their roles within their organizations, their length of tenure and their previous work with Aboriginal

education policy. I looked for candidates who were working in school districts where there was a sizeable Aboriginal student population (at least 200 students), where the candidate had significant time assigned to Aboriginal education (at least 25 percent of their annual assignment) and who had worked in their role for at least two years. I felt that these criteria would provide interview candidates with more policy experience than a random sampling from all 60 school districts. I contacted each by email with a request to participate and a copy of the research proposal (Appendix 4). 14 of those contacted indicated immediate willingness to participate in the study. 11 of the 25 potential participants asked for a copy of the interview questions prior to making a decision on whether or not to participate and five of those 11 declined to take part. In the end, six of the 10 policy developers and 14 of the 15 policy interpreters agreed to participate. All interviews were conducted between February 27, 2017 and April 30, 2017. Research participants decided where, when and how the interviews took place. Interviews were conducted both face-to-face (six) and over the phone (14) largely to accommodate the busy schedules of the participants. Interviews varied in length from 16 to 72 minutes with an average of 33 minutes and a median of 43 minutes. In several cases, the interviews were quite short as participants were reluctant to elaborate on their answers, often citing a lack of policy knowledge as a reason. Upon reflection, it is clear that I assumed that

participants, particularly school district based policy interpreters, would have a greater background in provincial Aboriginal education policy than they did. However, the similarity in the themes which emerged during the interviews (see Appendices 6-10) demonstrates the questions were able to surface relevant information even when the participant felt unqualified to elaborate. Each interview was recorded and then transcribed verbatim.

Before each interview, I thanked the participant and briefly reviewed the aim of my

the consent to participate form (Appendix 5) with each participant by reading the form aloud. In the face-to-face interviews I asked the participants to check off each consent statement as we went, whereas for the phone interviews, I asked the participant to verbally agree to each statement after each was read. In the face-to-face interviews, participants signed two copies of the consent form, one for the researcher and one for themselves.

5.6. Procedure

Data collection took place in five stages following the completion of the literature review. The literature review procedure involved reading research literature related to indigenous education policy, the completion of a literature review focused on determining the research base behind the stated indigenous education policy goals of the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and the selection of BC’s EA as the subject for the study.

Stage 1 involved developing interview questions and conducting interviews with six policy producers from the BC Ministry of Education and 14 policy interpreters from 14 of BC’s 60 school districts and transcribing the interviews verbatim.

Stage 2 involved a critical reading of archival texts and research literature related to Canada’s Aboriginal policies in general and education policies in particular to set the historical context for the CDA of policy which followed.

Stage 3 involved a preliminary analysis of the policy documents and interview transcripts to identify general and common elements.

Stage 4 involved codifying the policy producer and policy interpreter interview transcripts. Stage 5 involved conducting a CDA of the policy documents and interview transcripts. Following the five stages involved with data collection, I analyzed the data in order to answer the research questions.