EVALUACIÓN DE DISEÑO CON BASE EN EL ANÁLISIS DE CICLO DE VIDA

The choice of methodology is driven by both the research questions and the theoretical framework outlined in the previous chapter. Much of the empirical research discussed in Chapter Two used surveys, self-report measures, and structured interviews to gather information about women’s demographics, attitudes, and personalities in order to identify correlational relationships that could be used to explain women’s choices. From a social constructionist perspective such methods make little sense: Personalities and values are not considered to be stable, inner attributes accessible through self- report and language is not a mirror reflecting people’s true experience. Instead language becomes the focus of the study and the research questions shift from what factors influence women’s choices, to how are women’s choices constructed and what are the social effects of those constructions. Within this framework, discourse analysis, which broadly studies language and its constitutive power, is the most appropriate methodology.

Discourse analysis, however, is not a single methodology. Instead, as Burman and Parker (1993) point out, there is a bewildering array of styles of analysis. Two broad approaches that have been loosely identified are discursive psychology and critical discourse analysis. The former is a close and detailed analysis of the immediate function of the talk (Potter & Wetherell, 1994). Potter and Wetherell (1987) describe function, construction, and variability as major components of discourse analysis. People use language to construct both themselves and their social world and to present themselves in certain ways. This accounting and warranting work is a feature of all text and is worthy of analysis in its own

“If we as feminists want to reconstruct the framework of women’s lives, close attention to rhetoric is vital to empower women – and men – to reimagine a differently gendered world.”

right. Critical discourse analysis takes a wider view and draws upon Foucault’s work looking at how discourses construct objects and subjects and how they support certain institutions, ideologies, and power relations (Parker, 1990). While the methodology for the current research is more closely aligned to this broader critical approach, it would be a mistake to make such a distinction too strongly as that would be falsely suggestive of a clear divide. As Potter and Wetherell (1994) suggest, most research questions, including those of the current research, require a combined focus which takes account of discourse as both process and structure. In particular, in working with the policy document and the women’s talk, I found that consideration of the more immediate function of the text enhanced my analysis and so the final interpretation is very much a blend: at times taking a close view of how the text warrants the speaker’s account and at other times stepping back and considering the wider implications of the construction.

Critical discourse analysis has also been identified by a number of authors as a useful tool for the analysis of government policy (Fairclough, 2001; Jones, Lee, & Poynton, 1998; Taylor, 2004). Bacchi (1999) outlines her approach to analysing policy and makes the critical point that policies construct problems in certain ways and that, rather than looking at policies as merely solutions to predefined problems, we need to consider how policies represent the problem in the first place and what the effects of that representation might be. In particular, it is important to explore how the responses might be different if the problem were represented in a different way.

The choice of discourse analysis as the methodology for this research also sits comfortably within the feminist goals. The focus on language is seen as a strength to feminists, who have long viewed language as an important tool of oppression (Gill, 1995). In particular, the critical discourse analysis of power relations holds considerable appeal for the feminist goals of social change and has been the preferred approach of many feminist researchers (Wilkinson, 2001).

Critical discourse analysis as a methodology is not rigorously prescribed and authors differ in their process. According to Locke (2004), reading a text critically involves “developing an awareness of how texts mediate and sustain particular discourses and power relations” (p. 39). My analysis aims to go beyond the identification of discourses to look at the social effects of the discursive positioning: to examine what institutions are strengthened and supported by these discourses, and to theorise on how the discourses disrupt or sustain gender power relations. Parker (1992) sets out a stepped process which uses 10 criteria to analyse discourses within texts. While these steps are suggestive of a prescribed process, analysis is both personal and interpretive and therefore these criteria were used simply as a guide. Such guidance is particularly welcome given my inexperience in work of this nature. In addition, describing the analysis as a stepped process and the structure of the resulting written analysis, falsely suggests that this was an orderly and linear procedure; in reality it was at times a circular and disjointed process.

The initial criterion proposed by Parker (1992) is implicit in the act of discourse analysis: discourses are realised in text and therefore it is through analysing texts that discourses can be made visible. Parker takes text to mean anything imbued with meaning and suggests turning that text into written form as the first stage of analysis. In the current research, the first text, the policy document, is both written and pictorial and the second text, the focus group talk, was transcribed. My initial work with the texts involved free association and brainstorming to examine possible connotations and meanings within the texts. Parker argues that this initial phase is better done within a group and, while such collaboration was not possible, at times I discussed possible meanings of elements of the policy text with family and friends in order to tap into a wider view.

The next two criteria are related: discourses are about objects and some of those objects are subjects, sentient beings who exist outside discourse (Parker, 1992). Discourses bring phenomena into being and in so doing construct a reality. Examining how the objects of interest to the research questions, in particular motherhood, children, and paid work,were represented in the texts was an important aspect of the analysis. In addition, as Parker says, discourses themselves may be constituted and reflected upon as objects. A related phase, and a critical one, was the identification of the subjects, the categories of person that were constituted in the texts. What positions were made available by the discourses? This was of particular interest in analysing the policy document: how women were positioned by the policy, what identities were made available to them, and what rights and responsibilities were attached to those identities.

Parker’s (1992) next criterion is that discourses are “a coherent system of meanings” (p. 10) and that the goal of analysis is therefore to identify the groups of statements that consistently refer to a topic. It is important to recognise that to do so researchers must bring their existing knowledge of discourses to the analysis. As part of this phase of the analysis, the “mapping a picture of the world” (Parker, 1992, p. 12) as represented by the discourse, I have, as suggested by Parker, attempted to identify what the rules are for rational and normal behaviour, and to speculate on what might happen to the people who don’t follow those rules. For example, I questioned how women who do not follow the rules of the intensive mother discourse are dealt with in the picture constructed by the texts.

The next two criteria touch on reflexivity. The fifth is that discourses refer to other discourses and this highlights their interrelated nature. Discourses “embed, entail and presuppose other discourses” (Parker, 1992, p. 13); for example, the intensive mother discourse presupposes the dependent child discourse. In analysing the text I aimed to look for contrasts and contradictions between the ways of speaking and also to identify points where discourses overlap each other. The sixth criteria is that discourses reflect upon themselves and that speakers will at times actively reflect and comment on their use of certain discourses. This element is cursory as a full rhetorical analysis of the accounting that the participants are doing with such reflexivity is beyond the scope of this research. It is at this

point in the analysis that Parker suggests labelling the discourses and, importantly, reflecting carefully on the selection of such terms as labels carry their own meaning and reflect underlying moral and political choices. For the most part I used labels which previous researchers in this area have coined, intensive mother and independent mother, for example.

Parker’s (1992) seventh criterion, that discourses are historically situated, recognises the dynamic and unstable nature of discourses. He suggests that the analysis examines the origins of the discourses. Although largely beyond the scope of this thesis, this has been achieved in part through the Literature Review, which examined the historical foundations of the more dominant discourses of motherhood. I also briefly examined the historical roots of significant feminist debates and discourses in the policy analysis.

Although Parker (1992) describes these initial phases of analysis as sufficient to render the dominant discourses visible, he argues that three further elements must be considered if an analysis is to be useful. These are awareness that discourses support institutions, reproduce power relations, and have ideological effects. While throughout the analysis I endeavoured to identify which institutions are supported and reinforced by these discourses, much of this final phase is accomplished in the discussion which examines who benefits from such constructions and would therefore wish to promote the discourse. Finally, also within the discussion, the ideological effects of the identified discourses are examined. While not all discourses are ideological, as Parker points out, certain discourses have ideological effects and work to justify the position of dominant groups. The ultimate goal of this critical discourse analysis is change. By identifying the discourses and relationships surrounding motherhood and paid work, it aims to change the way the discourses are used and so permit “different spaces for manoeuvre and resistance” (Parker, 1992, p. 21).