Manual de utilización de Matriz

Schwandt identifies three epistemological stances for qualitative inquiry.55 These are interpretivism, hermeneutics, and social constructionism. Each of these stances is based on the premise that human action is meaningful, but each of them assumes a different perspective on the aim and practice of understanding human action. Though this research emerges from a constructivist paradigm, it does not go as far as the premise of social constructionism that locates all meaning in the constructs of the social world. A contextual constructivism assumes that the task of research is to interpret a context so as to understand it and maybe learn from it, change it or confirm it. Interpretivism and hermeneutics are appropriate epistemological stances for a constructivist approach. Within the interpretivist tradition, the constitutive elements of understanding are empathic identification, phenomenological sociology, and language games. Empathic identification refers to the attempt of the researcher to get an insider understanding of the situation or phenomenon being investigated. It assumes that the interpreter or researcher can break out of their own historical circumstances in order to reproduce the meaning or intention of the actor. The work of phenomenological sociology is concerned with understanding how the everyday, intersubjective world is constituted. The aim is to ‘grasp how we come to interpret our own and others’ action as meaningful’.56 The conceptual tools of this approach are indexicality, which signifies that the meaning of a word is dependent on the context in which it is used, and reflexivity which indicates that what is said is not just about something but is also doing something. The words that are used do not just reflect reality but also shape it. Schwandt defines the third element of interpretive understanding as a language game that has its own rules or criteria for making the game meaningful to participants. So ‘human action is meaningful by virtue of the system of meanings to which it belongs’.57

Apprehending these systems of meanings is the goal of understanding. Schwandt says that these three ways of thinking about interpretivism have three features in common. In the first place they view human action as meaningful, secondly they are ethical in their respect for people’s lived reality, and thirdly they emphasise the contribution of human subjectivity without sacrificing the objectivity

55 Schwandt, pp. 189-213. 56 Schwandt, p. 192. 57 Schwandt, p. 193.

of knowledge. For an interpretivist, it is possible to understand the self- understandings of people engaged in particular activities or contexts and present these in an objective manner. At the heart of interpretivist thinking is an emphasis on Verstehen, that is, the empathic understanding of human behaviour in its own

58

context. In that sense then this type of qualitative inquiry is hermeneutical, that is, it draws on the hermeneutic circle as a method. This research draws on Clifford Geertz’s description of the hermeneutic circle as:

a continuous dialectical tacking between the most local o f local detail and the most global of global structure in such a way as to bring them into sim ultaneous view [...] Hopping back and forth between the whole conceived through the parts that actualize it and the parts conceived through the whole which motivates them, w e seek to turn them, by a sort o f intellectual perpetual motion, into explications of one another.59

In situating the research question within a local context, which is the understanding of religious education, the research draws on the more global structures of theology, philosophy, education, and religious education to explicate the local and allow the research question to elucidate the larger question of religious education. This allows for qualitative research that does not necessarily have individual people at the heart of the research, but is concerned with how concepts within the social world have evolved.

Schwandt argues that a fourth way of interpretive understanding is found in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Charles Taylor, which have been inspired by Heidegger.60 Though not fully adopted in this research, this fourth way offers some perspectives that have shaped the direction of the research. The first perspective is the challenge to the notion that the interpreter is in some way a detached or objective observer. The researcher does not have to get rid of bias, but must acknowledge that one’s own bias is part of all understanding; the researcher is shaped by a tradition and cannot step outside of it. This is a significant insight given the professional role of this researcher. Though this research is written in the passive voice and attempts some objective distance, there is also a critical awareness that decisions about the selection of data, the influence of selected authors, and the questions asked of the data all reflect the researcher’s bias. A second perspective

58 Schwandt, p. 192,

59 Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 3rd edn (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 69.

60 Schwandt, pp. 194-197.

that has shaped this research is the emphasis on the sense that understanding does not just follow from research or engagement, but is the very condition of being human. Understanding is itself a kind of practical experience; it is lived now rather than applied later. Within this framework, understanding is participative, conversational, and dialogic. Meaning is produced in the dialogue rather than reproduced by the researcher. This insight forms the basis of the construction of Chapters Four and Five of this research and has been a significant element in the on­ going learning of this researcher. A third insight that is of value is the realisation that it is only in the dialogical encounter with what is alien to us, or what makes a claim on us, that we can open ourselves to understanding.61

Any interpretive project is concerned with dialogue, conversation, and what Schwandt calls ‘education understood as an interpretational interchange that is self- transformative’.62 Joe Kincheloe and Peter McLaren observe that the act of interpretation involves making sense of what has been observed in a way that communicates understanding. They suggest that an interpretive approach gives rise to a methodology that produces ‘profound insights that lead to transformative action’.63 Such an approach is consistent with the aim of this research which does not perceive understanding as an end in itself, but in the act of understanding to be transformative of structures and people. The results of the interpretive nature of this research are seen in Chapter Six. An interpretive approach is also consistent with the premise of this research that religious education is always a hermeneutical and communicative interpretation of religious traditions and people’s engagement with these.

An interpretive mode of inquiry lends itself to adopting a qualitative methodological approach to the research. A qualitative approach was judged to be appropriate as the research set out to investigate a context that was not easy to quantify or measure accurately and as its concern was with language, concepts, definitions, and meanings. Qualitative research generally refers to the attempt to uncover and understand meaning from the analysis of collected data so as to capture

61 Schwandt, p. 195. 62 Schwandt, p. 202-203.

63 Joe L. K incheloe and Peter M cLaren, ‘Rethinking Critical Theory and Q ualitative R esearch’, in The Sage Handbook o f Qualitative Research, ed. by N orm an K. D enzin and Y vonna S. Lincoln, 3rd edn (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005), pp. 303-343 (p. 311).

the best representation of social reality. Qualitative research methods accept that there are multiple realities and multiple interpretations rather than just one conception of reality or one interpretation, and so is congruent with a constructivist paradigm. According to Sharan Merriam, the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. The researcher will primarily employ an inductive research strategy focussing on process, meaning, and understanding, resulting in a richly descriptive product.64 An inductive approach expects that knowledge will emerge from the study and perhaps lead to the development of a theory rather than confirming a theory. This is relevant to this research as, to date, there is no theory of religious education for student teachers of religious education in the Irish context. An appropriate starting point for qualitative analysis is descriptive research. David Krathwohl notes that 'descriptive research involves collecting data in order to answer questions [...] about the current status of the situation under study’.65 The intention of descriptive research is to develop a purposeful, systematic, intelligent, and accurate description of some particular situation. An advantage of qualitative research is that it allows the researcher to describe and examine the breadth and depth of existing phenomena, concepts, and current situations, so as to yield results that further knowledge. The disadvantage of qualitative research is that it can be difficult to make generalisations with confidence.

1.9.2 The Role of the Researcher

The purpose of the qualitative inquiry undertaken in this study is to acquire an understanding of the issues pertaining to the research question. The explicit incorporation of the experience of the researcher within a qualitative inquiry has gained support.66 The researcher is not a neutral observer. Though a passive voice is adopted for the writing up of this research, the researcher is inevitably present in every decision and argument, both explicitly as well as in the lacunae. Peter Reason uses the term 'critical subjectivity’ to allow for the involvement of the researcher’s assumptions in the shaping of the research project. Critical subjectivity is 'a quality

64 Sharan B. M erriam , Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), p. 14.

65 D avid R. Krathwohl, Social and Behavioral Science Research: A New Framework fo r

Conceptualizing, Implementing, and Evaluating Research Studies (San Francisco: Jossey-B ass, 1985), & 178’

Norm an K. D enzin and Yvonna, S. Lincoln, ‘Introduction: D isciplining the Practice o f Qualitative R esearch1, in The Sage Handbook o f Qualitative Research, ed. by D enzin and Lincoln, 4 th edn, pp. l-1 9 (p . 12).

of awareness in which we do not suppress our primary experience; nor do we allow ourselves to be swept away and overwhelmed by it; rather we raise it to consciousness and use it as part of the inquiry process’.67 Louis Cohen introduces the word ‘reflexivity’ to refer to the researcher’s involvement with a particular study.68 The first form of reflexivity is personal reflexivity which involves reflecting upon the way that the researcher’s identity and experiences have shaped the research. A second form of reflexivity concerns epistemological reflexivity, which requires an engagement with assumptions about the world. This second form also requires the acquisition of the type of reflective knowledge that helps us to think about the implications of such assumptions. While aware of the first form, it is this second form of reflexivity that is central to how this research proceeds.

1.9.3 Using Documents as the Source of Data

The early part of this research relies on documents as its source of data. According to John Scott, a document is a written text ‘produced by individuals and groups in the course of their everyday practices and [...] geared exclusively for their own immediate practical needs’.69 Documents are not deliberately produced for the benefit of the researcher. Geoff Payne and Judy Payne describe documents as having a semi-permanent existence which tell us indirectly about the social world, and the epistemological and ontological assumptions of the people who created the documents.70 The documents in question provide what Scott characterises as ‘mediate access’ as opposed to ‘proximate access’ to the context. Though in the case of this research the researcher is in some way proximate or ‘contemporaneous’ to the context, the documents offer a mediated access to data that can therefore fulfil the requirements of authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning. According to Scott, the researcher must ensure that the evidence is genuine and from impeccable sources, that it is typical of its kind, free from error or distortion, and representative of the totality of the relevant documents. The ultimate purpose of examining any document is ‘to arrive at an understanding of the meaning and

67 Peter Reason, T h re e Approaches to Participative Inquiry’, in The Sage Handbook o f Qualitative Research, ed. by Denzin and Lincoln, 1st edn, pp. 324-339 (p. 327).

68 Louis C ohen, Law rence M anion and Keith M orrison, Research Methods in Education, 5th edn (London: RoutledgeFalm er, 2000), pp. 140-141.

69 John Scott, A Matter o f Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), p. 5.

70 G eoff Payne and Judy Payne, Key Concepts in Social Research (London: Sage Publications, 2004), p. 61.

significance of what the document contains’.71 This research has attended to Scott’s criteria in its selection of material for review. Documents do not exist as neutral records; they offer only partial and partisan views of the topic under discussion. As such, each individual document offers a limited perspective. However, insights can emerge from considering how a range of documents from a variety of sources interact with each other. From a constructivist perspective this is essential, as there is no single uncontested history of anything.

Contrary to some forms of research where the review of literature is preparatory to the study, the literature review in this study provides the actual data for research. In this study, the literature review presented in Chapter Two and Chapter Three occurs within larger historical, cultural, political, religious, and socio­ economic contexts that colour and shape the interpretation of the selected documents. The material for review was selected on the basis of its pertinence to the research question and evaluated on the basis of the source of the document, its generalisability, reliability, and validity. Care was taken that the review of the data was evaluative and not merely descriptive. The literature was then organised on the basis of its source. Chapter Two charts the literature emanating from the State while Chapter Three presents the material from the perspective of the Church. For the most part, this material is presented chronologically so as to get a sense of emerging trends, concerns, issues, and developments.