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“Epistemology is the study of how we know or what the rules for knowing are.”(Scheurich, 1997, p29)

105 It is easy to be enticed by such a neat definition into thinking that epistemology is neat and simple also. However in the 1980’s epistemologies were challenged, politicised and reconsidered substantially, meaning that research is now taking place in a time when paradigms that are rooted in the Age of Enlightenment are being disputed, and

Postmodernism can be regarded as the best option for the West to re-examine its own fundamental concepts of reality, research and knowledge (Scheurich, 1997, p2).

Therefore, whether you refer to them as epistemologies; paradigms; ontologies; broadly conceived research methodologies or worldviews, it is important to acknowledge that all research has behind it suppositions regarding actuality and knowledge, and that these assumptions in turn have profound impact on the research that is carried out (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008, p21). I choose to use the term worldviews which Creswell defines as “[…. ]‘a basic set of beliefs that guide action’ (Guba, 1990, p.17)” and “a general orientation about the world and the nature of research that a researcher holds”(Creswell, 2003) (Creswell, 2009, p6). Plano Clark and Creswell (2008) state that all research has an ideological basis for its investigation and researchers need to be aware of their own worldviews (p21). I will return to the importance of understanding the implicit worldviews a researcher brings to their research, but first it is important to outline what some of these broad worldviews are.

The four worldviews defined by Plano Clark and Creswell are Post-positivism;

Constructivism, Advocacy and Participatory; and Pragmatism(2008, p22-23). In simplistic terms “Post-Positivism is often associated with quantitative approaches”(Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008, p22) and cause-effect thinking. Constructivism is “[…] typically associated with qualitative approaches” where research is shaped from the ‘bottom up’ and is informed by the social interactions of participants and their views (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008, p22). These are acknowledged to be subjective and used to form broad patterns and

106 then, in turn, theory. They see Advocacy and Participatory worldviews as having the ultimate goal of a change to the social world, and Pragmatism as being the most suited to Mixed Methods research approaches as the impetus is on the outcome of the research rather than the actual methods used (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008, p23). Although they identify how these different worldviews can be associated with certain methods, Creswell (2003) also cautions against seeing qualitative and quantitative approaches as

dichotomous, suggesting rather that they are part of the same continuum, which is a point I will return to later (p3).

Other researchers believe that it is not enough to simply be aware of their own worldviews, and call for a rigorous exploration and understanding of the researcher’s worldviews and an unpicking of the views inherent in the research methods themselves. The rationale behind this is the belief that research methods are all embedded within a hinterland of previous research, which constructs and re-constructs knowledge within existing (and often very well hidden) power structures. Law (2004) explores this concept meticulously and states that “[…] if we build our assumptions about the nature of good methods into our investigations of method then we are likely to come to conclusions that mirror these assumptions”(p40). He also notes that the methods, tenets and procedures construct the ‘truth’ that they claim to discover (2004, p5). These ‘realities’ are formed from values which Patti Lather (1991) believes are in turn embedded in ‘science’ “[…] linguistically, ideologically, and historically[….]”(p105). In short, if we keep doing what we have always done then we will always get the same results, and these results will be value-laden.

This has profound implications for the balance of power in research. Law (2004) sees this recreation of methods as a tool of the powerful: “the powerful (try to) insist that their statements are literal depictions of a single reality. ‘It really is this way’ they tell us. ‘There is no alternative’” (p89). His position is that knowledge is seen by many to be ‘fact’ and

107 ‘unchallengeable’ as it is continually proven through its reproduction, and he argues that, “[…]if things seem solid, prior, independent, definite and single then perhaps this is because they are being enacted, and re-enacted, and re-enacted, in practices”(p56). He highlights that this knowledge was itself originally constructed but that it is so embedded in current systems that we cease to see the origins.

This view that the methods are not impartially benevolent but organised to maintain their power is echoed by other postmodern researchers. Kincheloe and Berry (2004) express “[…]power works best when it is not recognized as power.”(p7). Patti Lather (1991) sees this as an active process of concealment and self-preservation, “foregrounded as an ideological ruse, the claim to value neutrality is held to delimit our concept of science and obscure and occlude its own particularity and interest[…]”(p105). Law (2004) goes on to note that these ways of seeing the world have so much resting on them that they seem impossible to topple and thus continue to hold their dominance (p38).

The acknowledgement of this power is one part of the postmodern research agenda. Those researchers who see method and methodology as intrinsically related to power concerns believe that it is impossible to totally remove ideology and advocate a

transparency and open ideology, especially when working with marginalizedgroups (Lather in, DeMarrais & Lapan, 2004, pp204 and 208). Due to the origins of research methods and methodologies in the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, postmodern researchers believe that they have embedded biases and connections to the Nation State, which exclude people from ‘other’ cultural backgrounds whether we intend them to or not (Lather in DeMarrais & Lapan, 2004; Scheurich, 1997, p14). To combat this Lather advocates ‘Critical Inquiry’, which acknowledges tensions between researchers and

researched, encourages dialogue and interaction, and connects meanings to broader social and political contexts (inDeMarrais & Lapan, 2004, p209). Of course Critical Inquiry itself is

108 not free from the hinterland of research that Law describes. The research methods and studies that have gone before inform the research that comes after, and these past research methodologies were principally created by scholars who were white and in a specific social context (Scheurich, 1997, p143). Even when as researchers we try and structure our research in a global perspective, this perspective is often framed by concerns that are relevant to Europeans and structured around Enlightenment values (Kenway & Fahey, 2009, p30).

Advocates of postmodern research and academic discourse draw on the post-structuralists to trouble the past epistemologies that rest on the Age of Reason and the Industrial Revolution. Lather draws on Foucault to assert that current intellectuals are writing in an era which is renowned for troubling the formerly stable underpinnings of awareness and knowledge (1991, p6), and there is a move away from these former ways of thinking - from a found to a constructed world, one which sees the power alliances behind assumptions (Lather, 1991, p86 and p105). Researchers like Lather, Law and Kincheloe & Berry embrace this shift and offer alternatives to following traditional routes of research, which knowingly or unknowingly recreate existing epistemologies, and note that science is “[…]no more outside the power/knowledge nexus than any other human enterprise”(Lather, 1991, p105). Law also draws on writers such as Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze to discuss how they avoid assumptions about an external reality through which to know the world by using metaphors such as flux to describe the impossibility of pinning down anything in the way that science tries to (2004, p8-9). He makes statements about knowledge which recognize a shift in ontology: “The argument is no longer that methods discover and depict realities. Instead, it is that they participate in the enactment of those realities”(2004, p45).

Postmodern researchers question the notion of an objective truth in favour of what they see as a multi-faceted reality and complexity, and this then effects the way in which they approach research (Lather, 1991, p51).

109 Indeed, the postmodern way of seeing the world is a complex one:

“The postmodern text is evocative as opposed to didactic; extended argument is displaced by what Barbara Johnson (1987) refers to as ‘a much messier form of bricolage [oblique collage of juxtapositions] that moves back and forth from positions that remain sceptical of each other though perhaps not always sceptical enough’ (p.4). Pastiche, montage, collage, bricolage and the deliberate

conglomerizing of purposes characterize postmodern art and architectural styles”(Lather, 1991, p10).

Kincheloe and Berry (2004) conceptualise this term ‘Bricolage’, as it was used by Denzin and Lincoln (which they coined from Levi-Strauss) to describe a researcher who draws on a variety of research methods in order to challenge existing power dynamics that are

inherent in research and the world. As they note:

“Appreciating research as a power-driven act, the researcher-as-bricoleur abandons the quest for some naïve concept of realism, focusing instead on the clarification of his or her position in the web of reality and the social locations of other researchers and the ways they shape the production and interpretation of knowledge”(p2).

They encourage bricoleurs to be aware of social, cultural and historical context and how they affect what we see as ‘understanding’ (2004, p4). The postmodern research paradigm is one of critique and consideration. Law (2004) argues that rather than simply using existing research methodologies unquestioningly, it is important for us to try and create new methods which are free from biases (p15), while Kincheloe and Berry (2004) want researchers to recognise that, “[…] knowledge is always in process, developing, culturally specific, and power-inscribed”(p79).

110 These epistemological assumptions form the basis from which I chose my methodologies and methods of data collection. I do not reject the other types of ‘worldview’, and indeed draw from many of their methods. I also closely identify with the pragmatist world view because the focus was not on adhering to a specific research methodology but on the meanings evolving from the research, and as such the methods were chosen to best suit the situation and the participant without a definite outcome in mind (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2008, p23). I will return to this when I discuss the methods that I have chosen.

I do not, however, suggest that all of the constituent parts are separate. Instead I seek to explore the relationships between them (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004, p2 and p10), and not to be afraid of the complexity that this brings. As Law (2004) states, “it does not imply that reality is fragmented; instead it implies something much more complex. It implies that the different realities overlap and interfere with one another. Their relationships, partially co- ordinated, are complex and messy […]”(p61). The bricolage also respects this ‘mess’ and is, as I stated above, “[…] grounded in an epistemology of complexity”(Kincheloe & Berry, 2004, p2). Gunaratnam, as I have discussed, encourages researchers to explore the messy and the complex, and Lather (1991) sees the questioning of basic epistemological

assumptions as an opportunity to create theories which do not subscribe to linearity and certainty (xvi). It is this complexity and depth of study that I am aiming for with my

research, because it allows for an enhanced exploration of the case and for a multiplicity of views to be explored, which is especially pertinent when researching young people and minoritised groups where views can often be overlooked or disregarded.

Kincheloe and Berry (2004) note that, “The bricoleur understands that the frontiers of knowledge work best in the liminal zones where disciplines collide”(p80). Liminality, as discussed above, is a concept which is regarded as crucial in anthropological and

111 nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law,

custom, convention, and ceremonial.” (Turner in Brown, 2002, p19). It is a key part of my research question to consider the potential of an ‘in-between zone’, and the relevance of the in-between to the theories, participants and spaces I was working with requires that it is a methodological as well as theoretical tool, and I will discuss this in more detail as I outline my methodology. Crucially, the research acknowledges that real life contexts are complex and messy - however, the research design itself is not messy, rather, it is carefully considered and enacted.

The overarching methodology I have chosen to use is case study, and I will now explore the history and evolution of case study and its main components.