The evidence collected in the fieldwork was gathered and sorted into a usable format, including documents, transcripts of interviews and focus groups, observation field notes and photos. Before proceeding with the analysis, the question “what counts as data or evidence” in my study was carefully considered (Mason, 2002, p.37). The textbook issue was the key concern to the study at this stage. Since no textbook was used in St Andrews Primary School, the textbooks collected in Phoenix Primary School, although accounting for a large amount of the data set, were not identified as key evidence for analysis to ensure comparability. Thematic analysis, which was applied to all forms of data, will be discussed in terms of the justifications and application procedures. This section goes on to discuss how the data was relied on to provide evidence for the three findings chapters.
4.4.1 Thematic analysis
As “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.79), thematic analysis was adopted as the general approach to data analysis in this study. The appropriateness of thematic analysis primarily lies in its advantage in examining perspectives of different individuals (Nowell et al., 2017). Through thematic analysis, not only could different levels of national identity education and global identity education be researched, but the similarities and differences between the two case schools could also be addressed (Alhojailan, 2012; Connolly, 2003). In addition, thematic analysis is flexible as it allows both theoretical perspectives and ideas derived from the data to be brought together, which can enrich the analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In analysing the data generated from the Chinese and Scottish contexts, the detailed procedures of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) were followed.
Familiarisation was the first step of the thematic analysis. I was aware of the importance of familiarisation as a crucial activity in the fieldwork (Ritchie et al., 2003). I transcribed all the interviews and focus groups on the same days that I had conducted them. As well, the documents, field notes and photos were organised right after being collected or created. In doing this, my engagement with the content of the data was established at an early stage. After the fieldwork, familiarisation with the content was achieved through repeated reading of all the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). No interpretation was considered at this phase, although some general notes on ideas for coding work were noted down (Nowell et al., 2017; Robson, 2002).
The second step involved generating initial codes. Using highlighters and writing marginal notes, the data were read and coded line-by-line manually. Both approaches of deductive coding and inductive coding were employed in developing the initial codes (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 2000). At the beginning, to help illuminate important aspects of my study, prior codes generated on concepts of national identity and global identity were brought into the analysis. Regarding the study of national identity, I followed Guibernau’s work (2007), which defines national identity as “a collective sentiment based upon the belief of belonging to the same nation and of sharing most attributes that make it distinct from other nations” (p.11). Accordingly, the psychological, cultural, territorial, historical and political dimensions of national identity, as Guibernau (2007) proposes, were identified as the initial theory-driven codes. Following a similar way of understanding national identity, global identity in the study was identified as a cognitive and affective way of relating to the global world. As most studies of global identity have been carried out within the scope of global citizenship, the most comprehensive typology of global citizenship, developed by Oxley and Morris (2013), was adopted to generate corresponding codes. The aim of doing this was to explore which aspects of national identity and global identity were emphasised in each of the two case schools.
However, the theory-driven codes turned out to be too rigid to provide a rich description of the data, and they were especially unable to identify the features
of education discourses in both settings. Hence, some inductive codes were generated from the data set as well. After all the documents, transcripts and field notes were initially coded, which resulted in a total of 796 and 617 data segments in the Chinese and Scottish settings respectively, all the segmented data were revisited and recoded to ensure that they were appropriately assigned to the most applicable and relevant codes (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 2000).
The next phases included searching for, reviewing, defining and naming the themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Once the codes had been generated, all the segmented data with the same or similar codes were grouped together to identify the overarching patterns within them (Ritchie et al., 2003). This was done by writing each code name on a separate piece of paper with its clusters of data. The language of the respondents was fully retained at this stage. In identifying the themes, two specific techniques proposed by Ryan and Bernard (2003) were applied, one of which was searching for repetitions. The similarities and differences in the ways in which respondents discussed a topic were focused on as well. For instance, in the Chinese context, while discussing essential factors in constructing Chinese identity, the distinguishing attributes of China and the development that China had achieved in the past decades were repeatedly referred to, and hence were identified as initial themes. Afterwards, the initial themes developed through each code table were synthesised and refined to draw up the final themes. This process ultimately resulted in 29 themes and 24 themes in the Chinese and Scottish contexts respectively (see Appendix I for the codebook).
It is worth mentioning that the thematic analysis applied in the study was not a linear process of moving from one phase to the next (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Instead, it was a recursive process, during which reading data, assigning codes and extracting and revising themes were simultaneously and alternately engaged in throughout the analysis to ensure consistency (Cohen et al., 2011).
4.4.2 Making sense of the evidence
The thematic analysis was applied throughout the process of analysing the data, while the presentation of the evidence in the three findings chapters was framed by the respective sub-questions of the study, and therefore presented some differences.
The evidence on education intentions was gathered from two sources: interviews with policy experts and the documents collected at national and school levels. The policy experts’ views were analysed to unpack the philosophy underlying national identity education and global identity education. The overarching themes that were generated in both contexts were their views of their nation and the world, as well as their perceptions of what national identity education and global identity education should be, while the specific themes and sub-themes generated in the Chinese and Scottish settings varied. The documents were analysed to shed light on how national identity and global identity were officially specified in written forms. The themes identified were generally about the status, aims and content of related educational practices, as well as the roles of students and teachers within school settings. It is noteworthy that the textbooks collected in the Chinese contexts, although they were not analysed following the steps elicited above, were treated as complementary documents enriching the content of the key findings.
The interviews with teachers and the observations served as two sources of evidence to understand the practices in the two case schools. To be more specific, the interviews were analysed to identify teachers’ personal understandings of national identity and global identity, as well as their corresponding practices. Accordingly, the themes that emerged from the interviews fell into two general categories, while the themes generated from the observations were mainly related to the implicit educational practices in the case schools.
The focus groups with students were analysed to explore the experience and perceptions of the students. The themes fell into two general categories, one of which was the educational practices the students had experienced, while the
other was their perceptions of national identity and global identity. Due to the interactive nature of the focus groups, many themes were identified from the agreement and disagreement between the students’ points of views. The students’ voices were not analysed independently, but in conjunction with the evidence gathered from other sources, with the aim of exploring the similarities and differences in the ways in which different respondents interpreted national identity education and global identity education.
The evidence relating to the intended, implemented and attained curricula is presented in Chapters Five, Six and Seven respectively. Based on juxtaposition of the findings generated from the two case schools (Bereday, 1967), a comprehensive comparison between them is presented in Chapter Eight.