RIgour and Complexity in Educational Research
Kincheloe, J., & Berry, K. (2004). Open University Press.
This book describes the concept of bricolage as research methodology. In the introduction (pp. 1-22), it is understood as interdisciplinary methodology, which combines cross-disciplinary approaches in order to avoid monological reductionism. Kincheloe admits that this method is quite challenging to beginning scholars (p.4). [then, what should I take from this book?] He continues the periscope of bricolage which should understand social construction of knowledge and subjectivity. Importantly, researchers who employ this method understand that different points of view bring out different interpretation because of the complexity of knowledge, "ever shifting boundries between the social world and the narrative representation of it" (p.7).
He continues to emphasize the complexity of knowledge and everyday life in the second chapter (pp. 23-49). Among the notions that indicates this complexity are there intertextuality, discursive construction, cultural assumptions within all research methods, and the relationship between power and knowledge: what he means by intertextuality is the complexity can be only understood by connecting narratives, each of which connects fractional materials. [I don't quite understand what discursive construction (p.28) means. I will ask.] Continuously, he asserts that any knowledge is constructed at a specific spatial and historical dimention, which brands on both the method and the knowledge, thus bricoleurs should be particularly conscious of the context where their own research is conducted. Finally he suggests examining the research domain in higher education to see how power takes control knowledge production by comparing types of research projects rewarded and those not rewarded. Kincheloe quotes Carter (2004)'s notion about the reductionistic methods employed to explain the visual domain. [This may explain how the Video-Telling participants learn. It was not linear as they used to learn, but more complex at the content level and subtle at the presentation level.]
Kincheloe argues the meanings and usefulness of (inter)disciplinarity in research methods (pp.50-81). By understanding methods and practices employed in a certain disciplinary could reveal the hidden ideological dimension embedded in the process of knowledge production, bricoleurs become aware of the disciplinary as a "discursive system of regulatory power" delimited within the boundaries. [ What does he mean by discursive system (p.53)?] In the same context, he also affirms that disciplines should be approached in discursive as well as paradigmatic analysis, which expands the concept of paradigmatic change by Thomas Kuhn (1962). [Again what is discursive analysis (p.54)? What did Kuhn say about the paradigmatic change precisely in his words (p.56)?] According to the author, the rationality, the backbone of the Western history, grounded disciplinary power with exclusion of people from other classification (p.62) [I see this assumption is also the basis of technocracy, exclusive elitic bureaucracy.] and the interconnectedness of bricolage allows seeing global communications from the perspective of postcolonial movements (p.63) [This point gives me a useful tool to approach my research on globalization.]
According to him, knowledge or human knowing is an interpretation, thus it is fugitive (p.90) in that it is not rationally defined and tentative (p.94) in opposition to final. While maintaining bricoleur's task of analyzing how power shapes knowledge, he warns researchers possessing power because the knowledge produced by them would reflect dominant interest (pp.98-100). [This position poses me two questions: first, do power and knowledge have one directionality? Doesn't knowledge also (re)shape power, as seen in the framework of technocracy? Second, as the author emphasizes, critical studies and hermeneutics require researchers to conduct their research from the subjugated in order to empower them. Taking a position and contributing to transformative actions also a process of empowering researchers themselves. But by not distinguishing kinds of power, his statement seem so elusive that it may insinuate a neutral position of researchers, alienated in the social structure where power is embedded.]
Berry introduces how to conduct bricolage research with complexity. Beginning with POET (point of entry text)--anything such as a book, an image, a film, an article--a researcher prepares a bricolage map, a list of related fields of study in multiple disciplines, then repeat visiting those fields and coming back to the POET, called Feedback looping, until she/he can see certain pattenrs appear on the map (pp.103-113). [A problematic point is how one, especially less trained researchers, can lay out a map to begin with. The map should grow and realistically does. Thus, isn't it a more effective appoach to begin with a simple list of disciplinaries and grandize by conneting sub-disciplinaries or related/recovered disciplinaries and finally regrouping them into certain categories? Also, I do not get why a research needs to go back to the POET each time to visit the disciplinaries in the map. The POET can be very symbolic and a point where the research interest burst out, but not necessarily resides in the center of the research topic.]
This book describes the concept of bricolage as research methodology. In the introduction (pp. 1-22), it is understood as interdisciplinary methodology, which combines cross-disciplinary approaches in order to avoid monological reductionism. Kincheloe admits that this method is quite challenging to beginning scholars (p.4). [then, what should I take from this book?] He continues the periscope of bricolage which should understand social construction of knowledge and subjectivity. Importantly, researchers who employ this method understand that different points of view bring out different interpretation because of the complexity of knowledge, "ever shifting boundries between the social world and the narrative representation of it" (p.7).
He continues to emphasize the complexity of knowledge and everyday life in the second chapter (pp. 23-49). Among the notions that indicates this complexity are there intertextuality, discursive construction, cultural assumptions within all research methods, and the relationship between power and knowledge: what he means by intertextuality is the complexity can be only understood by connecting narratives, each of which connects fractional materials. [I don't quite understand what discursive construction (p.28) means. I will ask.] Continuously, he asserts that any knowledge is constructed at a specific spatial and historical dimention, which brands on both the method and the knowledge, thus bricoleurs should be particularly conscious of the context where their own research is conducted. Finally he suggests examining the research domain in higher education to see how power takes control knowledge production by comparing types of research projects rewarded and those not rewarded. Kincheloe quotes Carter (2004)'s notion about the reductionistic methods employed to explain the visual domain. [This may explain how the Video-Telling participants learn. It was not linear as they used to learn, but more complex at the content level and subtle at the presentation level.]
Kincheloe argues the meanings and usefulness of (inter)disciplinarity in research methods (pp.50-81). By understanding methods and practices employed in a certain disciplinary could reveal the hidden ideological dimension embedded in the process of knowledge production, bricoleurs become aware of the disciplinary as a "discursive system of regulatory power" delimited within the boundaries. [ What does he mean by discursive system (p.53)?] In the same context, he also affirms that disciplines should be approached in discursive as well as paradigmatic analysis, which expands the concept of paradigmatic change by Thomas Kuhn (1962). [Again what is discursive analysis (p.54)? What did Kuhn say about the paradigmatic change precisely in his words (p.56)?] According to the author, the rationality, the backbone of the Western history, grounded disciplinary power with exclusion of people from other classification (p.62) [I see this assumption is also the basis of technocracy, exclusive elitic bureaucracy.] and the interconnectedness of bricolage allows seeing global communications from the perspective of postcolonial movements (p.63) [This point gives me a useful tool to approach my research on globalization.]
According to him, knowledge or human knowing is an interpretation, thus it is fugitive (p.90) in that it is not rationally defined and tentative (p.94) in opposition to final. While maintaining bricoleur's task of analyzing how power shapes knowledge, he warns researchers possessing power because the knowledge produced by them would reflect dominant interest (pp.98-100). [This position poses me two questions: first, do power and knowledge have one directionality? Doesn't knowledge also (re)shape power, as seen in the framework of technocracy? Second, as the author emphasizes, critical studies and hermeneutics require researchers to conduct their research from the subjugated in order to empower them. Taking a position and contributing to transformative actions also a process of empowering researchers themselves. But by not distinguishing kinds of power, his statement seem so elusive that it may insinuate a neutral position of researchers, alienated in the social structure where power is embedded.]
Berry introduces how to conduct bricolage research with complexity. Beginning with POET (point of entry text)--anything such as a book, an image, a film, an article--a researcher prepares a bricolage map, a list of related fields of study in multiple disciplines, then repeat visiting those fields and coming back to the POET, called Feedback looping, until she/he can see certain pattenrs appear on the map (pp.103-113). [A problematic point is how one, especially less trained researchers, can lay out a map to begin with. The map should grow and realistically does. Thus, isn't it a more effective appoach to begin with a simple list of disciplinaries and grandize by conneting sub-disciplinaries or related/recovered disciplinaries and finally regrouping them into certain categories? Also, I do not get why a research needs to go back to the POET each time to visit the disciplinaries in the map. The POET can be very symbolic and a point where the research interest burst out, but not necessarily resides in the center of the research topic.]
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