Research education shaped by musical sensibilities

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liora Bresler

Based on my own research education courses for doctoral students, I examine the ways in which music provides powerful and rich models for perception, conceptualisation and engagement for both listeners and performers, to cultivate the processes and products of qualitative research in the social science in general, and in music education in particular. I discuss temporality and fluidity, listening and improvisation, originally terms associated with music, and their ramifications for qualitative inquiry. I then present some concrete examples from my research course, not as prescriptions to follow but as invitations for readers to generate their own activities and experiences.

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Larsson ◽  
Josef Frischer

The education of researchers in Sweden is regulated by a nationwide reform implemented in 1969, which intended to limit doctoral programs to 4 years without diminishing quality. In an audit performed by the government in 1996, however, it was concluded that the reform had failed. Some 80% of the doctoral students admitted had dropped out, and only 1% finished their PhD degree within the stipulated 4 years. In an attempt to determine the causes of this situation, we singled out a social-science department at a major Swedish university and interviewed those doctoral students who had dropped out of the program. This department was found to be representative of the nationwide figures found in the audit. The students interviewed had all completed at least 50% of their PhD studies and had declared themselves as dropouts from this department. We conclude that the entire research education was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude where supervisors were nominated but abdicated. To correct this situation, we suggest that a learning alliance should be established between the supervisor and the student. At the core of the learning alliance is the notion of mutually forming a platform form which work can emerge in common collaboration. The learning alliance implies a contract for work, stating its goals, the tasks to reach these goals, and the interpersonal bonding needed to give force and endurance to the endeavor. Constant scrutiny of this contract and a mutual concern for the learning alliance alone can contribute to its strength.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1496-1516
Author(s):  
Tisha Joseph Holmes ◽  
John Mathias ◽  
Tyler McCreary ◽  
James Brian Elsner

On March 3, 2019, an EF4 tornado devastated the rural Alabama communities of Beauregard and Smith Station, killing 23 people and causing direct injuries to another 97. This storm was unusually devastating, with twice the predicted casualty rate based on the tornado’s power, the impacted population, and impacted housing stock. In this paper, we apply qualitative methods from anthropology, geography, and planning to better understand the social context of this unusually devastating tornado. Recognizing that there are multiple formulations of the problem of disasters, we aim to highlight how interdisciplinary qualitative research can deepen our understanding of tornado disasters. Combining policy analysis, political economic critique, and ethnographic description, we seek to showcase how qualitative research enables us to interrogate and reimagine the problem of disasters. Rather than simply juxtaposing qualitative and quantitative methods, we emphasize how the heterogeneity of qualitative research methods can strengthen interdisciplinary research projects by generating dialogue about the multiple contexts relevant to understanding a social problem. While problem definition remains a central challenge to establishing a dialogue between anthropology and social work, here, we intend to extend this discussion to larger interdisciplinary collaborations. Situating the issue of problem formation within a broader ecology of qualitative inquiry, we highlight how dialogue about problem definition can, itself, produce meaningful insights into how we understand disasters.


Author(s):  
Cecilia Tarnoki ◽  
Katheryne Puentes

Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2018), by John W. Creswell and Cheryl N. Poth was written for anyone who is considering themselves to be researchers or interested in learning more about qualitative research. As students in doctoral programs studying family therapy at Nova Southeastern University, we felt that parts of the text were explicitly tailored toward the social sciences; however, the chapters are useful for anyone interested in qualitative research from many angles and aspects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 864-881
Author(s):  
Fan Yang ◽  
Quentin R Maynard ◽  
Sarah R Young ◽  
Jennifer L Kenney ◽  
Brad Barber ◽  
...  

The future of social work research relies on the intellect and competence of current doctoral students. These future scholars who receive doctoral education that values qualitative inquiry will create a system where qualitative research traditions receive the same privilege as quantitative research traditions. Project-based learning provides learning opportunities that can challenge assumptions about what academia considers “real” research. This descriptive qualitative study explored key attributes of using project-based learning within two consecutive social work doctoral courses to encourage qualitative research skill development. Students and instructors participated in ideawriting and focus groups to assess the usefulness of PBL within these courses. The findings suggested that PBL may be useful for deepening knowledge about qualitative inquiry and reducing epistemological unconsciousness.


2020 ◽  
pp. 107780042093329
Author(s):  
César A. Cisneros Puebla

It is important to define the ethnographical practices as a way of thinking and doing critical qualitative inquiry. Creative subversion currently arises as a breaking of rules, institutional change, social or political protest, popular or civic rebellion, fighting the law or simply radical transformation of situations. Today it is everywhere even though there is too much silence around it, which could be catastrophic for qualitative research. Reflexive methods could be enriched if researchers looking for social transformation and collaborating in civil resistance integrate in their ethnographical practices the creative subversion as shared knowledge object. It is pertinent to interpret the social action involved in such transformative processes as a poetics of rage collective or individually performed. Doing a review of how creative subversion has been dealt in the contemporary social science, this article is an effort to provide a nuance and rigorous definition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Ali Sati ◽  
Anhar Anhar

The purpose of this study is to find out how the community's response is toward the study program of Al-Qur'an and Tafsir at IAIN Padangsidimpuan. This research is a qualitative research which in collecting data it uses a phenomenological approach. Data collected is based on inner perspective of human behavior. The main data sources of this study were from Muslim community leaders and were selected by purposive sampling domiciled in Padangsidimpuan. The results found that the community emphasized that the vision, mission and objectives of the development of the Study Program of Al-Qur'an and Tafsir were truly directed towards strengthening scientific and methodological competence in understanding and interpreting the Qur'an. According to the community, the urgent curriculum content was, first, the linguistics of the Qur'an. The second is the sciences concerned the intricacies and various aspects of the Qur'an, which is commonly called ‘ulum al-Qur`an. The third is about the sciences related to the interpretation of manhaj (an approach and methodology of interpretation) that is classical, modern and contemporary. The fourth is the sciences related to the intricacies and various aspects of the hadits which are commonly called ‘ulum al-hadits. The fifth is the sciences related to the philosophy of science and research methodology. The sixth is the sciences related to social science and nature. These aspects are useful for understanding the social and scientific aspects of the verses of the Qur'an.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-29
Author(s):  
Wendy Bastalich

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe an experiment in a non-credit bearing series of social philosophy workshops offered to social science and humanities disciplines in an Australian university. Design/methodology/approach The paper outlines the design rationale and learning objectives for the workshop series. The data set includes qualitative student responses to 501 post-workshop questionnaires and 14 in-depth qualitative responses to a follow-up online questionnaire. Findings The data suggest that social philosophy methodology curriculum offered within a multi-discipline peer context can facilitate an appreciation among students of the centrality of theory and the value of diverse discipline approaches in research. The last part of the paper explores what underpins this – a kind of un-learning or uncertainty regarding the veracity of different philosophical approaches to research, tied to a de-centring of research subjectivity that allows for the co-existence of multiple voices. Language learning, the inclusion of post-modern perspectives and an unbiased presentation of a wide range of thinkers within a challenging intellectual context are central to this. Research limitations/implications The emerging trend towards university-wide doctoral training offers opportunities for useful innovations in research education. University-wide social philosophy curriculum can play a role in facilitating constructive negotiation of theoretical complexity both within and across social science and humanities disciplines. Originality/value The contemporary social science and humanities research context is a challenging space, characterised by intra-discipline methodological plurality, and the risk of marginalisation by more dominant instrumentalist, end-user and science-driven perspectives. The trend towards bringing different methodological perspectives together within inter-disciplinary research and team supervision of doctoral students can lead to conceptual misunderstanding and research delays. The capacity to negotiate and translate conceptual perspectives, often within complex research relationships, has then become an increasingly important academic skill. Within this context, university-wide doctoral training has emerged, but there has been little discussion of doctoral curricula beyond that devised for professional doctorates within the discipline in the non-US higher education literature. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship on research education by describing the sorts of relational, textual and conceptual processes that might be created in the multi-discipline social science and humanities context to produce an appreciation for the different philosophical foundations of research knowledge.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carey Jewitt ◽  
Sara Price ◽  
Anna Xambo Sedo

The turn to the body in social sciences has intensified the gaze of qualitative research on bodily matters and embodied relations and made the body a significant object of reflection, bringing new focus on and debates around the direction of methodological advances. This article contributes to these debates in three ways: 1) we explore the potential synergies across the social sciences and arts to inform the conceptualization of the body in digital contexts; 2) we point to ways qualitative research can engage with ideas from the arts towards more inclusive methods; and 3) we offer three themes with which to interrogate and re-imagine the body: its fragmenting and zoning, its sensory and material qualities, and its boundaries. We draw on the findings of an ethnographic study of the research ecologies of six research groups in the arts and social sciences concerned with the body in digital contexts to discuss the synergetic potential of these themes and how they could be mobilized for qualitative research on the body in digital contexts. We conclude that engaging with the arts brings potential to reinvigorate and extend the methodological repertoire of qualitative social science in ways that are pertinent to the current re-thinking of the body, its materiality and boundaries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyn Hammersley

This article focuses on what has been referred to as the ‘radical critique’ of interview data, to which Paul Atkinson has been an important contributor. This critique challenges the two main uses of such data in qualitative research, and in other forms of social science: to tap the knowledge of informants; and to draw inferences about the typical beliefs, attitudes, etc. of some group or category of actor to which the informant belongs. I argue that this radical critique relies upon a constructionist attitude towards the social world, and I examine one source of this: the influence of ethnomethodology. However, I suggest that a naturalistic stance can take account of the features of interviews to which the radical critique properly draws attention, without undercutting the normal uses of interview data. I emphasise that this does not obviate the need for careful consideration of how such data are produced, and particularly of the discourse practices involved. I illustrate my argument by briefly examining the opening section of an interview.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Given

Objective - This paper discusses the importance of qualitative research in evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP), with a focus on practical tips for evaluating and implementing effective qualitative research projects. Methods - The paper provides a brief introduction to the nature of qualitative inquiry and its status within current models of evidence assessment. Three problems of excluding qualitative research from the evidence-base in library and information studies (LIS) are identified: 1) ignoring the social sciences and humanities traditions that inform research in the field; 2) privileging of quantitative and experimental methods over others in evidence assessment; and, 3) focusing attention away from the best evidence for LIS research problems. Results - Qualitative approaches commonly used in library and information contexts are discussed, along with strategies for assessing quality in this work and some of the common ethics-related issues that researchers and professionals must consider. Conclusions - LIS professionals are encouraged to: 1) select research methods – including qualitative approaches – that best suit LIS questions; 2) design collaborative projects that combine quantitative and qualitative approaches, that will address research questions in a more complete way; 3) consider qualitative measures of rigor in assessing quality – rather than imposing quantitative expectations; and 4) revise existing models of “evidence” to recognize the value and rigor of qualitative research projects.


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