Critical Qualitative Inquiry

Critical approaches to qualitative research have made a significant impact on research practice over the past decade. This comprehensive volume of contemporary, original articles places this trend in its historical context, describes the current landscape of critical work, and considers the future of this turn. The book-includes contributions from some of the leading qualitative researchers on three continents;-consists of big-picture articles that describe the dimensions of this research tradition;-situates critical qualitative inquiry in the overall development and landscape of qualitative research.

This volume highlights work being done in qualitative inquiry through a variety of critical lenses such as new materialism, queer theory, and narrative inquiry. Contributors ranging from seasoned academics to emerging scholars attend to questions of ontology and epistemology, providing, in the process, insights that any qualitative researcher interested in the state of the field would find of value. The authors: re-think taken-for-granted paradigms, frameworks, methodologies, ethics, and politics; demonstrate major shifts in qualitative inquiry, and point readers in new and exciting directions; advocate for a critical qualitative inquiry that addresses social justice, decolonization, and the politics of research; present plenary addresses and other key original papers from the 2015 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. This title is sponsored by the International Association of Qualitative Inquiry, a major new international organization which sponsors an annual Congress.

Critical qualitative research informs social education through a lens that ensures the investigation of issues in education tied to power and privilege, ultimately leading to advocacy and activism. The concept of critical is increasingly challenged in this age of neoliberal reform; nevertheless, critical implies questioning, investigating and challenging in terms of equity and social justice, leading to critical consciousness (Freire, 1970). While we resist defining social education, as hopefully these ideas / concepts are fluid, the idea stems from a continual analysis and synthesis of critical theory/ critical pedagogy, media and cultural studies, social reconstruction / social justice, and social studies education framed by culturally responsive pedagogy. A social education take on critical qualitative research thus suggests multiple truths and perspectives and focuses on questions rather than answers. While many have written on qualitative educational research and some have attempted to integrate critical pedagogy and qualitative research, few have explored the specific idea of social education and critical qualitative research. A major issue is that social education claims that there are no set procedures, scripted approaches, or narrow definitions as to the possibilities of research endeavors. Social education researchers make the process and investigation their own and adapt questions, procedures, methods, and strategies throughout the experience. This reflects an ever changing criticality in the bricolage of the research (Steinberg, 2011). Critical qualitative research and social education are vital for the world of the 21st century. The onslaught of neoliberalism, corporatization, standardization, testing, and the continuing attack on public schools and educators necessitate critical approaches to teaching and learning along with critical qualitative research in social education. Ongoing issues with equity and social justice tied to race, ethnicity, class, orientation, age, and ability linking to schooling, education, teaching and learning must be addressed. The struggle between unbridled capitalism and democracy warrant these investigations in the 21st century, hopefully leading to advocacy and activism.

Awarded the 2022 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Book Award. Centering Diverse Bodyminds in Critical Qualitative Inquiry directly responds to the call for engaging in a new critical qualitative inquiry with consideration to issues related to power, privilege, voice, identity, and agency, while examining the hegemonic power of ableism and ableist epistemologies. The contributing authors of this edited volume advance qualitative methods and methodological discussions to a place where disability embodiment and the lived experience of disability are potential sources of method and methodological advancement. Accordingly, this book centers disability, and, in so doing, examines methodological challenges related to normative and ableist assumptions of doing qualitative research. The range of chapters included highlights how there is no singular answer to questions about qualitative method and methodology; rather, the centering of diverse bodyminds complicates the normative desire to create method/methodology that is “standard,” versus thinking about method and methodology as fluid, emerging, and disruptive. As an interdisciplinary text on critical qualitative research and disability studies with an international appeal, Centering Diverse Bodyminds in Critical Qualitative Inquiry is valuable for graduate level students and academics within a broad range of fields including critical qualitative research methodologies and methods, disability studies, cultural studies, discourse studies, education, sociology, and psychology. Disciplines that engage in the teaching of qualitative research methodologies and methods, particularly those that foreground critical qualitative research perspectives, will also find the book appealing.

Critical Qualitative Health Research seeks to deepen understandings of the philosophies, politics and practices shaping contemporary qualitative health related research. This accessible, lively, controversial introduction draws on current empirical examples and critical discussion to show how qualitative research undertaken in neoliberal healthcare contexts emerges and the complex issues qualitative researchers confront. This book provides readers with a critical, interrogative discussion of the histories and the legacies of qualitative research, as well as of the more recent calls for renewed criticality in research to respond to global health concerns. Contributions further showcase a range of contemporary work engaging with these issues and the complex encounters with philosophies, politics and practices this involves; from seeking explicit engagements with posthuman ideas or detailed explorations of deeply engaged humanist approaches, to critical discussions of the politics and practices of emerging novel, digital and creative methods. This book offers postgraduate researchers, health researchers and students alike opportunities to engage more deeply with the emergent, complex and messy terrain of qualitative health related research.

Is qualitative research in crisis? In Questioning Qualitative Inquiry Martyn Hammersley raises fundamental questions about the current state of qualitative social research. He examines some of the changes that have taken place within it over the past fifty years, suggesting that the move away from natural science as a model, and towards an appeal to literature and art, involves rejection of key principles that are essential to research of any kind. Hammersley argues that, in important respects, qualitative inquiry has not lived up to the claims originally made on its behalf, and that more recent developments have worsened the situation. Insufficient attention has been given to the problems surrounding leading ideas like thick description, analytic induction, and constructionism. The argument is pursued through discussion of the work of influential writers - such as Clifford, Geertz, Denzin and Lincoln - and by detailed examination of concrete issues, like the value of interview data, the rationales for discourse and conversation analysis, the role of rhetoric in research reports, and the nature of assessment criteria. At a time when qualitative inquiry is coming under renewed challenge in some quarters, the task of addressing the methodological problems it faces has become urgent. These essays on current developments and debates are essential reading for anyone interested in the future of qualitative research.

This volume begins by locating critical inquiry within the epistemological and methodological history of second language study. Subsequent chapters portray researcher-participant exploration of identity and agency while challenging inequitable policies and practices. Research on internationalization, Englishization, and/or transborder migration address language policies and knowledge production at universities in Hong Kong, Standard English and Singlish controversies in Singapore, media portrayals of the English as an Official Language movement in South Korea, transnational advocacy in Japan, and Nicaraguan/Costa Rican South to South migration. Transnational locations of identity and agency are fore-fronted in narrative descriptions of Korean heritage language learners, a discursive journey from East Timor to Hawaii, and a reclaimed life history by a Chinese peasant woman. Labor union and GLBT legal work illustrate discourses that can hinder or facilitate agency and change. Hawaiian educators advocate for indigenous self-determination through revealing the political and social meanings of research. California educators describe struggles at the front-lines of resistance to policies and practices harmful to marginalized children. A Participatory Action Research (PAR) project portrays how Latina youth in the U.S. “resist wounding inscriptions” of the intersecting emotional and physical violence of homes, communities, and anti-immigrant policies and attitudes. Promoting agency through drawing on diversity resources is modeled in a bilingual undergraduate PAR project. The volume as a whole provides a model for critical research that explores the multifaceted and evolving nature of language identities while placing those traditionally known as participants at the center of agency and advocacy.

Disrupting Qualitative Inquiry is an edited volume that examines the possibilities and tensions encountered by scholars who adopt disruptive qualitative approaches to the study of educational contexts, issues, and phenomena. It presents a collection of innovative and intellectually stimulating chapters which illustrate the potential for disruptive qualitative research perspectives to advance social justice aims omnipresent in educational policy and practice dialogues. The book defines «disruptive» qualitative methodologies and methods in educational research as processes of inquiry which seek to: 1) Disrupt traditional notions of research roles and relationships 2) Disrupt dominant approaches to the collection and analysis of data 3) Disrupt traditional notions of representing and disseminating research findings 4) Disrupt rigid epistemological and methodological boundaries 5) Disrupt disciplinarily boundaries and assumptive frameworks of how to do educational research Scholars and graduate students interested in disrupting traditional approaches to the study of education will find this book of tremendous value. Given the inclusion of both research examples and reflective narratives, this book is an ideal text for adoption in introductory research design seminars as well as advanced courses devoted to theoretical and practical applications of qualitative and interpretive methodologies.