Melinda Willis and Qualitative Research

Melinda Willis is another student who returned to the circular, as I have dubbed it.  Pathways, circles, edges and borders--these seem to characterize a certain approach to this assignment of a 1 page visual.

Here is her written introduction to Kincheloe, McLaren & Steinberg's piece:

Critical Pedagogy and Qualitative Research

By J. Kincheloe, P. McLaren & S. Steinberg

A Brief Introduction

Power.  How have those in power shaped our understanding of and relationship with our culture and others within our greater culture? These are the questions at the heart of critical research, often performed as action or participatory research.

Talking with those not in power, the non-dominant culture, to learn their perspective, opens windows into an understanding of behaviors which may not be understood or misunderstood by someone outside of a micro-culture. In the past Eurocentric researchers observed other cultures and described them from a Eurocentric perspective. In critical research, researchers are working actively with the participants of their research, asking the participants to speak for themselves, enabling the researcher to get a glimpse inside the participants’ world from the participants’ perspective. Incorporating the methodology of bricolage, the researcher uses multi-disciplinary research techniques and intentionally notes their own biases, while working to gain an understanding of both the dominant culture and the non-dominate culture. Creating an open dialogue, the researcher works to increase cross-cultural understanding, which can be carried into the classroom, both with respect to understanding student behavior and academic discussions.

Reference

Kincheloe, J. L., McLaren, P. & Steinberg, S. R. (2011). Critical pedagogy and

qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & L. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (4^th ed.)(pp.163-177). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Now, here is the visual that accompanied the description:

The image, as I am calling it, is actually constructed almost entirely of text organized in different visual clusters.  There are a few simple diagrams in strategic places.  The use of underlining, arrows, and circling are made use of to draw further attention to a component.