A brief methodology...

Freedom, playfulness and learning have deep significance for me personally. In order to inquire into these in a meaningful manner I will first have to consider my own relationship with them. It seems natural to consider these through narratives which can be interpreted in light of others exploration on playfulness and freedom. These narratives will be inspired by further interpretation of works by philosophers and researchers who have detailed their own perspectives on freedom, including Martin Heidegger (2002, 1982), John Dewey (1989), Maxine Greene (1988) and Rudolf Steiner (1964, 1894). Other texts to inform the narratives will come from stories from my own practice and personal histories.

This autoethnographic (Chase, 2006, p. 660) approach will aim to envisage frames-of-understanding which can be shared, reflected on and reshaped by others within my community of practice. These frames-of-understanding will have their own shared narratives and interpretations informing how they might be shared and utilised within a wider community. This process of framing, sharing, re-framing and sharing again is intended to provide direction and motive for my research. Distinctions between methodology and subject of the research will be interdependent. These interdependencies are worthwhile and necessary to consider themselves. For example, by reflecting on the four traditions that inform Valerie Bentz and Jeremy Shapiro’s Mindful Inquiry,

• Phenomenology: a description and analysis of consciousness and experience


• Hermeneutics: analysis and interpretation of texts in context


• Critical Social Theory: analysis of domination and oppression with a view to changing it


• Buddhism: spiritual practice that allows one to free oneself from suffering and illusion in several ways, e.g., becoming more aware (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998, p. 6),

the methodologies outlined so far have strong resonances with all of these traditions, as does the research itself. All participants will be following, but not limited to, aspects these traditions. Indeed the frames-of-understanding in themselves will in all probability owe some gratitude to them. The research will be guided, honed and sustained through its own logic of understanding.

And a further note:

From my research there should be some direction in enabling what Parker J. Palmer describes as ‘Good talk about good pedagogy’ (1998, p. 144). With appropriate playfulness, possibility should emerge from the communities closest to the practice – which by its nature and manifestation is problematic. The participants will be given a voice through reflection on and application of the metaphors of freedom and playfulness, with the specific ambition of assisting them with improving their practice. Through their voices, it is intended, that a sharable and accessible frame-of-understanding for transforming practice will be described, tested and refined.

How might freedom, playfulness and learning within practice be shared?

Explorations of philosophical perspectives on freedom, playfulness and learning become more interesting and intriguing when considering how they may relate to practice. For anyone involved in educational practice there are many possibilities, of which only a few may be pursued. There are many ways that the choice to move between these possibilities may be limited, through intrinsic, perceived or extrinsic factors. Using the shared metaphors associated with playfulness and freedom could provide a catalyst for possibility. Some aspects of practice may mirror playfulness as a state-of-mind. For example Max van Manen (1999) examines some of what is intangible within practice – outlining practice as explanation stopper, practice as lived experience, (un)reflective practice and the complexity of practice. On (un)reflective practice he states:

…the theory of reflective practice seems to overestimate the possibility of introspective "reflection on action while acting" (van Manen 1994, 1995). Phenomenologically it is very difficult, if not impossible, for teachers to be immersed in interactive or dialogic activities with their students while simultaneously stepping back from the activity. (van Manen, 1999)

Supporting teachers while they explore and embody the complexity and variety of learning in practice provides the environment for this study. It also provides direction for inquiry. If it is impossible to be reflective when immersed within practice then where does that leave the practitioner? Do they feel free to:

enable students to learn – can practice have playfulness as its state-of-mind?
act or do they feel played within games of their own or others construction?
explore their own and shared possibility?

Back - updated working definitions for play etc

I have made some progress going through the candidacy process. Some of which will emerge later. For now I have tinkered a bit with my original working definitions:

Play

Play has its own mode of being which we will call a game. This being exists only in the world and is not aware of its own being – it does not have Dasein character. It does however require participants with Dasein character to give the game importance and make it matter.

Players

The players are the participants in the game. In order for them to be players then they must take the game seriously. All players are played by the game and lost to the game while they are playing it. They are concerned only with being-in-the-world, with the they only as it exists within the world of the game. Their 'authentic being' is lost to them. The game can not be disclosed to the world without the players being predisposed to being players.


Playing

Playing is giving oneself to the game and the play - in as much as the game has to be taken seriously one is played by the game. It is essential to be part of the they and therefore it is unlikely for Dasein's authentic being to be disclosed. It is useful to note that this being lost in the they is neither inherently negative nor positive.

Being Playful (moving away from the direct influence of Gadamer)

Being playful allows one to be able to play with what is serious and the games that matter within one's Being-in-the-world. Being playful can make one feel as though one is outside the game or games, it also can transform what is serious into a game. In the constructing a new game, which may be more a complex or a simplified version of it constituents, the pitfalls of other games are created. This game is still part of Being-in-the-world. Being playful is Dasein's conscious construction, and thus is more likely to phenomenologically disclose aspects of 'authentic being'.

Playfulness

Playfulness as a mode of state-of-mind is of Dasein and cannot apprehend itself without losing authenticity. Playfulness envisions the possibilities of our 'authentic being' to be realised within Being-in-the-world, and the possibilities of Being-in-the-world to inform our 'authentic being'. If we accept this then it can be said that Playfulness is a conduit and phenomenologically is of 'authentic being'.

Paraphrasing Heidegger (1926, p180):

That which playfulness plays is that very entity which is played - Dasein.

Research Quest: Ethics and being

In what ways will my inquiry take my values, and those of others, into account?

I am struggling for a way to articulate this, for me at the moment I see whirls that are both beautifully and frustratingly circular. These whirls are just glimpses of a philosophy of freedom, playfulness and learning.

My inquiry aims to free people to learn through playfulness. This playfulness is not a trivial one - it is a state-of-mind. This state-of-mind is with us all the time and can disclose freedom or freedoms absence depending on how caught you are up in your seriousness or your play. An important point here is that permission and judgement of freedom to learn comes from within each individual - in the context of my inquiry the aim would be to do this through playfulness. Being-in-the-inquiry means being valued and being valuing - inwardly and outwardly. Without this then the basis of the inquiry, its philosophy and phronesis, have to be questioned and regenerated or more to the point question and regenerate themselves.

In what ways will the inquiry take ethics into account?

Ethically there are real issues around messing with the stuff of being. Experimenting with a state-of-mind could be considered ethically fraught. However the inquiry is there not to free people to learn, but to allow people to be free to learn. They are the instruments that measure this freedom as well as its author. Permission to continue is not a tacit or fleeting - it is continual and reflective. The inquiry will have its own ethical journey - moving through and intertwining the shared ethics of those within it.

What is the place of myself and my "voice" in the inquiry?

My voice is where I start. Is there a choice here? My 'I' has to be explicit in order for me to transcend what is mine about freedom and playfulness and discover what is and can be shared. Throughout the enfolding of my inquiry what is and can be shared will become mine to a certain extent - well awareness of these at least. My 'voice' will respond to and guide the inquiry in order to allow other voices to be heard - participants, literature, the inquiry itself...

What are my ways of being mindful in research?

I will refer to mindful inquiry that I have taken quotes from before. We can refer to the four knowledge traditions that mindful inquiry is based on:

• Phenomenology: a description and analysis of consciousness and experience
• Hermeneutics: analysis and interpretation of texts in context
• Critical Social Theory: analysis of domination and oppression with a view to changing it
• Buddhism: spiritual practice that allows one to free oneself from suffering and illusion in several ways, e.g., becoming more aware (1998, p. 6)

From my previous post I think that my ways of being mindful align strongly with these four traditions. What may or not be so clear is that the inquiry is intended to enable participants within it to follow these four traditions themselves. Now that is an interesting line of inquiry...

What are my ways of being scholarly in research and writing?

I have already touched on ways I might be scholarly. In short my research and how it is communicated should be open to be schooled (I see fish here rather than classrooms) by literature, participants, itself and so on... My research and writing should have playfulness and freedom to be scholarly - as those should within it.

Questions: (c) Pugh, R & Yaxley, B. 2005

Bentz, V. M., & Shapiro, J. J. (1998). Mindful inquiry in social research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

What forms might my research take? (first try)

As I have been reading over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on what shape my study may take. I feel that it has to be open to many paths - but there still needs to be some structure or form. One way to look at this is by revisiting the purposes of my research.

For me freedom and playfulness, as perspective and practice, has been transforming professionally and personally, with colleagues, students, friends and family. Reflection on the freedom, playfulness and being has is empowering for my transformations. There is commonality and otherness about this sense of transformation that emerges when in dialogue with others about freedom, playfulness and being. Transformation occurs within a person, group, community etcetera, not something that can be applied from the outside. It appears to me that the natures of freedom, playfulness and transformation require that all three are explicit aspects of the research. That is the inquiry would not attempt to distance itself from the participants. The intention would be for participants to be able to transform themselves and participate in the transformation of others. Actually, it is probably enough for them to be able to identify that which is of transformation for themselves and others. How might I achieve this?

As an initial scaffolding for my thoughts about the process my research may take I will look at a generic structure, in the form of phases, proposed by Denzin & Lincoln (Table 1.1, p. 23, 2005).


Phase 1: The researcher as Multicultural Subject

Revisiting an exploration of my own traditions I feel that I need to further explore freedom and playfulness deeply, from a personal point of view and as a member of many communities. This includes exploring the traditions I embody from my family as well as those gained through research and dialogue with others.

The generation of a sharable construct of freedom and playfulness will be hampered, and possibly subverted, without a deep understanding of who I am and how I am evolving in relation to these ways of being.

Freedom, play, playfulness etcetera have lively, circuitous and interwoven histories. Bringing some of these together in new ways to suit my purposes is the parallel first step with situating myself and my shared histories. My guess is that throughout my research these two aspects will take on a life of their own - there will have to be some resolution before continuing however.

Ethically, if I am attempting to engender a transformation process with freedom and playfulness it would be remiss for me not to explore as many perspectives on my own and others understanding before unleashing it on the world. The aim would be to ensure that the inquiry was at least illuminating, if not a step towards transformation, for all participants.


Phase 2: Theoretical Paradigms and Perspectives

I have already discussed that out of the broad paradigms described, my research largely appears to fall into the constructivist paradigm. With a relativism, co-creation and transferability central to the 'products' of the inquiry.

When situating myself and participating in my inquiry then the paradigms associated with critical theory may provide relief and substance for all participants. When we are talking about being 'freer' to learn - having greater freedom... we have to question what limits or bestows this freedom etcetera. Feminist theory and its focus on emancipation may be informative here - emancipation through transformative inquiry?


Phase 3: Research Strategies

I have outlined above the start of my research - situating myself, in relation to freedom and playfulness as I evolve a philosophy of freedom and playfulness. I have already started evolving a philosophy of freedom and playfulness, reflecting on my personal lived experience as I proceed. There is an obvious, albeit unpredictable, path for this synthesising as I read Heidegger, Gadamer, Greene, Dewey, Steiner and so on. In situating myself I intend to record and interweave narratives from my family - an autoethnographic process. Once this has some sense of resolution - I would hope to have a sharable and accessible model, for want of a better word, for freedom and playfulness which I could use to enter dialogue with others.

These others would be people from my past, present and future who have some experience of transformation. The focus would be on inquiring into how our shared understanding of freedom and playfulness has a place in their experience of transformation and how to move to the next step of providing an environment that engenders freedom to learn and transform. This may take the form of an action research amongst a group of peers at the time.

The model cocreated could be introduced utilising critical ethnography with critical action research - taking the emancipatory and ethical lead from strategies such as feminist communitarianism. The inquiry may be informed though mindful inquiry and other global perspectives throughout.

I will aim towards forming the idiosyncratic, emergent and cohesive set strategies throughout the inquiry.


Phase 4: Methods of Collection and Analysis

In the same way the strategies will be emerging the methods of collection will adapt to suit the life of the inquiry. There will be interviews, observations, artifacts, autoethnography, textual analysis and more. It is intended that the methods of collection and analysis will be largely determined by the participants - including myself.


Phase 5: The Art, Practices, and Politics of Interpretation and Evaluation

Interpretation and evaluation will also be emergent during the inquiry - very difficult for me to imagine at this stage.


So there is a start - I need to discuss, read and reflect before the forms really take shape...


Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Ed) (2005) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research 3rd Edition, Sage Publications, California, USA.

Narrative inquiry: multiple lenses, approaches, voices (paper)

Notes from the Handbook of Qualitative Research


Contemporary narrative inquiry

I begin by outlining the a set of five analytic lenses through which contemporary researchers approach empirical material.(p. 656)

Analytic lenses

First, narrative researchers treat narrative - whether oral or written - as a distinct form of discourse. Narrative is a retrospective meaning making - the shaping or ordering of past experience. Narrative is a way of understanding one's own and other' actions, of organizing events and objects into meaningful whole, and of connecting and seeing the consequences of actions and events over time. (p. 656)

Second, narrative researchers view narratives as verbal action - doing or accomplishing something. Among other things, narrators explain, entertain, inform, defend, complain, and confirm or challenge the status quo. Whatever the particular action, when someone tells a story, he or she shapes, constructs, and performs the self, experience, and reality. When researchers treat narration as actively creative in this way, they emphasize the narrator's voice. (p. 567)

Third, narrative researchers view stories as both enabled and contained by a range of social resources and circumstances. These include the possibilities for self and reality construction that are intelligible within the narrator's community, local setting, organizational and social memberships, and cultural and historical location. While acknowledging that every instance of narrative is particular, researchers use this lens to attend to similarities and differences across narratives. (p. 657)

Fourth, narrative researchers as socially situate interactive performances - as produced in this particular setting, for this particular audience, for these particular purposes. A story told to an interviewer in a quiet relaxed setting will likely differ from the "same" story told to a reporter for a television news show, to a private journal that the writer assumes will never be read, to a roomful of people who have had similar experiences, to a social service counsellor, or to the same interviewer at a different time... ...a narrative is a joint production of narrator and listener, whether the narrative arises in naturally occurring talk, an interview, or a fieldwork setting. (p. 657)

Fifth, narrative researchers, like many other contemporary qualitative researchers, view themselves as narrators as they develop interpretations and find ways in which to present or publish their ideas about the narratives they studied... ...This means the four lenses just described make as much sense when applied to the to the researcher as they do when applied to the researched... ...narrative researchers are likely to use the first person when presenting their work, thereby emphasizing their own narrative action.(p. 657)

Diverse approaches

Without claiming to be comprehensive or exhaustive in my categories, I briefly outline five major approaches in contemporary narrative inquiry. (p. 658)

Some psychologists have developed an approach that focuses on the relationship between individuals' life stories and and the quality of their lives, especially psychosocial development. In addition to gathering extensive life stories, these researchers sometimes use common psychological tests. (p. 658)

A second approach has been developed by sociologists who highlight the "identity work" that people engage in as they construct selves within specific institutional, organizational, discursive, and local cultural contexts. Unlike the psychologists just described, who conceptualize the life story as distinguishable from the - yet having an impact on - the life, these researchers often treat narratives as lived experience. Thus they are as interested in the hows of story telling as they are in the whats of storytelling - in the narrative practices by which storytellers make use of available resources to construct recognizable selves. (p. 658)

The third approach is also sociological. Here, narrative researchers share the interest in the hows and whats of storytelling, but base their inquiry on extensive interviews about specific aspects of people's lives rather than on conversations in specific organizational contexts. These researchers are interested in how people communicate meaning through a range of linguistic practices, how their stories are embedded in the interaction between researcher and narrator, how they make sense of personal experience in relation to culturally and historic specific discourses, how they draw on, resist, and/or transform those discourses as they narrate their selves, experiences, and realities. (p. 659)

Anthropologists have led the way to a fourth approach to narrative inquiry. Some call this approach to narrative ethnography, which is transformation of both ethnographic and life history methods. Like traditional ethnography, this approach involves long-term improvement in a culture or community; like life history, it focuses heavily on one individual or on a small number of individuals. What makes the narrative ethnography distinct is that both the researcher and the researched "are presented together within a single multivocal text focused on the character and process of human encounter" (Tedlock, 1992, p. xiii) (Chase, 2005, p. 659)

A fifth approach t narrative inquiry is found in autoethnography, where researchers also turn the analytic lens on themselves and their interactions with others, but here researchers write, interpret, and/or perform their own narratives about culturally significant experiences. (p. 660)

Chase, S.E. (2005) Narrative inquiry: multiple lenses, approaches, voices. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Ed) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research 3rd Edition, Sage Publications, California, USA.

Tedlock, B. (1992) The beautiful and the dangerous: encounters with he Zuni Indians. New Press, New York.

Participatory action research: communicative action and the public sphere (paper)

Notes from the Handbook of Qualitative Research

Participatory research

Three particular are often used to distinguish participatory research from conventional research: shared ownership of research projects, community-based analysis of social problems, and an orientation toward community action. (p. 560)

Critical action research

Critical action research expresses a commitment to bring together broad social analysis - the self-reflexive collective self-study of practice, the way in which language is used, organization and power in a local situation, and action to improve things. (p. 560)

Classroom action research

Classroom action research typically involves the use of inquiry and data collection by teachers (often with the help from academics) with a view to teachers making judgments about how to improve their own practices... ...Primacy is given to teachers' self-understandings and judgements. The emphasis is "practical," that is, on the interpretations that the teachers and students are making and acting on in the situation. (p. 561)

Action learning

The fundamental idea of action learning is to bring people together to learn from each other's experiences. There is emphasis on studying one's own situation, clarifying what the organization is trying to achieve, working to remove obstacles. Key aspirations are organizational efficacy and efficiency, although advocates of action learning affirm the moral purpose and content of their own work and of the managers they seek to engage in the process. (p. 561)

Action science

Action science emphases the study of practice in organizational settings as a source of new understandings and improved practice. The field of action science systematically builds the relationship between academic organizational psychology and practical problems as the are experienced in organizations. It identifies two aspects of professional knowledge: (a) the formal knowledge that all competent members of the profession are thought to share and into which professionals are inducted into the group and (b) the professional knowledge of interpretation and enactment. A distinction is also made between the professional's "espoused theory" and "theories in use," and "gaps" between these are used as points of change. (p. 561)

Critical participatory action research

Although the process of participatory action research is only poorly described in terms of a mechanical sequence of steps, it is generally thought to involve a spiral of self-reflective cycles of the following:

• Planning a change
• Acting and observing the process and consequences
• Reflecting on these processes and consequences
• Replanning
  
• Acting and observing again
• Reflecting again, and so on...

...In reality, the process might not be as neat as this spiral of self-contained cycles of planning suggests... ...the process is likely to be more fluid, open, and responsive. (p. 563)

...participatory action research has seven other key features that are at least as important as the self-reflective spiral.

1. Participatory action research is a social process. Participatory action research deliberately explores the relationship between the realms of the individual and the social...
2. Participatory action research is participatory. Participatory action research engages people in examining their knowledge (understandings, skills, and values) and interpretive categories (the ways in which they interpret themselves and their action in the social and material world)...
3. Participatory action research is practical and collaborative. Participatory action research engages people in examining the social practices that link them with others in social interaction...
4. Participatory action research is emancipatory. Participatory action research aims to help people recover, release themselves from, the constraints of irrational, unproductive, unjust, and unsatisfying social structures that limit their self-development and self determination...
5. Participatory social research is critical. Participatory action research aims to help people recover, and release themselves from, the constraints embedded in the social media through which they interact - their language (discourses), their modes of work, and the social relationships of power (in which the experience affiliation and difference, inclusion and exclusion - relationships in which, grammatically speaking, they interact with others in the third, second, or first person...
6. Participatory action research is reflexive (e.g., recursive, dialectical). Participatory action research aims to help people to investigate reality in order to change it... ...it is a deliberative through which people aim to transform their practices through a spiral of cycles of critical and self-critical action and reflection...
7. Participatory action research aims to transform both theory and practice. Participatory action research does not regard either theory or practice as preeminent in the relationship between theory and practice; rather it aims to articulate and develop each in relation to the other through critical reasoning about both theory and practice. (pp. 566-8)

Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (2005) Participatory action research: communicative action and the public sphere. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Ed) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research 3rd Edition, Sage Publications, California, USA.