Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century
Perspectives and Examples from Practice, Second Edition
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Paradigms of Research: Multiple Ways of Knowing
- Chapter 1 Presaging Educational Inquiry: Historical Development of Philosophical Ideas, Traditions, and Perspectives (Baudelaire K. Ulysse and Antonina Lukenchuk)
- Chapter 2 Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Traditions, Perspectives, and Controversies (Antonina Lukenchuk and Baudelaire K. Ulysse)
- Chapter 3 Paradigms and Educational Research: Weaving the Tapestry (Antonina Lukenchuk and Eileen Kolich)
- Part II Paradigms as Educational Research Exemplars
- Chapter 4 Narratives of Black Female Elementary School Teachers: Navigating the Normative Discourses of Whiteness (Thera Tilmon)
- Chapter 5 Sociocultural Perspectives of First-Generation Asian Indian Leaders in U.S. Higher Education: An Ethnographic Study (Matthew A. Woolsey)
- Chapter 6 Toward the Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Students of Color: A Case Study of Public High Schools in the Midwest (Joann Yonan)
- Chapter 7 Navigating Adverse Childhood Experiences for More Effective Learning and Well-Being (Amy Kendryna)
- Chapter 8 Is There a Model for Success? Exploring Sustainable Professional Employment among Clinical Exercise Physiology Program’s Graduates (Regina Schurman)
- Chapter 9 Civically Engaged Curriculum: A Call for Action to Elementary Public-School Teachers (Cheryl Jean DeRoo)
- Chapter 10 Greek Parents’ Perceptions and Experiences Regarding Their Children’s Learning and Social-Emotional Difficulties (Eirini Adamopoulou)
- Chapter 11 Speech-Language Pathologists’ Barriers to Providing Services to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children Ages Two to Nine (Irene García-Benavides)
- Chapter 12 A Paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis on Neoliberalism: The Case of Haiti as a Neophyte (Baudelaire K. Ulysse)
- Chapter 13 Narratives of Grit by African American Women: Standing Tall Against Racial Microaggressions While Advancing to Community College Senior Leadership Positions (Toya Michelle Webb)
- Chapter 14 Locked Gates and Chain-link Fences: A Generational Phenomenological Story of Disability (Sharon Duncan)
- Postscript (Antonina Lukenchuk)
- Notes on Contributors
- Series index
List of Figures
- Figure I.1: Paradigm Pyramid
- Figure 1.1: Jastrow’s Duck-Rabbit Figure
- Figure 3.1: Conceptual Relationships Between the Paradigms of Research
- Figure 3.2: Paradigms of Research: Mapping the Final Journey
- Figure 7.1: ACES, SEL, Educational Environment (ASEE) Social-Ecological Model
- Figure 8.1: Model of Sustainable Professional Employment for Clinical Exercise Physiologists
List of Tables
Preface
What is research and who is a researcher? Why engage in research and what is its value? How do we come to know what we know? What can we really know? Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century opens the door for wondering about these and many other important questions pertaining to the nature and process of educational research. Conceived as a journey into the familiar and the uncharted territories of knowledge, this book offers an insightful and detailed account of Western and non-Western worldviews and perspectives on reality, knowledge, and values, many of which have been instrumental to the development of different research traditions and methods in North America.
This book demonstrates how essential components of educational inquiry such as ideas, theories, philosophies, ideologies, epistemologies, value statements, methodologies, and methods can be applied to conducting and implementing robust research projects. The aforementioned essential components form a paradigm—a system of inquiry, a model, and a way of knowing. Empirical-analytic, pragmatic, interpretive, critical, poststructuralist, and transcendental paradigms are delineated as alternatives to a more orthodox division of conceptualizing research as quantitative or qualitative. The discussions on the nature of science and scientific method shed light on a number of misconceptions of these notions in educational research. Resulting from these discussions is an exposure of misconceived and misrepresented links between positivism and quantitative research.
Venturing on a paradigm journey are the dedicated contributors to this edition who share their tales of learning to theorize and practice educational research. Their hope is that graduate students, professional researchers, and scholars will benefit from this project and it might be of interest to all lovers of wisdom.
Welcome to a paradigm journey!
A Preneopragmatic, Postmodern Ditty About Existential Phenomenon
Walking in the classroom
I was feelin’ fine.
Asked about some questions
What’s a Paradigm?
Naturally my fears grew
I felt so abused.
Looked around for confidence
You all seemed so confused.
“Hey folks have some handouts.”
“Take ’em, have a ball”
Rorty, Kant, and Hegel
Dewey and Foucault.
Habermas, Adorno, take Nietzsche
For some sparks.
What’s a Timbred Research?
Giroux, Freire, and Marx
We climbed out from an Existential mineshaft.
There is no deny’n,
the class became Gemeinschaft.
Feyerabend tells us
“You can bend the rules.
Research call for
using all the tools”
Look beyond the task when
Conceptualizing Framework
The threads of solid research exist
On many spools
Now we’ve all survived it
ESR610
A world of information
Shall we do it all again?
Adapting Methodology will help us in our showing.
Hermeneutics finds a way,
Cartesian ways of knowing.
To make our journey forward,
we must use the past
To Bacon, Locke, and all the rest
Thanks I’ve had a blast
The courtesy of Kerry Muldowney, colleague and former student of Paradigms of Research
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my warm gratitude to all contributors to this book—my colleagues and friends without whose assistance this manuscript would be an impossible undertaking. I am especially indebted to Baudelaire Ulysse and Eileen Kolich for sharing their talent and knowledge in our collaborative work.
To my former and current doctoral students—thank you for sustaining my sense of curiosity and inspiring me to pursue this project. I am grateful to Kerry Muldowney for supporting my first steps in teaching paradigms and sharing his big heart, wit, humor, and the gift of poetry and music with me.
I wish to acknowledge the support from the staff at Peter Lang Publishing: managing director Alison Jefferson, series editor Shirley Steinberg, editorial assistants, production managers, and all unnamed persons who have contributed to the production, marketing, and publication of this edition.
Introduction
Antonina Lukenchuk
The Beginning—the Wondering
This book has been writing itself for a number of years, at least since the time I started teaching a graduate course in paradigms of research at a Midwestern private university. However, I can probably trace the deeper roots of this project to as far back as my childhood memories. Faded and almost forgotten, they nonetheless elicit recollections imbued with enchanting images. I enjoyed a highly imaginative childhood. My less-than-exciting external surroundings led me to search for wonder in the realm of the transcendent. This imaginary land of myths, folk songs, and stories became my safeguard and a lovely haven in the midst of the crude and dreary reality of the outside world. Entrance into adulthood brought with it the experiences that demystified a great deal of my childhood’s imaginings, but the wonderings about the world and what lies beyond its horizon has persisted.
My first encounter with the word philosophy during my undergraduate studies has turned into an affectionate and lasting affair, and throughout the years of academic training, philosophical inquiry has been sustaining my sense of curiosity and the purpose of my educational pursuits. I feel intuitively drawn to the word philosophy because it speaks to me in a female voice in the language of my origin. The affectionate words phileo (Greek for love) and sophia (Greek for wisdom) that comprise philosophy are, in fact, of a female gender. I am a lover of wisdom, that is, a woman who loves and seeks wisdom. I become a philosopher by default the moment I wonder who I am by nature or what the meaning of this project is. There is hardly a person in this world who is not a philosopher by nature (the drive to know is evidently intrinsic to a human being). The questions that Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) assigns to his painting are endemic to humankind: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? These questions impel people to fly to the moon, to delve into the depths of the oceans, to penetrate the nuclear layers of energy and the human body, and to create ambitious social projects. What would our lives be like if it were not for some courageous individuals who dared to pursue unimaginable projects?
Education makes an inquiry attainable and, until fairly recently in Western modern history, education has been inseparable from philosophical pursuits. Seekers of wisdom in ancient Western and non-Western world cultural traditions have been philosophers, scientists, and educators—catalysts of intellectual, moral, and political transformations in their respective societies. The modern age of scientific and technological advancements in the West provided an impetus for a sharp division of sciences into “natural” and “human” and the ensuing methodological debates surrounding these sciences. Educational inquiry was forced to find its place within the new division of sciences and to develop methods best suited for its needs and purposes.
Since the nineteenth century in the West, education has been defined as a human, social, or behavioral science, depending on the object of its inquiry and its juxtaposition to natural sciences. The twentieth-century revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics overturned the Newtonian explanation of the universe as the only true scientific paradigm, and the discovery of DNA radically changed the understanding of living things (Grof, 1985). These revolutionary events also represented the strongest challenge to the positivistic assumption of science. Twentieth-century philosophy had to engage with a scientific world and rethink its role in providing the all- encompassing metaphysical systems of explanation of the universe and the predicament of a human being within it. Subsequently, the new conception of science was to be developed to account for the paradigm shifts in twentieth-century physics, biology, chemistry, and other natural sciences.
Contemporary science is no longer expected to produce certain knowledge, and scientific method is employed by natural sciences to generate alternative paradigms of knowledge, some of which can be accepted as the best explanations available, and in the long run, they can be discarded and replaced by new paradigms. The present-day philosophy of human and social sciences is concerned with the study of both the human realm and the natural realm, which until very recently were regarded as distinct and different and, therefore, required different methods of investigation. Moreover, natural science is viewed by today’s scientists as an effectively human practice in which a researcher is actively engaged (Polkinghorne, 2004). Contemporary scientific, philosophical, and educational inquiries focus on a variety of issues pertaining to individual areas of study that can only incrementally contribute to the whole of the understanding of various phenomena. To keep up with the aforementioned changes in the conception of science, educational researchers need to reconsider the obsolete methodological debates still raving on the pages of some academic publications (e.g., Howe, 2009).
This book was conceived out of love of wisdom and the desire to provoke imaginative thinking about educational inquiry. Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) once said that when imagination works, everything works. We first imagine things before we know them. Bachelard’s (2004) poetic turn led him to reconsider his epistemology as a project of a scientific mind, thus, giving primacy to imagination in the process of inquiry. Scientific knowledge “emerges only after we use some imagination, both in formulating questions and in framing hypotheses to answer them” (Audi, 2003, p. 260). Bachelard’s name is important to consider in context of this book because he was an originator of the theory of epistemological breaks (1938/2002) in the philosophy of science that was developed many years prior to the similar theory of paradigm shifts put forth by Thomas Kuhn (1962/2000).
This book intends to bring to light obscure, forgotten, or unknown facts pertaining to educational research that can be instrumental to its conceptual rigor and accuracy. Like any pursuit, this work represents an open-ended inquiry that is subject to critics’ scrutiny and questioning, which we would welcome. This book is an invitation to readers to join the paradigm journey undertaken by a few dedicated persons with the purpose of gathering their patches of wisdom that are scattered around the world and sharing their love messages with others.
Why This Book and What Is It About?
Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century contributes significantly to the field of educational research in the following ways: it is (1) filling in considerable gaps in the existing educational research publications, which lack philosophical foundations; (2) expanding on the definition of paradigm and its alternatives for educational research grounded in various philosophical traditions since most current definitions of paradigm are insufficient; (3) amplifying the importance of vital links between epistemological and methodological assumptions; (4) exposing and clarifying misconceived links between positivism and quantitative methods of analysis; (5) elucidating a new conception of science and its impact on educational research, information that is rarely, if ever, mentioned in current research sources; and (6) advocating epistemological and methodological pluralism be on equal footing in all educational inquiries.
For the past 20 years, I have been teaching a number of doctoral-level courses, including research methodology, primarily interpretive and critical, as well as theoretical courses that focus on epistemology and various ways of knowing, teaching, learning, and doing research within educational settings. These courses are designed to acquaint students with a broad range of philosophical, ideological, and theoretical perspectives on educational research as the tools to conceptualize research and scholarly projects such as dissertations.
The recurring discussions that I have with my colleagues who teach research courses and serve on dissertation committees reveal how ill-prepared some of our doctoral candidates are to conduct dissertation research projects, even after taking a number of research courses. The lack of students’ knowledge and skills is especially apparent when they are faced with making appropriate choices regarding research methodologies and conceptual tools that adequately fit their research purposes. Our doctoral candidates often face the proverbial chicken or the egg conundrum and which comes first. In other words, should they first consider a paradigm and then a toolbox of methods, or vice versa? Students must be equipped to answer other related questions. What are the relationships between theoretical frameworks and specific methods of investigation? To what extent can a research project be successful in terms of properly made epistemological and methodological choices?
Most educational researchers agree that “methods of analysis do not emerge out of thin air. They are informed by, and extend out of, particular theoretical sensibilities” (Holstein & Gubrium, 2012, p. 5). All research is anchored to basic beliefs about the nature of the world, knowledge, and values. How each researcher “conceptualizes the best way to apprehend the social world is clearly dependent upon what she or he believes about the nature of existence. What constitutes data? What constitutes a pattern in data? What does the pattern mean?” (Pascale, 2011, p. 5). Theoretical models, frameworks, philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, or perspectives, the terms that can be housed under the umbrella definition of paradigm, provide a road map for successful research or scholarly projects. The definition of paradigm generates interesting discussions and debates among contemporary educational researchers (Anfara & Mertz, 2006; Creswell, 2003; Lather, 2004; Polkinghorne, 1983). The notion of paradigm permeates this book and renders its content relevant to the educational research process.
While the consensus on the importance of the role of paradigms in educational research is widely acknowledged, most research methods texts provide fairly limited space to philosophical discussions pertaining to educational inquiry. There are only a handful of current editions that offer in-depth accounts of the theoretical foundations of research (Anfara & Mertz, 2006; Cohen et al., 2008; Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; Merriam & Simpson, 2000; Olsen, 2010; Pascale, 2011; St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000; Yu, 2006). Moreover, most of these sources focus exclusively on either theoretical frameworks of qualitative research (e.g., Anfara & Mertz) or particular areas of study such as, for instance, feminist poststructuralist theory (e.g., St. Pierre & Pillow). By comparison, Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century provides a more comprehensive and detailed historical and philosophical analysis of educational inquiries pertaining to all types of research: qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. This book abounds in philosophical terminology, which is rarely given proper attention in research methods textbooks (e.g., McMillan, 2008).
Despite an unequivocal repudiation of positivism in the mid-twentieth century, some contemporary researchers continue to misrepresent quantitative methods of analysis as positivistic (e.g., Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011; Pascale, 2011). The agreement has been reached by the philosophers of science that all of our knowledge is conditional and constructed within the contingent conceptual systems relative to time and place (Nelson, 2012). Given the contingency of truth/knowledge, what can educators count on as effective and critical methods of investigation? Paradigms of educational research represent a rich bricolage of methodological possibilities, and this book considers and discusses six of these.
The word paradigm is derived from the two Greek words para (beside) and deigma (example). The etymology of paradigm clearly presumes a relational construct, a pairing of sorts. Modern dictionary definitions elaborate on paradigm as follows: model, conjugation, giving all the inflections of a word, example, archetype, beau ideal, chart, criterion, ensample, exemplar, ideal, mirror, model, original, pattern, prototype, sample, standard (Kipfer, 2010). Kuhn’s definition of paradigm is most frequently cited as “constellations of law, theory, application and instrumentation … ; models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research” (Runes, 1983, p. 240).
Details
- Pages
- XVI, 356
- Publication Year
- 2025
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783034351287
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783034351294
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783034351300
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783034351270
- DOI
- 10.3726/b22356
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (December)
- Keywords
- researcher value knowledge reality Paradigms of educational research Multiple ways of knowing Philosophical foundations of research Western and non-western systems of inquiry Epistemology Philosophy of science Application of paradigms to educational research projects Antonina Lukenchuk Paradigms of Research for the 21st Century Perspectives and Examples from Practice. Second edition.
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- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2025. XVI, 356 pp., 4 b/w ill., 2 color ill., 2 b/w tables.
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