Exploring positioning, purpose and power through
pictures, poetry and progress charts: An introduction
to some different ways of working with fieldwork data.
Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Faculty of Education, UWE Bristol
Paper presented at the University of Sheffield School of Education Doctor of
Education Programme (Dublin) May 2007
Introduction
This presentation is about different ways of working with fieldwork data that
we have been using in the FurtherHigher Project. My aim is to offer some of
our ideas for working with and presenting data, and to discuss what we are
hoping to achieve by trying out different approaches.
I will start with a brief introduction to the FurtherHigher Project. I will then
explain the origins of the ideas that are presented here, and discuss what
purposes they might serve in considering positioning, purpose and power in
the context of widening participation in higher education. The main part of the
presentation is about the ideas themselves, and how we are using them in the
FurtherHigher Project. There are three people in the project team who were
responsible for the original ideas and for their development, and on whose
work this paper is based: Cate Goodlad, Will Thomas and Val Thompson.
The FurtherHigher Project
The FurtherHigher project is a two-year study, which is investigating widening
participation in undergraduate education in England. It focuses on the impact
of the division between further and higher education into two sectors on
The work reported in this paper forms part of the FurtherHigher Project. The
FurtherHigher Project is funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council (Award Reference RES-139-25-0245) and is part of the ESRC’s
Teaching and Learning Research Programme.
strategies to widen participation. The project has used both qualitative and
quantitative methods to investigate the changing shape and experience of HE
in England.
One strand of the project is concerned with students’ experience of transition
between different levels of study. This part of the study seeks to gain insights
into what it means to move into and between different levels of higher
education, and the meanings given to higher education transitions, by
students studying in what the project refers to as ‘dual sector’ institutions, that
is, institutions which offer both further education and higher education. The
aim is to develop understandings of students’ identity formation, as they
negotiate boundary crossings between different levels of study, and to explore
how the development of learning career and identity in such contexts may
affect and contribute to participation in higher education.
The fieldwork for this part of the project explores student transitions from FE
to HE levels of study, and from short cycle (Foundation degree, HND) to
BA/BSc level of study. Four dual sector institutions, two of which are officially
within the English Learning and Skills sector, and two in the higher education
sector, are involved in the fieldwork. Students who remain within the same
institution, and students who transfer to other institutions are included in the
fieldwork. In each institution we are following between five and ten students
at each of these two levels for one year. The fieldwork has included
interviews with students, tutors and institutional managers, documentary
analysis, and the collection of fieldwork observation records.
Friday afternoon syndrome
The fieldwork team consists of five university-based researchers and four
research associates, one based in each of the case study institutions.
I have learned from working as part of the fieldwork team that several of us
experience ‘Friday afternoon syndrome’. In practice, this is not actually Friday
afternoon for everyone, but it goes like this:
I’ve been working really hard, I’ve been sorting data, I’ve been thinking about
the project, I think I’ll just do a bit of browsing.
2
Browsing can mean web surfing, it can mean browsing library shelves beyond
the precise book you came looking for, it can mean doodling on paper, it can
mean seeing what charts Excel will produce and whether bars look nicer in
blue or pink. I call this Friday afternoon syndrome, because, the emails that
arrive late on Friday afternoon from one team member in particular, start:
‘It’s Friday afternoon….’
These are not the emails where you press delete, these are the emails where
you read on.
The results of these activities, where work dissolves into play, and play
merges into work, are the examples which are presented below. What started
off as ideas that we played around with, are now becoming tools for analyzing
and re-presenting the data from the project, and are helping us with our
thinking about what we are doing and what we are finding. They are helping
us to discuss with students and staff who are contributing to the fieldwork, as
well as with others, what we are finding. They are also offering a means of
presenting the data in interesting ways that may help us to be both critical and
reflexive in our re-presentations.
Exploring positioning, purpose and power
The FurtherHigher Project asks the question:
What is the impact of the division between further and higher education on
strategies to widen participation in undergraduate education in England?
One of the obvious impacts of this division is that it contributes to the
stratification of higher education, and it adds further layers to that stratification.
The inevitability, indeed the necessity, of stratification in a mass system of
higher education, was argued by Trow as early as 1973 (Trow, 1973). Trow
acknowledged then, and in later work (2000), that a stratified system also
means a differentiated system, but the term ‘differentiation’ encompasses both
positive and negative aspects of work to widen participation in education. The
use of the term for both can tend to obscure one or the other.
Thus to give an example form a school context, differentiation has been
demanded of school teachers in England for some years. Here, it is used to
3
refer to the way that teachers should ensure that what they do responds to the
different needs of pupils in their classes, so that pupils across the
achievement range are given opportunities to learn, make progress and to
succeed. This conceptualization of differentiation could however also mean
that pupils are taught in different classes, and taught different subject matter
in those classes. In the context of higher education this latter version of
differentiation can be seen in different forms of higher education such as
Foundation Degrees, and different locations for higher education such as
further education colleges and the workplace.
Already, provision such as this opens up less positive implications for
differentiation within a stratified system of higher education. Clancy’s work
(for example, Clancy 2006) raises issues concerning equity in relation to the
stratification of higher education. A stratified system is not an equal system –
each layer is not equally valued, neither in the field of higher education, nor in
society more widely. Moreover, getting rid of sectoral divisions, such as
happened with the unification of English higher education following the 1992
Further and Higher Education Act, when former Polytechnics gained university
status, does not get rid of stratification, it simply obscures it, or names it
differently. (Former polytechnics continue to be known as ‘new’ or post-1992
universities.) One of the things that we have learned in the FurtherHigher
Project is how aware staff and students in different institutions are of the
stratified nature of HE. We have found evidence of various processes of
‘positioning’, whereby institutions try to define their place within the system,
teachers try to define what sorts of students different courses in different
places are for, and students try to work out if there is a place for them in
higher education, and if so, where they should position themselves (see
Bathmaker, 2006).
We are grappling therefore with the implications of stratification and
differentiation for widening participation – the uneasy trade-offs between more
opportunities, including opportunities that are more attractive to ‘nontraditional’ students, but at the same time, more opportunities that may carry
less value as potential economic, cultural or social capital.
4
As the above discussion indicates, our question about the impact of the
division between further and higher education on strategies to widen
participation in undergraduate education in England lead into questions about
notions of justice and equity. Widening participation in higher education is
ostensibly rooted in concerns for justice and equity. There are however,
different ways in which such concerns may be understood (discussed in detail
in Gewirtz and Cribb (2002), Gewirtz (2000) and House (2005)). Following
their analysis, widening participation policy might be seen as part of a politics
of redistribution. Here the concern is not just with increasing what is available,
that is, the amount of education, but with the distribution of higher education
amongst different groups or fractions of society.
What such an approach to equity and justice does not necessarily do is to
address issues of democratic participation, that is, the nature of participation,
and the opportunity for stakeholders, especially those who have traditionally
been excluded, to have an effective voice in defining their own needs and
negotiating benefits, what Gewirtz and Cribb (2002) refer to as participative
justice. Nor does it necessarily focus on respect for and recognition of cultural
identity, as part of a politics of recognition (Gewirtz and Cribb, 2002).
Whilst these ways of distinguishing different understandings of justice and
equity are useful, more challenging is Gewirtz and Cribb’s outline of plural
models of social justice, shown in table 1. The features of a plural model of
justice act as a strong challenge to arguments that one, best version of higher
education is what should be available to all, and raise all sorts of issues about
what higher education might look like, whether differentiation can be equitable
and what that would mean.
5
Table 1: Six dimensions of pluralism in models of social justice
Source: Gewirtz and Cribb, 2002, p.501
What do alternative forms of working with data do?
In carrying out research into widening participation for the FurtherHigher
Project these issues are not straightforward, nor easy to get a hold on in
relation to the data we have collected. They turn our apparently
straightforward question into a complex, multi-faceted problem which will not
allow for easy answers.
Friday afternoon syndrome is part of our attempts, individually and
collectively, to pursue these sorts of concerns further in the fieldwork and in
the data we have collected. It moves the pictures, poetry and progress charts
that I go on to present next, from games and ‘Friday afternoon colouring in
activities’, to part of a more critical project, which encourages us to explore
our data in different ways, and ultimately to make connections between
power, positioning and purpose, and to consider both macro structures and
micro opportunities for agency.
These different ways of working with data are therefore not just ways of
analysing and presenting data, but act as forms of knowledge production, and
6
work as vivid reminders to us as researchers that we construct and produce
knowledge, we do not just report neutrally on knowledge we have collected.
Whilst the nature of research knowledge as something that is not objective,
neutral, and out there to be gathered, sorted and reported is not new, it is
often difficult to grapple with data, arguments and ideas, objectivity and
subjectivity, in the effort to turn a mass of fieldwork data into a coherent
research report. The different approaches we have been trying out have
forced us to think through such issues, in terms of what we choose to present,
how we choose to present it and what effect a particular form of presentation
has – what stories it allows us to tell.
I want to conclude by acknowledging that what I am saying here is not new.
Writing this paper led me back to rereading C. Wright Mills book The
Sociological Imagination, published in 1959 (Wright Mills, 1959), and I want to
conclude with some comments from his end piece about the craft of the
sociologist, which provide resonances with the experience of the team
working on the FurtherHigher Project, and which are taken from a chapter
which provides an insight into how he went about doing his work and how he
set about defining the work that he was doing.
The sociological imagination
The most admirable thinkers within the scholarly community you have chosen
to join do not split their work from their lives. (215)
To unleash the imagination he recommends:
Rearrange the file of ideas, papers etc that you have collected
Be playful with phrases and words with which issues are defined, for example
look up synonyms, and pursue words to their roots
Set up a new classification: charts, tables, and diagrams of a qualitative sort
are not only ways to display work already done; they are very often genuine
tools of production. (234)
How you go about arranging materials for presentation always affects the
content of your work (237).
7
The point of cultivating a sociological imagination
Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but
must be understood in terms of public issues – and in terms of the problems
of history-making. Know that the human meaning of public issues must be
revealed by relating them to personal troubles – and to the problems of the
individual life. (248)
The sociological imagination has its chance to make a difference in the quality
of human life in our time. (248)
Every picture tells a story: of pictures, poetry and progress
charts
The following section shows the following forms of analysis and
representation, courtesy of Val Thompson, Will Thomas and Cate Goodlad.
1
Tables
2
Maps
showing where students live in relation to where they study
3
Pictorial diagrams
showing ‘learning careers’ of students
4
Photos
of learning spaces in a college
5
Student timetables
6
Waterlogic diagrams
showing analyses of key interview themes
7
Tag clouds
showing pictorial representations of key interview themes
8
A Stick Verse
about data analysis
8
Tables and charts
Table 1: AVCE Health and Social Care sample at Northgreen College
Pseudonym
Hannah
Sarah
Jessica
Robin
Ria
Age
18
18
18
18
18
Gender
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Ethnicity
White British
White British
White British
Mixed White and Black Caribbean
Asian British –Pakistani
Table 2: Higher National Diploma sample at Northgreen College
Pseudonym
Karen
Elizabeth
Ruth
Debbie
Christine
Margaret
Jacqueline
Peter
Age
23
26
27
38
46
64
33
21
Gender
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Male
Ethnicity
White British
White British
White British
White British
White British
White British
Black British -Caribbean
White British
9
Google Earth maps
Will Thomas
Maps can be used to show aspects of ‘space and ‘place’ very clearly. Here,
they are used to show where students live in relation to where they study.
1
2
3
4
5
How to Create Placemarks in Google Earth
1. Enter the postcode of the place you would like to mark, and click on the
magnifying glass [The view will change to show the place you have
selected]
2. Click on the pushpin icon [A box will appear]
3. Enter a name for the placemark
4. If you would like to change the colour or style of the placemark click on the
“Style, Colour” tab
5. Enter a description of the placemark if you wish
6. Click OK, and then start again from 1
10
Location of case study and other Further Education Colleges
Home locations of National Diploma Business Students from East Heath
College
11
Home locations of National Diploma Sports Students from East Heath
College
Home locations of Foundation Degree Early Years Students from East
Heath College
12
Pictorial representations of learning careers
http://www.inspiration.com/techsupport/index.cfm
Val Thompson
The computer programme used to create the pathways diagrams is called Inspiration. It is a
programme which many universities offer to students who have been identified as dyslexic as a
potentially effective way of creating mind maps. I have worked with students who find it a very
useful tool as it is a quick and flexible way to put words onto a page and to show relationships
between ideas or facts. Added to this, there are the options of colour, graphics and audio which
can be used to enhance the text and which can act as memory triggers.
I chose to develop some of the data which has been generated by the Furtherhigher Project into
diagrams which show student participant details and journeys into Higher Education because I did
not want to ‘contain’ these in a chart or table as has been done in much other work which includes
participant educational biographies. For me, the diagrams I have used are more organic in shape
and they reflect, more accurately than the boxes of tables or charts, the meandering journeys
which some student participants make on their way to or back into HE. The use of colour also
allows relationships between certain areas to be highlighted and additional graphics can be added
to illustrate individual or idiosyncratic aspects of these journeys. The diagrams also have the
potential to use audio thumbnails which might add impact and interest to presentations.
When used to illustrate groups of individuals, I believe that they allow the reader to see differences
more effectively than a table, where the boxes drawn are all made from the same dimensions.
These diagrams vary in size. Where they are used to show individual details, they act as a
graphical reference to the narratives which can be set in parallel onto the page (not shown here).
In constructing these diagrams I have been attempting to reconcile my conflicting thoughts about
the ways that research represents participants. On the one hand I acknowledge the need for
providing basic information for the reader such as gender or age. On the other hand however, I feel
that some devices allow participants to disappear or become ‘othered’ in some way through the
paratextual devices chosen. What I have done with these diagrams is to try to find a paratextual
form which can run alongside and summarise the narrative approach which I prefer to utilize.
13
HE
HE
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
FULL TI ME
EMPLOYMENT
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
HE
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
HE
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
HE
ACADEMIC
BRIDGI NG
PROGRAMME
FE PART
TI ME
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
EMPLOYER
TRAI NING
HE
WORK BASED
LEARNI NG
FE
ASSESSMENT
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FE
COLLEGE
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FE
COLLEGE
WORK
EXPEREINCE
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FE
COLLEGE
FE
COLLEGE
FE
COLLEGE
HOME AND
FAMILY
FULL TI ME
EMPLOYMENT
RETURN TO
SCHOOL
NO
QUALIFICATI ONS
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
SCHOOL
6TH FORM
A LEVELS
FE
COLLEGE
GCSE'S
AT SCHOOL
GCSE AT
SCHOOL
Lizzie
Diana
College A Pathways to higher education
CULINARY ARTS MANAGEMENT
GROUP 1: ACADEMIC BRIDGING PROGRAMME
SCHOOL
6TH FORM
A/S LEVEL
GCSE AT
SCHOOL
James
14
FULL TI ME
EMPLOYMENT
GCSE AT
SCHOOL
GCSE AT
SCHOOL
Matt
Paul
NO
QUALIFICATI ONS
AT SCHOOL
Lilly
HE
HE
HE
HE
HE
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
PRACTICAL
BRIDGING
PROGRAMME
PRACTICAL
BRIDGING
PROGRAMME
PRACTICAL
BRIDGING
PROGRAMME
PRACTICAL
BRIDGING
PROGRAMME
PRACTICAL
BRIDGING
PROGRAMME
HE
PART TIME
FE
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FULL TIME
EMPLOYMENT
PART TIME
FE
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FULL TIME
EMPLOYMENT
PART TIME
EMPLOYMENT
FE
COLLEGE
A/S LEVELS AT
6TH FORM
COLLEGE
SCHOOL
6TH FORM
A LEVELS
A LEVELS AT
SIXTH FORM
COLLEGE
FE
COLLEGE
GCSE'S AT
SCHOOL
GCSE'S AT
SCHOOL
GCSE'S AT
SCHOOL
GCSE'S AT
SCHOOL
CSE'S AT
SCHOOL
Gerrard
Elizabeth
College A Pathways to higher education
Culinary Arts Management
GROUP 2: PRACTICAL BRIDGING PROGRAMME
Geoff
15
Skittles
Jen
?
Louise
Photographs
Teaching room at Daiston Campus site of Northgreen Federal College
Wall display in teaching room at Daiston Campus site of Northgreen
Federal College
College notice at Tultry College site of Northgreen Federal College
16
AX011: Timetable for the week in year 1 of Social Work at University (constructed 4 December 2006, interview 2)
Monday
9-15.00
Paid
(employment employment
hours)
(1)
Agency
work:
Teaching
10-16.00
assistant in
(study
special
hours)
needs,
anywhere in
the city
Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Paid
employment
Agency
work:
Teaching
assistant in
special
needs,
anywhere in
the city
University
University
lectures and lectures
seminars
and
seminars
Teaching
for 1
Teaching
module,
for 1
lasting all
module,
day
lasting all
day
University Watches
library for TV (East
3 hours
Enders)
[employment
[employment is related to
is related to area of HE
area of HE
study]
study]
Evening
Paid
employment
Agency
work:
Teaching
assistant in
special
needs,
anywhere in
the city
Meets
friends
for a chat
Does
university
work
[employment
is related to
area of HE
study]
Study for university, caring for mother
(1) Employment: was key worker for a boy with SEN. This was too big a commitment when started at university and has switched
to agency work.
Both previous and current employment related to her area of study.
(2) Highlighted in yellow: timetabled study at university
17
AY1003: Timetable for the week in year 3 (final year) of BSc Sports Therapy (constructed 13 November 2006, interview 2)
Monday
9-11
11-13.00
13.00-14.00
Lecture
Entrepreneurial
Studies
Seminar
Entrepreneurial
Studies
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Lecture
NO CLASSES Professionalism NO CLASSES
and ethics
Time used for
work on
dissertation
and
assignments
Time used for
work on
dissertation
and
assignments
Goes to gym
Goes to gym
14.00-16.00
16.00-18.00
17.30-19.00
Lecture
Diagnostics
and
management
theory
Personal:
athletics
training at
nearby
University
Practical
Diagnostics
and
management
(seeing
clients,
carrying out
diagnosis and
treatment)
Supervised by
course tutor
Saturday
Sunday
2 hours study
2 hours study
(more or less
depending on
how much
completed
during week)
(more or less
depending on
how much
completed
during week)
Personal:
athletics
training at
nearby
University
No regular paid employment, but works at gym in home city on occasional basis about 2 weekends a month
Highlighted in yellow: timetabled study at university
18
Water Logic
Edward De Bono (1993) Waterlogic, London:Penguin Books.
Cate Goodlad
Cate Goodlad has been using ‘Water Logic’ to analyse interview data and to
take her preliminary analysis back to interviewees. Water logic is a practical
thinking tool where you create ‘flowscapes’ that allow you to see at a glance
the important points and relationships. These are very easy to construct and
not very time consuming.
De Bono suggests that we have been taught to think in terms of traditional
‘rock logic’. This focuses on ‘what is’; facts and objectivity. However, most of
the time we use perception which does not follow ‘rock logic’ at all.
Perception is based on water logic – it flows, is not definite or hard edged but
can adapt to containers. Rather than being based on ‘what is’, water logic is
based on ‘what this leads to’.
Example from De Bono:
A woman takes a faulty kettle to a department store and asks for a
replacement. The sales assistant knows that the kettle could not have been
bought there as they do not stock that brand but the assistant replaces the
kettle with a new one. On the basis of rock logic this would seem absurd but
with water logic this makes sense. The woman is so pleased with the service
she received that she becomes a regular customer and spends much more
money in the store.
What you do
Create a steam of consciousness list of the key points which might be
features, ideas, factors that occur to you. This should not be laboured over as
it may distort the final ‘flowscape’.
Next, label each item on the list A, B, C etc.
The next step is the most important and involves the flow. Again it is
important not to try to predict the outcome and distort the flow. Taking each
19
item on the list ask yourself ‘where does this lead to?’ It is important not to
think in terms of cause and effect but what comes next. All items on the list
lead to another item on the list.
Next plot out the letters into a flowscape. It is easiest to start with the most
frequent destination letter. Collection points are key factors as are loops
which form stable perceptions.
Example of Lorraine
A
radiotherapy
D
B
young child
E
C
localness
B
D
travel
E
E
better herself
A
F
boredom
D
G
admin jobs
D
H
little family support
D
C
B
E
H
F
A
D
G
20
localness
young child
to better herself
little family support
Boredom
Radiotherapy
travel
Admin jobs
Key collection points are E (better herself) and D (travel) – these are her main
drivers. These two are linked by A (radiotherapy) which forms a stable
perception by the loop. So she will better herself through radiotherapy which
will lead to travel which in turn will make her a better person.
Some problems
It is difficult not to pre-empt the outcome of the flowscape and takes a bit of
time to think about how the person perceives the situation, rather that
yourself. I’ve also found that some of the things noted down in my stream of
consciousness list do not appear to ‘lead’ easily to another in the list. I have
had to decide whether I needed to add something else (and then what would
this lead to on the list) or to delete that thing in the first place.
I have found it a useful tool to explore people’s perceptions and participants
seemed to enjoy the analysis. It therefore provides a good talking point.
21
Waterlogic Flow Sally
A
‘normal’ route
B
B
‘better’ job
A
C
Heavy workload
D
D
harder
K
E
modules
J
F
placements
J
G
lack of money
K
H
independent
learning
N
I
different to college H
J
Assessments
N
K
Pressure
H
L
Part-time work
K
M
student identity
Higher-status
H
N
first-class degree
B
22
Sally Flow Diagram 1
Heavy workload
Harder
Part-time work
Lack of money
Pressure
Different to
college
Student identity
Higher status
Independent
Learning
Placements
Modules
Assessments
First-class degree
‘Better’ job
23
‘Normal’
route
The stream of consciousness list is derived from two interviews with Sally,
one at the end of her Access to HE course and the other a few weeks into her
BA in Physiotherapy course. Sally already has a BA in Politics for which she
achieved an upper second class degree but found it difficult to get a job that
she enjoyed so has returned to retrain at the age of 27.
When producing the stream of consciousness list, the question in mind was
‘what does HE mean to Sally?’ As she has previous experience of HE, she
had some idea what to expect although this time she is living with her parents
rather than being in halls of residence. She talks of how university is different
to college in that you have to be a more independent learner and that when
she was at college she didn’t always tell people that she was studying as it
didn’t have the same status as studying at university. She associates HE with
work modules, placements and assessments which she is hoping will lead to
a first-class degree this time round. Sally has experienced a heavy workload
which is much harder leading to a great deal of pressure. This is
compounded by lack of money and working part-time. She seems to accept
that this is not only what HE looks like but also how it should be as it will lead
to a ‘better’ job.
At the end of the third interview the flow diagram was presented back to Sally
for her comments. She agreed that this was a fairly accurate description of
how she sees HE and commented that it was interesting the way that
pressure had become a collector point. She then revealed that she has
recently seen a councillor in the university to help her cope with the stress,
something that she did not reveal in the normal course of the interview. We
discussed the effect of this pressure which may be as much down to her own
high standards and the wish to attain a first-class degree. We decided that
the flow diagram worked better by rearranging the flow to acknowledge the
pressure that she is putting on herself and created a new flow diagram.
24
Sally Flow Diagram 2
Placements
Modules
Student identity
Higher status
Assessments
Different to
college
Independent
Learning
First-class degree
Heavy workload
Part-time work
Harder
Lack of money
Pressure
‘Better’ job
25
‘Normal’
route
Tag clouds
http://www.tagcrowd.com/
Will Thomas
Tag clouds can be used to analyse key themes and issues coming out of
interview data. Tagclouds are basically a visualisation of word frequency,
which can be generated using the Tagcrowd website. The examples below
show what tag clouds are and how they might be used for analysing and representing data.
Example 1: The relative importance of different themes coming out of
interview data
adventure
exams experience helped tutor teacher school
college ucas mum coursework money
attitude atmosphere university information told
degree
employment hard dad study friends
In example 1 (which is fictitious) the use of different colours links terms
together as forming part of one theme. The size of the word is used to show a
measure of frequency. In this example tutor, teacher, mum, dad and friends
all appear in orange, and form part of a theme concerning social networks of
influence on students’ decision-making. The word ‘tutor’ is the largest in this
set, and indicates that this term occurred most often.
Example 2: Positive and Negative Influences on decisions about
whether to enter HE
confidence
career
accommodation
T&L tutor
family
location
friends
wages
fees
type of institution experience
influence bursaries grades coursework exams
26
S&P
In example 2 (which is fictitious), colours (green and red) have been used to
represent whether the word or influence is deemed to be ‘positive’ or
‘negative’, in terms of whether this factor promotes or discourages
progression. The size of the word represents the importance of this factor, as
determined through contextual analysis of the interview transcripts. It would
be possible for the same term to appear in both colours, to indicate that it
represents both a ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ factor. Analysis could either take
the form of analysing the frequency with which the terms occur in the
transcript, or could be used following initial analysis, to count the number of
references to a particular theme in the transcripts. In this case one reference
might consist of several sentences, where the term (family for example)
occurs several times.
Tag clouds from transcripts of students all following one course are shown
below.
CX3002
CX3003
27
CX3004
CX3005
CX3006
28
Poetry
Val Thompson
The poem ‘Gerrard’ is an attempt at highlighting the ‘disappearing’ that was
referred to earlier (see Pictorial representations) through starkly listing the
many stages which are often a feature of the research process. Through
these stages, it seems to me, something of the person who is a participant in
the research is lost. The Stick Verse form is a visually powerful way of
illustrating how an individual might vanish. It is short; only thirty two words
long and begins with very personal, individual and subjective detail. It then
moves rapidly on to the ostensibly more objective processes, the ones which
use very scientific sounding terms, which lead to the disappearing. The poem
also pays attention to the rhythm and rhyme of the words and word order
which make it work at an aesthetic level.
The use of poetry as a form of representation in educational research is
supported by the work of Cahnmann (2003) who, whilst acknowledging the
view that not all educational researchers can write quality poetry, is
encouraging and argues that educational researchers should and can acquire
the skills and techniques utilised by arts based researchers because:
‘Through poetic craft and practice, we can surprise both ourselves and our
audiences with new possibilities. Using elements of poetry in our data
collection, analysis and write-up has the potential to make our thinking
clearer, fresher and more accessible and to render the richness and
complexity of the observed world’ (Cahnmann, 2003 p.37).
Although she describes poetry as ‘a risky business’ (p.31) she sees the risk
as one worth taking and echoing Laurel Richardson (2002) sees it as a means
through which larger and more diverse audiences can be exposed to, and
have access to the outcomes of educational research. The poem ‘Gerrard’
has already been presented to a wider audience through my association with
a poetry writing group at a poetry café where its creation and craft as well as
its meanings and purpose have been the subject of lively discussion.
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Gerrard
Gerrard
wiry
sharp
young
son
brother
scoucer
fresher
pleasure
to
talk
to
interview
digitize
download
attach
to
an
email
transcribe
anonymize
import
into
ATLAS ti
code
explode
analyse
theorize
publish
Gerrard
dog-eared
disappeared.
Val Thompson, March 2007
30
References
Apple, M. (1996) Power, Meaning and Identity: Critical Sociology of Education in the
United States, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 17, 2, pp.125-144.
Bourdieu, P. (2000) For a scholarship with commitment, Profession, MLA Journal,
USA.
Cahnmann, M. (2003) The craft, practice and possibility of poetry in educational
research, Educational Researcher, Washington, 32, 3 pp. 29 – 40.
Clancy, P. (2006) Structural Features of Higher Education and Second Level
Systems and their Relationship to Levels of Participation and Equity. Working Paper,
Fulbright New Century Scholar Programme.
Gewirtz, S. (2000) Social Justice, New Labour and School Reform IN Lewis, G.,
Gewirtz, S. and Clarke, J. (eds) Rethinking Social Policy, London: Sage with Open
University Press, pp.307-322.
Gewirtz, Sharon and Cribb, Alan (2002) Plural Conceptions of Social Justice:
Implications for Policy Sociology, Journal of Education Policy, 17, 5, pp.499-509.
Hartnett, S.J. and Engels, J.D. (2005) “Aria in time of war”. Investigative Poetry and
the Politics of Witnessing IN Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (eds) Handbook of
Qualitative Research, 3rd edition, London and Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp.1043-1067.
House, E. (2005) Qualitative Evaluation and Changing Social Policy IN Denzin, N. K.
and Lincoln, Y. S. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edition, London and
Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp.1069-1081.
Lather, P. (1995) Feminist Perspectives on Empowering Research Methodologies IN
Holland, J. and Blair, M. with Sheldon, S. (eds) Debates and Issues in Feminist
Research and Pedagogy, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters and The Open University,
pp.292-307.
Mills, C. Wright (1959) The Sociological Imagination, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Richardson, L. (2002) Poetic Representation of Interviews IN Gubrium, J. F. and
Holstein, J.A. (ed) Handbook of Interview Research Context and Method Thousand
Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.
Trow, M. (1973) Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education.
Berkeley, CA: Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.
Papers related to the FurtherHigher Project include:
Bathmaker, A.M. (2006) Positioning themselves: Higher education transitions and
‘dual sector’ institutions. Exploring the nature and meaning of transitions in FE/HE
institutions in England. Paper presented at the ESRC TLRP Seminar Series
Transitions through the lifecourse at the University of Nottingham on 12-13 October
2006.
Bathmaker, A.M. and Thomas, W. (2007) Positioning themselves: An exploration of
the nature and meaning of transitions in the context of dual sector FE/HE institutions
in England. Paper presented at the International Conference on researching
transitions in lifelong learning at the University of Stirling, 22 - 24 June 2007.
They are available on the project website at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/furtherhigher/
31