I keep saying I'm going to presnt all the cool stuff I'm learning in my reserch methods class, and then never do. Well, I'm ready. One way to conduct research, to which I'm drawn, is called phenomenology. What this kind of research studies is "lived experience." So, for example, we did a mini-phenomenological study in my class on two common experiences, "Eating an Ice Cream Cone" and "Daydreaming." While these topics may seem inane, "serious" researchers often do more salient topics, such as "The Lived Experience of Being a Gang Member" or "The Lived Experience of Being a First-Generation College Student."
First, why do this type of research? In education, you have positivist/qualitative research, normally based on numbers and "regressions," some sort of statistics measurement, interpretive/qualitative research, usually conducted through observations, interviews, background cultural research, and critical research - think Marxist treatises on observing a societal phenomenon and breaking it down in terms of power, resources, etc. These are simplifications, but I think you get the idea.
Much in the way that history classes try to present the daily lives of the cultures they study as well as the dates, big names, and figures of numbers dead, GDP, whatever, qualitative research fleshes out the lives of participants behind the stats of a quantitative study. I think they work quite nicely together - it would be great if two teams of researchers got together to study a phenomenon, like... ok, the failure of boys in school (a subject in one of my recent posts). Then you would have both statistical data and the voices of boys to help give a full picture of the phenomenon. In our postmodern little way, it is of course impossible to convey the Truth, but we can get at some truths.
In phenomenological research, you choose a "phenomenon." Then you identify some participants, usually at one university or one school, and then interview them in an open-ended fashion. You can also observe them, but the real meat of the study is in speaking to them about their experiences. You write up their observations, identify themes, take it back and forth to have them read, edit, illuminate, dispel... whatever. It's almost a collaborative process between you and your participants, although in the end you focus the research through your own critical lens.
One of my odd but firmly held beliefs is in the Catholic (and other faiths) idea of "The Cloud of Unknowing." It's much like Plato's myth of the cave - and, being me, I do believe in Truth (Capital T!). So there is a Truth, out there, somewhere. However, on earth we are prevented from seeing it by a "cloud of unknowing." The shadows we see here on earth are reflections, distortions, and rudimentary versions of that Truth. The same way there is a spark of God in all humans, there is a spark of Truth in all text. I could take this to the postmodern extent, where the Phone Book and Hamlet have equal weight... I won't go quite that far.
I once wrote a paper on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to this effect, stating that Chaucer was attempting to mirror this cloud of unknowing idea through his choice of multi-narrator storytelling. Conducting a phenomenological study is much like interviewing Chaucer's pilgrims. Ask eight people for their versions of a particular event, and you're likely to get eight different answers.
You can see where this is leading - those of you who know me most likely know my love of literature and stories. In a way, I become God as a phenomenologist!!! Hahaha. No, but seriously, I take eight different stories that might have not otherwise been heard. I synthesize them into a narrative that weaves them into something that will (or well, will not, but whatever) be read by the academic community. It will at least be read by my dissertation committee! These unheard stories, existing only in eight people's minds, become part of the narratives... and I have this weird thought that if you were to synthesize all those narratives out there, you would find the Truth. That synthesis of all narrative ever created is... the mind of God.
;) It's still me in here, guys.
How does this relate to recent events? Well, even when I'm being a spiteful, bitter bitch (wink to JB), I always bring academia into the fore. Let's go back to my judgement (nay, let's call a spade a spade - envy) of Privileged White Boys and Girls everywhere. There was a report about first generation college students, of which I am one! Reading the findings of this report are so funny, because the "findings" are so contrary to what I know as a first generation college students. There's a book called Caucasia by Danzy Senna, and it's a great read. It's the story of two sisters, born to a white mom and an African-American dad who met and married during the civil rights era. When the parents divorce, the "blacker" daughter becomes part of the Black communtiy dad, while the "whiter" daughter begins to "pass" as Jewish with her white mother. They pick Jewish because the daughter's skin is a little darker and her hair is kinky.
There's this mythology of "passing" as white in the African-American community that I have always found intriguing. It never occurred to me that I identified with it before this morning. Where to start, where to start...
Suffice to say, that when I was reading the findings of the quantitative, statistical study of first generation college students, I did not see myself in the portrayal of a student who is in a 2-year school, non-traditional student, has to take remedial classes to "make it," but then generally achieves the same socio-economic status as his or her peers upon graduation. I did, however, get a feeling in my gut when I read this:
Even when controlling for many of the characteristics that distinguished them from their peers, such as socioeconomic status, institution type, and attendance status, first generation student status still had a negative effect on persistence and attainment.Ouch. So we still suck... ok, I know, I have a chip on my shoulder.
I'm going to write my own piece of "The Lived Experience of a First Generation College Graduate," but some of it will come out as I write this. N. and I had dinner on Thursday, and she told me about this diversity seminar she attended at Wellesley after some racist graffiti was found in one of the dorms. The moderator asked a few questions about people's socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds and had them raise their hands if they "fit" into a certain category. The other Latina girls were surprised that light-skinned N. fit into their category. Apparently everyone was shocked when a girl who dressed in designer clothes raised her hand when he asked, "Who here is a first generation college student whose parents had manual jobs?"
I guess technically I'm a second generation college student, because my parents attended community college off and on, but could never finish because of the pressures of work, and, oh, getting drafted. They began at fairly low levels in the tech industry, but given the times, were able to take advantage of the educational resources available to them at work. Besides that, they're both smart people :) ! I've always admired what they were able to do, and I kind of thought their story was everybody's story - it's the American dream to grow up poor and make it through hard work and determination, right? Plus, I went to high school with tons of immigrant children who fell into a very similar category.
Then I went off to college. And I realized, not only do I not fit in to this culture of upper middle class wealth, but I'm terrified everyone will find out that I don't fit in. Unlike being from a different ethnic background, no one could tell from looking at me or speaking to me that my parents were not fifth generation college students who came over on the damn Mayflower. No, no, we came over on one of those coffin ships from Cobh. (B., by the way, is just one generation ahead of me. His Mick ancestors came over about 10-20 years ahead of mine, but we're all from the same drunk, potato-eating stock!). I looked the part. I sounded the part. And no one really knew, until they got to know me, that I spent a lot of my time at Sewanee terrified about how different I was.
This of course, didn't really hit me until I started dating at Sewanee. I had to keep my jaw from dropping as we'd pull up to his house in some rich suburb. "House." It made the house I grew up in look like some sort of shack. (Nobody ever had a pool though. Maybe that's a Florida thing.) And I never had the right manners, or the right clothes, or the right religion. I would whisper on the phone to my parents, "He's really rich." I found out that no, not everyone goes to public school. And then I realized that his parents were footing the entire bill for him to go to Sewanee, that he wouldn't have ended up at state school had he not worked his butt off to get the scholarship. This isn't any one guy I dated - this is all of them.
And the way that feels... hmmm. It's kind of hard to describe. I think I overcompensated a bit by being the best student, the best dressed, the most... well, as some of my sorority sisters used to say, I was "intimidating." Not being from genteel Southern wealth, I was out to prove that not only did I need to be, but I was better than all you jerks anyway. (Especially after a few Southern Gentlemen broke my heart. Especially that one who married his hometown girlfriend while dating me. Ouch.)
So, can those feelings come across in a quantitative study? Of course not. And that's not to say that statistics of first gen college students don't tell us some important information. But I think that my story of how I wandered into applying to certain colleges, not knowing the "right" way to go about it, and how I felt horribly out of place while at school (don't get me wrong - I loved Sewanee and still do) might provide some insight as well. I could not conduct such a study, because my feelings would color the results.
Perhaps I should do a phenomenological study of "The Lived Experience of Not Having to Work Your Ass Off to Get and Keep a Scholarship to a Private School Because If You Did Not, You Would Be at The University of Florida and Even So Hearing from Your Parents on Every Holiday How Damn Expensive College Is and How Hard They Work to Keep You There." No? Exposing that envious chip on my shoulder too much?
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