Early Childhood Qualitative Research

J. Amos Hatch, J. Amos Hatch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135918279
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How can qualitative researchers make the case for the value of their work in a climate that emphasizes so-called "scientifically-based research?" What is the future of qualitative research when such approaches do not meet the narrow criteria being raised as the standard? In this timely collection, editor J. Amos Hatch and contributors argue that the best argument for the efficacy of qualitative studies in early childhood is the new generation of high quality qualitative work. This collection brings together studies and essays that represent the best work being done in early childhood qualitative studies, descriptions of a variety of research methods, and discussions of important issues related to doing early childhood qualitative research in the early 21st century. Taking a unique re-conceptualist point of view, the collection includes materials spanning the full range of early childhood settings and provides cutting edge views by leading educators of new methods and perspectives.

1

Back to Modernity?

Early Childhood Qualitative Research in the 21st Century

J. AMOS HATCH

University of Tennessee

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the place of early childhood qualitative research in the sociopolitical contexts of the early 21st century. With the evolvement of efforts by conservative forces in the United States to define certain kinds of research as scientific and to label other forms of inquiry as something inferior, many researchers (and practitioners) are concerned about the future of research approaches that do not meet the narrow criteria being raised as the norm. In this chapter, I review the reemergence of the scientifically based standard, arguing that it is evidence of a rejection of postmodern thought and an attempt to return to modern ways of thinking about knowledge, science, and progress. I revisit the paradigm wars that characterized discussions of educational research during the 1980s and ′90s, making the case that the apparent détente between quantitative and qualitative researchers was an illusion. Quantitative and qualitative research approaches are grounded in fundamentally different ontological and epistemological assumptions and are therefore based in different research paradigms. I take the position that the paradigm wars are not over and that the positivist paradigm has taken the high ground as part of a larger conservative attack on postmodern thinking. The chapter presents examples of early childhood qualitative research that demonstrate the usefulness of inquiry done within qualitative research paradigms and contrasts those with “scientifically based” approaches to the study of similar phenomena. I conclude the chapter with a call for resistance tempered with patience. Postmodernity will not go away just because conservative political leaders and scholars have risen to positions of power. The best argument for the efficacy of qualitative studies in early childhood is the generation of high-quality qualitative work that reveals the inadequacies of a narrow definition of “scientifically based” approaches.

Scientifically Based Knowledge and the (Re)Turn to Modernity

The neo-conservative political agenda of the early 21st century includes a concerted effort to control schools and what goes on in classrooms, from pre-kindergarten through graduate school (Bracey, 2003). A strategic feature of this effort has been to take charge of defining what constitutes acceptable research on schools and schooling, then mandating that only findings coming from research that meets the definition of those in power can be applied to classrooms funded by government agencies (Davis, 2003; Lather, 2004; Torff, 2004). By defining scientifically based knowledge as that and only that which has been generated based on studies done in the positivist tradition, the political right has effectively elevated a certain kind of inquiry to the status of “real science” and made it possible to dictate policy and pedagogy for schools based on its own narrow definition of scientifically based research.

The visible beginnings of an active attempt to define educational research as scientifically based (or not) can be traced to the work of the National Reading Panel (NRP) formed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The panel was charged by the United States Congress to review and assess the research on literacy instruction in order to determine the most effective methods for teaching children to read. The panel began by limiting the studies it would consider in its review to those that met standards for research established in experimental psychology and medicine, that is, those designed to assess the effectiveness of “behaviorally based interventions, medications, or medical procedures” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 5). Application of the positivist epistemological assumptions of the medical model meant that a preponderance of reading research was ignored because it could not meet the standard (Cunningham, 2002). What remained has been roundly criticized for furthering the political right's efforts to emphasize circumscribed approaches to reading instruction (e.g., Allington, 2002, 2005; Garan, 2005; Krashen, 2005). What is more troublesome to me is that the NRP's position on evidence-based research has been extended to other federally sponsored initiatives, most notably the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation that (at this writing) drives educational policy and practice in the U. S.

The complex education reform plan spelled out in NCLB is rooted in the concept of scientifically based research. Someone who bothered to count found 70 places where the exact term “scientifically based” was used and over 100 places where variations on the term are found in the 670-page law (Giangreco & Taylor, 2003). The rationale for insisting on the use of only scientifically based research is that most educational research done in the past is vapid, it lacks rigor, and it serves to perpetuate vapid instructional approaches that lack rigor in vapid schools that lack rigor. What is needed, it is claimed, are studies that reflect the rigorous research principles of medicine or experimental psychology. The U.S. Department of Education Web site includes sections devoted to extolling the virtues of scientifically based research. In one of these sections, Reyna (n.d.) lays out the connections between the medical research model and what has been legislated for educational researchers:

The bottom line here is these same rules about what works and how to make inferences about what works, they are exactly the same for educational practice as they would be for medical practice. Same rules, exactly the same logic, whether you are talking about a treatment for cancer or whether you're talking about an intervention to help children learn. (p. 3)

Redefining scientific research in education became a driving force behind neo-conservative attempts to reform the educational landscape of the United States. The U.S. Department of Education invited the National Research Council to take up the issue, and their conclusions, summarized in Scientific Research in Education (National Research Council, 2002), continued the pattern of relying on positivist epistemological principles when deciding what constitutes science in education (Erickson, 2005; Erickson & Gutierrez, 2002; Gee, 2005; Moss, 2005; St. Pierre, 2002).

Across the board, the “science” in scientifically based research has been narrowly defined as that which conforms to the assumptions and methods of the positivist research tradition (Cunningham, 2002). Positivists believe that reality exists and is driven by natural laws that are fixed, unchanging, and inflexible. They assume an objective universe that has order independent of human perceptions. Researchers and the objects of their research are assumed to be mutually independent. The product of positivist research is verifiable knowledge in the form of facts and laws. Prediction is the ultimate aim of positivist science—if conditions are controlled, positivist researchers can predict what will happen when certain changes are introduced (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; Hatch, 2002).

Positivist science is one of the great inventions of modernity. The idea that absolute truth could be uncovered by applying the technology of experimental research changed the ways we think about the world and our place in it. If the truth is knowable, then continuous progress only depends on our ability to reveal that truth, so science is reified as the legitimate source for knowledge, and science becomes the engine of progress (Elkind, 1994; Seidman, 1994).

Postmodern thinkers have deconstructed the illusion of progress and the façade of scientific objectivity. They have exposed the inseparable connections between knowledge and power and opened the door to alternative ways of thinking about and doing research. New research paradigms based on different ontological and epistemological assumptions have risen and been recognized as legitimate (Hatch, 2002). During the 1980s and ′90s, the great paradigm wars raged at meetings of education research organizations and in the pages of Educational Researcher and other important journals. Many of us qualitative research types thought that, although we never really reached the stage of “normal science” (Kuhn, 1970), we were at least accepted as legitimate educational researchers. If the conservative right has its way, and they seem to be doing pretty well near the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, the return to positivism means that research done within any worldview other than the positivist paradigm is not “scientifically based.” Cunningham's (2002) critique of the National Reading Panel's capitulation to positivist assumptions should serve as a warning to all educational researchers:

Like all positivism, the Panel's work reveals a desire for certainty and a willingness to engage in reductionism to achieve it…. Practicing scientists of reading should be embarrassed by the simplistic, old-fashioned, and generally discredited verificationism of the National Reading Panel. (p. 56)

I see this return to positivist research as part of a larger movement back to modernity. I believe the agenda of the conservative right to be an active, wellorchestrated offensive designed to return the world to the modern comfort of the 1950s. Families will be normal again—a married man and woman with children conceived in wedlock will be the optimum condition. The USA will be a genuine superpower again—other nations will do as we say or suffer our wrath. Americans will be Americans again—those who look, talk, or act differently will be denied, dismissed, or detained. Schools will be standardized—those who know what's best for children will hold teachers accountable for delivering the prescribed goods or else. And, knowledge production will be scientifically based—alternative ways of knowing will be eliminated or marginalized.

Postmodern ideas are tantamount to blasphemy to the zealots who have so much power at the time of this writing. I believe the yen to return to the unquestioned authority of modern discourses drives the political agenda of neo-conservatives in the United States. Three examples of postmodern notions and contemporary conservative reactions to them will help make my case. Postmodern thinkers have deconstructed the modern concept of universal truth, offering in its place the notion of local, conditional, and temporary truths (Sarap, 1993; Hatch, 2000). Neo-conservatives see the rejection of absolute truth as an abomination. In the same ways that natural laws are seen as universal, so are moral laws also thought to be fixed, unchanging, and inflexible. Their approach to issues related to abortion is a good example: abortion is wrong for anyone, at any time, under any circumstance; so we will pack the courts and change the Constitution to ensure that everyone abides by this unquestionable truth.

The promise of progress is another modern discourse that has been discredited by the postmodern critique (Elkind, 1994). Modernity itself depended on the assumption that the human condition was constantly improving because of advances in all realms of endeavor, from parenting to atomic science. By challenging the Western world's taken-for-granted belief in continuous progress, postmodernists made it possible to question the policies and practices of individuals and institutions in terms of the consequences of implementing those policies and practices rather than their claims to “progress.” The neo-conservatives have to defend progress as a viable goal; otherwise, invading countries with inferior forms of government or destroying natural habitats in order to drill for oil would be hard to justify.

Uniformity is a third element of modern thought that is under serious scrutiny within the postmodern critique. Postmodern thinkers' expectation that diversity is inevitable and invaluable rubs social conservatives the wrong way. Families that look different from the traditional nuclear family of the 1950s are the postmodern norm by far (Elkind, 1994), and everyone recognizes that the U.S. is becoming more demographically diverse by the day (Washington & Andrews, 1998). Still, conservative forces continue to promulgate policy initiatives that reward traditional family structures and punish those whose family values don't align, and they attempt to legislate cultural uniformity by requiring English-only teaching in schools and building fences along U.S. borders.

Again, I see the push to constrict knowledge production by imposing narrow definitions of scientifically based research as one piece of a larger effort to return to the comfort of modernity. Later in this chapter I build a case for the folly of such an attempt by arguing for the unique contributions of early childhood qualitative research and by exposing some of the weaknesses of studies purported to be scientifically based. I will next briefly revisit the paradigm wars of the past two decades, arguing that the apparent rapprochement between qualitative and quantitative researchers was a façade that has recently been stripped away.

From Disdain to Détente and Back

Over 20 years ago, I used a biological metaphor to show that qualitative researchers (“smooshes”) and quantitative researchers (“quantoids”) were from different species and, therefore, could not interbreed (Hatch, 1985). I built my argument on Kuhn's (1970) notion of scientific paradigms. Kuhn's premise was that schools of scientific thought reach the status of paradigms when they have firm answers to the following questions: What are the fundamental entities of which the universe is composed? How do these interact with each other and with the senses? What questions can legitimately be asked about such entities and what techniques employed in seeking solutions? Answers to these questions reveal different ontological and epistemological assumptions that form the basis for different and competing belief systems about how the world is ordered (or not), what we may know, and how we may know it. Kuhn argued that once you are thinking inside the belief system of your paradigm, logic is necessarily circular—that is, it makes sense only to those who share your metaphysical assumptions.

In 1985, I portrayed quantoids and smooshes as competing paradigmatic species that could not comfortably join together as simply different forms of educational research. Following Kuhn, I noted the contrasting assumptions at the core of what I then labeled positivist and constructivist paradigms and made the case that rapprochement was impossible—if you adopted the worldview of the quantoids, then the logic of the smooshes made no sense, and vice versa. But almost no one agreed that quantitative and qualitative paradigms were mutually exclusive. The overwhelming sentiment of the day favored détente between educational researchers of different stripes (Rist, 1977). There seemed to be room for differences, and much of the research community seemed to accept the idea that findings generated from different scholarly approaches had value and deserved respect. I say “seemed” because the current push to elevate positivist approaches to the status of “normal science” and to relegate other approaches to the less-than-normal category exposes the thin veneer of acceptance that is summarily being stripped away.

As will be evident below, I have enlarged my conceptualization to include four different qualitative paradigms (Hatch, 2002). Each has its own internal integrity and each stands in contrast to the other qualitative paradigms and to the positivist paradigm. Research generated within the assumptions of none of these qualitative paradigms would qualify as “scientifically based.” The apparent acceptance of alternative forms of scientific inquiry has been legislated away by forces on the political right and welcomed by those who stand to profit from the reemergence of the positivist paradigm. The disdain that characterized early reactions to qualitative research in education settings 30 years ago has been raised to the level of policy in the early 21st century. Kuhn's (1970) project was to trace the history of scientific revolutions, the rise and fall of competing scientific paradigms. According to his thesis, relevant scientific communities made the determination of what constituted normal science. But the battleground has shifted. In the postmodern world that emerged over the past few decades, mult...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Changing Images of Early Childhood
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor's Introduction
• Introduction
• 1 Back to Modernity? Early Childhood Qualitative Research in the 21st Century
• Part I Qualitative Methodologies in Early Childhood Settings
• Part II Issues in Early Childhood Qualitative Research
• Contributors
• Index