Reading What is Not Said: using methodology which reads ‘between the

lines’ in research.

Sarah Calvert. PhD.

Jane Gilbert Phd.

• Three different projects

• Women and STEM science.

• Youth Connectedness.

• Alternative Education.

• Hypothesised that answers sometimes lay outside of conscious knowing.

• Wanted to use a relational process which acknowledged that the researcher is also a participant.

• Both Subject and researcher changed by the interaction.

• " A social self would come to be partially in and through

powerful affective relationships with other persons. These

relationships with others and our feelings and fantasies

about them, along with experiences of embodiedness also

mediated by such relations can come to constitute an

"inner" self that is neither simply fictive nor "natural". Such

a self is simultaneously embodied, gendered, social and

unique. It is capable of telling stories and of conceiving and

experiencing itself in all these ways”. Jane Flax. 1990.

• “ (The researchers feelings) tell us about how a researcher comes to produce such an account and opens it to the possibility of different readings of the same material. It tells us that the process of reading itself is not all in the text, but is produced out of a complex interaction between reader and text. But perhaps it tells us more than this: as a researcher, I am no more, no different from the subjects of my research”.

Walkerdine, 1997

Psychoanalytic Ideas

• Focus on developmental processes.

• Focus on the relational processes of the interview.

• Use of Adult Attachment Interview and Child Attachment Interview.

• Evidence of unconscious material- parapraxis, affective states, what is avoided.

• Use of Grice’s maxims- consistency, richness of perception, coherence, order.

• Themes and patterns.

• Relationships.

• How the ‘self’ was present or not

• The place of fantasy and the symbolic.

Narrative Theory.

•people construct their sense of self in relation to others.

•people bring themselves into being through narratives

•people present themselves to the world through narratives

•people make sense of their lives through narratives

•all narratives have a audience

•the audience is part of the performance of a narrative (researcher not a detached observer).

Analysis

• Multiple levels of Analysis.

• Undertaken by the research group as a whole.

• Conventional Qualitative Analysis-what was said, how people, places, events and experiences constructed into stories.

• Look for the data at deeper levels- what was the subject saying and to whom.

• Production of selves and the stories.

• Psychological issues which arise from the telling and our listening.

• Listening with the psycho-analytic lens.

The Women and Science Project.

• Initial work using a group of ‘experts’ to develop the research questions.

• Nine STEM scientists, all recognised leaders in their field.

• Importance of the ‘story’, both for its developmental, relational, affective and symbolic qualities.

• Complex relationships with both mothers and fathers.

• How to manage being ‘female’.

• The importance of relationships.

Youth Connectedness.• 41 young people, 31% Maori. Aged between 10-14 in

Year One and 13-17 in Year Three.

• Part of larger computer based study of 2,000 (allowed us to see how our data ‘fitted’).

• Also made a Digital Story every year- another lens on their development.

Maori

• Indigenous people of Aotearoa. Economically and socially marginalized by colonization.

• Schooling where all schooling is done in Te Reo Maori (the language of Maori).

• Limited research on Maori youth and their progress through development.

Secure attachments and a sense of achievement provide scaffolding for development.

Most important generally, Family and Friends. However the more connections they have the better.

But some young people make use of very little in the way of support and not be connected to family.

• Most distressed had no ‘sense of self’, passive in their lives, outcomes include anxiety, depression and suicidality.

• Impact of the research (research is not neutral).

• Research itself created connections among the young people and with us (which are on-going).

• Young people could articulate the ways in which being part of this research had helped them think about things in different ways. Some talked about it as a life changing experience.

Animee, Manga and Cosplay

• Japanese cartoons and comics with highly stylized characters. Now a significant part of ‘youth culture around the world.

• Cosplay- costume play, a form of performance art. A form of active role play.