Methods Trouble

I am disappointed with my own progress this week.  I feel like I am stuck methodologically because I have not established a dissertation topic.  That is, because I do not know what I want to pursue for my dissertation, I feel paralyzed to choose a course of action in an independent project for this course.  I feel like I need to firmly establish a lens before I pick methodology. But I guess a good umbrella for my theoretical interests is critical social theory.  

As for the readings, Kleinman (2007) resonated with me in two major ways.  For one, Kleinman, wrote ‘We’re all in this together . . . might mask, deflect from, or compensate for inequalities” (p. 24), and I think it definitely does.  It angers me when bosses who make double what I do with less education make such statements.  What is more, this for me does not reflect a gender issue.  Rather, as half or more of the bosses I have ever had have been women, this is simply a power issue for me.  

Yet, Kleinman (2007) also resonated with me through gender, as she found the female workers at Renewal held the other women to higher standards of care and compassion than they did the men.  Yet, I find this is typical, and it is one thing I do not like about education.  Because we are a female dominated occupation, we are held to high standards of compassion.  That is, we are supposed to be like mothers (something I will likely never be biologically).  Yet, before the latter 1800s education was nothing like this. Education was a male dominated field (Hoffman, 2003).  I wonder what education would be like now if it had not evolved into a female dominated/care profession. I think education would have been different, but who is to say it would have been worse?

At any rate, I realize I must struggle to avoid a narcissistic trap.  I think that whatever I ultimately choose for my dissertation, it will be heavily influenced by my own experiences. Moreover, my passion does stem from the injustices I have felt.  However, I do think I am one of many, and I don’t find many champions for teachers.  I suppose I am acknowledging an interest in some auto ethnographic element, but I am also interested in critical ethnography.  Yet, I also have an interest in just writing.

Over the summer I did read Richardson’s chapter, entitled Writing: A Method of inquiry in Denzin and Lincoln (2003), but I guess what I was hoping to find was more structure for someone interested in writing a book.  For instance, I had in mind theoretical works such as those of Henry Giroux, and indeed I largely got the impression from professors that I should just imitate books of scholars.  I guess there is not as much literature on writing as method because this approach to method is not a complex concept.  Yet, with this conclusion I had little to say about method in my draft research proposal.  I just feel like something is missing. 

Also, I am concerned about Richardson’s statement, “I write in order to learn something that I did not know before I wrote it” (2003, p. 501).  I am not about to write anything important before I have an outline.  Richardson’s point is that writing with a plan is a methodological construct of modern convention, and that outlines inhibit her creativity.  To that I say, I have just as much right to want as plan as she does to reject one for creativity’s sake.

Hoffman, N. (2003). Woman’s “true” profession: Voices from the History of Teaching. Cambridge:     Harvard Education Press.

Kleinman, S. (2007). Feminist fieldwork analysis. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. (This is an incomplete citation).

Richardson, L. (2003). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N.K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),     The landscape if qualitative research: Theories and issues (2^nd ed.) (pp. 499-541). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.