Using Qualitative Situational Analysis and Traditionally Marginalized Theory(ies) to Unmask Power Agendas in Early Education

• In Event: Critical Qualitative Research as Instrument for the Reconceptualization of Contemporary Early Education Issues

Abstract

This research project illustrates how qualitative methodologies like situational analysis (Clarke, 2005) and critical qualitative theoretical perspectives like Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000) can be used to construct new research questions and understandings as well as to design studies that unveil power orientations. The content of the study specifically examines United States policy that supports the privatization of public education for young children, including (1) state and federally funded initiatives such as “Race to the Top” that support “choice” and charter school agendas, (2) policy that allows for the creation of state-run school districts and appointed boards that supersede local control of schools, and (3) policy that facilitates the discrediting of educational knowledge and experience by privileging programs like Teach for America. Black feminist thought was combined with situational analysis (a postmodern methodology with its roots in grounded theory) in order to allow for the research to be emergent and malleable. The assumptions of situational analysis include allowing for (1) researcher as instrument, (2) reflexivity as integral to analysis, and (3) map making, or cartography, as vehicle for the examination of discourses. Further, situational analysis allows for a hybridity of qualitative tools to be employed (such as constant comparison and reflexive journaling) and resists the use of a strict and binding research process or the creation of formal theory.

Data sources chosen for the study were policy and financial documents, including those that address charter schools and choice initiatives that impact young children, teacher hiring and firing practices, the support (or lack of support) of input from communities and organizations such as teachers unions, and public discourses relating to policy issues found in media outlets such as newspaper and television newscasts. Critical situational mapping revealed emergent power consistently tied to corporatization and private interests, as well as the increased exclusion of career educators and parents (and communities) who have been traditionally marginalized. Early childhood scholars must continue to utilize critical qualitative tools such as situational analysis and Black feminist thought in order to provide a broader view of the strategic mechanisms used to corporatize schools that were once public. By unveiling the inequities that the contemporary hyper-capitalist state has created, young children and early childhood educators might find new ways to redeem the right to participate in a just and democratic public education system.

Author

• Michelle Salazar Perez, New Mexico State University