Navigating Within/Outside of the Local Context: A Lesson From Qualitative Research in South Africa

• In Event: 44.053 - Diverse "How" to Do Qualitative Research: Challenging White Qualitative Research Methods and Methodologies in Disability Studies in Education

Abstract

In this presentation, I address challenges, modifications, and limitations in using traditional qualitative research methods in international settings through the lens of Disability Studies in Education (DSE) framework. In 2014, I conducted a qualitative case study with the purpose of expanding discussions of inclusive education practices in township special education schools in Eastern Cape of South Africa. This study utilized qualitative research methods including questionnaires, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. Participants were also required to participate in three one-hour-long teacher workshop sessions. In order to include the collective voices of special education teachers on the front line of education, utilizing different qualitative research methods was essential to the research.
During the planning process of my research, I encountered unexpected situations that forced me to critically revisit my assumed notion of ‘inclusive education’ in an international setting. For example, the initial recruitment of participants in the study was targeted to general education teachers who have experience teaching students with disabilities. While recruiting participants, I noticed that teachers having experience teaching students with disabilities were less likely to be working in mainstream township schools because of the limited number of schools serving students both with and without disabilities in South African townships. In the area that my research was conducted in South Africa, segregated schooling for students with disabilities was more commonly practiced than I assumed. With little cultural and social contexts, I had to change my initial recruitment plan to focus solely on teachers in special education schools rather than in mainstream township schools.
While utilizing traditional qualitative research methods and methodologies center on a Western White-American able-bodied logic, I encountered a resistance and skepticism toward my research from one of the local education advocacy groups in South Africa. As a researcher from one of the ‘first-world’ countries, my research may have been misinterpreted as edifying ‘third-world’ teachers with ‘new’ knowledge. At the same time, I experienced an immediate acceptance of my research from local teachers and educational personnel, mainly because in-service teacher support was scarce in the research site. Such encounters helped me reframe the role of myself as a researcher conducting a qualitative study in a non-Western setting. Utilizing a DSE framework further enabled my research to bring the voices of the teachers to the forefront, so that it was possible to learn from South African teachers about how inclusive education practices might be modified depending on different social and cultural contexts.
This presentation will share strategies in conducting qualitative research methods using a DSE framework that I collaboratively developed with the participants and the local experts in non-White and Non-Western settings. In addition, I will share hands-on knowledge dealing with unexpected and unintended situations at a research site: lack of technology; safety issues; and negotiating the role of researcher as an insider and as an outsider in relation to one’s race, gender, class, and nationality. Finally, I aim to challenge the assumed notion of traditional qualitative research methods that are heavily Western and White-centered.

Author

• Yosung Song, Syracuse University