Patti Lather Critical Frames in Educational Research: Feminist and Post-structural Perspectives Growing up female in rural South Dakota in the 1950s and 1960s, my sense of career “choice” included nursing and teaching. As | had no stomach for blood, teaching it was. An under- graduate degree in English education coupled with @ graduate degree in an interdisciplinary program of American studies prepared me for 5 years of teaching high schoo! in small-town In diana. | would have stayed forever if | had found enabling conditions to foster good teaching. In stead, ound small reward for hard work and a bureaucracy seemingly intent on thwarting my ‘every attempt to teacn creatively. Deciding to pursue a doctorate in education 0 that I could help make schools places where people like me could have lifetime careers as teachers, | enrolled in a graduate program in curriculum studies. | knew | would have to do “research.” | assumed this meant a process both alienating and necessary if one were to get the doctorate. I did not see myselt in any- thing | had encountered in my timited knowledge of “Tesearch.” Dependent and independent variables, control groups, hypothesis testing, statistical tests—al ofthis seemed so “other” to ‘my own experiences that | approached my in- dluction into the mysteries of scientific inquiry as a bitter pill | had to swallow. ‘Two movements changed allthis in ways | still cannot fully fathom. Because of the two movements of qualitative research in education Patti Lather is assistant professor of education at The Ohio Stato University. and feminist inguity in women’s studies, | have become a methodologist—a person who does esearch on research. | have taught courses in feminist research and now teach a three-course sequence in qualitative research in education, Most of my writing deals with what it means to do “critical” inquiry, inquiry that takes into ac- count how our lives are mediated by systems of inequity such as ciassism, racism, and sexism My empirical work asks feminist questions about what it means to do “qualitative” inquiry. Hence, rather than fitting into conventional notions of social science, | am part of a movement that is reinscribing science “otherwise,” reshaping it away from a “one best way" approach to the generation and legitimation of knowledge about the world, This article explores how qualitative and feminist inquiry are reconfiguring educational research. Rather than a survey of empirical work, itis more a methodological meditation, a focus ‘on the methodological issues involved in mov- ing educational research into the postpositivist era. Feminist philosopher of science, Sandra Harding (1987), distinguishes between method and methodology thus: Method refers to tech- niques for gathering empirical evidence; meth- odology is the theory of knowledge and the in- terpretive framework that guides a particular re- search project (p. 2) ‘As will become clear, my own methodologi- cal interests lie in the development of a critical social science, a science intended to empower Theory into Practice, Volume XXXI, Number 2, Spring 1992 Copvricht @ 2001. All Richts Reseved.those involved to change as well as to under- stand the world (Fay, 1987). The vatious critical theories are informed by identification with and interest in oppositional social movements: tem= inism, indigenous people’s rights, struggles for rational liberation, and race-specific movements such as tho Black power movement. A final thread throughout the article is some explora tion of the challenges of postmodernism/post structuralism/deconsstruction to the development of critical research in education. begin by dealing with the movement of qualitative inguity across the field of education- al research. After focusing on the recontigura- tion of educational research, I turn my attention to the contributions of the transdisciplinary ‘movements of feminism and post-structuralism In the development of critical frames in educa- tional research, Recont figuring Educational Research What i really happening. then, is itself a function of frames, whieh ave a kind of fiction. (Hassan, 1987. p. 118) Moder science began as an anti-authori- tarian, democratic. impulse. “Science for the people” is Galileo's phrase (Harding, 1986, p. 221), But the emaricipatory potential of science as a way of knowing that could free humanity from the tyranny of church and state was rather quickly reduced to its method. Especially in the social sciences, ‘rule by method” (Harding, 1986, 1p. 228), a method that le supposedly a transhis: torical, culture-free, disinterested, replicable, testable, empirical substantiation of theory, has come to be the chief demarcation between sci- enceinot science. Methodological concerns, what feminist theologian Mary Daly (1973) has called “methodolatry,” have taken over in a kind of physics envy” phenomenon in the social sci- ences Yet science is in crisis in both the natural and the human sciences, Quantum physics and chaos science have created a physics very dif- ferent from the ene the social sciences have aspired toward in their quest for legitimate sci entific status (Capra, 1975; Gleick, 1987; Hayles, 1990). An enormous body of criticism has evolved in bolt the natural and the sociat sciences. Additionally, unlike the more reward- ing practical applications of the natural sciences, the social sciences are much criticized for the 88 Theory Into Practice slow accumulation of the knowledge base, which leaves policymakers underwhelmed Sy equlvo: cal advice. As a result, esearch methods across the social sciences are increasingly called into question. This creates a multitude of positions (@) anti-science arguments that science cannot be other than a servant to dominating interests: (b) arguments that ‘more rigorous” approxima: tion of the standards of the natural sciences would solve the inadequacies: and (c) argu- ments to expand science beyond its positivist frame, For those interested in the latter position, an increased focus on qualitative methods and advocacy approaches makes cleat that varied approaches exist This questioning of what science is and what role it playsimight play in our lives 's within @ larger context of what Habermas (1975) terms a “legitimation crisis” in cultural authority. Hence, contemporary intellectuals work within a time noteworthy for disturbing the formerly secure foundations of knowledge and understanding In what is sometimes coded with the term “post: modern" or "post-structural” foundational views of knowledge are increasingly under attack. It is a time of the confrontation of the lust for abso: lutes, for certainty in our ways of knowing (Bernstein, 1983). Itis a time of dernystitication, ‘of critical discourses that disrupt the smooth passage of what Foucault (1980) calls ‘regimes of truth," This is not to substitute an alternative and more secure foundation, what Harding (1986) terms a “successor regime,” but to pro- Uuce an awareness of the complexity, historical contingency, and fraglity of the practices we invent to discover the truth about ourselves. Hence. it is both a dizzying and an exciting time in which to do social inguity, It is a time of ‘openness and questioning of established para~ digms in intellectual thought. Ata meta level, we are moving out of the cultural values spawned by the Age of Reason, the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Enlightenment and its material base, the I dustrial Revolution. We are well into an age of late capitalism where knowledge is increasingly configured in electronic language in a way that deeply affects our relation to the world (Poster, 1990). Furthermore, the protound effect that electronic mediation exerts on the way we ner- ceive ourselves and reality is occurring in a world marked by gross maldistribution of power and resources, ‘Conyrinht@ 2001 Avr Richt Resevedt -Within such a context, the orthodox con- sensus about what it means to do science has been displaced. A proliferation of contending paradigms is causing some diffusion of legit macy and authority. Vying for attention are par- adigms of disclosure rather than paradigms of redictioniprescription and advocacy paradigms Versus “neutral” paradigms. This proliferation of paradigms goes by many names, The chart in Figure 1 presents one way to conceptualize them. This chart is grounded in Habermas's (1971) thesis of the three categories of human interest that underscore knowledge claims prediction, understanding, emancipation. It as- sumes postpositivism, the loss of positivism’s theoretic hegemony in the face of the sustained ‘and trenchant criticisms of its basic assumptions. have added the non-Habermasian column of “deconstruct."' Each of the postpositivist “paradigms” offers a different approach to gen- erating and legitimating knowledge; each is a contender for allegiance. | place my work in the emancipatory column with great fascination for the implications of deconstruction regarding the research and teaching that 1 do in the name of liberation. Predict Understand Emancipale Deconstruct positiv. interpretive critical_—_—_post-structural sm naturalistic neo-Marxist postmodern consiructiv- feminist post-paradig ist race- matic dias Phenomen- specific ora ological praxis hormeneutie oriented symbolic Freirean interaction participatory microeth- ography Figure 1: Paradigms of postpositivist inquiry What follows goes into greater detail re- {garding the chart and qualifies some of its sim- bitications (for example, “feminist” research uses each of the approaches). Of note here is the plethora of terms used to describe postpositivist work? Whether heard as cacophony or poly- phony. such a profusion of terms attests 10 the loosening of the grip of positivism on theory and practice in the human ‘sciences. An explosion has transformed the landscape of what we do in the name of social inquiry. This explosion includes many approaches: interpretive, phe: nomenological, hermeneutic, naturalistic, critical, feminist, neo-Marxist, constructivist. And now we have the proliferation of “post-conditions,” in: cluding "post-paradigmatic diaspora” (Caputo, 1987. p. 262), which undercuts the very con cept of paradigm itselt.® Each term raises ques- tions regarding the basic assumptions of what it means to do science. Each contributes to a transdisciplinary disarray regarding standards and canons. Positivism refers to Comte’s (1798-1857) efforts to extend scientific methods to the study of society (Thompson, 1975). It has become a pejorative term for the dominant mode of social science inquiry, “a code word meaning, at best, ‘bourgeois’ and, at worst, ‘reactionary’ and sup: porting the status quo” (McCormack, 1989. 9. 20). Historically, it refers to the French posttv ists who saw sociology as providing both deter- minate laws of society and the possibilities for social engineering, and to the Vienna Circle logical positivists of the 1920s who sought to clanty the validity of scientific statements (see, ‘Ayer, 1959, for a history) Those approaches to science based on identifying facts with measurable entities are loosely called positivist. It is important, howev- er, to think of positivisms, including the liberal tradition in the social sciences, which views so- cial science as actively contributing to social change. Too offen, the denigration of positivism equates contemporary positivisms with the Car- tesian version of objective knowledge. which some argue has long been leit behind (Bordo, 1986). The adequacy of contemporary positiv: isms in terms of philosophical assumptions and practices of deductive logic. hypothesis testing, operational (measurable) definitions, and math ematized language are much debated (e.9., Lincoln & Guba, 1985). My argument here is Rot so much against such practices as it is to their hegemonic status in the doing of social science, their status as “the” scientific method. Postpositvism refers to the great ferment over what is seen as appropriate within the boundaries of the human sciences. Kuhn's (1970) concept of paradigm shift, a change in the beliefs, values, and techniques that guide sci- entific inquiry, has permeated discourse across the disciplines now for almost 3 decades. Post positivist philosophies of science turn more and ‘more to interpretive social theory, where the fo- cus is on constructed versus found worlds. An Volume XXXI, Number2 88 Copvricht @ 2001. All Richts Reseved.increasing focus on the sole of language in the construction of knowledge creates what is sometimes called "the linguistic turn” in the so: cia! sciences (Rorty, 1987) Given the inescapable incursion of values ingo human activity, Freire’s (1973) dictum that there can be no neutral education is extended to practices of social inquiry. The inescapable politica! content of theories and methodologies becomes increasingly apparent. As the politics of knowing and being known assume increas- ing attention, some worry that the post-Kuhnian ship of science veil run aground on the shoals of ‘relativism (Phillips, 1987, p. 22). Others, however, foster a sense of experimentation and breaking barriers (Marcus & Fischer, 1986). Such challenges to positivist hegemony are especial- ly visibie within the fields of anthropology, qual- itative sociology, semiotics, and post-structural linguistic theory (Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Rich- ardson, 1990). Women's studies and ‘critical educational studies ae, in part, defined by such a challange to positivist hegemony. have long arqued that the term qualitative is inadequate for naming this unprecedented cross-disciplinary fertilization of ideas. Qualita, tive is ‘the other’ to quantitative and, hence, is a discourse at the level of method, not meth adology or paradigm. My term of choice for the ‘opening up of paradigmatic alternatives for the doing of social science is “postpositivist.” Posi- tivism is not dead, as anyone knows who tries to get published in most journals, obtain grants from most funding agencies, or have research projects accepted by dissertation committees. What is dead, however, Is its theoretic domi nance and its "one best way” claims over em- pirical work in the human sciences. Philosophy of science, sociology of knowledge. the various voices of the marginalized, and movement in science itself {e.9., quantum physics) all have combined to make posttivism’s dominance in: creasingly shaky. ‘While suspicious of the desire for detinitions that analytically “fix: complex, contradictory, and relational constructs, | generally use the term postmodern to mean the shift in material cond- lions of late 26th century monopoly capitalism brought on by the micro-electronic revolution in information technology, the fissures of a global multinational hyper-capitalism, and the global uprising of the marginalized. ‘This conjunction includes movements in art, architecture, and the 9 Theory Into Practice practices of everyday life (¢.g.. MTV). The code fame tor the crisis of confidence in western conceptual systems, postmodernism is bome out of our sense of the limits of Enlightenment ra: tionality. All of this creates a conjunction that shifts our sense of who we are and whet is possible (Lather, 1991), | generally use post structural to mean the ‘working oul of academic theory within the cul- ture of postmodernism, but | also sometimes use the terms interchangeably. Structuralism is, premised on efforts to scientize language, to posit it as systematizable. Post-structuralism’s focus is on the romainder, all that is left over atter the systematic categorizations have beon made (Lecercle, 1990}. For such French post structuralists as Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, and Lacan, structuralism’s basic thesis of the uni versal and unconscious laws of human society and of the human mind was part of the Du- reaucratic and technocratic systems they op- posed. Their interest was in the "gaps, discon- tinuitles and suspensions of dictated meanings in which difference, plurality, multiplicity and the ‘coexistence of opposites are allowed free play” (Bannet, 1989, p. 5} In the rast of this article, | position educa: tional research and feminist research in educa- tion within the "uneasy social sciences” in what is generally referred to as “the postpositivst in- tellectual climate of our times” (Fiske & Shwed 27, 1986, p. 16) with a focus on the challenges of post-structuralism to the development of orit- ical research in education. Educational Research and the Uneasy Social Sciences Since its inception, “educational research has been definod largely as a species of educ: tional psychology . . . i turn... . influenced largely by benaviorism” (Eisner, 1983, 0. 14), A controloriented conception ot’ educationat «: search that would lead to a highly predictive educational science was formulated at the iurr: of the century. Largely behaviorist in its psy. chology and positivist in its philosophy, the dominant orientation for the conduct of sciontt ic inguiry in education has received much eri cism for its reductionist tendencies and barren methodological orthodoxy. For well over 2 de cade nov, interpretive and, increasingly, critical paradigms" are posited and articulated (Bredo & Feinberg, 1982: Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Pop: Copvricht @ 2001. All Richts Reseved.kewitz, 1984). Unsettlement and contestation permeate discussion of what t means to do ed- Ucational inquiry. Some talk of crisis (e 9. Philips, 1987); others talk of an openness 10 ‘an experimental moment in the human scienc- es (Marcus & Fischer, 1986). Rooted in the research traditions of inter: pretive sociology and anthropology, alteratve Practices of educational research go well be yond the mere use of qualitative methods. Their focus is the overriding importance of meaning making and context in human experiencing (Mishler, 1979). In sum, the refutation of post tivism fiourishes: talk of a Kuhnian paradigm shift abounds; more interactive, contextualize, humanly compeling research methods gain in- creasing legitimacy Recently, advocacy approaches to research that are openly value based have added thoit voices to the present methodological ferment in empirical research in education (¢.9.. McRob- bie. 1978; Willis, 1977). For example, “critical ethnography” of education is constructed out of interpretivist anthropology and sociology as well as neo-Marxist and feminist theory (Anderson, 1989). More recently, exploration of “the post- modern” in the context of educational research is beginning (Lather, 1991). As the concept of isinterested Knowiodge" ‘mplodes, collapsos inward, educational inquiry becomes, as in Hutcheon's (1988) description of science, a much contested cultural space, a site of the ‘surfacing of what it has historically repressed (74) Like all ofthe sciences, educational research is increasingly construed as a value-constituted and value-constituting enterprise, no more out- side the powerkkrowladge noxus than any other human creation. The controls of logic and em- pirical validation that have tradkionally soparat ed “the sciences” from ‘the humanities” are weakening (Harding, 1982; Nelson, Megill, & McCloskey, 1987). Educational research, then, both reflects and contributes to the multi-sited demise of positivism and the growing acknow! edgment of social inquiry as value laden. Femi- nist research in education is both shaped by and a shaper of such a conjunction (Nielson, 1989). Feminist Research In Education: Within/Against The preceding section sketches a picture of the great methodological ferment that charac: terizes contemporary social science in general and educational research in particular. Part of that ferment has been feminist research. This section looks at feminist efforts in the human sciences with a special focus on feminist re- search in education. | begin by sketching the parameters of feminist research and then | ad- ‘ress the vexed questions of a distinct feminist research method and feminist contributions to what Harding (1986) calls “the objectivity de- bates.” The empirical work being done by feminists in education spans the gamut. Every issue is a feminist issue, and a look through almost any educational jouinal makes clear the range of feminist work being done. Correcting distortion and invisibility, generating new theories, explor- ing alternative approaches to data generation and analysis, such work also spans the para- ‘digms, including the ‘post-paradigmatic diaspo- ta." Regardless of paradigm, such work exem- plifies that to do feminist research is to put the Social construction of gender at the center of ‘one's inquiry ‘Whether jooking for “math genes" (Sherman, 1983) or at the patriarchal construction of “ra: tionality” (Harding, 1982), feminist researchers see gender as a basic organizing principle that profouncly shapes/mediates the concrete con- peered research practices reiavent qualitative methods. For example, in a much cited essay. Oakley wtites of how her interview study of the experi ‘ence of motherhood resulted in a more interac: tive, dialogic interview practice (1981) Harding's (1987) position is that the seai tor & distinctive feminist method is misdirected and that we need, instead, to lear to look more closely at what makes the most influential teri nist research so powertul. By separating meth- od, methodology, and epistemology, she argues that three primary techniques are used for gath. ering evidence: Kstening to informants. obsery- ing behavior, a7 examining historical records (p. 2), Feminist methodologies and episternologies, she suggests, require new feminist uses of these familiar research methods, Studying women from the perspective of their own experiences so that theyiwe can batter understand our situations i the world is research designed for women in- stead of simply research about women. The politically value-laden nature of feminist research Fequires a very different methodological ao. proach ta issues of objectivity’subjectivity, an approach that goes beyond merely replacing objectivism with subjectivism. How one views the methodological issue of objectivity/subjec tivity depends upon one’s epistemological ‘arounding, one's philosophy of what it means to know. Harding proposes three epistemological po sitions from which feminists can argue that such politicized inquiry increases objectivity. Feminist empiricism arques for eliminating seaist bias in research by adhering more strictly to the exist- ing methodological norms of scientific inquiry While this position can merely replicate Kuhnian normal” science, it has, Harding (1987) sug. gests, "a radical future" because of its insis: tence that it does matter who does research (women versuis men, Blacks versus Whites): “The people who identify and detine scientific problems leave their social fingerprints on the problems and their favored solutions to then {p. 184). No method can completely fiter a widespread social biases that are deeply in- scribed in a culture and, hence, feminist empir- icism intensifies rocent tendencies in the philos- ‘ophy and sociology of science that question empiricist assumptions. ‘A second epistemological position available to be taken up is fominist standpoint theories of knowledge. This position foregrounds how sccial positioning shapes and limits what we can know. Male domination results in partial and distorted accounts of social life, A feminist standpoint, achieved through struggle both ‘against male oppression and toward seeing the world through women’s eyes, provides the pos sibility of more complete and less distorted un- derstandings. Given the variety of women’s ex- perience in relation to culture, class, race, sex- Ual orientation, etc., there are multiple feminist standpoints. Reliable knowledge claims, then, are those that arise out of the struggle against oppression, not in a way that romanticizes women’s experiences but rather in a way that moves toward reflection on the conditions that make knowledge possibie. Both feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theories are, Harding argues, transi- tional, Full of tension between and within, they Point to new directions in what it means to do social inquiry. The third epistemological posi- tion is feminist postmodemism. Critical of En- lightenment assumptions regarding reason, sci- entific progress, universal theory, and the sub- ject/self, feminist postmodemnists are part of the “thetorical turn” in the social sciences. Hore the focus is on how science creates its “truth-of fects” via language used toward persuasive ends (Nelson et al., 1987; Simons, 1989). At a re- cent conference, Harding summarized this posi- tion thus’ ‘As we study our world today, there is an uneasy feeling that we have come to the end of science, that science, as a unified, objective endeavor, is over. . .. This leads to’ grave epistemological cconceins. If science does not speak about extra. historical, external, universal laws, but is instead social, temporal and local, then there is no way of speaking of something real beyond science that science merely reflects. (quoted in Kiaitan, Bain, & Canizares, 1990, p. 354) Harding's (1986) concern is that a feminist postmodern position on science is toa extreme to be of much use in this time of transition. Her counsel, hence, is to encourage multiple episte- mologies and methodologies as we expiore the paradox of needing both a “successor regime” powerful enough to unseat scientific orthodoxy and a keen awareness of the limits of any new “one-best-way” approach to doing science Hence, my argument is that the issue is not so much whether there is a specifically feminist method but, rather, how we can proceed in a time when feminist scholarship “is changing the territory where knowledge is located” (Tomm, 1989, p. 10) Postpositivist Exemplars Feminist research in education is situated within established traditions for doing social sc ‘ence even as it calls them into question. Situat- ing such work as both within and against tradi tional approaches to empirical work makes it Possible to probe how feminist research rein scribes that which it is resisting as well as how it resists that reinscription. Four postpositivist exemplars, each representing a different para- digmatic approach to the doing of feminist em- pirical work in education, give some fee! for the possibilities, Each is an example of science as a value constituting system. Using a feminist perspective, each probes issues of the power felations between researcheriresearched, ob jectivity/subjectivity, and found versus con- structed worlds. Each expands our sense of the possiblities of postpositivist empirical work in education and inscribes where feminist research in education has been and where it might be going, Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule (1986) is an example of interpretive feminist re search in developmental psychology. As inter- Pretive research, its goal is the revelation of Participants’ views of reality. As feminist re- search, ts goal is to give voice to the experi- ences of women usually unheard in theories of learning. The book has become an academic best-seller in the United States and is used across the disciplines. Exploratory in purpose and qualitative in methods, the researchers ‘conducted 135 in-depth interviews with women from very different backgrounds in terms of ed- uation and socioeconomic status. Building on Giligan’s (1982) work on women’s moral dovel ‘pment, the research focused on women’s cog nitive styles. Based on the women's self-reports of their “ways of knowing” or modes of reason: ing, five categories emerged that describe per- spectives trom which women view reality and draw conclusions about truth, knowledge, and authority. Influential across the disciplines, Women's Ways of Knowing both reinscribes and resists the kind of psychologized research that domi- ‘nated educational inquiry up until the increased interest in the anthropological field methods of Volume XXXi, Number2 93 Copvricht @ 2001. All Richts Reseved.‘ethnography an quaiitative sociology of the last decade or so. Challenging Perry, it exemplifies how science’s construction af women brings into question that which has passed for knowledge in the human sciences. While this exemplar probiemaiic in its claims about gender differ- ences when studying only women, my concern here is with what is opened up and what is ‘closed down by the “five major epistemological categories that emerged from the data.” Tied into developmental stage theories, the research adds to without problematizing the limits of suct frameworks. In a deconstructivist reading of this research, what gets lost is the explicitly hetero- geneous and discontinuous, what refuses to be iotalized. “all the facts unfit to fi" (Gebhardt 1982, p. 405} Two essays by Jones mark the shift in ne0- Marxist. critical ethnography of schooling {rom ideology critique to more: linguistically informed ethnography. Writing from her dissertation re: search, Jones (1989) looks al the interaction of race, class, and gender in the school lives of adolescent girls in New Zealand. Here. critical ethnography combines neo-Marxist social theo: ry with ethnographic methods in the hope of creating emancipatory theory and spurring “the researched” to struggle against oppression, The essay is especially concerned with the intersection of human agency and structural ‘constraint in a challenge to both liberal demo- cratic theories of schooling and the over-deter- iminism of more orthodox Marxism, which re: duces people to pains on the great chessboard of capitalism. Following the general pattern of neo-Manist critical ethnography, Jones warrants her “openly ideological” approach to inquiry via an explication of her politica! view of the world Covering her own narrative tracks, her focus is ‘on researcher ontology and epistemology in the shaping of paradigmatic choice as she opposes a “correct” reading agaist a “mystified” one In contrast, Jones's later work (in press) en- ters the Foucaultian shift rom paradigm to dis- course as she reflects on the productivity of language in the construction of the object of investigation. Especially interested in addressing the politics of language in a way that breaks “ine unwitting continued reproduction of an elit- ist academic discourse disguised as a critique of it," she develops counter practices of aca~ demic wnting that open it up to more readings She writes of how the effort to situate herself 98 Theory Into Practice and expose the constiuctedness of hier account fof the schooling of Polynesian girls called into question the language she had originally used and spurred her to rewrite much of the text in a more “readable” style. She interrogates her own assumptions by occasionally using the third person to speak of herself as a White academ- ie. This rhetorical practice works to interrupt her ‘own taken-for-granted positionality and de- conlers herself as the universal spokesperson, "saying what things mean.” This is far different from a reading informed by hegemony theory where ideology critique positions the “researched” as the problem for ‘which the critical theorist is tho solution. Instead, maneipatory work is placed under interroga: tion for its reinseription of the power dynamics to which it is theoretically opposed. Contrasting Jones's two pieces foregrounds the post-struc~ iural demand for radical reflection on aur inter= pretive frames via concer with how language constructs that which is being investigated. Britzman (1991) calls this the shift from ‘the real of ethnography” to “the effect of discourses of the real” (p. 2) in a movement of “building suspicious texts and encouraging suspicious readings’ (p. 3): The new question is how elhrographers can structure their texts in ways that signal to weaders its textual groundings .. . (a move that begins| to ‘admit the textual problem of referentiality and thus uncouple themselves and their readers from the iyth of transcendence. ... The nartalives can do this because they Keep interpreting themselves, unraveling the myth of narralive omnipotence and gesturing to readers about thelr own guilty read: lings. tpp. 18, 24) This move is attempted in Staying Dumb? Student Resistance to Liberatory Curriculum (Lather, 1990), where | wrestle with the ques. ‘What do you do with data once you've met post-structuralism?" The data for this “tale of the field” (Van Maanen, 1988) are interviews, research reports, journal entries. and my own insights/musings collected over the course of & 3-year inquiry into student resistance to libera- tory curriculum in an introductory women’s studies lass. The structuring iacfic used to write Up this “story” of empirical work was to con- stiuet four tales: realist, critical, deconstructive, and ratloxive. The realist tale describes the re- search design and process, which amassed a 00! of qualitative and quantitative data. It pre- Copvricht ©.2001.-All Riahts Reseved.sents @ small portion of a first level analysis of data summarized from student journals, and it deconstructs that data analysis in terms of the construction of textual authority via use of quotes, self-reflexivity, and researcher engage- ment. The critical and deconstructivist tales con- trast two readings of an extended journal entry from a student reacting to her seeing of a film on images of women in advertising. The critical reading demonstrates an analysis designed to oppose a “correct” reading, the researcher's, against a “mystified” one, the student's. It as- sumes that the student's understanding of the Movie is caught in false consciousness and mistaken about the real nature of the position of ‘women ina patriarchal world. Furthermore, the critical reading assumes that the student is in- vested in grasping the reaity of her domination, subordination, and resistance, once she is en: gaged by a “liberatory pedagogue." Rather than opposing the researcher's “cor- rect” reading against the student's “mystified” one, the deconstructive reading is more inter- ested in a “suspicious" reading, which probes the desire of “liberatory pedagogues" to “em Power” the as-yet-unliberated student. it fore. ‘grounds the student's own production of mean. ing, especially her reaction to the analytical methods introduced by the teacher, methods of analysis designed to reveal the “truth” of her situation and to command assent to those reve- lations. Juxtaposing these two readings foregrounds the very different assumptions at work when data are fead through the prisms of critical and, then, deconstructivist theories. In creating a multi voiced text, | attempted a creative collision of incommensurable voices that do not map onto ‘one another in an expioration of the question, How do our very efforts to liberate perpetuate the relations of dominance? Finally, the selt-refiexive tale presents a “playlet” constructed out of various experiences with the data and brings the teller back into the story, embodied, positioned, desiring. In the selt rellexive tale, | script a dialogue from a tape recording of graduate students analyzing the data for a course project and add myself as a character, reflecting on their experiences of the data. Using a narrative rationality versus an ar- gumentative one, the text is used to display the data rather than’analyze them. Data are used differently; rather than to support the analysis, they are used demonstrably, performatively. In other words, the “playlet” stands alone, without the intervention of a “researcher” who then says what the data “mean’ via a theoretical analysis, Across the tales, | present alternative, con- flicting representations, juxtapose disparate textual styles, and foreground the unresolvable tensions between them in order to understand what is at stake in creating meaning out of “data.” | use the data amassed in this study to explore the parameters of what might be called decon- structvist empirical work by addressing a series of methodological questions raised by post- structuralism: How do we deal with questions of narrative au- thority raised by post-structuralism in our empiti- ‘cal work? How do we framo meaning possibilities rather than close them in working with ompirical data? How do we create mult-voiced, mult-centered texts from such data? + How do we deconstruct the mays aur own desires ‘as emancipatory inguirers shape the texts we cre- ate? What is sought is a reflexive process that focuses on our too easy use of accepted forms, a process that might lead us toward a science ‘capable of continually demystifying the realities it serves to create. What I am talking about, in Lincoln's (1990) wonderful word play, is not “your father’s" paradigm. It is an altogether different approach te doing empirical inquiry that sug gests that the most useful work in the present crisis of representation “is that which uses form to disrupt received forms and undermines an objective, disinterested stance” (Spanos, 1987, p. 271), This approach, paradoxically, both calls Into question ‘the dream of sciontificity” (Bar- thes, quoted in Merquior, 1986, p. 148) and ad: vocates the creation of a more humble scholar- ship capable of helping us to tell better stories about a world marked by the elusiveness with which it greets our efforts to know it Conclusion | do not really wish to conclude and sum up, Tounding off the argument so as to dump it in a nutshell on the reader. A lot more could be sald ‘about any of the topies | have touched upon. have meant to ask the questions, to break the frame... The point is not a set of answers, but ‘making possible a different practice. (Kappeler, 1986, p. 212) Volume XXXI, Number 2 95, Canvriaht @ 2001 All Richte ResevedIn this article, | have probed the challenges of "the postmade-n moment” to explore how qualitative and feminist research are reinscrib- ing educational inquiry. The following “list” of what I have tried to foreground is a “pastiche” {unexpected juxtaposition of fragments) intend ‘ed to interrupt any desire ‘or fixity, hierarchy, non-contradiction. With this in mind, the ideas ranging throughout this article include the tol- lowing: + the methodological issues raised by qualitative re search and fominist inquiry in moving educational research into & posiposttvist era; + the recent thearet ca! movement of post-structur alism in the develspment of a critical social sci fence; + feminist research as both part of a larger intellec tual movenient away from traditional social. sci- fence research ard ? contributor to that transfor mation; + paradigin shifts and the usefulness of Kuhnian framoworks; diasporas and the dangers of + deconstruction of the researcher as universal spokesperson who has privileged access to + feminist contributions to the objectvity debates and the development of practices of emancipatory re- soarcli, + he recent linguistic turn in social theory that fo- ‘cuses less on what Is true and more on how par- ticular discourses praduce “Iruth effects": + tho continued hegemony of positivism over the praciices of the social sciences; and + Growing up female in rural South Dakota in the 1950s and becoming a feminist methodologist Finally, in spite of my position as somewhat of a cheerleade: for post-structuralism, | have tried to work against a “one best way" agenda, {n this exploration of the theories of knowledge and interpretive frameworks that can be used to understand qualitative research in education, my goal has been to move social inquiry in many different and, indeed, contradictory directions in the hope that more interesting and useful ways of knowing will omerge. The role of feminists m reinventing the social sciences is both cause and ettect of the larger erisis of authonty in late 20th-contury scientific thought. Awareness of the complexity, contingency, and fragility of the practices we invent to discover the truth about ‘ourselves can be paralyzing, Taking into account Martin Luthier King's caution regarcing paralysis of analysis, rellexively getting on with doing such 96 Theory Into Practice _-Canvricht.@-2001..All-Richte- Reseved... ‘work may be the most radics! action a feminist researcher in education cat take. Notes 1, Haberrias would not approve of «ny addition of the column of "deconstruct," g von his worries about posimadernity. In essence, Habermas identifies postmodernism with neoconservativism and argues that ihe Enlightenment project is not failed, only un- finished. His polemical defense of universalism and ‘ationalty is positoned explicitly against what he sees ae the ‘nihilism’ of Foucault and Destida and, in plictly, against Lyotad's challenge to the “great ideologica! fairy tales’ that fuel Habermas's oraxis of Universal values and rational consensus (Calinoscu, 1987. p. 274). For his own statements, see Habermas 1981, 1983, 7987 The goal of deconstruction is to keep things in process, to discupt, to keep the system in play, to up procedures to continuously demystify the re #5 Wo creat, 10 fight tno Tendency for our cate- jgories {0 congeal. Deconstruction foregrounds ‘ack of inaocence in any discourse by looking at "ne textual staging of knowledge, the constitutive effects ‘of our Uses af language, While Impossible to ‘reeze ‘conceptuily, deconstruction can be broken down into thiae Steps. (a) identily the binaries, the oppositions that structure an argument; (b) reverse/cisplace the dependent term trom its cegatve position to a place that locates ‘t as the very condition of the positive term; and (0) create a more tluid and less coercive conceptual organization of terms that Wansconds a binary iogic by simultanoourly being Both and neither of tne binary terms (Grosz, 1989, p. xy). Tals somewhat linear definition is. deliverately laced in the endnotes in order to displace the desire to domestioate deconstruction as it moves across the mary sites of its occurrence. #.g., the acacery, architecture, the arts, 2. Soices helpful in providing definitional tea ‘works for many of the terms in Figure 1 include the following: Botiomore (1983); Boudon & Bourricaud (1989); Kramarae & Treichler (1985); and Williams (1983), While no general text on social science re search includes all of these approaches, a good place to begin is with Dalimayr & McCarthy (1977) 9. Tha arm diaspora, as used by Jewish and Atri- ‘can-American historians, refers to the forced reloca~ tion of people from out of their homelands. Caputo's (1997) "post-paradigmatic diaspora,” then, ceters to the proliferation of discursive framoworks for urdat~ landing contemporary social inquity as well as to the inearimensurabilty of these frameworks. The ‘complex heleroganaity of discourses about inquiry foreas a researcher both to relocate away trom se cure, one best way approaches and to negotiate the resources ot different and contested Inquiry prob: lematics.4. In regard to the use of full names in the referance list, | break form with the Publication Manual of the ‘American Psychological Association in order to make it possible to read the gender politics of the sources draw on for this article, References‘ Acker, Joan, Barty, Kato, & Esseveld, Joke. (1983), Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research. 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