CHAPTER THREE
An examination of the current literature reveals a reliance on generalized identity development models and characteristics for describing vastly diverse experiences and realities. In order to develop a clearer understanding of individual processes of identity development, unconstrained by existing deterministic conceptualizations, this study is a product of the phenomenological paradigm, calling for naturalistic methods to develop an understanding of human experience in a specific context.
Phenomenological Paradigm - Multicultural Approach
As an inquiry paradigm, logical positivism seeks to test theoretical generalizations through quantitative and experimental methods (Patton, 1990). Such an approach relies on pre-identified variables from tightly defined populations, attempting to fit individual experiences and perspectives into "predetermined response categories" (Patton, 1990, p. 14), allowing no room for research objects or variables to help define the direction of the research. To adopt such an approach is to lose the individuality and worth of diverse life experiences, constraining analytic procedures to comparing variables across cases with little or no context in which to understand those cases on their own merit. This constraint is not consistent with the multicultural ideal of appreciating and respecting individual experiences and voices - an ideal crucial to a study regarding such individual and personal issues as racial and gender identities. To address the essence and context of lived experience regarding white identity and male identity, and to understand and appreciate these as individualized experiences and voices, a paradigm more consistent with the ideals of multiculturalism is in order.
The phenomenological paradigm employs naturalistic inquiry "to inductively and holistically understand human experience in context-specific settings" (Patton, 1990, p. 37). This paradigm allows for and appreciates the study of phenomena within its natural setting, insisting that "the research interaction should take place with the entity-in-context for fullest understanding" (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). It recognizes the researcher as the instrument, taking into account the experiences and perspectives of the researcher as valuable and meaningful to the study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). It relies on qualitative methods, which capture a more complete picture of individual lived experience instead of a narrow perspective of generalizations (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). It employs inductive data analysis to provide more understanding of the interaction of "mutually shaping influences" and to explicate the interacting realities and experiences of researcher and participant (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 40). It allows for emergent design "because it is inconceivable that enough could be known ahead of time about the many multiple realities to devise the design adequately" and because the diverse perspectives and values systems of researcher and participant "interact in unpredictable ways to influence the outcome" of the study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 41). In sum, the phenomenological paradigm is more consistent with the ideals of a multicultural approach for studying and understanding the experiences, perspectives, and identity development of a small sample of the experience-rich participants of this study.
Heuristics
"Heuristics is a form of phenomenological inquiry that brings to the fore the personal experience and insights of the researcher" (Patton, 1990, p. 71). To perform heuristic inquiry the researcher must "have personal experience with and intense interest in the phenomenon under study" (Patton, 1990, p. 71) and the participants must "share an intensity of experiences with the phenomenon" (Patton, 1990, p. 71). In this case, the shared "intensity of experiences" involve the phenomena of white identity and male identity in the field of multiculturalism. It was through "shared reflection and inquiry" between researcher and participants as we "intensely experience[d] and reflect[ed] on the phenomenon in question" that I worked to understand, first and foremost, my own process of white and male identity development process, as well as the white and male identity development processes of the participants.
Participants were purposefully selected through "snowball" or "chain sampling" (Patton, 1990). This approach "identifies cases of interest from people who know people who know people who know what cases are information-rich, that is, good examples for study, good interview subjects" (Patton, 1990, p. 182). Potential participants identified through the sampling strategy were contacted via electronic mail and telephone for further discussion of the research questions, methods, and procedures. Because this study represented a step in my own process of introspection and self-development, and because "the rigor of heuristic inquiry comes from systematic observation of and dialogues with self and others" (Patton, 1990, p. 72), I, as the researcher, was included in the sample. Including the researcher, the sample consisted of four white males involved in multicultural work.
Participants. Participants were given the option to remain anonymous. Aside from the researcher, each participant chose to retain anonymity. As a result, names, place names, and other potential identifying factors have been changed or broadened to respect the participants' wishes.
The four participants of this study are listed below.
The researcher, Paul Gorski - I am a doctoral candidate in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. My experience in multicultural work includes facilitating awareness workshops and classes for pre-service teachers, active teachers, community groups, and student groups.
Brett - Brett is the director of grants and development for a technical college in the upper midwestern region of the United States. His experiences include conducting racial sensitivity training as part of desegregation programs.
Steve - Steve is finishing his doctoral work and teaching anti-racism and anti-homophobia courses at two northeastern United States colleges. Aside from teaching, his multicultural work includes facilitating anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia and anti-classism workshops in a variety of contexts.
John - John is an instructor at a middle east coast college. He also facilitates workshops hires out as a consultant on organizational leadership issues and diversity.
Data
The phenomenological paradigm and naturalistic inquiry adhere to the assumption that "the perspective of others is meaningful, knowable, and able to be made explicit" (Patton, 1990, p. 278). A purpose of interviewing, one strategy for exploring others' perspectives, is obtaining "here and now constructions" and "reconstructions" of "persons, events, activities, organizations, feelings, motivations, claims, concerns, and other entities" (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 268). Correspondingly, the entities governing the participants' white identity and male identity development, and the resulting human experiences of the participants, were made explicit through interviews. Meanwhile, the entities governing my identity development and my resulting experiences were made explicit through a process of recording my recollections, perspectives, events, and feelings in an introspective procedure of self-interviewing.
An "interview guide" approach to naturalistic interviewing starts with a list of issues to be addressed by each participant, still allowing for other topics to emerge, specific to each participant (Patton, 1990). In this approach, interview questions must be asked in an open-ended fashion in order to "minimize the imposition of predetermined responses when gathering data" (Patton, 1990, p. 295). The interview guide for initial interviews consisted of three issues to be addressed: 1) the experiences instrumental in the participant's immersion into multicultural work; 2) the participant's white identity development and process for self-examination; and 3) the participant's male identity development and process for self-examination. Questions regarding these issues were not developed prior to the initial interviews, allowing me to remain "free...to word questions spontaneously" and "to establish a conversation style" contributory to the nature of the interaction between interviewer and participant, still maintaining focus on the topics under discussion (Patton, 1990, p. 283). In the course of each initial interview, new questions emerged, requesting either elaboration or further exploration of events, feelings, or perspectives. A conversational style allowed me to present the new questions while maintaining the flow of the interview. Follow-up interviews were requested upon review of the interview transcripts as needed for further elaboration or information confirmation.
Interviews were conducted via telephone and recorded onto audio tape with the consent of the participants. Transcriptions were produced by an outside transcriber, and initially verified through comparison with the audio taped version. Participants received by mail copies of all transcriptions for further verification and revision.
The data collected for this study consisted of four narrative sets of individual lived experience. The open-ended nature of questions allowed individual participants to focus on what information about their experiences they felt were most pertinent to their development of racial and gender identity. This is reflected in the narrative sets of the participants. For example, while Steve shared considerable information regarding his childhood and Brett focused on his experiences abroad, John went into greater detail regarding his approach to doing multicultural work.
The naturalistic inquirer depends on idiographic interpretation "because different interpretations are likely to be meaningful for different realities" and because the validity of interpretations are reliant on contextual factors such as the "particular investigator-respondent interaction" (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 42). Idiographic interpretation focuses on the individual case rather than generalizations (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Accordingly, the four narrative sets of data in this study were analyzed independently, "in terms of the particulars of the case" (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 42).
Coding
The coding process for this study commenced with a search within individual narrative sets for data concerning three broad topics. The first of these topics was the participant's personal, educational and employment background, heuristically important in the portrayal of participants as "whole persons" (Patton, 1990). The discussion of race or racial issues, including the racial identity of the participant, was the second topic coded. Because the literature on white identity development suggests a relation between an understanding of racial dynamics and white racial identity development, all discussion of race or racial issues were coded together. Likewise, the literature on male identity suggests connectivity between attitudes about women or femininity and male identity development. As a result, all data within individual narrative sets regarding gender or gender issues were coded together. Different colored markers were used to denote blocks of data considering these topics, resulting in three subsets of data within each individual set. In a second coding step, data within these subsets was arranged chronologically in terms of the participants' life histories.
This process produced three sub-narratives from the narrative sets of each participant: 1) a life history of the participant, as it pertains to their experience in multicultural work, 2) a chronological narrative regarding the participant's process of racial awareness and white identity development, and 3) a chronological narrative regarding the participant's process of gender awareness and male identity development.
Categorizing
Categorizing involves organizing coded data units into categories identified through similar characteristics (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Upon repeated and close examinations of coded data, a categorizing system emerged for the latter two sub-narratives of each participant. Categories in this system became stages or phases of awareness or identity development regarding race and gender, respectively.
A "necessary consequence" of the phenomenological paradigm is grounded theory (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 205), or theory in which "categories [are] readily (not forcibly) applicable to and indicated by the data under study" (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 3). The analysis of the data collected in this study produced: 1) four information-rich case studies regarding the white identity development and male identity development of white males doing multicultural work, 2) a series of diverse, individual-specific stage or phase models of white identity and male identity development processes, and 3) a "definitive exposition" of "the experiential essence" of the researcher's "immersion" in, "illumination" for, and "interpretation" of conducting and participating in this study.
The four case studies are presented in the order in which initial interviews were conducted. Each case is comprised of three sections: 1) an introduction and background information for the participant, 2) a chronological depiction of the experiences, events, and attitudes shaping the participant's white identity, and 3) a chronological depiction of the experiences, events, and attitudes shaping the participant's male identity. Because individuals "make sense of experience," especially "life transitions," by "casting it in narrative form" (Bruner, 1990; Gee, 1985; Mishler, 1986), and because these narratives "must be preserved, not fractured, by investigators, who must respect respondents' ways of constructing meaning" (Riessman, 1993), cases were recorded with as much of the participants' voices as possible.
Case-specific stage or phase descriptions were placed at the end of each case study. Comparisons were made between these descriptions as grounded theory and existing theory on white and male identity development as outlined in the literature.
The final chapter of this study represents my "definitive exposition" of the experience of conducting and participating in this heuristic, phenomenological study. The emergence of findings and lessons learned from my interaction with the participants and data, my continual process of introspection and internalization throughout the course of the study, my recognition of themes consistent across cases (including my own), and my understandings of my personal need for further learning, introspection, understanding, and self-development are addressed in this chapter.
The basic question regarding trustworthiness in naturalistic inquiry is: "How can an inquirer persuade his or her audiences that the findings of an inquiry are worth paying attention to, worth taking account of?" (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, p. 301). Criteria for trustworthiness include credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
Credibility
Lincoln and Guba (1985) recommend a variety of strategies for improving the likelihood that findings and interpretations produced through naturalistic inquiry methods will be credible. Two of these strategies are peer debriefing and member checking.
Peer debriefing. Lincoln and Guba (1985, p. 308) define peer debriefing as "a process of exposing oneself to a disinterested peer in a manner paralleling an analytic session and for the purpose of exploring aspects of the inquiry that might otherwise remain only implicit within the inquirer's mind." The peer debriefer for this study was Allen Saunders, a doctoral candidate in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Allen and I talked frequently throughout the course of the study, discussing the methodology, the data, and the framing of the study.
Member checking. Member checking is a process through which respondents verify data and the interpretations thereof (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Each participant received, via postal mail, a copy of our interview transcripts for review, clarification, and suggestions. Suggested changes were made, and transcripts re-sent for verification. All data has been verified through this process.
Transferability
The emergent theory of naturalistic inquiry is dependent on a specific context and interactive dynamics, necessarily lowering the possibility and desirability of a focus on external validity, as compared with positivistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Instead, naturalistic inquiry depends on a presentation of "solid descriptive data," or "thick description" (Patton, 1990) to improve an analysis' transferability. In order to enable others wanting to apply the findings of this study to their own research to make an informed decision about whether to do so, thick description of the experiences and identity development of the participants, as well as the definitive exposition of the researcher is provided.
Dependability and Confirmability
According to Lincoln and Guba (1985), both dependability and confirmability can be determined through one "properly managed" audit. To establish dependability, the auditor examines the process by which the various stages of the study, including analytic techniques, were conducted. The auditor determines whether this process was applicable to the research undertaken and whether it was applied consistently (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). To illustrate confirmability, a record of the inquiry process, as well as copies of all taped interviews and discussions, notes from interviews and discussions, and hard copies of all transcriptions have been maintained. These records are available upon request from the researcher. Stepahnie Lake, a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Virginia, served as the auditor for this study. As such, she reviewed the data, methodology and analysis processes for consistency and applicability, and reported suggestions. Suggested reconsiderations were negotiated until we agreed to the consistency and applicability of the processes.
The following four chapters consist of the four case studies and micro-analyses.
designed and maintained by Paul C. Gorski
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