The Methodological Dilemma ─ Creative, Critical and Collaborative Approaches to Qualitative Research

This thought-provoking book challenges the way research is planned and undertaken and equips researchers with a variety of creative and imaginative solutions to the dilemmas of method and representation that plague qualitative research.
Fascinating and inspiring reading for any researcher in the Social Sciences this comprehensive collection encourages the reader to imagine the world in evermore complex and interesting ways and discover new routes to understanding.
Some of the most influential figures in educational research consider questions such as:


How does a socio-political context change the course of our research?
What counts as a ‘truthful account’ in qualitative research?
How do the voices of theory and the voices of ‘research subjects’ struggle to be heard in our research narratives?
How can qualitative researchers ethically navigate the difficult terrain of research relationships?
How is the material body rendered in qualitative research?

Each chapter reveals a range of troubling dilemmas related to the critical aspects of research methodology in the Social Sciences and uses an illustrative case to elucidate the issues encountered by the researcher. Each writer brings a fierce philosophical spirit to her work, showing how methods or techniques of data-gathering grow from the theory and analysis of how research proceeds.

A range of topics are addressed in a cross-disciplinary approach which will appeal to all scholars of qualitative research, undergraduate students in education programs and graduate students in a range of disciplines

Kathleen Gallagher is Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Urban School Research in Pedagogy and Policy, and the Academic Director of the Centre for Urban Schooling at the University of Toronto.

Introduction Part I: Representation and Contexts 1.The Politics of Making Claims: Challenges of Qualitative Web-Based Research, Megan Boler 2.Linking Global Trends and Local Lives: Mapping the Methodological Dilemmas, Kiran Mirchandani and Roxana Ng 3.Coming to Terms: Methodological and Other Dilemmas in Research, Kari Dehli 4.The Art of Methodology: A Collaborative Science, Kathleen Gallagher Part II: Representation and Relationships 5.Performed Ethnography: Possibilities, Multiple Commitments, and the Pursuit of Rigour, Tara Goldstein 6. Moving Towards Postcolonial, Digital Methods in Qualitative Research: Contexts, Cameras, and Relationships, Kathleen Gallagher and Isabelle Kim 7. A Measure of Trust in an Era of Distrust: Informed Consent Meets Critical Analysis, Jane Gaskell 8.Finding Form for Curriculum Research, Madeleine Grumet, Amy Anderson and Chris Osmond Part III: Representation and Bodies 9. ‘Naked Truths’?: Ethnographic Dilemmas of Doing Research on the Body in Social Spaces, Caroline Fusco 10.Exploring Historicity and Temporality in Social Science Methodology: A Case for Analytical and Methodological Justice, Jo-Anne Dillabough 11.Getting Lost: Critiquing Across Difference as Methodological Practice, Patti Lather 12.Writing on cellophane: Studying Teen Women’s Sexual Desires, Inventing Methodological Release Points, Sara McClelland and Michelle Fine