I keep asking myself, "how am I going to make sense of all these different worldviews?" If you looked in my textbook, you would find an enormous amount of underlining and notes...I should be an expert by the looks of it. But the terms, in and of themselves, seem daunting and elusive. As soon as I feel I've conceptualized one of them in a meaningful way, it disappears into the crevices of another view. So, I've decided I'm creating my own worldview. I'm a Positive and Constructive Participatory Pragmatist. Essentially, I'm all four views. A fifth if you count the contextual view, but I'm not sure Creswell would wholly agree.
There is a piece of me that definitely believes that particular laws and theories govern the world, and unlike Plato and Weaver, some truth can be discerned and known. My sense tells me that our actions result in reactions, hence a cause and effect relationship; but essentially, this is where my alliegence ends with this worldview. I have serious doubts about how objective anyone truly is or how much can truly be quantified. I very much see myself believing that meaning is socially constructed and historically rooted. If I had to align myself primarily with one worldview, it would definitely land in the Social Contructivist arena. We are very much affected by how we grow up, who we know, the location we resided at, the time period we live in, and the events that have surrounded what we hold closest. Our perceptions, even for the same exact event, differ depending on the person, his or her personality, and what impact the event had on that person. I see so much of what I believe in constructivism. Yet, I also see other fragments of myself in Advocacy because I'm constantly looking for ways people can improve their daily lives, especially my students and their futures. And then of course, there is the part of me constantly searching for solutions and clinging to what I believe works. So what am I? I guess a research mutt because all those views are a part of who I am. Being a purebreed isn't all it is cracked up to be :)
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Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteI also doubt our ability to be truly objective as well. This is a bit off the subject, but it has always disturbed me to think of sitting on a jury and being told to disregard a comment or peice of evidence submitted in court from any decision or judgement. I don't think I could do it, and I seriously doubt others do either. Instead I think they just choose not to discuss it, which is why I would be a horrible juror. Anyway...back to worldviews.
I really thought you made great points here, and I liked how you have really personalized your relationship with these worldviews. Being a research mutt is a great place to be; it opens up doors to a variety of methods that work best in a given situation.
I like the term "research mutt" - and do think there is some power in combining the different paradigms. I, too, feel like one paradigm is just too confining, although I do tend to lean toward some specific ones.
ReplyDeleteBonnie, I love that you are really grappling with these terms. I agree they are limiting, as Rachel offers, but they are also important as you consider what sorts of Truth/truths you are after. It seems that you're leaning to social construction of knowledge and therefore research is probably pretty telling when it comes to your work.
ReplyDeleteKeep kicking these ideas around throughout the course -- and your career. I think it's something that shifts and certain aspects of our research agendas seem to be more important than others at different times in our careers and lives.
I love the notion of "dissapearing into the crevices of another view" since I think that all the positions do connect at some level.
ReplyDeleteIn phenomenology for instance, the notion is getting to the moment of communication with the thing itself and the positivists supposedly allow the thing itself to speak. Troubling is how it is acutally enacted, since the positivists certainly posit prior to reading the thing itself--which means memory and they are suddenly interpretivists. There seem to be alot of inversions and overlaps in paradigms.