Creating a “Research Text”

In moving from field text to research text (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), it was imperative to continually check back with the participants to authenticate the writing to ensure that I had captured the intended meanings and nuances. The peer checking

became an important part of the collection and analysis of data in regard to the

deconstruction of the critical incidents. As I indicated earlier in this section, the critical incidents from the data collection were teased out of the PLT data set to act as a catalyst for discussion and bring the group back to points that had been raised in previous

meetings for further consideration. In part, working with the critical incidents also served as another way of triangulating the data, but my original intent was to use the stories to find connections between the administrators as leaders, and the research goal of exploring the relationship between school literacy and the home literacy practices of a minoritized culture. Instead, the critical incidents became fodder for the discussion of the group to explore an aspect of the narrative that should change. Take the example of Keith’s Christmas Story (Appendix D). His reading of the minoritization of Low German Mennonites was challenged by the attendance of so many traditionally-dressed LGM parents at the school’s evening Christmas concert. Up to that point he had been making assumptions about the population of LGM students in the school based on the cultural marker of dress. Witnessing the large congregation of proud parents in traditional dress at the concert helped Keith to understand that even though the children dressed in the garb of the more “western” culture, they were still members of the LGM community. Through deconstruction of the narrative commonplaces in the story, the participants in the PLT identified the importance of principals’ understanding of the LGM culture. As the research progressed, this theme was repeated throughout the conversations,

interviews, discussions, and telling of stories.

I continued to reread, compare audio and field notes, nest stories within each other, set them side by side, and look for commonalities (or anomalies) using methods

related to open coding (Glaser & Straus, 1967; Straus & Corbin, 1990) and Handsfield’s modified Constant Comparative method (2006). However, Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) caution to “resist attempting to squeeze the language of narrative into a language created for other forms of research” (p. 184) echoed in my head. As a result, once coding for threads of commonality and difference could be twined into patterns, I left the PLT discussions and turned to the more intimate data from the semi-structured participant interviews.

As I began to write the research text following the PLT meetings, I also began to notice that the individual voices of the principal leaders in the study were being

consumed by the collective voice of the entire team. Additionally, there were several members of the PLT whose passionate accounts dominated the discussion and

overshadowed the softer whispers of others. It became important to balance the group voice from the PLT with those of the individual participants from semi-structured

interviews. Having a one–on-one conversation with interested participants enabled me to triangulate the data from the PLT meetings and unearth the nuanced perspectives of principal as school leader, literacy leader, and school administrator.

In addition to the PLT meetings, I had a great deal of contact with the

participants. The semi-structured interview questions that I used with principals during our conversations were designed to tease out the beliefs of individual principals about school leadership, and literacy practices in the school. The complete list can be found in Appendix F. The participants’ responses to these questions also pointed to the Ministry of Education policies that interface with their work with the Low German Mennonite community. In addition to the interviews, I tracked and compiled other correspondence

with the participant (e.g., email, phone conversations, asides during PLTs, visits to the school). All of these opportunities to discuss the work of the school leader, the literacy leader, and themselves as a leader added layers of description and nuance to data that I had been collecting during the group PLT discussions. When taken together, the PLT data and the interview data gave voice to the personal beliefs of each administrator and his/her understanding of the relationship between school literacy and the home literacy practices of the LGM as a case of a minoritized culture.

3.5 Summary

In this chapter I have elaborated on my use of a trio of complementary theories (multiliteracies, sociocultural theory, and critical literacy) to frame this research. My research brings together two cultures: that of the LGM as the children about whom the administrators tell their stories and the administrators themselves. Working as an “edgewalker” brings with it ethical considerations that I have discussed in this chapter, but that may be amplified because of the small cell nature of this study. I have discussed how the numerous data sources (including information from the PLT meetings and interviews with interested administrators) was triangulated using particular critical incidents keeping in mind Clandinin and Connelly’s conceptual commonplaces (i.e., temporal, personal-social, and place) to create the research text. The iterative nature of the data collection and analysis are hallmarks of narrative research and highlights the importance of the relationship between the participant and the inquirer. As a result, it is often within the re-presentation of the stories in narrative work where the story of the researcher is interwoven as she gains greater insight into herself.

The next chapter introduces the reader to the Ontario landscape of school administration and discusses the first theme that I identified from the data: principals’ perspectives on school leadership.

4. Chapter Four