Interviews with IDSP administrators

I interviewed one of the founding members of IDSP, Dr. Quratul Ain Bakhteari who wrote the conceptual paper leading to establishment of IDSP and launching its ADP Development Studies course in 1998. Currently, she is Director of the Institute. She explained in detail why she established the IDSP in Balochistan and the nature of the forces and environment that motivated her to initiate the ADP’s DS course through establishment of the IDSP. She shared the

conceptual framework that she envisioned for empowerment of youth from traditional and marginalized communities of Pakistan. She laid out the evolutionary processes of both ADP courses and the main theoretical underpinnings that have been used in designing the courses. She shared her views on IDSP’s main critique on notions of development and IDSP’s mission of revitalizing indigenous ways of living and being as a conscious informed citizen of the local and global community. She shared her views on the impacts of the courses on IDSP’s learners and other stakeholders in terms of both the benefits and challenges they are experiencing.

The IDSP Director provided ample information regarding the context, concept, and design of the ADP courses. As a result I decided to interview only a single founding member of the IDSP instead of the three founding members that I had planned to interview in the proposal for my dissertation. Later, however, I interviewed three other administrators of IDSP who had been intensively involved in delivery, teaching, managing, and administering DS and MGD courses of ADP. At the time I interviewed them, all three administrators, Akbar Rizvi, Nadir Baloch, and Wahid Khan were no longer employed in IDSP. They held leading positions in education and social development, but in some other government and non-government organizations. Their current profile is given in Table 4-2.

The three administrators I interviewed responded in a variety of ways to the

administrator-interview questions. However, they unanimously discussed the uniqueness of ADP courses in terms of its originality, its flexible delivery mechanism, its theory-practice-based structure, its transformative learning process, its capacity to engage students in ways they viewed as incredible, and its profound impacts on IDSP stakeholders.

4.1.3.2.2

Interviews with IDSP teachers.

In the planning phase of my dissertation I proposed to include six teachers in the sample considering the six teaching modules generally offered in ADP courses: (i) self, (ii) an introduction to the basic concept of the gender, (iii) colonial and imperialist bases leading development practices, (iv) critical pedagogy and radical education, (v) spirituality, culture, and social change, and (vi) participatory reflection and action. In the end, however, I interviewed only three teachers of ADP courses. In the field as I was proceeding with my interviews with learners I noted that learners mainly emphasized teaching themes and modules which played a significant role in reframing their perceptions. These particular modules were “Self,” “an introduction to the basic concept of the gender,” “colonial and imperialist bases leading

development practices,” and “critical pedagogy and radical education.” Focusing on only these four teaching modules and themes I selected three IDSP teachers who had taught these three courses for more than eight years.

I interviewed one female teacher, Safeena Zehri. She had extensive experience teaching both the “Self” and “Gender” modules to both male and female students in ADP’s DS and MGD courses. Her interview was conducted in two separate sessions and each session lasted

approximately ninety minutes. She entered IDSP as an Assistant Librarian with a matriculation certificate; however, at the time of the interview she was the Associate Director IDSP. Ms. Zehri

explained in detail the teaching method and strategies she has been using to teach the self and gender modules. She and the Director of IDSP also explained the reasons for including each module in the course (see discussion on pages 106 and 121 in the following chapter).

I interviewed one male teacher, Shafi Khan, who had taught the first core theme “colonial and imperialist bases leading development practices.” He entered IDSP as an auditing student with the degree of M.Sc. in Physics. He later became teacher/mentor in DS and MGD course. In some sessions of ADP courses, he was the co-instructor; he has served IDSP as a writer, editor, manager, and as Associate Director. At the time of the interview, however, he was not employed in IDSP. He left IDSP in 2006 but has been teaching courses since in IDSP as a visiting faculty member. Mr. Khan explained in his interview the rationale for including the first core themein ADP. He explained the importance of his teaching module on the decolonization of IDSP learners (see discussion on pages 126 and 137 in subsequent chapters).

I interviewed another male teacher, Zaman Khan, who has taught “critical pedagogy and radical education” in several sessions of DS and MGD courses. He has been associated with IDSP since 1998. He also entered as a student in IDSP with a degree of M.Sc. Physics. He started teaching the second core theme of DS, “critical pedagogy and radical education,” as a Teaching Associate. His other main contribution to IDSP is translation of some critical scholars’ work into Urdu. He is also a Lecturer in Balochistan University. In 2010, he established his own NGO, IDRAAK (Consciousness), with the help of IDSP. He is enrolled in a PhD program in the University of Balochistan. In his interview Mr. Shah explained the importance of his teaching module in the context of Balochistan’s education system. He explained the main purpose of his courses, namely to increase student awareness of the role of main-stream

institutions such as schools and media in promoting exploitation and marginalization of traditional communities (see discussion on pages 126 and 163 in subsequent chapters).

4.1.3.2.3

Interviews with IDSP learners.

I interviewed eight male and six female learners. Their basic profile is given in Table 4-3. All male learners were participants of DS courses during 1998 to 2007; all female learners were participants of MGD courses during 2003 to 2007. At the time of the interviews three male learners (Iqbal Khan, Rafi Nisar, Muhammad Ajaz) were employed by IDSP (one was permanent while two were temporarily employed in short-term projects), four (Rashid Zehri, Muhammad Nadeem, Arbaz Khan, Naseem Baloch) were working in the non-government sector, and only one male learner was working in the government sector; he is a Lecturer in a

government college. Three female learners (Fehmida Baloch, Nafeesa Akhter, Abida Naseem) were employed in IDSP (all three were employed in a short-term research project as research associates), two learners, Rabia Ali and Rafia Ahmed, were working in the NGO sector, and one learner , Sabeen Baloch, was working in a government school as a primary teacher.

IDSP male and female learners, besides their transformative perspectives on notions of development and traditional knowledges, shared enthusiastically their experiences of gender sensitization and self-transformation. They shared actions they have taken at personal, family and community levels to address the issues of gender discrimination, exploitation, corruption, nepotism and so forth. They recounted events in which they challenged authorities at family, work, and community levels. They explained the nature of challenges they have been facing since they graduated from IDSP in practicing their alternative ideas in new work places and in the communities. They shared their successes as well in influencing neighbours, family, and co-

workers with their innovative ideas (see discussion on pages 251 and 256 in a subsequent chapter).

4.1.4

Data Collection Process.

In grounded-theory research, data collection and analysis are interrelated processes (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Analysis of data begins from the start because “it is used to direct the next interview and observations” (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 6). In this study data were collected in two separate phases each of which lasted two months. The data collection process in the field is depicted in Figure 4-1 (see below).

In phase 1, I collected and analyzed documents related to IDSP and ADP such as IDSP conceptual papers, project reports, evaluation reports and studies, three popular DS themes, a list of teaching modules in DS and MGD courses since ADP was launched, and IDSP learners’ data bases. In this phase I conducted a total of nine interviews. I started the interviews with three male and two female learners by using a convenience sampling technique. Their interviews helped in improving the subsequent sample selection strategy and interview guidelines of both teachers and administrators.

In phase 2, I conducted a total of twelve interviews. I used purposive sampling to select the administrator and theoretical sampling to select the learners and teachers. However, I did not follow any particular order in conducting interviews in phase 2 as I had already finalized the sample selection strategy and interview guidelines in Phase 1. I interviewed two teachers, one administrator, four female learners, and five male learners. In this phase I also collected documents which were actually the artefacts of IDSP stakeholders’ development actions and

initiatives. I stopped the interviews when I found significant repetition in emerging concepts and themes appearing in the research findings in my reflective memos indicating thematic saturation.