Situational Analysis (SA)

As I make sense of how aANG might afford me the opportunity to situate my NLTP as a developing NL teacher, an exploration of the situational complexities that form the construct of my NLTP is necessary. Here, I argue that any inquirer who examines the chaotic nature of complex phenomena, should be cognisant of the gestalt of the situation, made up of multifarious parts.

Theoretical perspectives relating to quantitative forms of SA were being utilised between the 1940s and the decades leading up to the millennium (Birkbeck & LaFree, 1993; Carr, 1948; Fuller, 1950; Moos, 1968; Shiffman, 1982; Sternthal, Phillips, & Dholakia, 1978). However, it

is the work of Clarke (2005), who shifted the emphasis from the researcher as a positivist objective analyst, towards being a postmodern subjective participant. This distinctive shift from using SA in the context of the quantitative paradigm to its use in the qualitative paradigm has since been extended as Clarke continues to be a dominant author of

qualitative SA method (Clarke, Washburn, & Friese, 2016). SA is the locus for analysing the CHSCS module as the situation in which I find myself as a neophyte online teacher. More specifically, Clarke (2016c, p. 89) calls for researchers to position “the analysis deeply and explicitly in the broader situation of inquiry of the research project”, which suggests that SA is likely to give me insight into how I responded to the heterogenous contexts of the actions and discourse that occurred in the CHSCS module. SA gives credence to, yet goes beyond, the human actions within a given situation, with Clarke (2016b) defending the importance of considering the non-human elements within a situation if the researcher truly wishes to understand the full context of the situation under review. Indeed, Jones (2015, p. 67) claims that whilst NL is a “broadly social approach … it doesn’t exclude accounts of the individual in their social and material context”. Examples therefore, of material or socio-material non- human elements from the perspective of my research might be the physical or software technologies used to interact with the CHSCS module, the media used to present resources, and the discourse itself that represents the CHSCS module as the situation under study. In earlier iterations of her commitment to SA, Clarke (2005) developed an abstract visual situational matrix (figure 13) to demonstrate how “the conditional elements of the situation need to be specified in the analysis of the situation itself as they are constitutive of it, not merely surrounding it or framing it or contributing to it. They are it” [italics in original] (Clarke, 2016b, p. 98).

It is the situation itself, therefore, (which in my case-study is the wholly online CHSCS module) made up of the human and non-human elements within that situation that is the unit of study using SA. SA takes a cartographic approach to visualise evidence from different elements, demonstrating an awareness of the complexity and potentially tenuous links that might materialise between the sources of data (Clarke, 2016c). Three sub-types of SA maps exist (figure 14): (1) macro-level situational maps; (2) meso-level social worlds/arenas maps; and, (3) micro-level positional maps and can either be considered in isolation or combined to form a holistic overview of a specific situation.

The peer-reviewed literature I examined tends to fall in to one of two groups: those researchers who choose to undertake only the macro-level situational map to explore the relationships between human and non-human actants (Clarke, 2003; Khaw, 2012), or those who choose to progress through each sub-type from a macro-level situational map to a meso-level social-worlds/arenas map, then the micro-level positional map (den Outer et al., 2013; Eriksson & Emmelin, 2013; Reisenhofer & Seibold, 2013; Salazar-Perez & Cannella, 2013). Each of the cartographic representations are “intended as analytic exercises, fresh ways into social science data that are especially well suited to contemporary studies” (Clarke, 2016b, p. 99) such as mine. My intention is to situate my NLTP fully in the context of my case-study, by undertaking each of the sub-types of SA mapping, and presenting my findings in similar ways to those exemplified hereafter.

Situational maps

The situational map represents the “major human, non-human, discursive, and other elements in the research situation of inquiry and provoke analysis of relations among them” (Clarke, 2016b, p. 99). In her earlier work, Clarke (2005) exemplified how the situational map might look by sharing an abstract situational map with her readers (figure 15). Figure 15: Abstract Situational Map (Clarke, 2005, p. 88)

With the intention of examining the relationships between each heterogeneous element, Clarke’s (2005) example is not intended to be prescriptive. Indeed, she later revisits the importance for the researcher to modify or consider their own categories that might be relevant to the topic under review (Clarke, 2016b). As I research my case-study, I need to consider, for example, the collective actors who interacted (or not) within the CHSCS module, and the non-human actants (for example, access to digital hardware and the CHSCS module itself) that might inform my own situational map. From this initial iteration of the situational map, it is the relations “among the various elements in the situation [that] are key to its analysis” (Clarke, 2016b, p. 107). I illustrate how those relations might be mapped (figure 16), by using Clarke’s (2005) published abstract map (figure 15) as the basis

for demonstrating potential visual relationships between each category. My example begins by randomly focusing on ‘Individual A’ and the potential relationships between ‘Individual A’ and other categories on the map.

Figure 16: Potential Relationships Between Categories

If the situational maps are replicated, then the researcher can re-focus on different categories and their relationships, to try to make sense of the human and non-human elements of the situation under review (for example, ‘Key event #2’ might be the focus for the next iteration of relational analysis). As the researcher repeats each iteration by

concentrating on different categories, Clarke (2016b) suggests that they will develop a broader review of the situation under examination.

Social worlds/arenas maps

The social-world/arenas map extends the researchers’ understanding beyond the situational map, by assuming the potential for collective social action within the research situation (den Outer et al., 2013). In the context of institutionalised power, a recent example of the value

of using social-worlds/arenas maps, is visually exemplified by Salazar-Perez and Cannella (2016), which reiterates Clarke’s (2005, p. 110) claim that the meso-level “is the level of social action – not an aggregate level of individuals, but where individuals become social beings”. Figure 17 is an example cartography of the collective situational mapping of the categories relevant to their research topic, which enabled Salazar-Perez and Cannella (2016, p. 229) to examine the relationships between the human and non-human categories, which “illuminate[d] power and the way in which people organize, whether voluntarily or

involuntarily, in relation to larger structural situations by acting [out], producing, and responding to discourses”.

Figure 17: Social Spheres/Power Arenas Map (Perez and Canella, 2016, p. 229)

Earlier work by Salazar-Perez and Cannella (2013, p. 512) suggests that social-

worlds/arenas maps “are distinctly postmodern because directionality, boundaries and traditional forms of scientific negotiation are all challenged”. Visualising the social

spheres/power arenas map interests me as a way of sharing my understanding of the social spheres/arenas that might be revealed when I contextualise my NLTP in a similar way.

Positional maps

Whilst situational maps and social worlds/arenas maps should enable the researcher to define elements and collectives present in a

situation,[micro-level] positional maps reflect the different points of view taken within it (Mathar, 2008, p. 7).

The challenge Clarke (2005) presents the researcher is to analyse, not just consider, individual or group human and non-human elements when delineating which positions are taken – the idea is to consider the paradox of potential contradictions that may occur when positions are articulated “independently of persons, organizations, social worlds, arenas, non-human actants, and so on [which] allows the researcher to … see situated positions better” [italics in original] (p. 127). Indeed it is claimed that Clarke’s emphasis on such contradictions is the most significant factor here (Mathar, 2008, p. 8) because if the

contradictions were not considered, then the SA would merely be oversimplified associations made between individuals or social worlds, as opposed to the researcher being enabled to “create spaces between actors and positions”. The importance of considering the most significant positions taken (or not) by representing the complete array of discursive positions allows for the heterogeneous nature of “multiple positions and even contradictions within both individuals and collectives to be articulated” (Clarke, 2016a, p. 134). However, of Clarke’s (2005) three sub-types of SA, it is the positional map that has been criticised for being less well explained in terms of the researcher understanding how to articulate the relevance of the micro-level using only two axes, when there may be a “number of

important themes and controversies which could potentially be represented as axes” (den Outer et al., 2013, p. 1515). As a novice researcher, relatively new to SA as a method, I found this visual dimension of reviewing others’ research (figure 18) using positional maps aided my understanding.

Salazar-Perez and Cannella (2013, p. 513), for example, share their interpretation of

school discourses” in light of challenges to delivering K-12 education in New Orleans between 2007-2009 since the devastating Katrina storm that occurred in 2005, physically and emotionally displacing K-12 communities (amongst others) and their places of learning. Whilst the written findings of this particular study remain unrelated and unreported here, figure 18 serves as a useful exemplar of a positional map. Dominant discourses are

expressed in regular font, with the underlined font representing more marginalised elements of discourse that were present. To illustrate those potential spaces between actors and positions that did not occur within the discursive text, and were invisible until Salazar-Perez and Cannella (2013) sought to discover the silences, a third dimension was added to the positional map, with arrows indicating their invisibility. In some regards, it is the invisibility and lack of reference to young children’s viewpoints, explicit conversations about childhood, oppression, accounting for other ways of learning, and challenges to defining how education is measured, which may have been missed if the positional map had not been considered. My aim in creating a positional map is to search for potential silences or influences of my behaviour as a developing online teacher within the CHSCS module, to situate my current NLTP for the purpose of developing oTPD as a result.

Figure 18: Positional Map (Perez and Cannella, 2013, p. 514)