http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
Making the case for critical feminist discourse analysis of policy
decolonizing educational research for critical, social and heuristic purposes
The key problem under interrogation in this case study is how to conduct decolonizing research in education policy in a fast-globalising world where inequalities and injustices are experiencing rapid and exponential growth. I will argue that for research to be decolonizing it needs to be in the direction of emancipation and human freedom and not domestication and neutralization. It needs to critically and reflexively question who benefits. I will make the case for Critical Feminist Discourse Analysis as a decolonizing theory and method to interrogate policies in affirmative ways that hold complexities in play as they foreground issues of justice and intersectionality and at the same time, offer new and alterative framings (e.g. social class, gender, race, disability). I draw from critical pedagogy and feminist theories, to show the explanatory power of this research strategy and to connect with the third wave of feminism concerned with interrogating the framing (representation) of the education problem. I call on a recent research study to show how I used a Critical Feminist Discourse Analysis of policy documents in teacher education in Ireland to make new knowledge, to achieve a rigorous methodology with data trustworthiness, and to advocate for education policy as a cultural endeavor of public interest values that needs to be emancipatory and transformative. My aim here is to provide useful signposts for postgraduate researchers grappling with similar issues, seeking to justify a research design that aligns with their key research questions and that reflects their ethical values and principles.
SAGE Research methods: diversifying and decolonizing research