[NLA] research

[Janet Isserlis]

Colleagues on the NLA, family and women lit. lists,

Jon Lee, moderator of the NILF family list, shared this article this 
morning: An Op-Ed by Orlando Patterson in this past weekend's NY 
Times discusses the lamentable impact that the focus on "hard 
science" has had on the field of sociology.  It is extremely relevant 
to our discussion about what constitutes "valid research."  The 
article can be read online at 
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/opinion/19PATT.html.

His post prompts me to return to the question I raised yesterday 
about what constitutes research, and, by extension, what constitutes 
learning itself?  Isn't the point of research, after all, to inform 
action? practice?  There's great buzz at present about rigor, 
scientific evidence, and yet have we clearly delineated what this all
means -- not only to those researchers who jump into and out of 
classrooms to observe, track, record, but more importantly to those 
people -  learners and teachers - whose work occurs in those 
classrooms day in and day out?

As a colleauge pointed out to me, " ... even in this type of lists, 
where one can expect to find issues and things not totally 
subordinated to white / male / scientific cannons - [one finds] 
unnecessary and offensive reactions.. "  I'd contend that these 
reactions offend because they disappear, disrespect, or plain old 
ignore -- out of ignorance [in its purest form of "not knowing"] or 
disdain - bodies of knowledge based on very rigorous study.  For 
example, the research I  cited from Klaudia Rivera grew from years of 
participant observation,  coupled with scholarly analysis, and built 
on the known and  rigorously analyzed experiences of participants in 
that program.  I
am not suggesting here a spitting match between /among schools of 
research, but I am asking us to consider who makes knowledge, whose 
knowledges are valued, validated (and funded) and to consider how we 
as a field obtain utilize that knowledge?  Finally, are we - working 
in intergenerational, adult and women-centered programs --  aware of 
what "scientific" research has shown in terms of women's ways of
knowing, temperament and ability?

[and to my NLA colleagues I suggest that this has everything to do with policy]

Janet Isserlis
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