November 3, 2005

After reading the methodology section of Lisa’s book, I am more invigorated and already thinking beyond this project. She just writes such touching and sensitive statements. She refers to the act of doing social research which transcends class borders as “crossing over.” There are some specific principles associated with this kind of research. 1)Being neutral is a kind of silence. She acknowledges that one can not be neutral or unbiased to do this kind of research- that in itself would be unethical. 2) Spending considerable time with people. She says that one must understand them in their lives and develop trust.
I completely agree with these principles and it relieves me to know that I am not wrong for feeling this way. I feel like I have fulfilled both of these principles for this research. I am in no way neutral and I have spent a great deal of time with these kids. Six years of observations and interviews that will never be put into a formal research document, all of which gave me incredible insight into what I would like to look at further. The final principle Lisa Dodson discusses is 3) “authoritative participation of members of whatever community or population is investigated.” This means involving them at different stages of the research, having them be involved in interpretation, and compensation. I love how she says it is “fundamental to gaining the reflective and critical analysis of those historically left out and to building with them another kind of discourse.” So, if I am able to take this data I have collected and go further with it to bring it back to them and have them interpret it that would be great. Lisa designed the methodology of interpretive focus groups and I think it could be utilized in my next steps with this project.